Changing the body to match the mind is increasingly the accepted way of doing things, but the medical professional has been dragging its feet. Margaret Griffiths, who runs Mermaids, a support group for families of sex-change children, managed to get treatment for her son when he was 14. He had harboured doubts about his sexuality since he could not remember, but did not tell his parents until his early teens. By the time of the treatment his voice had begun to break a little bit, but it made an enormous difference. It took the pressure off, but I'm certain he would have done much better at school if he had been treated younger.
Kids can be so nasty.
It was better to have a live daughter than a dead son. The treatment is controversial but parents have to live with the distress of their children and they want psychiatrists to stop being cautious about it. She is campaigning to widen the availablity of treatment and receives up to eight inquiries a week from parents of children unhappy with their gender. He exhibits all the signs of cross-gender behaviour. Other affected young people say they have been left to suffer because some psychiatrists remain reluctant to treat them.