Social media is in an uproar again today. The story of an 8-year-old transgendered boy, Joe Maldonado, being asked to leave his New Jersey Cub Scouts troop has everyone talking. When I first heard the story, I thought it was a no brainer. Of course, I’m the same person who found and pointed out, serious flaws in the proposed LGBT elementary school in Georgia.
Of course, everyone wants to choose a side when it comes to LGBT issues. We all have an opinion on where the LGBT community fits in with the rest of society. I myself, being a bisexual woman, recognize that we have a come a long way as far as acceptance and human rights. However, I think in some ways, things have gone too far.
While I’m 100 % for people living an authentic life, not being forced to be someone or something they are not; I find a serious problem in children being allowed to make decisions that not only affect them but how they are treated and viewed. Children go through phases. They play with toys we don’t think they would like, they sing songs we’ve never heard. While it is important that we encourage their individuality and interests, we must remember that they are children. As the adult, the parent, the person in the relationship with more knowledge and experience, it is incumbent upon us to make sure that we help guide them in the right direction.
By no means do I think heterosexual is the right direction. By no means do I think homosexuality is the right direction.n I think being yourself is what makes you happy. Moving towards your own happiness daily is the right direction. Herein lies the problem, what 8-year-old understands the term gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered the way adults do? These are terms that refer to a person’s sexuality and at the age of 8, that is the last thing any child should be worried about.
Growing up, children explore personalities, hobbies, interests and even their attractions to others. They do not label it. The adults around them do. Adults have become so used to societies labels that they don’t even realize how harmful they are to slap on a young child. We have a set idea of boy or girl toys, boy or girl clothes, boy and girl shows, and tend to start to label our children as we do the material items around us.
If your 6-year-old daughter loves playing with toy cars, it’s possible she will grow up to be a beauty queen and a mechanic. Your daughter playing with toy cars or liking sports doesn’t mean she is a tomboy or gay. It could mean that she’s a girl who likes ponies as much as cars, boys as much as balls. In two years she may stop liking everything she liked before. That’s how kids are.
So to me, the idea of taking a child as young as 8 and allowing them to make a life decision they are not old enough to even try to understand the ramifications of is just bad parenting. No, your 8-year-old transgendered daughter should NOT be allowed to join the Cub Scouts. For multiple reasons.
Just because you and your family have decided it’s ok little Jackie (not his real name) becomes John it does not give you the right to impose that lifestyle on other people’s children. Yes, it is possible that children may encounter transgendered people as they explore their own communities. It is very different to pass a transgendered person on the street, or see them in a restaurant, and personally being subjected to trying to understand a transgendered lifestyle at such a young age. You are now putting the other parents in a position of trying to explain to very young children they don’t understand and shouldn’t have to try to wrap their young minds around. What adults do is what adults do. Making the decision to change your sex or name, is the act of an adult.
Furthermore, you’re now forcing the Cub Scouts to change the way they operate. I can see separate bathrooms being requested by some of the parents. I’m sure at this age little Jackie/John still has his/her original sex organs, which means your transgendered “daughter” should have a female around to make sure no one does harm to her. After all, she is a girl in boy’s clothing.
The whole idea of someone needing to tell parents that if your little girl likes toys, clothes and shows you associate with boys, it’s okay. You can encourage her love of all things without trying to label her. Your little girl does not know if she is a boy trapped in a girl’s body, she just knows what she likes. Stop confusing these children.
