Catherine Nicolette
Gender choice has been a hot topic for some time now. In a nutshell, a very young child is given the chance to decide personal gender.
Based upon the result of this choice, medications and path of treatment can be begun.
To change the child to the opposite gender.
Well now. All of this has left me very thoughtful.
I count myself deeply blessed with two wise and grounded parents.
They needed to be; my teenage years weren't pretty.
Hissy fits, tears and slammed doors. It isn't easy becoming an adult.
Anyhoo. I'm so lucky that a gender choice wasn't given to me as a child, because right now, in my mature years, I'd be in deep trouble.
You see, in my very early years I didn't think - I knew - I was one of the lads.
I wore khaki boy shorts and shirts [very South African anyone?] teamed with boy sandals.
My hair being fine and in no way suitable for growing into girly styles, the option was a boy's haircut.
Mom cried the day she took my brother and myself for a walk through Joburg and someone complimented her on her two lovely twin sons.
[I was a little short for my age and he a little tall for his].
Mom was devastated, I was delighted. No greater compliment could have been paid me. A boy!
Mom - recalling her early maternal dream of a little daughter with braids and pretty printed frocks - forthwith banned boyish styles.
I was doomed to wear dresses, skirts and tops which I HATED.
My shorts had left me free to play soccer and cricket in the veldt with tomato boxes for cricket stumps.
And anyhow I didn't want to be a girl - they had to do boring stuff like washing dishes, curling their hair or needlework.
Boys got to run around the neighbourhood, fish for tadpoles after infrequent summer showers and scrape their knees while playing rugby.
But my early childhood freedom as an honorary boy was over. All was gloom until . . .
My teens. All of a sudden boys started to look a little less like delinquents with mud on their knees and more like mysterious heroes.
[I know, I know, with three brothers I should've known better, but the teens are a strange time].
I discovered the joys of spending hours winding my hair in different styles [by now my hair had decided to grow].
After sixteen I decided I was all grown up, and now looked down my nose at rugby and sidewalk marble competitions.
Now it appears I have somewhat gone back to my early years.
Nothing beats the freedom of short hair and an easy style.
Washable clothes that don't need ironing, and minimal - and shamefully, on many days, nil - makeup.
Sturdy sandals give freedom to stride, instead of the Italian shoes on which I teetered in my early twenties, much to the envy of my peers and the outrage of my poor aching feet.
The moral of the story is that, if at a very early age I had been given a choice I might well have made a gender choice which in fact was not at all compatible with my true identity.
This would have stored up suffering, disillusionment and confusion in my future.
I fully support professional assistance of those who face the challenge of gender dysphoria.
Yet I am grateful that my parents and their generation did not trouble little children at the dawn of their lives, but left us free to enjoy a glorious childhood - whether kicking balls or playing dolls . . .
Gender ideology harms children - American College of Pediatricians
http://lumierecharity.blogspot.ie/2016/04/gender-ideology-harms-children-american.html
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