Man or woman?

NPR did a two day story on children and adolescents who identified themselves with belonging to the opposite sex from what they were born with. I had never heard of such a phenomenon before and my first reaction was "come on, you can't be serious". I am no pundit in child psychology, or any psychology for that matter and hence found the concept of boys under the age of five showing strong signs of wanting to be a girl (trans gender, as I learned) rather bewildering.

The story on day one was about two boys who showed "symptoms" of wanting to be girls from the age of two. These "symptoms" included playing exclusively with "girl" toys (dolls instead of trucks), obsessing about the color pink (and other "girl" colors such as lavender), socializing exclusively with girls, wanting to be dressed as a girl etc. Once this behavior became very obvious to the parents, they (the kids) were taken for therapy to two different doctors that were of opposite schools of thought.

The parents of child A were very accepting of their son become their daughter - they were convinced that this was necessary because being a girl and being treated like one was what made A happy, and brought out the life in "her". They were convinced that A was a girl trapped in a boy's body and this was the essence of A. The child's doctor advised the parents that this was in the best interest of the child.

The parents of child B on the other hand, were counseled by their son's doctor that the best approach was to immediately stop encouraging behavior that would result in more gender confusion - i.e. remove all girl toys, no pink, actively encourage socializing with boys. B was traumatized by this, but he did make a few friends who were boys, cooperated in being separated from his toys. At one point, his mother said that B's biggest weakness was pink - whenever he saw pink he would cover his eyes because he could not resist pink.

A's doctor thinks B's doctor's approach is inhuman. B's doctor's justification? He contends that as B grew older, his psychological gender would clash with what the hormones would do. This could make him a social outcast, prevent him from having a relationship with neither a male nor female. Moreover, children often change their minds on who they are - i.e. as B grew up, there was a possibility that he might be comfortable being a boy. Very interesting debate ...

However, it was interesting to note that these stories were all about boys that wanted to be girls, not vice versa. Hmmm... Is transgender-ness like sexual orientation - natural rather than cultivated, if unintentionally? The metric of measuring transgenderness seemed to be playing with "girl" toys, liking "girl" things - which are defined by society. What do kids know about gender? Which brings us to the question - what makes a woman .woman and a man, man? Apparently anatomy has little to do with it.