This is one of the most disturbing articles I have read on this subject. It couldn't be more misguided and myopic. Clearly Holder, the author, doesn't have any knowledge or education on the matter of cross-dressing and homosexuality. The two are not directly related. Maybe before writing on the subject she should do a bit of actual research. There is volumes of information out there for anyone interested in actually learning about the subject. The strategy Holder suggests "Tell you kids its wrong and make them comply" is the absolute WORST policy one can take! Why is Holder, and our society in general, so threatened by children wanting to dress as the other sex? There is absolutely NO research that shoes that child-led cross-dressing play leads to homosexuality or transgender behavior later in life. What is so damaging about accepting a child's natural curiousity and not making them feel ashamed of it???? This is a perfect example of demonizing healthy expression due to irrational fears. Please, please stop preaching this lunacy until you've actually built a basis of knowledge!!!

Here is one more reason parents should heed the advice of Dr. Raymond Moore, BETTER LATE THAN EARLY, and not send their kids to kindergarten.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be Roy Rogers. Not like him, I wanted to be him, I had no understanding at that age about the fact I couldn't be male. I don't know if I even understood male and female at thst age. I have grown up to be a not frilly but feminine woman. I have NO gender problem now. I think kids have to get to an age where they understand the permanence of sexuality or gender I guess is the word. I still prefer jeans and t-shirt for casual wear but I enjoy dressing up for special events...

"The same goes for girls who have a hankering for sporting boyish bobs and clothing." Perhaps I went to school in a weird era (late 1970s, early 1980s), but hasn't it been status quo for decades that young girls can wear "boyish bobs and clothing?" I seem to remember lots of bowl cuts, and many young girls wore t-shirts and jeans when I was in elementary school. It would seem this is really only a policy change concerning young men.

I have to wonder long it will be until the intelligentsia gets tired of waiting for 10 percent of us to get it and starts selecting and directing first graders. I see this cross dressing and gender selection for these youngsters to be the first step in that orientation strategy. Outlandish? Don't think your little first grader that they have been selected to be gay? Hardly. Look what's happened in 4 decades.

-I- deny it is mysterious. Have you ever read what God has to teach us in Romans 1?

I went to the linked article (in the New York Times), and I found two things about it particularly troubling (I found the whole concept troubling, of course). First, the article mentioned that the Los Angeles Unified School District was working to make bathroom and locker room facilities available to students that correspond to their chosen gender identity. Unless these children are allowed to use completely separate facilities (unlikely), the result will be not just the accomodation of an odd request by an individual, but a violation of the privacy of other students. An acquaintance of mine who was at grad school had a somewhat similar experience. The restroom closest to her was a unisex restroom, so she knocked on doors and got all the men in her part of the building to agree not to use that restroom while she was using it. The plan backfired, however, when a gay student insisted that she had no right to ask him not to use the restroom at the same time, since he was not sexually attracted to her. But the point was not HIS sexual attraction, but rather HER comfort level; as a heterosexual woman herself, she was obviously upset by the prospect of sharing a bathroom with members of the other gender - whatever their sexual orientation. Imagine, then, taking this kind of confusion and introducing it into elementary schools. Children should be able to expect to feel safe and comfortable in a bathroom or locker room - not worrying about the "gender identity" of a classmate. What also concerned me was the tone of the article. It presented "two sides" to the issue - one that would encourage very young children to act like whatever gender they identified with at the time, and one that would encourage such children to be content with their genetic gender - but only for the time being, in order to postpone the "gender decision" for adolescence. There was no mention of the very large segment of the American population who believe that gender is fixed and that children need to be supported in finding ways to "live in their own skin," so to speak - not only in childhood, but through adolescence and into adulthood. (Besides, since when has adolescence ever been a good stage of life to make a momentous and life-changing decision?)