Thursday's editorial was about a brave young Prince George boy who plays football with boys significantly bigger than he is and could crush him if they could catch him.
Today is also about the courage of the young, this time focusing on Wren Kauffman, an 11-year-old Edmonton boy who was born a girl.
Kauffman was featured in last week's Citizen and was the subject of a CBC Radio story Thursday on The Current. To hear his voice is to hear the sound of a lad mature beyond his years who is so grateful that his family and his friends and now hopefully the world understands the terrible lie he felt he was living.
Born as Wrenna, she grew up constantly asking his parents when she could be a boy and if he could be born again, so she'd come out right the next time. She insisted on wearing her hair short and wearing dresses was out of the question.
Like any loving parents, Wendy and Greg Kauffman recognized their child was different but admit it took them some time to understand just how different. They wondered if she was going through a phase or maybe she was just gay.
It took the intervention of their other daughter, Avy, who was just six, to bring the truth to light - that Wrenna, then nine, wasn't just a girl pretending to be a boy, she really was a boy.
Fortunately, the Kauffmans didn't have to go far for help, since the University of Alberta in Edmonton houses the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services. Once there, they found out Wrenna wasn't so unusual. As many as six kids out of every 1,000 are transgender and one study found that one out of every 170 teachers are transgender.
The social transformation began with Wrenna living her life as Wren and as a boy while at home. Family and close friends were informed of what was happening. Teachers were told and then finally Wren informed his classmates that he was not the she they thought he was.
The adjustment continues. Wren is taking drug injections to halt the upcoming female puberty. More difficult choices await. At 16, he could start taking male hormones and at 18, he could decide to have surgery for sexual reassignment.
Wren told the CBC that he was crying himself to sleep at night because he was so frustrated and depressed that he wasn't a boy. His mother rightly pointed out that many transgendered individuals commit suicide during their teen years if they grow up in less understanding and accepting circumstances.
In another time, what Wren is doing now as a Grade 7 student, would have been socially impossible. In 1965, identical twins Bruce and Brian Reimer were born in Winnipeg. During a minor cauterization operation to fix a urinary issue when he was eight months old, Bruce's penis was burned beyond repair. Doctors convinced their parents that the best solution to this problem would be to have Bruce go through sex reassignment surgery and be raised as Brenda.
Except it didn't work.
Brenda never believed for one minute she was really a girl, despite the countless hormone injections and counselling sessions. Brenda's parents finally admitted what had happened after Brenda became suicidal and Brenda became David at age 14, later undergoing reversal surgery and hormone therapy. David's story was later told in the 2001 book As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl.
David's story, however, ended in tragedy. His twin brother died of an accidental overdose of antidepressants in 2002 and in 2004, David, unable to cope with his unemployment and separation from his wife of 14 years, took his own life.
Hopefully, Wren Kauffman grows up to be a well-adjusted and confident young man, thanks to the love and caring he's received from his family. It's human to want to be accepted and understood by the people around us, especially the ones who mean the most. Wren is blessed to have that.
The courage he and his family are showing by sharing their story with the world will hopefully create more acceptance of transgendered children.
