It’s ‘verbal abuse’ for mom to insist her 6-year-old son is really a ‘girl’
Whoever coined the phrase about sticks and stones breaking bones but words being harmless must have lived an isolated life. I’ve endured some painful physical events, not the least of which was giving birth. But some of the verbal attacks leveled against me have left emotional scars that still sting more than any physical scab. Words matter; words are powerful. Words can harm or heal. Who hasn’t been the victim of verbal assaults such as gossip or of outright invective? But one can also fall prey to a subtler form of verbal abuse: an inappropriate suggestion. A Mother Who Wants Her Son to be Her Daughter Six-year-old James, a first-grader living in Texas, is on the receiving end of repeated suggestions from one of the two most influential persons in his life—his mother—that he really is a girl . And many, I included, argue that James’ mother’s repeated suggestions are inappropriate and harmful. James was born as a boy, fully, completely, biologically male—just as was his twi