OMG! Indiana is filled with crazies...

[Pico and ME]

An Indiana lawmaker won't support a resolution celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts because he believes it is a "radicalized organization" that supports abortion and promotes homosexuality.

source

[Ibby]

Did you miss the collective right-wing mass-pants-shitting when the Girl Scouts let a 7-year-old trans girl join? the Girls Scouts' position is that "if her parents introduce her as a girl, if she lives as a girl, if she is for all intents and purposes a girl, why would we turn her away?", more or less, and the right-wing cookie boycott was met by a massive LGBT cookie-buying drive.

Those damn hippy lady-scouts should be more like the Boy Scouts. Throw out those sissy girly-men and faggots and athiests and shit. ALL kids groups should use exclusionary identity politics to humiliate and turn away kids.

[Nirvana]

Yummy Girl scout cookies!

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Ibram

and the right-wing cookie boycott was met by a massive LGBT cookie-buying drive.

Yeah, but I imagine the sales in Texas dropped while the sales in Vermont spiked. So the troops (or whatever the local GS unit is called) in Texas are losing cookie funding while the ones in Vermont are gaining it.

[infinite monkey]

Indiana wants you, but you can't go back there.

[Sundae]

Shock Horror front page of the Sun today.
A populist extremely conservative right wing paper?
Wow. Maybe we really are moving into the 19th century at last.
Warned my cockles.

Boy, 5, who lives as a girl
Zach told parents he was 'in wrong body'
Caters News Agency By ANDREW PARKER

Last Updated: 21st February 2012
A FIVE-year old boy is living as a girl after telling his parents he is trapped in the wrong body. Zach Avery, shown with mum Teresa, has blonde pigtails and is treated as a girl at school.

Theresa, 32, said proudly: "Other kids haven't batted an eyelid. There's been no problems.

She also yesterday told of the touching moment he came to her and told of his torment.

Zach was just three, but already felt he was trapped in the wrong body.

More...

I'm not saying it is couched in proper trans* terms.
But it is not a negative article.

[infinite monkey]

Warning: VERY UNPOPULAR OPINION AHEAD:

What 3 or 5 year old really understand what that means? They hear about it and it's all the rage and look at the attention they get.

I'm all for families sticking together. I'm all for an even prepubescent understanding they are 'trapped in the wrong body' so to speak.

But little kids? No. Giving the kid leeway to explore is one thing, but throwing them out there under the bus is another. Who wants attention? Sometimes, parents.

I feel for the kids who later realize they were play-acting, as kids do, and regret this 'decision' (no 3-5 year old makes this kind of 'decision' on their own volition) but hopefully these families are also open enough to not be too disappointed that they were, in fact, in the 'right' body all along. But what to do with all the pictures?

Flame away. Just mho.

[classicman]

Popular enough with me. I'll burn at the stake with you on that one.

[Sundae]

I'm not going to flame or hate, but I have read plenty of accounts of people who were aware - well before puberty - that they were in the wrong body or were attracted to people of the same gender. I knew I fancied Dominic Reading when I was 5. Had it been Helen Kirby instead, my feelings would still have been real.

Many, many of my photos of a child are of me in tomboy-mode. In fact my photo album is full of one-off shots of me in dresses because Mum was determined to mark the occasion. Then again, she chose my clothes for me, so it was a case of getting me in a dress smiling. Nothing to do with gender-conflict, but neither the photos of me in dresses or in jeans hold any shame for me.

This couple have decided to give their child its head. The child is deciding on its own clothes. I think this is positive. Yup, Zach may grow up into an unclinflicted boy and then a man. But why have more tears and distress than you need to as a child? By letting Zach choose clothes regardless of gender, it cancels out attention-seeking behaviour.

YMMV and I get that.

[infinite monkey]

Meh. I played with trucks and climbed trees. I wore jeans. WTF does that have to do with anything? My parents didn't then give me a crew cut and an athletic supporter.

I felt DIFFERENT. Not because I understood my sexuality but because humans in their formative years are figuring out where they fit in.

As I said, give the child leeway. Make it the poster child and you're a bit wack.

3-5 years old. I repeat. 3-5. Right. I'm sure you'll find child psychs who agree and some who disagree, but I ain't buyin' it.

ymmv

p.s. ffs I was kidding about the pictures anyway. Sheesh. Yeah, ma, throw out all pictures of me where I'm not in dresses.

[footfootfoot]

I've met a number of kids whom everyone knew were gay as a birch tree from shortly after the time the kid could walk and talk.

It's obvious, I'm sure there must be certain indications. I all for what happens in the womb doesn't stay in the womb. Nature not nurture. Except in the case of vegetarianism. That shit is a choice. Who you are attracted to and how you present? not so much.

eta: I googled "Gay as a birch" to see if it was an expression used by anyone other than a few Vermonters I know. and found out that a having stroke can make you gay. An all this time I thought you actually had to take it in the ass to be gay...

Seriously, you couldn't make this shit up:

Birch then became more obsessed with his appearance, which he believes is a gay trait. He also started training to be a hairdresser.

[infinite monkey]

Really? I didn't know gay people looked or acted any different than anyone else? Or do you mean flamers?

Oh shoot, what's politically correct these days?

I get what you said, just as I got what Sundae said. I don't think you need to take start dressing your toddler up like damn Lord Fauntleroy or Pollyanna because they say "Hey mommy, I'm trapped in the wrong body." You don't HAVE to dress like either a boy or a girl, do you?

Hey mommy, I'm a puppy. (Good girl, here's a collar and a food bowl.)

Lighten up folks. Or am I wrong? ALL PARENTS ARE ALL KNOWLEDGABLE AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE DEEP INTRICACIES OF THE HUMAN PSYCHE IN CHILDREN AND NEVER DO ANYTHING OUT OF THE INTEREST OF THE CHILD.

Watch the news, we know that isn't true.

[Sundae]

Having a stroke or other brain injury can make you talk in a foreign accent too.
You'd probably have been burned for that a couple of hundred years ago.

(No relation to anything above except as an addendum to Foot's stroke quote)

[infinite monkey]

I'm glad all my craziness is directly traceable to the presence of cats.

That's my story, anyway. Today.

I was sure it was the mercury we played with in the chem lab.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

Hey mommy, I'm a puppy. (Good girl, here's a collar and a food bowl.) AND FOR THE LAST TIME, GET OFF THE DAMNED COUCH!

There are some kids you just know are completely gay from the get-go, it doesn't mean that you have to go out and buy them showtune CDs any more than it means you have to force them to play with trucks or dolls if they don't want to.

I also think it is ok to let kids present how they want within reason. If a first grader thinks he's trapped in the body of a hooker I think even just a little blush is out of order.