How Do You Handle This?

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Kay_Cee said:
My daughter is concerned only with what she should do if the same situation arises for her in the future.
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If this situation actually arose, which is about a one in a zillion chance if your daughter teaches elementary school, then your daughter would likely be privy to more of the details such as questions others have asked here regarding the medical condition of the child, that you do not know. Perhaps as a student teacher the faculty did not loop her friend in on what has likely been an ongoing situation.

I find it hard to believe that a child just simply went home on Friday as a boy and came to school Monday as a girl with NO prior discussion with the school and teacher.

I think it is the feeling your daughter’s friend had of being caught off guard and unprepared that has your daughter worried. I think if this actually happened in her class, she would be in discussion with the family beforehand and could then better form her response and actions. Her preparations could include consulting with her pastor, the National Catholic Bioethics Center, or a lawyer.
 
I think one of the material things to consider- should your daughter ever be in this situation- is that undoubtedly the child has had little to do with the decision making process. A first grader doesn’t get to decide to have elective sex reassignment surgery. That’s a parental decision. Even if this is 100% elective and has nothing to do with a genetic aberration, it’s not the child’s sin.

The child should not be treated with anything other than love and respect, no matter what. The way kids can be, this child is going to be treated differently and possibly mocked and bullied by their peers. A steady and caring teacher can make all the difference in the world.
 
Kay_Cee said:
Besides the subject of parents actually allowing this for a child who is obviously far too young to be making such a decision, my daughter is unsure how to handle such a situation if it ever happens to her when she begins teaching full time. Would she have to treat such a child like he’s a she? She says she can’t morally do that. And how in the world would she explain this to the rest of her students?

Any suggestions?
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I doubt the parents just decided to give their son a sex change. This poor child was probably not born completely male. S/he was probably born with what is often called ambiguous genitalia - in other words complete or partial sets of genitals of each gender. Because the male genitals are more externally prominent the parents may have presented their child as a boy. Medical examination may have revealed that the female genitalia and hormones were more extensively present than the male ones, and therefore surgery was required to assign one gender. This type of operation is most successful when performed well before puberty.

Unfortunately life is never easy for children born this way. They are more likely to be ridiculed and bullied, to commit suicide, to suffer from substance abuse and low self-esteem, and to be sexually exploited as children and adults. The surgery is corrective. It is gender assignment rather than gender re-assignment. It’s intended to slect the prevelant and most sustainable gender for the child. Therefore, it differs both morally and medically from a sex change operation.

Your daughter should treat this child with respect and dignity and address her as a girl. Imagine what she has already been through.
 
1ke said:
If this situation actually arose, which is about a one in a zillion chance if your daughter teaches elementary school, then your daughter would likely be privy to more of the details such as questions others have asked here regarding the medical condition of the child, that you do not know. Perhaps as a student teacher the faculty did not loop her friend in on what has likely been an ongoing situation.

I find it hard to believe that a child just simply went home on Friday as a boy and came to school Monday as a girl with NO prior discussion with the school and teacher.

I think it is the feeling your daughter’s friend had of being caught off guard and unprepared that has your daughter worried. I think if this actually happened in her class, she would be in discussion with the family beforehand and could then better form her response and actions. Her preparations could include consulting with her pastor, the National Catholic Bioethics Center, or a lawyer.
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Right.

It is definitely a dicey issue, and I can understand freaking out about “what if.” However, if the situation ever actually arose, your daughter would likely have more information to go on. Plus, she wouldn’t have to do it alone. If she is (as seems to be her hope) in a Catholic school, she would have the principal, pastoral administrator, and superintendent, among others whom she would turn to for help. It is not something she would have to handle on her own.

So she should be at peace. 🙂
 
Kay_Cee said:
In the class in which this other person is student teaching, one of the boys was gone for a few days to have surgery . . . and came back to school a girl.
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I’ve been thinking about this and wondering how the student teacher was aware of the purpose of the surgery? It would have been minor surgery to be out of school for only a few days. Also, children of that age are pretty androgynous. My own son was mistaken for a girl often enough that I finally cut off his pretty curls when he was about 3.

Perhaps the student teacher thought the child was a boy and became confused the first time she/he saw the child in “girly” clothes? Names can go either way, too. Hard to tell gender if the child is a Chris, Sandy, Pat, Dakota (I know both a boy & a girl with that name), and so on.

Just wondering.
 
