A generation ago, my music teacher had a sex change

[teach1st]

A generation ago, my music teacher had a sex change
St. Petersburg Times, 3/4/07, by Scott Keeler

With Largo ousting City Manager Steve Stanton after his revelation that he's preparing for a sex change, my thoughts drift back to the summer of 1971 and an uncomfortable discussion around our dining room table.

My father broke the news to me. Paul Grossman, my music teacher at Cedar Hill Elementary School in Basking Ridge, N.J., would not likely return to the classroom that fall.

...

In disbelief, I asked my father, who was the high school principal and acting school superintendent, could a person really change sexes? My father explained that it was medically possible and that Grossman would probably lose his job because people in town were not yet ready to accept this change.

And 36 years later, I wonder, will they ever be? Some people are still prone to the same sophomoric jokes my grade-school buddies so enjoyed more than three decades ago. The educators and adults in my community, including my own father, let pass the opportunity to teach tolerance and acceptance, and everyone was the worse for it.

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[Heidi]

1. Recommended.

Thank you for posting this.

[POAS]

2. A generation ago many of us here

protested a war. We all thought we made a difference and yet.....

[druidity33]

3. K&R

A good article. Well worth the read.

[soothsayer]

4. I'm a lesbian who struggles to understand trans gender issues. I

guess I see gender as pretty much (but not entirely) a false construct, and since in today's world I can do pretty much anything a man can (I don't have to stay home in the kitchen, or whatever women used to do, lol) I don't see what it means to be a man or be a woman. Granted, if I were a man I'd automatically get more respect, and there's a good chance I'd get higher wages as a man, and it sure would be easier to get my hands on all kinds of women----but I don't think any of those things would happen if I were a man as a result of a sex change. I know lots of men-turned-women who continue to date women----becoming lesbians, in essence---so I guess it's not about sexuality (it's not "I'm really a gay man, but if I have a sex change then dating men will be 'normal'" kind of thing). So I know I'm missing something key here about what it means to 'feel' like a woman or man. But I worry that sex changes are just feeding some underlying psychological problem that could be addressed through talk therapy instead of what seems like mutilation. I dunno. I feel for these folks because damn you have got to be in misery to go to for that extreme solution, but I'm not getting what they're thinking/feeling. Gotta' read up on it I guess.

[morningglory]

5. I feel deeply for those gender-messed up people who were born one way

and doctors changed them to a different sex, like the one where the doctor accidentally cut the penis off a baby during circumcision, so, no problemo, we'll just change him to a girl. That is just tragically stupid. But I don't understand the lesbians who change to men and then still live with and sleep with the lesbian they were with all along. I can understand their desire to become a man, but what does it say about the lesbian who stays with them? Now they are attracted to a man? Would like to understand. Please explain.