Tears flowed from mother. The father struggles “when most of the world is pushing for rainbows like this.” The child seems happy. “My child is trans – what now?” Arte asked. And accompany three families whose gender is changing.
“I can’t imagine life as a woman – so: not at all. Zero!” We live in a time where everyone has the right to choose their gender, gender. Theoretically. In fact, it’s as clear as ever: freedom also creates problems.
The television station Arte has optioned his documentary “My child is trans – now what?” accompanying three families. The word “gender” sounds like “bad.” In fact, things seem to be going pretty well.
Let’s take Amelio. He always felt like a man, as he said. However, his body doesn’t know this and has been torturing him with breasts since puberty. “For an eleven-year-old,” he said, “that was a bit much.”
Transsexuality: “That’s my little Amelie!”
The mother burst into tears when talking about it – about the moment when the mother stated that she just wanted to be called “Ami” again. And since then his daughter, Amelie, has been gone. “It was difficult,” he said and admitted: “It was an experience of loss.”
This is not the only loss. Ami has been excluded from school sports since she wanted to live as a boy. “It’s a disaster for me,” reported the separated father, “because that’s my little Amelie! I can’t support something I don’t feel.”
Later in the documentary he makes it clear how difficult this was for him. “He has taken on an interesting topic for himself – and it’s hard to avoid it. As a father – every 14 days or once a month – I have little influence when the rainbow is pushed forward like this by most of the world.” The documentary Arte asks the question: “How seriously should parents take their children’s wishes like this?”
Transsexuality: What the medicine says
Professor Georg Romer from Münster University Hospital should provide the answer. He has worked on this topic for three decades. “The urge to try something is never wrong,” he answered.
That’s the theory. The practice? “It was terrible when I found out that my child rejected his own body, the gender assigned at birth,” said his mother.
Blake, 17, was born a girl and has lived as a boy for two years. The father laughed when he remembered it. “I don’t think there’s much that could surprise his parents. He found something.”
Professor Marc Allroggen is working on this topic at Ulm University Hospital. “It’s important to us that kids have faced the potential for both positive and negative impacts. What’s important is that this feels consistent for the younger generation.” They have to experience their new role for themselves for one year. With treatment, the maturation process in the body can be stopped for a year or two.
How puberty blockers can buy you time
Kira, 17, has lived as a girl for five years. “There are a lot of boys who don’t fit the stereotype,” his father said first. But also: “If he had to go through male puberty, it would be an incredible burden for him, he would really panic.”
The medicine bought him time. “Puberty blockers interfere with natural processes,” explains Professor Martin Wabitsch of Ulm University Hospital, “which of course has side effects – and many of these side effects have not been well studied. I can’t say what will happen in 20 years.” Possible effects on the liver, bones and brain. Kira hasn’t felt any of that so far.
Is it peer pressure that makes people trans?
Arte’s documentation is still quite important: Can someone be persuaded to reject the gender assigned at birth, can group pressure arise?
Professor Romer tries to find the answer. “We can certainly observe that in a generally colorful and queer youth culture, gender roles are perhaps being challenged more radically than in previous generations. This is encouraging young people to try different things and perhaps temporarily grapple with the idea: Hello, I’m trans! But that has nothing to do with what’s in our consulting rooms. The seduction narrative doesn’t make sense.”
A little science at the end. 1.2 to 2.7 percent of all young people are considered transgender. Of those who undergo medical treatment, around one to two percent later regret the decision. Based on documentation, most researchers assume that people who move have no choice.
As Professor Allroggen so clearly put it: “I don’t have any cause. That’s the difference in human life.”
