Jack Becomes Jackie

When you are born the doctor looks at your plumbing and checks a box on the birth certificate, M/F, and that's what you are. Most of the time that's fine, boys have penises, girls have vulvas. Our society is ordered along gender lines, roles are determined by the gender of an individual, boys do this, girls do that, men do this, women do that. It matters, in other words, what box the doctor checks, it has a lot to do with who you are. But sometimes they get it wrong, there is not a hundred percent correspondence between gender and genitalia.

Unfortunately the little person is not in a position to say, Hey, doc, you put your checkmark in the wrong place. Gender roles are learned, as you grow up you are taught, directly or by implication, how you are supposed to behave, what you are supposed to like, how you are supposed to look -- there is a lot of supposing going on! But it turns out there is more to it than social learning, people have a real innate sense of who they are, we know personally whether we are boys or girls, and it does not always align with that pediatrician's first guess or with our visible physical apparatus.

This ABC News video follows a little girl in rural Ohio, originally thought to be a boy. The family has early video, and the news team spent, they say, months videotaping the family. This is an exceptionally good piece of video.



( Originally on ABCNews.com. )

I find it easy to identify with that old hippie grandfather, who thinks it might be a little crazy for a kid to make such a decision, but the parents make even more sense. The dad was thinking they'd go fishing, play catch, well girls fish and play catch but it's not going to be like he thought. He seems like he can handle it, though. In fact, it looks like the whole town can handle it. Take twelve minutes, watch this, it will help you understand some things better.