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PageOneQ ALSO SEE: Mother of transgender child: All kids deserve an education In two clips, broadcast on February 12 and 13, Fox News' Neil Cavuto expresses his opinion, in response to one Colorado school's move to accommodate a transgender second grader, saying that the situation is robbing the students of their childhood at taxpayer expense. "Can we just respect childhood enough not to put them through this nonsense at this age?" he asks. Child psychologist Jeffrey Gardere calls for more schools to be sensitive to the needs of children with gender dysphoria, but Cavuto disagrees that such accommodations should be made in the sight of children as young as the Colorado student; he feels that they are being made more at the expense of the majority of students, rather than for the equal benefit of the minority. "What we're finding out," contends Gardere, "is that these kids get these gender dysphoria issues as young as four, five, six years old; they believe that they were born into the wrong body." "We live in a country where majority rules," counters Cavuto. He worries about what parents of the "other 99%" are going to have to tell their kids about, as he calls them, "Johnny who wants to be Jenna." "I think many kids can grow from knowing that there are children who lead a different lifestyle, who have these psychological and physiological issues," says Gardere. "You are robbing kids of their childhood," says Cavuto back to Gardere, "and forcing me as a dad to talk to my sons, sit them down and say, 'All right, now. Some boys like having that penis, now others don't.' And it's weird, doctor." Wednesday's segment includes viewer mail, largely mocking the student. Cavuto calls the situation "stupidity" and "too much damn tolerance," repeating his disagreement with the notion that the majority have to "bend over backwards" for their classmate. The clips, from Fox News' Your World, are available for viewing with this GLAAD call to action.

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Originally published on Thursday February 14, 2008.



