posted
I know a few post-op transgendered people, and as far as I can tell we do know a good way to treat them -- surgery. These people feel comfortable to a one as they never have before, even if they have other troubles in life because they are post-op transgendered.
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quote: JaneX, in my opinion this is not something that should be supported. As mothertree pointed out - this is a diagnosable mental illness
From the original article:
"The mother said this morning the decision was made in consultation with medical professionals but her child has not undergone any medical procedure to change his sex physically."
The diagnosis of gender identity disorder includes: "C. The disturbance is not concurrent with a physical intersex condition."
Notice also that point B says: "in boys, assertion that his penis or testes are disgusting or will disappear or assertion that it would be better not to have a penis, ... in girls, rejection of urinating in a sitting position, assertion that she has or will grow a penis"
These assertions indicate a dissociation from reality. Believing it won't make it happen. Part of the definition of mental illness has to do with how accurately the subject views the real world. Believing they will grow parts on their anatomy isn't realistic.
The child in question has seen medical professionals, and has been diagnosed as intersex, not with gender identity disorder.
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posted
Medical professionals could equal a massage therapist, based on the junk mail we get. There just isn't enough information in this article. But if that kid were going to my child's school, I would react the same as if someone got plastic surgery for their 9 year old, or gave them their own computer for Christmas. It's something that is very different from our values, but ultimately doesn't affect us, and it's not our job to ostracize them.
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posted
"...why can't we admit that anyone who thinks they're in the wrong body has a mental illness that needs to be addressed? "
In my case, cuz it's a lot easier to think that folks who wanna fit people into neat little boxes for their own comfort, for their own need to place others in their own version of "Who's the top dog?" hierarchical relationships, ie bigots are nuts.
"Gender Identity Disorder is still a diagnosible mental illness"
Frankly, that page is just another embarrassment for a profession with a long history of "justifying"&promulgating prejudice: pseudo"intelligence"testing and eugenics; random brain scrambling and locking away harmless people for embarrassing relatives or discomforting "normal"folk; "penis envy" to explain away women's desire for equality&respect; "Oedipus complex" to explain away child abuse as "a boy's natural desire to supplant his father" fantasy: "Electra complex" to explain away child molestation&rape as "a girl's natural desire for sex with her father" fantasy; labeling those with DownsSyndrome as "mongoloid idiots" to push the "YellowPeril" nonsense; gay bashing; etc.
"Medical professionals could equal a massage therapist, based on the junk mail we get."
Nonetheless, I doubt that your own uninformed interpretation of words written in a book and your own self-admitted ignorance of the specifics of the individual case is more relevant to making a useful diagnosis and choosing the correct treatment than the opinions of psychiatrists/psychologists and medical professionals who have been trained on what that jargon means and how it should be applied and who have examined the individual involved.
I also doubt that you could give a massage which would result in feeling anything even vaguely close to the comfort&well-being produced by a massage from a well-trained masseur/masseuse or physical therapist.
posted
I hesitate to ask, but... What's wrong with two boys in a bathtub? What if it's a hot tub or jacuzzi? Does that include communal bath houses? And open showers in locker rooms and military barracks? How about a group of boys deciding to skinnydip in a pond? Or wash in the river on a camping trip?
posted
But, Belle. Anerexia is physically harmful. What the people on sites like Blue Dragonfly promote damages the body and is bad for the health. How is it bad for a person's health, for their physical well being if they believe that they are really the opposite sex? Sure, it may seem strange, but gender, like sexuality is not simply black and white. I don't think it's a form of insanity unless it interferes with daily life and the only reason why it would do that is because of other people's reactions...
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posted
You know, aspectre, for all your talk about how rude some people are on this site, I think it's worth noting that this was a respectful conversation until you decided to come in and shit all over this thread. Even Bean Counter couldn't beat you to this one.
-o-
We've noted numerous times that we don't know the specifics of this case, so pointing this out is neither insightful nor is it evidence of anything. When we talk about general issues based on specific cases, what we're really trying to get at is an understanding of the situation at large, not make proscriptions on how the specific case should be handled. I can't quite wrap my head around "diagnosing" somebody as transgendered without clear reference to medical evidence of a physical or genetic indication of this condition. I find I learn a lot when I talk to people who see things differently--I may not change my mind, but I learn nevertheless--and so that is what would like to do. But who can learn anything when you start insulting and judging people?
