7 year old boy/girl Jazz

In light of what we have discussed in lessons so far, i would say that the bulk of the lessons lie in the debate of Essentialism vs. Social Constructivism or in other words Nature vs. Nurture. Instead of elaborating on miscommunication between genders, i thought it would be more efficient if i just look into the issue of transgender. So while searching through youtube, i came across the video of a 7 year old boy, named Jazz, who supposedly wanted to be a girl at such a tender age. Jazz said that he has a girl brain inside a boy’s body, which prompts the thought that did such an idea came about naturally or was it due to social circumstances. Viewers might want to browse through the link with a pinch of salt for i cannot confirm the credibility of the video and whether it was all just a publicity stunt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S5usRgY720&feature=related

Let us assume that the kid Jazz was being upfront about the whole transgender issue, i shall look at how essentialism has its flaws in this issue. Born with equal amount of male genes as any of his male counterparts of his age, why is it that Jazz bore such drastic rejection of his own sexuality? With the same biology complex as any male, why does Jazz insist that he was born with a female brain? I doubt that it is the work of any haywire genes flowing in his body, and definitely not because some stray oestrogen has entered his body, thus influencing his mindset. In this context, essentialism doesn’t account for what is going on through the brain of young Jazz.

Now let us once again assume that Jazz was brought up under normal circumstance and he was in no way forced to think about being a transgender by his relatives, i shall be critical to the social constructivism approach. At such young age, i highly doubt that most kids can even comprehend the differences between genders, and how the genitals serve to identify their own sexuality. Thus i can say that it is safe to assume that social dynamic is unable to leave such an impression on the kid, which leaves the upbringing of the child into question. The influence of female family members is highly unlikely to invoke such a reaction, for it is a common sight in any nuclear family. Thus we can abolish the thought that transgender can arise from female influence or admiration. However what if Jazz was brought up by his parents to think that he was suppose to be a girl, would such an environment be the main culprit in this mind boggling case. I have no way of asserting the validity of such a claim, hence in my next post i will touch on this issue and answer any doubts.

This topic might have gone tangent from the communication issues between genders but i thought that it was an interesting point in gender issues. I believe that this should provoke some ideas that not all gender issues can be answered by the two methods mentioned earlier. Below is the link of the website created to raise awareness of transgender issue.

http://www.transkidspurplerainbow.com/index.htm

P.S. I'm having trouble posting links... blogging is not my cup of tea after all..