Gender dysforism syndrome is easily explained, but unfortunately uninformed people seem to discard this explation without any research, in favor of their own mistaken conviction. You make that mistake, and you're not the only one: that is exactly the problem. I have explained everything but you have simply read over it. Otherwise, you wouldn't write: "their anatomy isn't the problem, whatever is happening in their head is". You can't say that, you have no clue, with all due respect! It is actually the exact opposite of what you say: their mind isn't the problem, it's the anatomy that is. But apparently you seem to refuse to accept that.
How would you cure a genetic disorder with mental health therapy? That's like trying to make a dentist cure a patient who has leukemia: it isn't going to do any good. But hey, you haven't read all my explanations; for some reason, you don't want to.

You'd really rather stick with the witch hunt, in case of an epileptic, even if the scientific proof of the contrary was hitting you in the face?
Mutilation, for crying out loud...

I know you didn't use the word freak, mrs. Harmony. (I think I mistook you for Mrs Tulip, a while back, sorry).
But saying people with GID or GDS are to stay as they are, simply because what they are born with doesn't kill them, is saying that all people born with something that makes their life hell, but doesn't kill them, should suck it up in order to not bother other people! Tell that to parents of children born with a split upper lip, or polydactylia (too many finger and toes), or any other disfiguring or at the least very unpleasant innate disorder, who are suffering either physically or mentally because of it!
Should they simply stay the way they are instead of trying to remedy their problem, for no other reason that actually doing something about it is disturbing to others (especially when the disturbing is being caused by sheer ignorance, rather than real harm)?

Being born with six fingers on one or both hands used to cause a baby girl to be killed instantly after birth in ancient China, because the people firmly believed it was a terrible omen. Now having six finges doesn't kill you, unless you happened to be born in that time over there: it wasn't your extra finger, but the fact that you "disturbed" your fellow men at such an extend they killed you for it.
It's an example of how people can make a mountain out of a moleheap, and how they can make people who already are stuck with some problem cause it to get a million times worse, due to ignorance.
It doesn't matter what disorder it is, or wheter it on itself causes you harm: this is about how others make your life unnecessarily miserable because of it.
Jean-Paul Sartre, a great French philosopher, said it so correctly: "l'Enfer, c'est les autres". (Hell, that's the others). People don't need an actual Hell to make life hell to each other, they can do that very well without any help from Satan. Al they need is intolerance and ignorance.

In my country, when you enter the Civil Service, you get to swear an official oath to obey and follow the laws of your country at all times and in all circumstances, regardless of any other rules of behaviour that contradict it. You break that oath, you're tld to go find an other job.
If you don't want to touch meat, you don't go working in a meat factory: if you only want to obey Moses, you go to work in a Old Testament church, not in Civil Service. A Civil Servant is a servant of the Law of their country, and of nothing else.

I agree law suits wouldn't have been necessary: she should have been reprimanded or at the worst fired by her superior for not doing her job properly, and that's it. My guess is, it got out of hand because of the bad press it recieved. The City felt it had to patch up their blazon by making some sort of an example of her. Silly, really. They made it bigger than it's worth.
Is America a secular country, or is it a religious dictatorship, like Saoudi Arabia? I get the feeling Protestant Americans are becoming more and more fanatic. This woman now feels she's a Holy Martyr, while all she really is, is a bad civil servant who didn't do her job right. Firing her would have sufficed, as far as I'm concerned. That's what would have happened in my country. But the media have blown it out of proportion.

Sorry, mrs Tulip. Is there another lady called Tulip? I'llhave to go through the whole thread to know whom I've quoted, I thought I saw the name Tulip on top.

I am not necessarily talking about this particular person. I don't know enough about him/her. I am trying to explain the strange phenomenon known as Gender Dysforic Syndrome, or Gender Idendity Disorder. The ramifications of this syndrome are quite similar to hermafroditism and Agenesis, since they all 3 have the same cause: a dysforism between the gender of the brain and that of the body.
I am trying to explain that more knowledge about these disorders and others, would prevent much hardship for everybody.
The more you know about something, the better you are able to tell whether it is worth while to get all worked up about, or whether you simply are bashing a kid that's already cursed by being born with a very unpleasant disorder...
Right? It's easy to scream: yeah, they're all freaks! But that solve anything, really.
Babies can get born with four arms and four legs, or with one body and two heads. Nature CAN go wrong... it does happen. However, everybody can see there is something wrong with those babies: but that is only because the disorder is VISIBLE. Sometimes they are not; they are real nonetheless.
the rest of the people are mere "freaks" or comedians.

