"I Ain't Got a Fever, Got a Permanent Disease, It'll Take More Than a Doctor to Prescribe a Remedy"

Hair Band Friday is reelin' and rockin' here in the office. I'm hammered off a combination of Stoli, PCP, and coke, all of which has only heightened my ability to do acute Lexis-Nexis research and write a memo about said research. Sandi, Lori, and Trudi are all fucked up on peyote, which has made for some pretty interesting pole dancing and some unbelievably weird conversations. Luckily for me, getting blown by three girls at once while doing online legal research doesn't involve a lot of talking. The music today has been off the chain. For instance, the last three songs have been "Bad Medicine" by Bon Jovi, "Girls Girls Girls" by Motley Crue, and "Shame Shame Shame" by Ratt. Meanwhile, Lexi, who just came back to the office after a one-month tour with another firm, is so happy to be back that she OD'd on speedballs, mumbling something about seeing her soul before passing out buck naked hunched over some bankers boxes full of documents clutching her vibrator, which is still on. I'd call 911 or something, but I'm -- ahem -- preoccupied, if you know what I mean. And if you don't know what I mean, then you need to experience Hair Band Friday for yourself. As the old Old Milwaukee commercial so aptly stated, "It doesn't get any better than this." Rock 'n' roll!

Here's one for the ages:

Just when you thought the state of Florida couldn't get any weirder, Ryan "Pissed Off and Rightfully So" Christoff sends me this article about a 5-year-old transgender kid (I only say "kid" because I'm not sure exactly what else to call shim -- from now on, instead of he, she, his, hers, him, her, or shim, when I'm referring to a gender pronoun, I'll go with "It"). Yes, it's true. Five-year-old Nicole Anderson (born Nicholas) of Broward County is a boy who dresses and carries Itself like a girl. Here's a precious little exchange from the article:

"What would you change about yourself?"
"Mm... my penis," Nicole murmurs.
"What would you do with it?" her mother asks.
"Um... cut it," Nicole replies, very softly.
"And what would you do with it then?" asks a surprised Lauren [the mother], who later says she's never before heard Nicole express dislike for her penis.
"I would hammer it," Nicole says.
"What?" Lauren says.
"Hammer it," Nicole insists more strongly.

. . . . .

Lauren was sitting at her computer working when 2-year-old Nicholas, who, like all the Anderson children, had a frank understanding of anatomy, came to her with a request: "I want the fairy princess to come and make my penis into a
vagina," he said.

I'm sorry, but what 2-year-old has a frank understanding of anatomy? What sick, twisted shit is going in the Anderson household? As if all this wasn't disturbing enough to make a hanging chad look like a hang nail, it seems that the parents of Nicholas/Nicole are not only content with, but are fully encouraging, Nicholas/Nicole's acting and dressing like a girl. "Experts . . . say the Andersons are the only family in the United States supporting a 5-year-old's choice to live as the opposite sex. This fall, the Andersons plan to enroll Nicole in a Broward County kindergarten class as a female. They are convinced that's the only way she'll be happy."

I'm certainly not meaning to come off as insensitive, but are you skullfucking me? FIVE YEARS OLD. What the hell are these parents thinking? I don't give two shits if they support the fact that It wants to play with Barbies and wear dresses. Fine. Most GLBTs will tell you that they knew about their preferences/feelings at a very young age. But thinking that allowing It to live life as a girl beginning at 5 seems to me to be a bit, oh -- how you say? -- shortsighted, naive, and completely idiotic. I'd like to think that I'm going to be a pretty understanding parent, but there comes a time when you have to draw a line in the sand and say, "Across this line, you do not!" Why can't the parents just encourage It to be a regular, normal gay kid? If at 12 or 13 It still wants to "cut" Its penis off and "hammer it," then by all means, bring on the hormones and let's give this thing a vagina (as if high school isn't awkward enough without having to explain that).

The parents seem to think the transition from the sanctity of their home -- where Nicole runs (and probably skips) free in dresses and such -- to public school is going to be a smooth one, apparently thinking that Florida is a bastion of acceptance. One of the sexologists in the article said that the teachers are often the only ones who know about it (implying that this is somewhat of a common occurrence). Does this kid not have any friends? No one who's going to say, "Hey Nick, why are you wearing a dress?" It does have older siblings who no doubt go to the same school and who no doubt have friends who new Nick before It became Nicole. What I'm getting at is that there is no way for It's little gender bending experiment to remain a secret.

So when It goes to school, does the teacher let It go to bathroom with the boys or the girls? Either way, it's Awkward City. In the girls' room, everyone is going to be asking why It's peeing standing up. In the boys' room, everyone's going to beat the shit out of It for wearing a dress. Pardon me for not thinking that other five-year-olds are going to understand and accept It with open arms.

And what about gym class and the good ol' Presidential Physical Fitness Tests. Will It be measured against the boys' standard or the girls' standard? And then when It starts to play sports in a few years, will It be on the girls team or the boys team? It would seem to me that "she" would have an unfair physical advantage if "she" was on the girls team. There's something very East German about all this.

And worse yet, suppose It keeps It's little secret long enough to where boys -- gulp -- start to like It. What grotesque, adolescent version of The Crying Game are these parents setting up for some unsuspecting preteen or teen boy? That poor boy is going to be ruined for life. You can't come back from that. Can you imagine how fucked up that boy would be? When he and his college buddies are sitting around talking about when they lost their virginity, and everyone has normal stories about backseats, prom nights, date rape, or Lookout Point, poor Tommy has to say, "Well, I went out with this, uh, girl named Nicole. My parents were out of town for the weekend, so she came over and we were getting hot and heavy. She was on top of me, and I was just about to take her shirt off. Then I felt something digging into my thigh. And no, it wasn't a banana in her pocket. She was, in fact, happy to see me," and the story would only digress from there. Or on the other hand, Tommy says, "Is it considered losing your virginity when what you thought was your girlfriend turns out to be a teenage she-male and it sodomizes you against your will, and the only thing covering up your uncontrollable sobbing is it screaming 'I knew you'd understand'?" Either way, the only way Tommy even comes close to being able to talk about it is after years of intense therapy. And I'm guessing Nicole's parents aren't going to be footing the bill because, after all, they thought it was perfectly fine to let little Nicholas wear a dress when he was 3.