Doctors in Britain are reviewing guidelines for the treatment of people under 18 with gender dysphoria. This is a condition where someone is born one sex but feels they are really the other. A key issue is the age at which young people can be prescribed drugs which pause puberty.
Sitting in her kitchen, 16 year old Nikki (name changed to protect her identity) looks and acts like any other teenage girl.
She gossips with her mum, teases her younger brothers, and giggles as she texts her new boyfriend.
The only difference is that Nikki was born biologically a boy.
"I've always felt like a girl," she says. As a child, she dressed up in girls' clothing, played with girls' toys, and gravitated towards other girls.
As she got older, Nikki realised there was a difference between what she felt and her body.
"It used to make me feel ill and so horribly down," she remembers. "I'd just wish that I wasn't around. Everything to do with me being male was horrible, I just couldn't stand it."
When she was seven Nikki was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Her parents initially tried to steer her towards accepting she was a boy, but by eight she was living as a girl at home, and by nine was going to school as a girl.
"I loved it," she says, "people picked on me a lot, but it was amazing in my eyes because I was allowed to show everyone who I was."
Terrified and distressed-
As Nikki approached her teens, things became more difficult. The bullying got a lot worse, and puberty was about to begin.
"That was scary," recalls Nikki. "I do love to sing, so the thought of my voice breaking was horrible."
Most young people who experience gender issues before puberty end up remaining in their biological sex.
Experiencing their own sex hormones at puberty can be a key factor in this.
Nikki's mum Sharon (name changed to protect identity) hoped that this would be the case for Nikki, but the possibility of her body changing had the opposite effect.
"She was just so terrified and very very distressed," says Sharon.
"Her conviction that she would rather die became very much more clear during that point, it was very strong - I'm not going to live through this I'd rather be dead."
Blocking puberty
One treatment for young people with strong gender dysphoria is drugs known as hypothalamic blockers. These block an individual's sex hormones, suspending puberty. If the drugs are stopped, puberty resumes.
Over the past ten years, doctors in several countries have begun prescribing blockers in the early stages of puberty, at around 12 years old. This gives adolescents more time to explore and make decisions about their identity.
This approach was pioneered by the Amsterdam Gender Clinic for Children and Adolescents in the Netherlands.
"If you wait too long, the adolescents go through their puberty and have changes they don't want to have," says the clinic's head, Professor Peggy Cohen-Kettenis.
In Britain blockers are prescribed by the government-funded Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service. Their current policy is to use them later in puberty, at around 16.
'Altering nature'
"There are very good reasons put forward for early intervention," says the Tavistock's director, Dr Polly Carmichael. "However it is important to bear in mind that this is still a relatively new intervention."
Dr Carmichael says concerns include the effects of early intervention on physical development, and that it can preclude fertility.
"There is also an issue around the impact of sex hormones on brain development," she adds. "If one stops pubertal hormones very early on in puberty, is one in some way altering the course of nature?"
Research from the Dutch clinic has shown positive outcomes so far, and Dr Carmichael says the Tavistock plans to start offering blockers earlier in puberty as part of a research project.
According to Professor Cohen-Kettenis, doctors have to strike a difficult balance.
"In general interfering with development is difficult if you don't completely understand why," she says, "and doctors' main concern is 'first do no harm.' But we expect that it will be even more harming if you do not do anything."
Sharon and Nikki felt that waiting until 16 was not an option and decided to go to the United States where Nikki was prescribed blockers at 13.
They want Britain to follow international guidelines which recommend the use of blockers earlier in puberty.
'My female life'
When Nikki talks about her life now, her mood visibly changes. She smiles more and bounces in her seat with excitement.
She has recently started studying at a new college where no one knows she was born a boy.
"College was the start of my female life, my girl life properly. I'm happy."
In line with British and most international guidelines, Nikki began taking female hormones at 16 and plans to have gender reassignment surgery when she is 18.
Although the blockers are reversible, they can be seen as the beginning of the road towards a sex change, and there are concerns about whether people aged 12 or 13 can make informed decisions about embarking on this process.
But Nikki says she knew what she was doing: "It's your own body, it's your choice, it's not anyone else's to decide for you, because that's just taking away all the control that people want to have and people need to be sane." (my view)-ARE PEOPLE THAT STUPID........its called BEING GAY.......all gays say and do this shit!calling it something else is TRYING to justify being gay all your life and trying to remove said label....it won't work fags....PEOPLE ARE REALLY PATHETICALLY DUMB!