If you're not prepared to follow the rules and laws of your city and country, you shouldn't apply for a job at the community hall. If you want to take the rules of your religion over all other rules in the world, including those of your country, your town and those of other people, you should be a clerk in your own church and nowhere else. Who has the right of inflicting his own religious dogmas on other people? Nobody.
Is America a Protestant dictatorship, like the England of Cromwell? Your constitution is based on the accomplishments of the French Revolution: well, people like this clerk apparently don't know, or simply don't know it includes freedom, equality for all. (this includes freedom of faith, right? Why should the rules of one religion be imposed on everybody? It's totally contradictory to all the American Constitution stands for. I guess this person and all her fans have totally forgotten that.

Sorry, miss Tulip, Tourette and GDS are both about behavior. They have a lot in common: both are innate, uncontrollable (by the patient), and very disturbing for uninformed others. So are all dysfunctions that make a person behave in a way people don't expect others to behave, mainly "contradictory to their appearance".

I am not the one who used the word bigoted. But what you would not like to do can be to have to undress in the company of someone with a penis, but it can be just as well to have to be called all sorts of weird and unpleasant things in a very loud manner by a Tourette patient. So there too, there is no difference. Whatever you don't like depends on you, not on the patient you are facing. Some people aren't even accepting to allow people who are handicapped in some way; it all depends on their level of tolerance towards handicaps and disorders, and their level of knowledge about different handicaps and disorders.
I just above mentioned the phenomenon of hermaphroditism: that is, as I explained, a baby born with both a penis, testicles, a vagina, a uterus and ovaries. All on one baby. Now, do I ask you, would you say that is a girl or a boy? Is that baby two babies, inside one body? No, that is only one baby, with one gender. The other set is a Natural mistake. Only, which one? Nobody can tell, except the baby, who is too young. That is the proof that babies can be born with the wrong genitals. Sometimes the opposite happens: babies with agenesis are babies born with no genitals at all. Are those genderless babies? NO, they are either boys or girls, only, from the outside no one can see which. The only one who does know is the baby itself, and it will tell you after it's old enough to speak. Another proof that a penis, a uterus, all that stuff is just secondary, contrary to the center in the brain called BED Nucleus of the Stria Terminalus, a little part of the brain inside the Hypotalamus, which determines the actual gender of the baby. Usually, kids get genital organs that correlate with that gender, which is finished looooong before the body only starts developing (during pregnancy). When something goes wrong, causing a mutation or a genetic mistake, a child who's brain is female gets male organs, or the opposite. The brain can't be changed: the gender of the child is the very first thing that gets determined, at the second of its conception, depending on the spermcell of the father. You do know that, don't you? Well, that means whatever goes wrong afterwards is a mistake, and shouldn't be considered the only thing on which to determine the REAL gender of the child, as you do. (and most other people). Hermafrodite children, Agenese children and transgender children are all in the same position: they have been conceived as belonging to one gender or the other, and their body has decided to create the wrong genital organs (either two contradictory sets, or none at all, or the opposite type). All this happens before the child is born and therefor one can hardly blame the child.
Really, you don't say? Well, what I just explained above prooves it isn't all that simple, unfortunately...

This only tells me that you don't really grasp the meaning of the term "gender", since gender and sex are actually synonymous. There is only one gender: the one in the brain. Whatever is visible on the body is only secondary, and whether you have the correct set is rather a genetical Russian roulette: it can be either wrong or right. But it says NOTHING about your gender.