How many people have decided Hatrack is not a place worth staying in because they can't question something without being called a bigot?
-o-
JaneX, you misunderstood me. I wasn't confusing being transgendered with being gay, I was specifically commenting on how they were different. As far as your friend's description, I just see that as evidence of a psychological delusion more than anything else, unless there is some detectable manifestation to back it up. Syn, plenty of delusions are apparently harmless, yet we still treat them.
I don't have an issue with somebody making a gender switch as an adult, mind you--although their ethical responsibilities to future lovers with regard to disclosure are another issue, and one that might be worth its own conversation. But I haven't yet read anything in this thread that convinces me that it would be appropriate to humor this impulse in a prepubescent child if there were no physical evidence of a gender issue.
I may be interested in continuing this conversation, in the hopes of coming to understand this better, but I may not. I frankly don't have high hopes for the future tone of this thread.
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quote:How is it bad for a person's health, for their physical well being if they believe that they are really the opposite sex?
Because gender is at the core of how we define ourselves, it's very important to our individual identity and "changing" genders has effects on how you relate to the world around you and how that world reacts to you.
It's not something that should be changed like trying a new hairstyle.
And who says we should only treat disorders that affect physical well being anyway? I was physically just as healthy when I was in the midst of depression as I am now, and I'm certainly glad I got treated for it.
Glenn Arnold - everyone here has admitted we don't have enough information about the case in question to be able to comment - I'm no longer discussing that case in particular. I already pointed that out on the previous page.
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posted
I'm not sure I understand how we'd apply the current discussion about hypothetical situations to any real-world situation we might hear about (presuming we were not in the thick of it, ourselves). How would this translate into general policy?
*just curious
(BTW, I find pure hypothetical discussions to be both interesting and useful. Don't want to discourage that! I'm just wondering how people see the translation of that to the real world in this sort of case.)
posted
What I can't understand is what gender identity MEANS. I feel like a mental hermaphrodite, that could be one reason. When I think of gender identity I keep thinking of those stupid stereotypical commercials. To me, it doesn't seem to be that important. Not every woman will act the same or every man, which is why I tend to hate books like Men are from Mars Women are from Venus. Maybe because I just can't identify with it. Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I'm for people keeping their sexuality personal and private. I think there is a difference between privacy and shame. That's why I'd be inclined to changing my child's school if one of my children had such a condition.
I have one relative that I know of with the androgen insensitivity. Their bodies tend to be hyper feminine rather than intersexed, cf. Jamie Lee Curtis. There is a condition where sex changes spontaneously at puberty.
I'm not saying that what these people describe couldn't exist. But the Gender Identity disorder has been left in the DSM-IV after all disorders that had homosexuality as a symptom were purged from it.
posted
I asked Vi, my friend who knows several transgenders, of her opinion. She said that it sounds reasonable for this kid to know they're transgendered that early. Her friends felt that way, as well. From the number of people I know who are gay and have known since they were 4 or 5 years old... I'm totally willing to believe this. I've even spoken to a few poly folks (other non-mainstream sexuality) and they also felt something tangibly different as children.
Vi's comment was also that... well, so what if the kid turns out to be wrong? He'll live for a few years as a boy, hit puberty, and realize it wasn't correct. They're not going to do any surgeries or hormonal replacements.
Do you really feel like this kid's going to suffer emotional damage from living as a boy for a few years? If so, we have a lot of major problems with gender identity.
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posted
Jami Lee Curtis is intersexed? Gah, I'd hate to have to get treated for GID. They'd make me wear dresses and the women's section at the clothes store always freaks me out.
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posted
CT, I'm not trying to advocate for policy so much as to undertand a phenomenon I do not have a clear grasp on. Orientation is pretty clear to me. Saying a prepubescent girl is really a boy, mentally, without mention of physical or genetic manifestations of this, is not. Now several people jump in to say, look several doctors signed off on this, so there must be more to this than the article says. Well, okay then, but I can only analyze what the article says. Are you all saying, then, that there must be some physical or genetic manifestation of transgenderism in this case (or the doctors would not have signed off on it) but that if there were not, you would agree that labeling a child "transgendered" based only on the anecdotal evidence provided by the article? Then maybe we're just arguing semantics.
Syn, I think our perspectives are pretty similar. Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:I'm for people keeping their sexuality personal and private. I think there is a difference between privacy and shame. That's why I'd be inclined to changing my child's school if one of my children had such a condition.
