At Age 3 — Transitioning From Jack To Jackie

this has nothing to do with "religious beliefs" , it has to do with a three year old telling her parents she wants to change to the opposite gender, that isnt something for a child to determine it is an "adult" decision not something to be changed at an early age maybe she'll have different ideas about it twenty years down the road

Too young. Physical transition should be permitted before puberty, but it must be later than 3 years. The brain only starts to retain experience at around 2, so toddlers cannot know 'who' they are.

Having said that, while parents are allowed abuse and pollute their children's minds with fantastical religion, no legitimate argument can be made against any other such influence.

Either society resolves to protect its children from ALL psychological alloys in their formative years -or- you let adults continue to molest them as they always have.

originally posted by: Liquesence
This thread is not about homosexuality.

It is to godtards. The godtard sees anything that involves the genitals as 'sexual' or salacious. Why do you think priests adopt 'abstinence', pious moslems are so bent on 'virginity' and hasidic jews are so procreation centric?

a reply to: AlexJowls

I pretty much agree with what you said, but your last statement, while philosophically valid, is quite impossible: something will always effect a child psychologically so it's impossible to completely protect them. And by molest, I hope you mean mentally molest.

Good point about retaining experience/memory development, though.

Many of the people on this thread have recollections back to 3 or so.

ETA:

Yes, I suspect the poster was implying that ANY identification opposite one's "god-given biological nature" would be construed as homosexuality to someone who it devoutly religious. But that discussion really has no place in this thread.

originally posted by: blacktie
a reply to: Darth_Prime

seems the good old days are long gone now especially on family sitcoms

but back to her question about 'being herself' she is lucky today considering its still a male 'dominated' system in some distant uneducated foreign countries

I lived in the "good old days". A lot of selected memory.

Forcing anyone, even adults into Gender Roles sucks.

I was a tomboy in an all boy neighborhood, but was forced to wear dresses to school because I was a girl.

I am a heterosexual woman, but never a "girly girl" and I hated anyone who tried to force me into that role.

a reply to: blacktie

But you can't tell a Child what their Gender is, they know it because it's what they are, their true Gender Identity..

a reply to: Darth_Prime

i agree it happens, but at that age it's not a 'birth defect' or something obviously a big problem 'physically' more like a childhood fantasy or a 'rebel' without an cause at a early age

a reply to: Liquesence

Am I the only one feeling the despair of a world gone mad? I just.. don't even know how to reply to some stories anymore. I want to cry, but feel angry at the same time.

Even if the kid stated it , he would have grown out of it the moment he hit puberty as with most males experiencing that. When you are a kid, you play using imagination and imagination knows no bounds until out grown. Im sure many males grew out of that mindset the moment they discovered they liked girls.

But at age of three? I don't even remember when I was even 4 years old. This is the parents pushing it and I smell an agenda behind it.

The whole thing reeks of TPTB.. i sense their tentacle erhm.. hands in this one to advance a plan.

originally posted by: EKron

originally posted by: JadeStar
You know, it's so weird talking about this stuff because it brought back a lot of sad memories of how things were when I was little.

Reading some of the things you wrote about the constant pressure, the teasing and belittlement and push to do things or be and act certain way that I felt for years on end has opened up some old and very deep and painful scars that I can't even get a handle on right now. They have preoccupied me today and unexpectedly kicked my ass. Soon as I started writing this post, it's become clear I can't even talk about it and that I'm just going to have to go cry it out of me.

I'm so sorry. I was afraid that might happen. *Hug* please know that you have helped a lot of people here who may not even participate in this thread, but who have read your experience and have achieved greater understanding about these issues.

That said if you feel the need to turn away from it for a while so that you can come back I understand completely, this stuff can be really draining for those of us who have been through it.

I'll return this evening when I feel more composed and stronger. I am looking forward to talking with your parents more but may have underestimated the weight of dredging some of this stuff up?

Ok. My parents are just about to join us again.

a reply to: blacktie

I've read a couple studies that Say a Child starts to understand their Gender Identity around 3, and i'm sure other studies say differently.. i just don't think we can assume to know how each child feels just because we don't think they have the capacity to

originally posted by: Liquesence
a reply to: TamaraAndBrian

Thank you Tamara and Brian for sharing own feelings, struggles, regrets, and compromised, and the things you learned along the way related to Jade's transition, and thank you for the time you spent writing it all out and for joining to share with us.

