Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Sadie Frown of the Week: Parents Signing Young Children Up For "Gender Reassignment"

In our world, it's trendy to say a great many things that simply aren't true. It's seen as normal for a mother can enlist a doctor's help in murdering her unborn child. So I guess the sort of control over children's bodies that is being reported in India isn't that far of a stretch. After all, if you can kill your child, why shouldn't you be able sign on the dotted line for a little (major) surgery?

The logic is mind boggling in both cases, and falls apart after anything more than a cursory glance and yet... everyday women kill their children. And according to recent reports, in India, families who feel the pressure to have a boy are signing their small children up for sex change operations. Here's the report:
"...Wealthy parents from Delhi and Mumbai are reportedly flocking to Indore, a city in the centre of India, for the relatively low cost £2,000 treatment to surgically 'correct' their daughters..."

"...Seven genitoplasty experts in Indore boasted each of them had turned 200 to 300 girls into 'boys' so far, with only one being older than 14, the legal age of consent to such an operation..."

Read the entire article here.

h/t Creative Minority Report
As I read more and more articles lately claiming that sexual identity is entirely a social construct (did you hear about the Swedish preschool that banned the words "him" and "her"?), I can't be entirely surprised by this newly reported form of evil. After all, if all that matters is how we're treated, than it shouldn't matter if we're born male or female. Another myth, but a myth that is rather trendy at the moment. This article shows that not only is the logic untrue, it's dangerous.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if every child was welcomed into their mother's arms, regardless of gender, without the risk of being aborted for whatever reason? I have to say, being all of eight weeks pregnant, that I'm already tiring of the "I hope you have a boy" comments I've been getting a couple times each day. That is, apparently, the standard reaction to seeing a woman with two little girls who is pregnant.

I would love to have a boy. I would love to have another girl. But what I'm really praying for is a healthy baby for Sadie and Mae to dote on. Is that really such an odd wish these days? Are we really so desperate to control everything about our bodies and our lives that we're willing to murder our children and mutilate the ones who are allowed to be born?

The main difference I see between India and the US is that in India the families can't have ultrasounds to see if the baby is a girl and abort it. If a family in the US doesn't want another girl, they can find out and have it "taken care of..." After all, it's the mother's body and the mother's "choice." It seems so easy, for some, to forget, or ignore the fact that the body that's ripped apart isn't her body and the life that's lost isn't hers to take.

13 comments:

  1. Oh, that is so heartbreaking. Just when I was beginning to believe in the good in people again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can't say I'm surprised, unfortunately.

    It is things like this, abortion, etc., that make me think armageddon can't be far off.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow. I'm almost speechless. Can you imagine the kinds of issues those girls-turned-boys are going to have as adults? And what about future marriages and the desire for children they might have as adults--- is that even possible for them? Yikes.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That's awful! Having two boys, I heard 'I hope this one's a girl constantly during this last pregnancy. When our third son arrived a lady at church said, 'A boy? Oh well, you'll love him anyway.' some people just don't get it!

    ReplyDelete
  5. That's absolutely horrifying that people are forcing their child to undergo a surgery to change gender. Don't they realize that their child won't really be a male after a surgery if she is genetically a female? I feel so badly for those poor children who have been put through this.

    ReplyDelete
  6. *bangs his head on the desk* When I thought the world couldn't get any dumber. We're all aware that children aren't vanity items, right?

    ReplyDelete
  7. It's so sad that women are still so undervalued in society that it's seen as better to KILL them before they're born. And then people wonder why in some parts of the country there's nearly 150 men for every 100 women.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is incredibly disturbing. I read the article and I really think that this isn't so much about gender being a cultural construct, as the fact that the mentality of parents who elect to perform this surgery is that men are more economically valuable than women. In the minds of these particular parents, gender differences are real, and being male is more advantageous than being female. If they could just change a girl into a boy by treating her that way, then why have the surgery to begin with?

    It's really sad that these parents don't recognize the value of both sexes, their equality (not sameness) and complementarity, and the value of every person God makes, no matter what material good they can bring to their family. God makes each person with so much more in mind, and this story breaks my heart.

    I can totally see how this story would have feminists, Christians, and anyone with an ounce of common sense deeply disturbed.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi Hannah-

    I definitely agree on the cause. The part that reminded me of all the "gender neutral" articles that have been popping up lately was the interview with a parent who said that they believed the children would be fine because they wouldn't remember what had happened. The implication is then that gender is purely a result of how we're raised...

    I can't imagine how these girls are going to turn out...

    ReplyDelete
  10. That's true. I hadn't thought about that part. I was just thinking about how they're also pumping them full of hormones (can you imagine how the 'rents will explain that to their kids?), but still, there even with all the artificial physical changes that happen, the child still has a female soul. No human can change that. :(

    ReplyDelete
  11. What about Andrej Pejic issue?
    I dont know how i'm mean to think/feel about that......

    Google Daily Mail Andrej Pejic

    ReplyDelete

I love comments and I read every single comment that comes in (and I try to respond when the little ones aren't distracting me to the point that it's impossible!). Please show kindness to each other and our family in the comment box. After all, we're all real people on the other side of the screen!