About HIM-I AM A FAN OF THE BAND"HIM"
Friday 30 October 2009
Born in the wrong body
Doctors in Britain are reviewing guidelines for the treatment of people under 18 with gender dysphoria. This is a condition where someone is born one sex but feels they are really the other. A key issue is the age at which young people can be prescribed drugs which pause puberty.
Sitting in her kitchen, 16 year old Nikki (name changed to protect her identity) looks and acts like any other teenage girl.
She gossips with her mum, teases her younger brothers, and giggles as she texts her new boyfriend.
The only difference is that Nikki was born biologically a boy.
"I've always felt like a girl," she says. As a child, she dressed up in girls' clothing, played with girls' toys, and gravitated towards other girls.
As she got older, Nikki realised there was a difference between what she felt and her body.
"It used to make me feel ill and so horribly down," she remembers. "I'd just wish that I wasn't around. Everything to do with me being male was horrible, I just couldn't stand it."
When she was seven Nikki was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Her parents initially tried to steer her towards accepting she was a boy, but by eight she was living as a girl at home, and by nine was going to school as a girl.
"I loved it," she says, "people picked on me a lot, but it was amazing in my eyes because I was allowed to show everyone who I was."
Terrified and distressed-
As Nikki approached her teens, things became more difficult. The bullying got a lot worse, and puberty was about to begin.
"That was scary," recalls Nikki. "I do love to sing, so the thought of my voice breaking was horrible."
Most young people who experience gender issues before puberty end up remaining in their biological sex.
Experiencing their own sex hormones at puberty can be a key factor in this.
Nikki's mum Sharon (name changed to protect identity) hoped that this would be the case for Nikki, but the possibility of her body changing had the opposite effect.
"She was just so terrified and very very distressed," says Sharon.
"Her conviction that she would rather die became very much more clear during that point, it was very strong - I'm not going to live through this I'd rather be dead."
Blocking puberty
One treatment for young people with strong gender dysphoria is drugs known as hypothalamic blockers. These block an individual's sex hormones, suspending puberty. If the drugs are stopped, puberty resumes.
Over the past ten years, doctors in several countries have begun prescribing blockers in the early stages of puberty, at around 12 years old. This gives adolescents more time to explore and make decisions about their identity.
This approach was pioneered by the Amsterdam Gender Clinic for Children and Adolescents in the Netherlands.
"If you wait too long, the adolescents go through their puberty and have changes they don't want to have," says the clinic's head, Professor Peggy Cohen-Kettenis.
In Britain blockers are prescribed by the government-funded Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service. Their current policy is to use them later in puberty, at around 16.
'Altering nature'
"There are very good reasons put forward for early intervention," says the Tavistock's director, Dr Polly Carmichael. "However it is important to bear in mind that this is still a relatively new intervention."
Dr Carmichael says concerns include the effects of early intervention on physical development, and that it can preclude fertility.
"There is also an issue around the impact of sex hormones on brain development," she adds. "If one stops pubertal hormones very early on in puberty, is one in some way altering the course of nature?"
Research from the Dutch clinic has shown positive outcomes so far, and Dr Carmichael says the Tavistock plans to start offering blockers earlier in puberty as part of a research project.
According to Professor Cohen-Kettenis, doctors have to strike a difficult balance.
"In general interfering with development is difficult if you don't completely understand why," she says, "and doctors' main concern is 'first do no harm.' But we expect that it will be even more harming if you do not do anything."
Sharon and Nikki felt that waiting until 16 was not an option and decided to go to the United States where Nikki was prescribed blockers at 13.
They want Britain to follow international guidelines which recommend the use of blockers earlier in puberty.
'My female life'
When Nikki talks about her life now, her mood visibly changes. She smiles more and bounces in her seat with excitement.
She has recently started studying at a new college where no one knows she was born a boy.
"College was the start of my female life, my girl life properly. I'm happy."
In line with British and most international guidelines, Nikki began taking female hormones at 16 and plans to have gender reassignment surgery when she is 18.
Although the blockers are reversible, they can be seen as the beginning of the road towards a sex change, and there are concerns about whether people aged 12 or 13 can make informed decisions about embarking on this process.
But Nikki says she knew what she was doing: "It's your own body, it's your choice, it's not anyone else's to decide for you, because that's just taking away all the control that people want to have and people need to be sane." (my view)-ARE PEOPLE THAT STUPID........its called BEING GAY.......all gays say and do this shit!calling it something else is TRYING to justify being gay all your life and trying to remove said label....it won't work fags....PEOPLE ARE REALLY PATHETICALLY DUMB!
