what do you guys think of this - just curious

cameragirl21 wrote: ok, so i watched this show on TLC (i think) that's called my unique family or something like that and it was about a mom and dad and two kids, where the dad decided to become a woman and went transgender, taking female hormones, getting a ton of expensive plastic surgery, putting on makeup, changing his name from Jeff to Jennifer (oy, i can so do without that name association), etc.
and the kids went from calling him daddy one day to deedee (sp?) the next.
the mom is still married to him and they are still a unit.
as liberal as i am, i found this a bit shocking and feel it's selfish to put your kids through something like that. not to mention your wife and the whole family in general.
Jeff turned Jennifer explained that while s/he knew it was selfish, s/he felt that the best way to have a happy family is if everyone is healthy and whole and for him that meant becoming a she.
idk, like i said, as lefty as i am, i found this disturbing.
anyone else have thoughts on this, other than you're glad it didn't happen to you...?

redplaydoh replied: My thought are that it is completely selfish and not fair to those children. The world is confusing enough for kids without adding something that drastic to the family unit.
Saying this, I have nothing against a person changing their gender. I had a wonderful friend Mindy that was born male but honestly needed to become a female which she did. She was an awesome person that sadly died from Hepatitis. This was not related to her surgery but an unfortunate exposure.

But being a parent, it is my job to help my kids in life and to shelter them from things they aren't mature enough to handle. IMO this would be one of those things. As a parent, we give up willingly many things for our kids. I put my kids first before my needs all the time. He could've waited IMO until the kids were grown.

CantWait replied: Ya I'm a little liberal as well. Totally confusing for the kids I say. That being said though, I don't see anything wrong with gays having children, I just think in this certain kind of situation it's got to be completely confusing for the children, and not fair for the other spouse.

Calimama replied: It's probably scarring the children. I don't think most parents believe that what you do, how you handle relationships, and how you live life everyday make a HUGE impact on your children. Some of those impacts can be quite negative and have affects on the child as an adult. IMO I feel that was putting his/her (whatever ha) best interests before their children. I find that sad.

HuskerMom replied:
That sounds like he was only thinking of himself, did he honestly think that it would make his kids happy? Sounds like he was just doing what made him happy and then expected his family to deal with it. I'm not a liberal and I think that is disturbing and selfish.

Paprikash replied: When I was in law school I practiced in the school's legal clinic, which provided services at no cost. One of my clients was a pre-operative transsexual who had custody of "her" two children. She was a good "Dad" and the kids were surprisingly well adjusted. They still called her Dad. I think kids have a surprising amount of resourcefulness and to say they would automatically be scarred by such an experience is too black/white.

DansMom replied: Ah, Jennifer---I too consider myself to be far-left liberal and progressive on social issues, and yet find gender alteration disturbing on some level. Possibly it disturbs me that someone can be that unhappy with their body that they would take hormones and have surgery to change it. I'm also grossed out by most cosmetic plastic surgery people have done for other reasons (unless it's to correct a serious deformity, it seems sad to me). There are also parents who support their very young children in the decision to go to school as the opposite gender. I'm troubled by it---still investigating how I feel and why.

Nina J replied:
I agree (not about the law school thing though ) I'm not Jennifer's wife or children, so I don't know how they'd be feeling. And, I've never been in that situation, so I don't know what it would be like. I think it is a bit selfish, but it would've been selfish to make Jeff not be able to do what he wanted.

stella6979 replied: I've seen shows like this and unfortunately some people live their lives lying about who they are because they are scared to face the truth. I certainly wouldn't want to continue living as a woman if deep down I felt everything about me was male. Some people are born hermaphrodites and in some cases the parents decide to make a choice as to what sex they wanted to raise that child to be. In the end, it doesn't matter, you are who you are. I do think it's wrong that the children call him "Dee Dee" and I also think it's wrong to continue living as one big happy family, but I'm sure in time the kids will understand and if they love their Father they will accept it.

Kentuckychick replied: I am more moderate than anything, but when it comes to an individual being who they want to be (homosexuality, gender change operations, etc...) I see myself as completely liberal. I think that they should have the right to do with their lives whatever they need to do to be happy. I think that homosexuals can lead very happy lives and raise wonderful children and I know couples who are doing just that.

