So everyone should change for a small group or minority of individuals? Children do well in environments with clear boundaries and healthy adults are the same. It provides stability and structure to have order. Sexual indentity is the first part of personal identity and parents should help their children to determine their roles in society. A society with out gender roles does not exist because it is the foundation that civilization builds on.   See 8 other replies

Anyone who doesn't believe that gender can be influenced hasn't done much research. In certain Polynesian cultures, young boys are chosen to be raised as girls. They choice is made for them. They are commonly known as fa afafine. Look it up.   See 22 other replies

How about you don't make such a big deal about it? I know that whenever anything came up in my family (my kids), I let them do anything that wouldn't hurt them- which included I did NOT fight with my kids over wearing clothes-- and that included pink on my boy or whatever my daughter wanted or didn't want to wear. My son had baby-dolls, my daughter played trucks and cars with him. And, now, my kids are probably two of the most well-adjusted people I know.. in their mid and late twenties.People just need to get over this garbage. Allow kids to experiment, without judgement, and let them work it out for themselves.
Honestly!
Oh, and as gender does not matter when it comes to the mind and school, do NOT keep him (or her) out of school until you can "reason" the child out of the choices he or she makes. Yeesh!   See 8 other replies

Thank you, I tried to find those statistics when I was typing my reply, but then my computer crashed and I had to retype the entire thing quickly. >.<Friendfactor has a decent state by state map of rights if anyone is interested: http://www.friendfactor.org/fi/map   See 22 other replies

Here's the Wikipedia page further explaining how the Bugis perceive gender: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bissu. What amazes me about this group of people is that they understand that nothing needs to be changed about how the human being was created. A person who identifies as a woman with male genatalia does not need hormone treatments...does not need a sex change. It is society that needs to advance its thinking to catch up with the individual. It's not always "either/ or"...sometimes it's "and."   See 8 other replies

I know this doesn't help you with your immediate program...but just to reassure you that your 5-year-old daughter was created exactly as she was intended, check out this culture that believes humanity was created in five genders: http://genderfork.com/2009/the-bugis-five-genders/ (google: Bugis, genderfork.com)Could you make a 2-3 year plan to work and save resources to move to a larger city? I'm not a parent but I'd think your daughter having peers that except her (and even better, are like her) is essential to her mental health --they say that children's peers wield a greater influence than parents, especially during their teenage years. The ideal would be to make accessible to her other male body/ female soul beings like her that deal with their day to day difficulties in ways that build their own momentum instead of diminishing their own momentum. I'd select for parents that have chosen to accept their child as they are. The sacrifice would be suffering the disagreement, criticism and distance from your family...and honestly, I have no idea where to get the strength to walk that path.For the short term, I wonder if you could call specialists to learn coping strategies to deal with the day to day issues (problems mostly caused by the larger world).This being your day-to-day life, you may have already heard this story. I just wanted to share NPR's amazing story on how two sets of parents chose to deal with their transgendered children differently and the consequences as evidenced by their children's mental health http://www.npr.org/2008/05/07/90247842/two-families-grapple-with-sons-gender-preferences (google: NPR transgender children, first link).   See 8 other replies