This again prooves you need information about the problem, just as anybody else, apparently. Feelings or emotions have absolutely nothing to do with this problem: it is genetic, not mental, and certainly not "emotional".
The problem with most people is that they focus too much on the exterior. "What you see is what you get" is an idiom that is not to be applied to the phenomenon of GDS. Not anymore than to Hermafroditism or Agenesis. The problem lies exactly in the fact, that you DON'T see what you get, but the opposite!
So, miss Tulip, a penis does not make a man, a uterus does not make a woman. Your gender is in your brain, not between your legs, and neither are anybody's. Life is not that simple.

Any man is a real man, and any woman is a real woman; and that is for the simple reason that there is no such thing as fake men and women, therefor all men and women are real.
Everything else is clich� or stereotyp!ng.
Simple as that.
All the qualities you quote aren't typical gender-related qualities, but individually related ones, undependent from gender.
That is the first lesson a young person should learn, in order to socialize among their peers without problems: learn to take everyone the way they are, and don't judge. It's a hard thing to do, but it is necessary.

Gender dysforism syndrome (the medical term for what is commonly named "transgenerism" and formerly, even more erroneously "transsexuality", although it has nothing whatsoever to do with sexuality) is a medical condition, genetic and inborn. It is not a matter of morals.
The fact that people feel "uncomfortable" around a person with this condition is the same as when unprepared people suddenly face someone with Tourette, or autism. All these conditions come with behaviour that can give cause to misunderstandings in uninformed persons.
Patients with Tourette see people get angry at them, or scared because of the unpredictable and unvoluntary outbursts of vocalisation, thinking they are getting abused or mocked. Yet, when you know this patient has no control at all over it, you understand there is no reason to take it that way!
Autists are often called stubborn, untreatable or retarded.
Now a girl, who much to her dismal was born with male organs, is taken for a boy with an exaggerated level of effeminate behaviour, which is "not normal".
She is bound to be taken for a boy, not a girl; as long as not everyone in the world is taught (at school, for instance) that the gender identity of a human being sits in the brain and not in the body, and a person can be of any gender undepending of their body parts, people will look at a person and judge him/her by the outside appearance. They will see a boy, and will insist on forcing that kid to behave like a boy, because they don't know they are making a mistake.
If they knew GDS is an innate genetic disorder of the type of hermafroditism (baby born with 2 complete but oposite sets of genitals, which in reality are only one baby, with only one gender -obviously-! but nobody knows which one, except the baby him/herself who's too young to tell, and the other set of genitals being a mistake of Nature), so long will people go weird around transgenders. In countries where morals are less influenced by fanatically intolerant religiosity, it will be easier; but it won't dissappear completely until everyone will be informed of the medical facts of this disorder.
In former centuries, people used to think epileptics were bewitched. Now everyone knows a spell of epilepsy is an electric short-circuit in the brain. We don't see the family of an epileptic patient looking around for someone in to blame for it and accuse them of witchcraft, and not rest until someone is burnt at the stake. We know that has been discarded as a definite mistake.

Therefore, my solution for the problems transgender kids face would be: education! Information! Explanation!
If everybody knows a transgender girl is a GIRL, and not a boy, nobody would mind she is allowed a girl's locker. Girls belong with girls, whatever their body is like. They haven't made it themselves, it's not their fault....
The same goes for transgender boys, of course.
Socrates said it already: Ignorance it the greatest evil.

Ik hoop dat je mij geen zeurpiet zult vinden, juffrouw, maar een meisje is onzijdig, taalkindig gesproken. Dus je moet schrijven "ik ben een meisje DAT graag" enzovoort.
Ik hoop dat je intussen uit je probleem bent geraakt en een hoop leuke ervaring hebt opgedaan ;-)

Aren't there... not scared
I'm not an electrician nor a mathematician, but don't two negatives make one positive?
So, is your question whether there ARE openminded lesbians who ARE scared of interracial dating?
If there are, and they are scared of it, how can they be openminded? And if they are openminded, isn't it probable they're NOT scared of it?

So, unless you refrase your question, if there are girls who answer "yes", they either don't realize what they've just said yes to, or they are real strange, contradictory characters... Do you get what I'm saying?

If you are wondering wether Belgians are afraid of interracial dating, I think the answer would be the same for either gay or straight girls AND boys: no, nobody's afraid of that. If they show no interest in you, it would be something else. Maybe they are afraid of culture differences, religious differences, language or something else. But "fear of interracial dating"? No. Maybe pure racism? Yeah, unfortunately we've got some of those just like everywhere. But that has nothing to do with fear.