(Brian here)

You're welcome. Like I said, there's a lot of misunderstand surrounding transgender people and that probably goes double for transgender kids. I had no reference point at all for any of this stuff when I was faced with the reality that regardless of what either of us did or said Jade was a girl. It wasn't that she "thought" she was a girl like when kids pretend to be be different people. Our child, my daughter was always a girl. That's how she felt inside and how she behaved from the time she was born.

I know that it's hard to understand for some people but if you have kids, you know who they are if you pay close attention. Looking back, there was never anything boyish about her and as much as I tried to convince her otherwise I really think I might have been just trying to convince myself. That is because the reality was something I wasn't sure I could ever deal with.

And that reality, once I examined everything to do with Jade from her birth until that point was that Jade was always a girl. She thought like my other daughters and she did things girls do naturally without thinking. She didn't think she was a girl. She knew she was.

My other children actually came to that conclusion well before Tamara and I did. Kids seem to be able to take changes and roll with them a lot easier than we do. They had no problems at all with embracing Jade as their sister once we all decided to follow the recommendations from our doctors and allow Jade to be herself.

originally posted by: Liquesence
a reply to: TamaraAndBrian
I'll comment at length later, when I have the time to give it due attention, but it certainly is very enlightening. There are multiple aspects you've experienced throughout her childhood, which many of which have been addressed in this thread.

You all are very strong.

Thank you again.

As I said, you're welcome and we look forward to your questions.

All this is sort of ironic considering similar stances on whatever the Federal government decides; people think it's far removed from their lives, meddling from afar. And here, a family and a 3 year old. Fighting over what, and trying to control, who? The opinions are rather moot, since besides this being rare to begin with, this is a 3 year old. A 3 year old and the family. A standard is being essentially created either way, but such an opposition when a far off, Federal government does the same.

originally posted by: EKron
a reply to: TamaraAndBrian

Wow! Some powerful stuff there that.

Thank you Brian and Tamara so much. My first impulse is to reach out and hug all three of you and then do it again. When I bumped into Jade here not too many weeks ago, I instantly realized what an exceptional, vibrant and intelligent young woman she is and now after reading your stories, how exceptional all of you are. I've read your posts twice now and have been sitting here in quiet contemplation almost at a loss for words for all the many things I'm feeling and thinking. I am quite touched and it takes a lot to get through my thick skin.

(This is Tamara, Jade's Mom)

Thank you. We are very proud of Jade. She is a wonderful daughter and I can not imagine my life without her. We're just one family who has had to deal with a lot of things which most families do not. There are other families who are having to deal with similar issues and it is my hope that by sharing our experience with raising Jade to become the intelligent, warm, loving, beautiful young lady she is that people understand these situations better.

I read a lot of things from many people here who may not understand why parents have to make difficult decisions like the ones we made as a FAMILY.

If you have children and you are at all close to them then you tend to err on the side of caution. This decision to let Jade be Jade was difficult for us because it did not seem to be the cautious one, at least to me. So I understand where some of ya'll are coming from.

But I was letting my own fears and prejudice get in the way of Jade becoming who she is. It was only after speaking with several people, the doctors, other parents who have gone through this with their children that I started to feel that the riskier decision would be to continue trying to force Jade to be a boy.

As mothers we can only bring these precious souls into the world and help guide them to adulthood. We do not own a child's soul, we only borrow it from God. Regardless of what our dreams our for our children, they are precious gifts from above who have their own calling in life.

Jade said earlier that she felt cheated by God or cursed.

I told Jade the day that she first said that, oh I guess when she was about 10 years old, that she is not cursed at all! I told her that she is blessed. She may be here in this world for a purpose none of us may ever fully understand but that her experience will have prepared her for.

Now I know Jade isn't very religious and I completely understand why. She is heavily into science and her bad experiences with the Church when she was younger almost certainly drove her away from at least our Christian Church. She recently told us that she is studying Buddhism so ya'll can know that she is not completely faithless.

