Helpful Links
TYFA - Trans Youth Family Allies

TransKids Purple Rainbow Foundation . .--Their Link Page

Transgender Children, Transsexual Children, Parents of TG Children

From Magazines and Newspapers
Understanding Transgender Children CBS News

A Boy's Life - from the Atlantic

We do this - to fight ignorance and help people find peace with who they or family members are. It is so much better to be understaqnding and accepting than to have a mind filled with negative concepts.
If you need a reminder of what some people think and why we are trying help, click this link for one example of ignorance and hate. It should make us even work harder to provide information for understanding.

Why can't we all just get along?
- - Rodney Glen King

From the February 6, Journal Gazette.
Shield sought for gender ID, genetics by Benjamin Lanka 

A person’s gender identity and genetic information could soon be protected under Fort Wayne’s human rights ordinance.
Councilwoman Karen Goldner, D-2nd, submitted a bill Friday to amend the law protecting people from discrimination.
Most notably, it would add gender identity to the protected classes locally. Goldner said the bill would put gender identity into the same category as sexual orientation, which is already protected under the law.
People who believe they have been discriminated against by a business based on sexual orientation can petition the city’s Metropolitan Human Relations Commission to investigate the complaint. The business can agree to a voluntary mediation process, but if the business rejects it, the process ends.
Gender-identity complaints, dealing with people who identify with a gender other than the one they were born as or who don’t conform to traditional gender roles, would be handled the same way.
Goldner said she has received support and opposition to the proposal, which she believes will be rarely used. She said it doesn’t provide special privileges to anyone but only ensures people are treated fairly.
“All of us are to be judged based on our skills, ability and work ethic,” she said.
The genetic information section follows the federal law preventing companies from using a person’s genetic information to discriminate. For example, Goldner said it would prevent an insurance company from denying health insurance to a woman who was found to have a gene linked to breast cancer.
She said the federal law was supported overwhelmingly and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission wants local ordinances to be similar to federal law. Goldner said she has received no public opposition to that section.
Adding the section locally also benefits residents and businesses that won’t have to go to Indianapolis to resolve complaints.
A separate section of the bill also allows Metro to investigate disability discrimination complaints without forcing people to prove they are disabled. Goldner said this section was done to comply with current federal practice.

We are hearing that there is increasing protest emails being sent to council people about this protection. We have read one, and it contains a lot of misinformation and ignorance about what this would mean to the ordinance and how it would protect people. PLEASE contact your Fort Wayne City Council person and the three at large members to let them know how you feel about this. If we do not spread the positive word - the lives of many people in Fort Wayne will continue to suffer discrimination and harassment. This is comming up very soon and there is little time to spare.

Helping to Understand Youth & Others with Gender Identity Issues

This page is to help inform to bring about better understanding about individuals, sometimes called people with transgender issues. We want to empower children and families to develop supportive environments in which gender may be expressed and respected and help build a society free of suicide and violence in which ALL children are respected and celebrated. Gender Identity Disorder is something a child can't control and it is society that needs to change, not them.

PFLAG-Fort Wayne is working with transgender issues. It is pretty easy to understand gay and lesbian issues, but understanding transgender takes a little more time. We are taking the time and hope we can make a difference. This page is just a start. It will grow as we learn more, help more people and learn from them.

We suggest you check out TYFA - Trans Youth Family Allies and we will put up more information as we build our own understanding.

From the moment we're born, our gender identity is no secret. We're either a boy or a girl. Gender organizes our world into pink or blue. As we grow up, most of us naturally fit into our gender roles. Girls wear dresses and play with dolls. For boys, it's pants and trucks.

But for some children, what's between their legs doesn't match what's between their ears -- they insist they were born into the wrong body. They are transgender children, diagnosed with gender identity disorder, and their parents insist this is not a phase.

'I'm a Girl' -- Understanding Transgender Children - Parents of Transgender 6-Year-Old Girl Support Her Choice - - Go to the ABC News story

Since he could speak, Brandon, now 8, has insisted that he was meant to be a girl. This summer, his parents decided to let him grow up as one. His case, and a rising number of others like it, illuminates a heated scientific debate about the nature of gender—and raises troubling questions about whether the limits of child indulgence have stretched too far.
Read more from the Atlantic.