If I was a lesbian girl, I wouldn't mind asking you over :-)
Good luck, girl

Het hangt helemaal van de individuele Belg af waarom hij trots is om Belg te zijn. Er is genoeg om trots op te zijn, en ja, dat kunnen frieten zijn, of bier, of chocolade, maar ook het Belgisch beeldverhaal en de Belgische mode-ontwerpers zijn in de hele wereld beroemd.
Je kan trots zijn dat Belgi� een democratisch land is, het centrum van Europa en een melting pot van culturen. Je kan trots zijn dat je in Belgi� kan zeggen wat je wil zonder dat de politie of ��n of andere paramilitaire spionagedienst je uit je bed komt lichten en in de bak gooit, zonder vorm van proces, en dat er nooit meer van je gehoord wordt, tenzij in de vorm van een verhakkeld lijk ergens, zoals in veel dictaturen.
Je kan trots zijn op de vele kunstenaars van vroeger en nu, niet alleen in Belgi�, maar uit Belgi� in de hele rest van de wereld. Op de Belgische keuken met ingredi�nten uit alle hoeken van het land.
Op de verscheidenheid van het klimaat en de geografie, dat maakt dat we op een zakdoekgroot landje zowel h�le hoge bergen en donkere bossen als glooiende weiden en een breed strand hebben. En zoveel verschillende microklimaten dat we zowel bier als wijn kunnen verbouwen en duizend-en-��n verschillende gastronomische specialiteiten, zoveel dat je normaal zou denken dat Belgi�, om dat allemaal te produceren, even groot zou moeten zijn als heel Europa tesamen. En dat allemaal op een postzegel.
Je kan trots zijn dat je in Belgi� het recht hebt om te zijn wie je bent, vrouw of man, homo of hetero, getrouwd of samenlevend, wettig of onwettig kind, en toch gelijke rechten hebt.
Dat de sociale zekerheid ervoor zorgt dat niemand hier echt sterft van de honger, of in elk geval in vergelijking met honderden andere landen de welstand hier enorm hoog is, terwijl de staatscontrole voorlopig bescheiden is. In veel andere landen moet de orde en wettelijkheid afgedwongen worden ten koste van een verstikkende staatscontrole, probeer maar eens een poos in Singapore te leven! Dat zou niks voor Belgen zijn. Zelfs Nederland of Duitsland is ons al te verstikkend.
Ik kan nog wel een poosje doorgaan. Er is echt meer dan frieten, lijkt mij. Al heb ik niks tegen frieten!

It all depends on you, not on the place you're in. For a person who's prone to grousing, anyplace is going to be a boring place full of unfriendly people.
For somebody who's so demanding on what's supposed to be "fun", there won't be many places on this planet that aren't boring.
Whether Brussels is clean or not, has nothing to do with 'boring' or 'fun'. That's not fair, nor logical. "Yeah, Belgium is boring, have you seen how dirty Brussels is?" I mean, where's the link between the cleanliness of a city and its fun potential? Seriously!
Brussels is dirty because it is full of people from all over the world, who speak a million different languages and do as they please, throw everything on the streets and never clean their houses. The real astate prices and rents are so unaffordable that everywher, people have to make do with the most terrible dumps and can't spare a eurocent for restoration.
Besides, you could have observed, if you had wanted, that where cleanliness and order is concerned, Brussels is an island in Belgium. Because it is the capital of Europe, it's a lot harder to govern than Flanders or Wallonie. But believe me, if you know where to look, there are a million of wonderful things to see and do there. Just by sitting and looking around at the littered streets and be grumpy is'nt very amusing, that is true.

There is something wrong with one who thinks everybody in Wallonie is friendly and everybody in Flanders is jealous or ignorant! People who think like that will hate it anywhere, since they're generalizing too much.
Racists, you'll find them anywhere. Don't tell me there aren't any of those in Ireland or the UK!

It boils down on what you're expecting, really. If you want a country that's Monte Carlo, Broadway and Las Vegas at the same time, I've got sad news for you... there's no such place in the world.