The love within your family stands out the most with bonds strengthened by the difficulties and the high and lows and challenges you've all faced and worked through together. It is inspirational and heartwarming. I can't say enough.

Well thank you! We're just trying to do the best we can and you know, where I come from, down Louisiana, families tend to stick together. Just how we are.

Although Jade and I are two generations apart and have followed different paths to get where we are, it is uncanny how many of even simple experiences and memories of things mirror or parallel each other yet at the same time, many others remain so completely unique. There's a sisterhood there, whether spoken or not and getting to play her honorary adopted Granny has been fun and I think we've maybe both learned a few things and grown a little from our chance meeting. I have anyway.

Jade told me about you! She said that she talked with an older woman who had been a transgender child back in the 1960s(?) and that you experienced a lot of the same things as Jade has. I thought that it was wonderful that you could talk with her. She has a granny but your experience having gone through life being a transsexual in a time when even less people understood it is valuable. I can understand the sisterhood too because there aren't that many of you are there? Jade speaks highly of you so yes, honorary Granny from Another Family you are then.

Having the opportunity now to meet you, Brian and Tamara, and to hear of your experience and feelings raising a kid like Jade gives me insight and appreciation into my own parents and to some of what they must have gone through raising kid like me. As Jade and I have found interesting commonalities between us, I can see you would have been able to find many with my folks because there's no doubt I put them through the ringer over so many of the same difficult things.

Can we all have a hug again?

We can always use a hug! And yes we probably would have found a lot in common with your parents as we did with other parents of transgender kids we met at the PFLAG meetings. Don't be too hard on yourself. Like I said, Jade was a blessing to us once we accepted her as she was rather as we dreamt she'd be.

Look, we lost a very sad, child who hated the world and hated us. We had to go through mourning of that person and the dreams we had for them.

But then we realized we gained a lovely daughter who was top of her class and beautiful. She is such a gentle soul and always has been. I had just refused to see her, but when I finally began to open my eyes I saw a precious, beautiful, lovely daughter We've all grown closer as a family because of her.

I do and will have some questions for you both that when answered will hopefully add some of your wisdom and experience to this thread to maybe help people open their eyes and not be so flatly stupid in these matters as well as maybe a few with more of a personal motivation to help me better understand what my own parents did have to go through in a time when there was no solution to deal with these things.

Well go ahead and ask your questions and we will be certainly answer them. I am open to the questions because other moms may be going through the same thing I did and not know what to do about their child.

As I mentioned to Jade though, this place can be a pretty darn rough neighborhood at times so please don't let the hooligans and rowdies, idiots and haters run you off.

I was born in a rough part of NoLa. Ain't no internet rowdies going to drive me or Brian off of here.

It isn't always pretty around here but every once and a while, you catch a ray of light from a mind that is opening. Yikes! It's 3:55 AM and I have to get some work done before 5:00 so I will be back later to carry on.

Thank you again, Jade's Mom and Dad. You do indeed ROCK!

Well thank you lady, and you have yourself a wonderful evening!

originally posted by: SoulSurfer
a reply to: Liquesence

Am I the only one feeling the despair of a world gone mad? I just.. don't even know how to reply to some stories anymore. I want to cry, but feel angry at the same time.

Even if the kid stated it , he would have grown out of it the moment he hit puberty as with most males experiencing that.

(Brian here, Jade's dad)

I hope you don't mind me jumping in here but you're wrong. One of the things which really disturbed around the time Jade was 12 was me was talking with the parents of some older trans kids who I had been connected to through PFLAG

Several had a daughter who like Jade was born with the wrong anatomy but in their cases they went through puberty as males do and were miserable. The parents of the older one told me that their child now had to spend money which they had saved for college on removing facial hair, and getting expensive plastic surgery to remove an adam's apple and brow ridge and then has to do something about their voice because it grew quite deep.

If the kid is transgender, why risk her having to go through all of that?

When you are a kid, you play using imagination and imagination knows no bounds until out grown. Im sure many males grew out of that mindset the moment they discovered they liked girls.

But at age of three? I don't even remember when I was even 4 years old. This is the parents pushing it and I smell an agenda behind it.

When Jade was three she was very similar to the child in the NPR story. We did everything and I mean EVERYTHING, things which I still am haunted with, to try to get Jade to conform to gender norms for boys. It only caused her more hurt and pain.

