Most 12-year-old boys want the newest iPhone.Wren Kauffman wanted something so simple that it most likely wouldn't cross your mind: to be recognized as the correct gender. In a triumph for the Canadian transgender community last week, Kauffman became the first transgender youth in the province of Alberta to officially have his gender on a birth certificate changed. 

Making History

Kauffman was born with female reproductive organs but identifies as a male. On Sunday, Kauffman became Alberta’s first ever transgender youth to be given a new birth certificate amendment. The revised birth certificate was presented to Kauffman during a Pride festival brunch hosted in Edmonton by the city’s mayor, Global News reported. Most province laws allow for a birth certificate change only after reassignment surgery. This law was devised in the 1970s, but seeing as one needs to be 18 before becoming eligible for reassignment surgery, the requirement left out transgender children. A Canadian judge ruled that this requirement violated the rights of transgender people. Although the requirement was dropped in the province of Alberta and Ontario, similar complaints about the requirement's injustice have been filed in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

Transgender is identified by GLADD as an umbrella term for people whose gender identity differs from what is typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth. Transgender people may or may not alter their body, but GLADD makes it clear that being transgender is not dependent upon medical procedures.  

Transgender Children

Because transgender individuals begin identifying with their gender in childhood, it would make sense that there are as many transgender children in the world as there as adults. Transgender people truly feel as though they were born into the wrong body. It is estimated that as many as 750,000 Americans are transgender. Dr. Johanna Olson, a specialist in the care of transgendered youth at Children’s Hospital, Los Angeles, claims that the number of children opening up about living transgender is on the rise. "I see between one and five new trans kids a week, so the growth is tremendous. We've had something like a 330 percent increase over the year of 2013. It's just phenomenal," Olson told CBS News