I don’t know how she would handle telling the other children anything, but she should treat all children as human beings and children of God & not be concerned with gender. That child in particular may need a whole lot of loving and acceptance.
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👍:clapping:
 
Something doesn’t feel right here… along the lines of what another poster said about the long and complicated process even an adult must go through prior to elective gender reassignment surgery.

The situation as described is like the stereotypical ‘this is what the world is coming to’ nightmare - a young child goes home a boy one day, and with no warning comes back a few days later as a girl. It’s like a scenario devised by someone anti-gender reassignment who has no real idea of how the process actually works.

I’m not saying that anyone involved did actually deliberately make up the situation, but remember the OP is hearing about this second/third hand, I wonder if someone along the way missed some facts or heard only part of the situation and jumped to the worst possible conclusion, because they were primed to do so by their own fears of what could happen to an innocent child.

Either way, the most important points as I see it are the ones people have made before - if the situation of a transgender child were to arise in future, given the process involved I’m sure that it wouldn’t come ‘out of the blue’ for the child’s actual teacher and there would be at least some discussion involved; and that the child is a child foremost, innocent and in need of loving support.
 
It doesn’t ring right to me.

Children that young haven’t even learnt to distinguish mind from body!

In any case, whatever the parents made happen, the child does not need any further confusion imposed by someone else.

IMNAAHO.

ICXC NIKA
 
healthcommunities.com/transgender-health/surgical-guidelines.shtml

Considering this surgical guildeline “of legal age”, if a first grader has this done, my thought would be that this is from a birth related gender chromosome issue, which does exist. For such a drastic surgery, there are a lot of reasons not to do this to a tiny child. But this issue has come up a lot, and I am going to continue to care for my brothers and sisters on this Earth as I always have, with compassion. Its not my place, or any of yours, to judge.
 
Kay_Cee said:
My younger daughter is completing her student teaching this June. Last night she was in tears over a situation one of her fellow student teachers has.

In the class in which this other person is student teaching, one of the boys was gone for a few days to have surgery . . . and came back to school a girl.

This child is in the first grade.

Besides the subject of parents actually allowing this for a child who is obviously far too young to be making such a decision, my daughter is unsure how to handle such a situation if it ever happens to her when she begins teaching full time. Would she have to treat such a child like he’s a she? She says she can’t morally do that. And how in the world would she explain this to the rest of her students?

Any suggestions?
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Treat the child as a girl. In this case, it sounds like the parents made the choice and the child agreed with it. We are all God’s children and any proselytizing will not result in any change. Best to love as God loves and pray for the child and family.
 
808Catholic said:
Treat the child as a girl.
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This brings up another question for me. In what ways are 1st grade boys and girls treated differently in the classroom? It’s been a long time since I was in 1st grade (1959!!!) and I don’t recall any differences. We even used the same bathroom because there was a single-occupancy toilet in our classroom.
 
I am in the administrative side of public education. First, you correctly indicated that your daughter (and perhaps the child’s teacher) does not know the full story. I would like to gently say that we are talking about a very young child who is clearly going through a traumatic event. He/she needs compassion and ALL students deserve equal education. The school counselor or the district offices over counseling should be immediately involved. How this is handled now (including by this child’s peers) will have an irreversible effect on this him/her.

Having said that, public education is full of issues that are difficult for Catholics, Christians, Jews, Muslims…you name it…to work with. I have always felt that, more often than not, kids are a victim of their environment and educators can only work within the environment that they are in (school). To me, that means giving every child the best education possible and searching for help when needed. I can honestly tell you that I went through Catholic school into my high school years and that environment is definitely not sterile. Hugs to everyone touched by my this.

QUOTE=Kay Cee;12936583]My younger daughter is completing her student teaching this June. Last night she was in tears over a situation one of her fellow student teachers has.

In the class in which this other person is student teaching, one of the boys was gone for a few days to have surgery . . . and came back to school a girl.

This child is in the first grade.

Besides the subject of parents actually allowing this for a child who is obviously far too young to be making such a decision, my daughter is unsure how to handle such a situation if it ever happens to her when she begins teaching full time. Would she have to treat such a child like he’s a she? She says she can’t morally do that. And how in the world would she explain this to the rest of her students?

Any suggestions?
 
Do you just blindly parrot and post every story you hear regardless of how far-fetched? Do you have any idea how major of a surgery gender reassignment is? They would not have been back a few days later (among other improbable parts of this story).
 
In the remote chance that this story is true, the teacher should refer to the child as whatever gender the child identifies as.
 
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