Breaking New Ground for Transgender Children Ines Benitez - Inter Press Service
go to original November 21, 2013

“Half man, half woman”: a drawing by an eight-year-old girl from Aragón, Spain that shows her inner conflict before her family accepted her female identity. “The man part has a broken heart,” the little girl, who was born a boy, tells her mother. (Asociación Chrysalis)

MÁLAGA, Spain/BUENOS AIRES - While non-heterosexual orientation is punishable by death in some parts of the world, in others the right to choose one’s gender identity has begun to be respected from early childhood, giving rise to a new field of challenges.

Gabi was born six years ago biologically male, but dressed up as a princess and wore necklaces and long hair so that everyone saw a little girl instead.

“They aren’t children locked into the wrong body, but children born with genitals of the opposite gender than the one they identify with,” her mother, Pilar Sánchez, tells IPS in an interview in their home in the southern Spanish city of Málaga.

The brand-new green skirt of the girl’s uniform from the school Gabi attends with her two brothers, ages eight and 13, has hung in a closet unused since September. The school won’t let her dress as a girl, in infringement of regulations set by the government of the region of Andalusía.

Gabi’s mother and the families of two other transsexual children, ages eight and nine, who also attend Málaga schools, asked the Andalusía government to ensure that their children are called on in class by the names they go by, which reflect their chosen gender identity; that they are allowed to use uniforms and other clothing that reflects their gender identity; and that they can use the bathroom they feel comfortable using.

Two schools lashed out at the government’s decision, which was favourable to the families. But not Gabí’s school.

Read the rest at Inter Press Service

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