Bournemouth teenager ‘should be allowed to have his sex change’ (From Bournemouth Echo)

Bournemouth teenager ‘should be allowed to have his sex change’

8:31am Tuesday 24th November 2009 in

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A 14-year-old schoolboy demanding a sex change should be allowed to go ahead with it.

That’s the view of a Poole resident who underwent gender reassignment in middle age.

The boy from the Bournemouth area, who dresses as a girl and wears make-up, desperately wants to change sex and is supported by his mum.

However the NHS does not allow youngsters to take hormone blockers until after puberty – although the Department of Health is reviewing the age.

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“I’m not an expert,” said the Poole woman, who as a four-year-old boy knew he should have been a girl, and later underwent 10-years of gender reassignment ending in surgery.

“I don’t think age is an issue. People don’t make it up. They know. If his parents are okay with it then the sooner the better. Then he can get on with the rest of his life.”

She said: “He will have to prove he can live in that gender. That’s a good test. If you can get through all of that it could take two or three years.”

The schoolboy’s mum, who has two other children, said he had wanted to be a girl since the age of two and had twice tried to commit suicide.

His secondary school will not allow him to wear a girls’ uniform – so he wears make-up and bangles with his uniform.

Cllr Tony Woodcock, cabinet portfolio holder for children’s services, Borough of Poole, said it was a very difficult and sensitive issue for everyone.

“It will be very difficult for the head teacher to deal with,” he said.

Without knowing the individual, it was difficult to judge if 14 was too young for a sex change, he said. “People are complex. You can be really adult in one respect and totally childish in another. It’s basically an individual case.”

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