HOWEVER, in my honest opinion, that said this man made a decision when he married his wife and had children with her that he was going to be a heterosexual male, married to a woman, with children. I think what he's doing now is very disturbing because he made that choice. I do NOT believe that homosexuality is a choice, but I do believe that being someone you aren't is and I believe that he made the choice to be someone he wasn't and he should have backed out before he brought so many people into that choice with him.
That said, I have a good friend who is gay, was married once and has two children. He's divorced now and in a long term relationship. He feels horrible about the situation, still loves and has a good relationship with his ex wife as a person and adores his kids (they adore him too). He was living at a period in our world when he did not feel like he could be who he was.

Perhaps the problem isn't so much with the people, but with our society.

I haven't seen the show in question, but perhaps the family is happy. Perhaps the wife still loves the husband regardless of whether he's a man or not. Perhaps the children have had a long time to come to terms with this. Perhaps it wouldn't be as difficult as we make it out to be if you really love someone.

I just think we should all take a lesson from this in raising our kids to be a more accepting future generation so that no one has to feel the need to live a lie to begin with.

gr33n3y3z replied: I cant see how they can be a unit when you dont know which unit your with
I think its very disturbing and selfish.

Cece00 replied: I dont think that is fair to those kids. I dont think it was fair to his wife, either.

People like that know how they are when they are young...what business did he have getting married and having kids before he took on all of that (surgery, etc).

And as a wife, if that happened with my husband, you can bet we'd be getting a divorce

My3LilMonkeys replied: Well, I can see I'm definitely in the minority here - I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. I didn't watch the show, but I'm assuming the wife must have been happy about it or at the very least okay with it, or they wouldn't still be married. As long as they are happy, I say good for them. As for the children, I don't know how old they were or what their opinions on it were, but IMO they will probably adjust to it fairly easily. They've still got 2 parents who love them and that's really the most important thing.

mysweetpeasWil&Wes replied:
ITA!!!!!!!! We all have the right to make different decisions in our lives, even as full grown adults, it's called growing up. I truthfully don't think that adults stop the opportunity to "grow" as soon as we get married or have kids. I still feel that I have A LOT of growing to do and I hope (and encourage) my husband does too. I'm committed to my husband, but if deep down I felt that I were more happy as a man, well then I don't think that's selfish at all. Leaving them alone seems more selfish to me. I certainly disagree with the comment that he should have known this before getting married. I think it's just like divorce...You "grow" out of loving someone. Do you go into a marriage KNOWING you are going to get a divorce? Probably not. I really think the kids would suffer more if they didn't have BOTH parents there to nuture them, man and woman, or woman and woman. Like in the above post, having two parents who love them and LOVE EACH OTHER is the most important thing.

stella6979 replied:
Isn't that a little bit of a contradiction? You said this guy made a decision to be a heterosexual male when he married and had kids, but your friend did the same thing. How is it ok for one and not the other?

Kentuckychick replied:
Let me clarify because I think my post was a bit confusing. I don't think that what my friend did was okay... HE doesn't think that what he did was okay. He believes that the choices he made in his life, to be someone he wasn't, though the only he choice he felt he had at the time, was wrong and have had lasting negative impacts on people he loved even though they still love him. He was lying to everyone around him about who he was... that can't not create hard feelings in the end.

I was more or less making the point that regardless of what I think or believe it's so often our society that puts these individuals in this position to feel they have to act this way. It doesn't make it okay... but it happens and it needs to change (luckily we're headed in the right direction.)

I also whole heartedly disagree with the poster that compared this to a couple getting divorced. For one I don't believe that in situations of divorce the couple just "grows" out of love... I believe it's so often a WHOLE LOT more than that. I also know that in the case of my friend if you ask him... he will tell you he was never "in love" with his wife. He loved her like you'd love a best friend or a family member, not like you'd love someone you'd want to spend the rest of your life with and he knew all along that he was gay. It's wrong... he knew it was wrong. I don't know in the case of this man in the show, but I've also known men who've had gender change operations (I worked in a department store with two) the conversation came up one day... both are attracted to both sexes so either could easily have gotten married but BOTH knew at a VERY early age that they did not want to be men. I don't believe this is something this guy just decided. Neither of these individuals ever dated without being honest from the getgo... amen.

