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Agreed. With something that permanent and life changing, it should wait until they're an adult and can make sound decisions for themselves. In their teen years, their decision is most likely to be influenced by peers and wanting to "fit in" and be "normal" rather than it being something they genuinely desire for themselves. Then of course, there's also cases where parents just want a boy or a girl so they have them assigned to what they personally see fit with no consideration for what the child may have wanted.

Of course, I also think circumcision on infants should be illegal for the same reason.

I really have to agree with this, but for more reasons than just the child's feelings and rights to make their own choice.

When children like that are born, nobody can really tell what characteristics the child is going to develop as they grow. They may end up with a deep or lighter more feminine voice. They have have a more masculine structure or they end up smaller. The hormones, even though they were born with both genders, may end up being with more male hormones or more female hormones. So, simply changing them when they are without even seeing how they develop can cause more confusion as they grow and begin to naturally develop their characteristics. They also haven't been able to choose their sexual preference relationship wise, so simply choosing a gender for them at birth can lead to distress as they do start to discover their preferences. Simply saying you're a male or you're a female now so this is what you naturally should like causes a lot of emotional problems.

A lot of children like this have ended up struggling with identity issues because their parents didn't even give them a chance to develop a personality before choosing a gender. It ends up hurting the child because often what the parent chose for outward appearance doesn't match up with who they want to be or who they really are.

But you can still get very good results later. Transgender is different from intersexual, though. But anyhow, spouse has two transgender friends - both of them male-to-female. They haven't had surgery and are only on hormone therapy. One of them started sometime during puberty {not before or even at the beginning of, but still in their teen years} and the other just recently started transitioning. I have no problem thinking of either of them as female and wouldn't have ever thought they were formerly male. Even the one who recently started transitioning seemed female enough to me... just very very tall eek But there are tall women out there, a handful in this very guild, so that didn't strike me as "masculine" in the least. Chances are, she would have been tall anyway.... just perhaps more Leko's height instead of Liada's rofl

Aren't you taller than Leko, though?

To my understanding, Leko and Faerie are both 6', Kits is my height {5'10"}, and Saber... well, I don't know how tall she is, but I've come to assume taller than me sweatdrop

Might be a good idea, or at least get a second opinion. Mir thought she had actually shrunk because of a mismeasurement recently. rofl

See that's what I'm thinking too!

Sorry Omalley, looks like I'm the next thread thief here. sweatdrop *tries to push the topic back on track* For once I actually agree with Inaba on this particular subject. Most of the reasons have been pointed out here and considering I have a friend going through the hormone therapy as well I don't think there's anything more for me to add.

Hight changes during the day and thats why in world records they measure your hight 3 times before getting an average hight marked into the world record.
now I need....What? dinner is ready, walks out the door.