If I could take that back, I would.

We had no agenda and yet Jade was persistent. We too thought it was just a phase, that she would change as she got older but she didn't. I don't know if the child in the NPR story will change but I do know enough now to say that let the kid be a kid. Why force them to be something based on your own prejudice?

originally posted by: Annee

originally posted by: JadeStar
Thank you Mom & Dad. You rock! 😉😃😊

You are very loved. Even in their unknowing ignorance your parents loved you. It comes through in their postings.

Blessings to a very special family, who loved enough to learn and embrace each other in this journey.

(Tamara here)

Bless your heart and soul! Love makes the world a better place and makes families better families. I can not imagine not loving Jade. You know what's amazing? Out of my three daughters, during their teens, Jade was the easiest of all to deal with. Can you believe that!?

originally posted by: Darth_Prime
I want to personally thank the parents that have openly shared their stories, this is the open dialog we need to dispel the untruths and correct the lies that are being told and taught to people about GLBTQ+ People

We both thank you and appreciate your support.

originally posted by: AnonymousMoose
There's a great episode of that iconic classic TV show Full House, where the youngest daughter Michelle feels left out because all the boys are playing and she is often treated differently by her male friends, or told she cant play sports with the older boys, so she stars dressing like a boy and acting like a boy and tells her dad she wants to be a boy. He sits her down, and the cheesy feel good 90s music begins as he explains to her the facts of life that boys and girls are different, and that there will be times when she won't be able to hang out with the boys but she'll have female friends and get to do girl things that boys can't do when she gets older.

Hey Dad, did you see this? Remember those times you tried that with me?

Sorry but I just LOLed so much reading that. I mean seriously? TV sitcoms resolve all issues in a half hour.

Thats what is wrong with some people. They believe everything out of Hollywood is real.

originally posted by: Anaana
a reply to: JadeStar

You and your parents present an incredible story of a family that has grown and healed through something that would break most of us. I can't imagine, as a parent, having to go through what your parents have experienced and to be able to discuss it here with such open, self-awareness. I have nothing but admiration for your family, if only everyone was so lucky.

(Brian here, Jade's dad)

Thanks for your support. You're right we have had to do a lot of growing and healing but I would say that this was never in danger of breaking us. I know that Tamara and I became closer and that we as a family became closer as a result of our experience.

Both Tamara and I decided to come here because after reading some of the things people were saying about parents in similar situations we wanted to set the record straight.

I realize that guy who would have had us locked up for what he ignorantly considers child abuse, that guy, he's lost. He can't be reached. Won't even try to understand.

We're not here for him. We're here for those who at least are willing to consider that their snap judgement about parents like us, trans kids and transgender/transsexual people in general could be wrong.

Everyone fear the unknown. It's breed into us. Most of the time that fear protects us. Some of the time, that fear keeps us in the dark.

So if my wife and I can shine a little light then so be it.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: AnonymousMoose
There's a great episode of that iconic classic TV show Full House, where the youngest daughter Michelle feels left out because all the boys are playing and she is often treated differently by her male friends, or told she cant play sports with the older boys, so she stars dressing like a boy and acting like a boy and tells her dad she wants to be a boy. He sits her down, and the cheesy feel good 90s music begins as he explains to her the facts of life that boys and girls are different, and that there will be times when she won't be able to hang out with the boys but she'll have female friends and get to do girl things that boys can't do when she gets older.

Hey Dad, did you see this? Remember those times you tried that with me?

Sorry but I just LOLed so much reading that. I mean seriously? TV sitcoms resolve all issues in a half hour.

Thats what is wrong with some people. They believe everything out of Hollywood is real.

I remember them like it was yesterday. I also remember that cheesy show and how awful some of the episodes were. Pay no attention to that. People thought as you say like you like to say, "hella stupid" things in the 90s so that show and the person who proposed that its premise that a gender dysphoric child envies their siblings and that all it takes for a gender dysphoric child to become happy is just a nice talk with mom or dad is overly simplistic.

I pretty much doubt that show was trying to represent gender dysphoria to begin with. It was just a silly plot to make people laugh. Funny that guy took it seriously.