Again, like I said... his family may be perfectly fine with it, I'm sure they still love him... but it is a bit disturbing. However there are so many worse things in this world and we can't say the effects it will have on the children until it's all said and done.

cameragirl21 replied: let me also add this to the mix...and maybe this is more in line with the P and I board but i'll try to explain it in g rated terms--Jeff turned Jennifer plans on getting his/her testicles removed so that s/he no longer has to take female hormones. in case anyone is not aware, testicles are what allow the formation of testosterone and without this, there can be no, um, rising in areas. that said, the wife, named Chris, said that they do have a life in the bedroom and Jeff turned Jennifer's decision to remove some of his anatomy will quickly change that and s/he is considering removing the final remnant in the future and getting what his wife was born with.
bearing in mind that Chris is not gay and likes men...and she said that she's not sure what the future holds for them if Jeff turned Jennifer goes forward with these decisions regarding his private anatomy.
so yes, i do think it's selfish and i don't see how the family can be a happy family this way...do you?
also, it's not the same as a parent suddenly realizing s/he is gay...because even though it is a dramatic change the fact remains that the father or mother still remains the father or mother and doesn't turn into a deedee or something to that effect.
i really don't know how any kid can go through this with his/her family and not need years of therapy afterward.

Kirstenmumof3 replied: That's bizzare and I agree that it was wrong to put his children and wife in that position. Had he wanted to become a women he should have left his family and then proceeded with the change.

stella6979 replied:
I don't think he needed to leave his family if he wanted the change, but I also don't think living together as one big happy family is right either.

cameragirl21 replied:
the thing is that the majority of transgender individuals usually realize it by the time they're teenagers, usually sooner and they make this change long before there is a wife and children in the mix.
to make this decision at the age of 40 something after fathering two children is ludicrous IMO.
maybe i'm being unsympathetic but the way i see it, he lived as a man for over 40 years...what's 40 or so more?
most true transgenders would never entertain the idea of having a straight marriage and fathering/mothering children, they are repulsed by who they are from very early on and itch for that change.
once you're a dad or mom, i don't think you have the right to put your family through this.
i also think his wife should have left him and found a normal male figure to marry (a stepdad for the kids) so they wouldn't have to be subjected to this.

jcc64 replied: I'm not really sure how I feel about the whole thing. My default setting is of course to live and let live- if it's working for this family, who are we to condemn their decisions. Would it work for me if my dh suddenly turned from a Steve into a Stephanie? Gosh, I can't really answer that. He is my best friend, we've been together since we were kids- I don't know if I could just turn away from him because of a gender identity crisis. And I'm pretty sure kids would feel the same way- they love their parent unconditionally, as kids always do, and I agree with the poster that kids are more resourceful than we adults give them credit for. But it's also undeniable that there would be societal hurdles to overcome- judgments, prejudices, teasing and whatnot, and it would be incumbent upon the parents in this situation to prepare the kids in whatever way is necessary, if there is a way. But to allow other people's hang-ups to destroy an otherwise in tact family unit seems wrong to me. In the end, I'm not sure my ego as a woman could withstand the transformation across the board, and although I would want to continue to have a meaningful relationship, it probably wouldn't be as a husband and wife.
Is gender reassignment an inherently selfish decision when kids are involved? Of course it is- but in the same way, so is divorce. But that doesn't mean everyone in an unhappy marriage should remain tethered to a terminally unhappy relationship, just like a transgendered person shouldn't be obligated to suffer in an unhappy body. Like Tracy, I don't pretend to understand that mindset, but until you walk in their shoes, right?

stella6979 replied:
Oh, I agree with everything you said, but regardless of his decision, I still think he should be able to be a part of his children's lives. Just because he's decided to become a woman, doesn't mean he doesn't love his kids. He's still their parent and when the children are old enough to understand, they should be the ones to decide if they still want to see him or not. Of course, this is JMO.