I went through what my Psychiatrist called a real life experience when I was 17. It involves living as your desired gender for a set period of time.
For me this was living as a women and for 1 year.
It might be worthwhile preparing yourself for your child living this way for the rest of their life.
I know that after my Psychiatrist said that the year was up I had already decided that this was the way I needed to be.
I guess in reality the sooner in life your child can start your transition the better chance they have to live a normal life.
Some good online resources are:
http://www.secondtype.com/young.htm
http://www.tsroadmap.com/early/earlyindex.html
http://www.tsroadmap.com/reality/index.html
http://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/needs.html
http://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/toc3.html
Plus a good book which is now free online
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Evelyn/Mom_I_need_to_be_a_girl.pdf
Also below is the particular section of the The Harry Benjamin standards of care for gender identity disorders that relates to real life experience:
The act of fully adopting a new or evolving gender role for the events and processes of everyday life is known as the real-life experience. The real-life experience is essential to the transition process to the gender role that confirms with personal gender identity. Since changing one's gender role has immediate profound personal and social consequences, the decision to do so should be preceded by an awareness of what the familial, vocational, interpersonal, educational, economic, and legal consequences are likely to be. Professionals have a responsibility to discuss these predictable consequences. These represent external reality issues that must be confronted for success in the new gender role. This may be quite different from the personal happiness in the new gender role that was imagined prior to the real life experience.
Parameters of the Real Life Experience. When clinicians assess the quality of a person's real-life experience in the new gender role, the following abilities are reviewed:
1. to maintain full or part-time employment
2. to function as a student;
3. to function in community-based volunteer activity;
4. to undertake some combination of items 1-3
5. to acquire a new (legal) first or last name
6. to provide documentation that persons other than the therapist know that the patient functions in the new gender role.
Real-Life Experience versus Real Life Test. Although professionals may recommend living in the desired gender as a step toward surgical assistance, the decision as to when and how to begin the real-life experience remains the person's responsibility. Some begin the real-life experience and decide that this often imagined life direction is not in their best interest. Professionals sometimes construe the real-life experience as the real life test of the ultimate diagnosis. If patients prospered in the aspired-to gender, they were confirmed as "transsexual," if they decided against continuing, they "must not have been." This reasoning is a confusion of the forces that enable successful adaptation with the presence of a gender identity disorder. The real-life experience tests the person's resolve, capacity to function in the aspired to gender, and the alignment of social, economic, and psychological supports. It assists both the patient and the mental health professional in their judgments how to proceed. Diagnosis, although always open for reconsideration, precedes a recommendation for patients to embark on the real life experience. When the patient is successful in the real life experience, both the MHP and the patient gain confidence in the original decision to embark on the path to the irreversible further steps.
Beard Removal for the Male to Female Patient. Beard density is a genetically determined secondary sex characteristic whose growth is not significantly slowed by cross-sex hormone administration. Facial hair removal via electrolysis is a generally safe, time-consuming process that often facilitates the real life experience for biologic males. Side effects are often discomfort during and immediately after the procedure, and, less frequently, hypo-or hyper pigmentation, scarring, and folliculitis. Formal medical approval for hair removal is not necessary; electrolysis may be begun whenever the patient deems it prudent. It is usually recommended prior to commencing the real life experience because the beard must be grown out to visible lengths so that it can be most easily removed. Many patients will require two years of regular treatments to effectively eradicate their facial hair. Hair removal by laser is a new alternative approach, but experience with it is limited.
And also the guidelines on Children with gender identity disorders:
# Children with Gender Identity Disorders
1. The initial task of the child-specialist mental health professional is to provide careful diagnostic assessments of gender-disturbed children.
1. the child's gender identity and gender role behaviors, family dynamics, past traumatic experiences, and general psychological health are separately assessed. Gender-disturbed children differ significantly along these parameters.
2. hormonal and surgical therapies should never be undertaken with this age group.
3. treatment over time may involve family therapy, marital therapy, parent guidance, individual therapy of the child, or various combinations.
4. treatment should be extended to all forms of psychopathology, not simply the gender disturbance.
# Treatment of Adolescents
1. In typical cases the treatment is conservative because gender identity development can rapidly and unexpectedly evolve. Teenagers should be followed, provided psychotherapeutic support, educated about gender options, and encouraged to pay attention to other aspects of their social, intellectual, vocational, and interpersonal development.
2. They may be eligible for beginning triadic therapy as early as age 18, preferably with parental consent.
1. Parental consent presumes a good working relationship between the mental health professional and the parents, so that they, too, fully understand the nature of the GID.
2. In many European countries sixteen to eighteen-year-olds are legal adults for medical decision making, and do not require parental consent. In the United States, age 18 is legal adulthood.
3. Hormonal Therapy for Adolescents. Hormonal treatment should be conducted in two phases only after puberty is well established.
1. in the initial phase biological males should be administered an antiandrogen (which neutralize testosterone effects only) or an LHRH agonist (which stops the production of testosterone only)
2. biological females should be administered sufficient androgens, progestins, or LHRH agonists (which stops the production of estradiol, estrone, and progesterone) to stop menstruation.
3. second phase treatments--after these changes have occurred and the adolescent's mental health remains stable
1. biologic males may be given estrogenic agents
2. biologic females may be given higher masculinizing doses of androgens
3. second phase medications produce irreversible changes
4. Prior to Age 18. In selected cases, the real life experience can begin at age 16, with or without first phase hormones. The administration of hormones to adolescents younger than age 18 should rarely be done.
1. first phase therapies to delay the somatic changes of puberty are best carried out in specialized treatment centers under supervision of, or in consultation with, an endocrinologist, and preferably, a pediatric endocrinologist, who is part of an interdisciplinary team.
2. two goals justify this intervention
1. to gain time to further explore the gender and other developmental issues in psychotherapy
2. to make passing easier if the adolescent continues to pursue gender change.
3. in order to provide puberty delaying hormones to a person less than age 18, the following criteria must be met
1. throughout childhood they have demonstrated an intense pattern of cross-gender identity and aversion to expected gender role behaviors
2. gender discomfort has significantly increased with the onset of puberty
3. social, intellectual, psychological, and interpersonal development are limited as a consequence of their GID
4. serious psychopathology, except as a consequence of the GID, is absent
5. the family consents and participates in the triadic therapy
5. Prior to Age 16. Second phase hormones, those which induce opposite sex characteristics should not be given prior to age 16 years.
6. Mental Health Professional Involvement is an Eligibility Requirement for Triadic Therapy During Adolescence.
1. To be eligible for the implementation of the real life experience or hormone therapy, the mental health professional should be involved with the patient and family for a minimum of six months.
2. To be eligible for the recommendation of genital reconstructive surgery or mastectomy, the mental health professional should be integrally involved with the adolescent and the family for at least eighteen months.
3. School-aged adolescents with gender identity disorders often are so uncomfortable due to negative peer interactions and a felt incapacity to participate in the roles of their biologic sex that they refuse to attend school.
1. Mental health professionals should be prepared to work collaboratively with school personnel to find ways to continue the educational and social