Paperboy offered £6.93 redundancy
A 13-year-old paperboy in Bedfordshire who earns £6.53 a week could have been one of the youngest people in the UK to be offered a redundancy package.
Kane Middleton received a formal letter which told him he was being laid off from his round in Clophill.
It outlined a redundancy package of "one week's pay in lieu of notice, which equates to £6.93 (subject to tax and NI)".
His employer, Letterbox Direct, was unavailable for comment.
Kane said he began his round two months ago to buy treats and a new cage for his hamster, Splodge.
Speaking about receiving the letter, he said: "I got this piece of paper and I didn't really understand all the words.
"I asked my mum and she told me I had been made redundant.
"I felt annoyed and upset."
His mother Jocelyn said she was disappointed that her son had received an "impersonal" letter-Kane said he was annoyed and upset by the letter
(my view)-company workers and other workers get thousands of pounds as their redundancy check ect........BUT doing this is to a kid is disgustingly cruel
Brown 'not the man to save UK' - poll
A poll of 10,000 MSN readers found that just 17% back Gordon Brown to rescue our economy. But is this a victory for David Cameron or an indictment of Labour?
Fewer than one in five Brits are confident Gordon Brown can lead the nation back to economic security, it has been revealed.
A poll of more than 10,000 MSN readers found that just 17% back Brown, while a significant 51% feel the prime minister has made too many mistakes already and that new leadership is a must.
There also appears to be a strong sense of pessimism among those polled, with almost a third (32%) saying it does not matter who is in charge of the country as we are going to struggle regardless.
Pro-Tory, or simply anti-Labour?
While some might see the high number of people calling for a change in leadership as a sign of growing support for opposition leader David Cameron.
However, it seems this may just be a case of pollsters adopting an "anyone-but-Labour" stance.
Earlier this month, another survey found that almost half (47%) of people who planned to vote for or were leaning towards the Conservatives said it was "mainly a vote against the record of Labour".
A further 17% agreed they were "mainly" voting against Gordon Brown, with just over a third actually putting their choice down to a positive endorsement of the opposition.
Recent weeks have not helped
Regardless of the reasons behind it, there remains little doubt that Brown is under pressure to curry favour with voters.
However, those efforts have not been helped, due to a combination of unpopular decisions and events out of his control.
Brown's announcement that he will sell up to £16 billion of the nation's assets to try bring spiralling public debt under control has not been well received, with some seeing it as a knee-jerk reaction that fails to address the key issue of the government's chronic overspending.A further blow to Brown's popularity came on Friday, when the UK surprisingly failed to rise out of recession.
While obviously not directly Brown's fault, the prime minister now has the misfortune of leading the nation through its longest recession since records began
Fewer than one in five Brits are confident Gordon Brown can lead the nation back to economic security, it has been revealed.
A poll of more than 10,000 MSN readers found that just 17% back Brown, while a significant 51% feel the prime minister has made too many mistakes already and that new leadership is a must.
There also appears to be a strong sense of pessimism among those polled, with almost a third (32%) saying it does not matter who is in charge of the country as we are going to struggle regardless.
Pro-Tory, or simply anti-Labour?
While some might see the high number of people calling for a change in leadership as a sign of growing support for opposition leader David Cameron.
However, it seems this may just be a case of pollsters adopting an "anyone-but-Labour" stance.
Earlier this month, another survey found that almost half (47%) of people who planned to vote for or were leaning towards the Conservatives said it was "mainly a vote against the record of Labour".
A further 17% agreed they were "mainly" voting against Gordon Brown, with just over a third actually putting their choice down to a positive endorsement of the opposition.
Recent weeks have not helped
Regardless of the reasons behind it, there remains little doubt that Brown is under pressure to curry favour with voters.
However, those efforts have not been helped, due to a combination of unpopular decisions and events out of his control.
Brown's announcement that he will sell up to £16 billion of the nation's assets to try bring spiralling public debt under control has not been well received, with some seeing it as a knee-jerk reaction that fails to address the key issue of the government's chronic overspending.A further blow to Brown's popularity came on Friday, when the UK surprisingly failed to rise out of recession.
While obviously not directly Brown's fault, the prime minister now has the misfortune of leading the nation through its longest recession since records began
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