Did anyone read the Metro today?
It featured a story about a ten-year old lad who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in the summer break, a complex condition which is defined by the NHS website as affecting people “who believe that they were somehow born into the wrong body, and they often prefer to live as a member of the opposite sex.”
He returned to school in Worcester as a she (or rather, dressed as a she as sex changes are not legal to anyone under the age of 18 in this country) and was welcomed back with great applause by teachers, who went so far as to hold special assemblies in order to inform other pupils of the transformation.
Now, that is what I call education.
Not to mention progress; there is simply no way that would have ever happened in my school days. I was brought up in the North East, a place where (still) if a man wears a jumper on a cold day he is referred to as a homosexual.
Gender plays a big part in North Eastern life, and perhaps this is why this story has touched my heart a little. There are so many staggering elements to this story it is difficult to know what makes it so wonderful.
As well as the truly admirable attitude of the school, the child’s mother is just a gorgeous woman, in the face of certain adversity, willing to accept and support her child with unconditional love.
She talked to the Metro about her son: ‘She is within her mind a girl but she has a boy’s body. She is a girlie girl. She has suffered bullying but is happier to be going to school as a girl.
‘When we made her dress as a boy, she would get into a right state – it just doesn’t feel natural to her.
‘It’s going to be a hard school life for us and for her as well. But she is a strong person and I’m sure we will get through it as a family. The other pupils have been little stars who have accepted my daughter into the fold.’
Of course, there are many who have bullied and tortured this child, simply because he is prepared to be who she is, without compromise. And they were not children as the child’s mother “revealed her child had been branded ‘a freak’ by other adults and reduced to tears by one man while shopping.”
I was bullied as a child for being different, but at least I now have the consolation to say that my torturer’s were children: literally, they didn’t know any better. But for an adult to reduce a child to tears, because that child chose to express himself freely in this free country, is the kind of cowardice that really takes some beating.
Truth is, to reduce a child to tears you must be very threatened, frightened, insecure and lets face it, alone. Nothing frightens a conformist more than someone who is doing it in his or her way. It threatens the sheep when one of the flock refuses to follow. It confuses them. But humanity did not get to where it is by everyone going in the same direction.
There is total ignorance around this subject, and it is only through paying attention to the brave actions of people like this child and all who support him, and ignoring the stupid reactions we have built into conformity, that we will ever be able to educate ourselves of the endless diversity of our wonderful species.
It makes for a very exciting future.
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