Now Parents of Babies Born with Both Male and Female Traits Don't Have to Choose
It used to be kept in the dark, people who felt they were born the wrong gender. No one talked about it and certainly, no one ever who had transgender surgery went on TV to show how it went (think: Chaz Bono).
But Germany -- not a country I normally think of as forward-thinking -- has just passed a law that parents do not have to register the sex of babies born with both male and female traits.
"The council had argued, among other things, that many people born with both sex characteristics who were operated on as children say they wouldn't have consented to the surgery," yahoonews.com reports.
I remember seeing a documentary about twin boys, one of whom had some kind of gender abnormality (can't remember what it was) so the mother had surgery done to turn him into a female and the boy suffered all his life. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if his twin hadn't been there every day to remind him of what once was, but it was heartbreakingly clear what this does to children who are not able to give consent.
I can't imagine what life must be like if you are male but identify more with the female sex. Of course, we've had the pregnant man (born a woman but who became a man after keeping some of his female characteristics). And an op-ed writer who's recently been very open about her experience of turning from his children's dad to their second mom, being able to now look at things with both a male and female perspective (I wrote about this concerning teachers, and how students reacted to her differently after she became a woman).
What would it be like if we could all shift our bodies, for a time, to the opposite sex? I've always identified more with male thinking and personality traits than female but that, of course, has not made me a man. What a gift to be able to see things the way my husband, or male friends, or even my son, do, just for a second or two. Would it make us, both sexes, get along better?
But Germany -- not a country I normally think of as forward-thinking -- has just passed a law that parents do not have to register the sex of babies born with both male and female traits.
"The council had argued, among other things, that many people born with both sex characteristics who were operated on as children say they wouldn't have consented to the surgery," yahoonews.com reports.
I remember seeing a documentary about twin boys, one of whom had some kind of gender abnormality (can't remember what it was) so the mother had surgery done to turn him into a female and the boy suffered all his life. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if his twin hadn't been there every day to remind him of what once was, but it was heartbreakingly clear what this does to children who are not able to give consent.
I can't imagine what life must be like if you are male but identify more with the female sex. Of course, we've had the pregnant man (born a woman but who became a man after keeping some of his female characteristics). And an op-ed writer who's recently been very open about her experience of turning from his children's dad to their second mom, being able to now look at things with both a male and female perspective (I wrote about this concerning teachers, and how students reacted to her differently after she became a woman).
What would it be like if we could all shift our bodies, for a time, to the opposite sex? I've always identified more with male thinking and personality traits than female but that, of course, has not made me a man. What a gift to be able to see things the way my husband, or male friends, or even my son, do, just for a second or two. Would it make us, both sexes, get along better?
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