Me, too, totally. On the other hand, I can see where limited resources (very rural and/or limited finances) might make this unworkable for some families.
quote:Well, okay then, but I can only analyze what the article says. Are you all saying, then, that there must be some physical or genetic manifestation of transgenderism in this case (or the doctors would not have signed off on it) but that if there were not, you would agree that labeling a child "transgendered" based only on the anecdotal evidence provided by the article? Then maybe we're just arguing semantics.
Nope. I'm just saying there is likely to be something more going on than is delved into in this article, and I was hoping to bring that consideration to the forefront.
I'm not sure what to say about a very simple case as you have interpreted (not to say that you are simple, , just that the case would be more straightforward). I have a hard time buying that a coterie of physicians would encourage this drastic a change (public gender identity reversal for a prepubescent child) unless it wasn't a simple case, but I suppose it is possible. Surely any hormonal therapy would be premature in such a simple (and prepubescent) case. As for the other? If it were just a matter of the child throwing off clothing as a toddler and calmly, non-tearfully asserting the wish to be a boy -- well, no. Seems like it would be beyond the pale to me, which is why it makes me think there must be a lot more going on.
posted
I think the definitions of intersexed and transgendered are getting confused here. Jamie Lee Curtis is female despite having a Y chromosome because her androgen (male hormone) receptors are defective.
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posted
Whats the harm in letting the child be who s/he thinks s/he is? Efforts to "bring the child around" could easly lead to a situation of self hate, for wanting to be the "wrong" sex. If the child changes his/er mind when s/he gets old so be it. no harm done.
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posted
Icarus, does it also disturb you that children can and do masturbate before puberty? Like, at age 8? 10?
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Well, okay then, but I can only analyze what the article says. Are you all saying, then, that there must be some physical or genetic manifestation of transgenderism in this case (or the doctors would not have signed off on it) but that if there were not, you would agree that labeling a child "transgendered" based only on the anecdotal evidence provided by the article? Then maybe we're just arguing semantics.
Nope.
I'm confused. It seems as though your next paragraph proceeds to say close to what I said.
posted
I just feel like the kid has the ability to know. Based on anecdotal information. And the puberty/before-puberty thing doesn't seem to make much of a difference in my eyes.
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posted
Yeah I think I was wondering whether or not it was a pre-puberty post-puberty kind of decision for you. Like somehow the puberty allows for more knowledge of gender/sexuality. And I'm arguing that I don't think it makes that great of an impact.
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quote:but that if there were not, you would agree that labeling a child "transgendered" based only on the anecdotal evidence provided by the article?
Maybe there was something missing in this clause? I read it as the opposite of what I went on to say.
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quote:And the puberty/before-puberty thing doesn't seem to make much of a difference in my eyes.
Actually, it doesn't in my eyes either, except to mark off an area I see as less gray. There is a long way between puberty and adulthood. I would say that an adult can decide that they are whatever they want to be, and take whatever steps necessary to live that life. (Though there are other issues to be looked at then, including, as I noted above, disclosure, but also including whether or not insurance or the government should pay to provide hormonal or surgical treatment to change the gender of a transgendered person who does not exhibit any physical or genetic evidence of a condition. I would say not, but I think that could be another interesting topic of conversation.)
I think a prepubescent child, on the other hand, doesn't know much about what s/he is or why s/he does the things s/he does. S/he may know s/he is different, but there are lots of reasons to feel different. To me this is clearly a time when decisions need to be based on more than anecdotal evidence.
Between puberty and adulthood is a murky area, and so that's why I used puberty as my delineating point.
Before and during puberty, I personally thought I was gay. My evidence for this was the fact that I had willingly had sex with a man several times. Sexual attraction did not enter into my perception of myself. Now nobody jump in to tell me that transgenderism has nothing to do with orientation. I'm not saying it does. I'm using this as evidence of the fact that a prepubescent may be aware of being different, but is not really in a position to know why, and ones judgment on gender and sexuality issues is likely to be erroneous when ones body has yet to go the process of becoming sexually mature.
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posted
Ah, my bad, CT. I meant to finish that with something like "is inappropriate."
-o-
dabbler, you posted while I was typing. I do think prepubescents are too young to make good judges of their sexuality and gender, anecdotal evidence notwithstanding. However, I used puberty as a line of demarcation primarily for convenience.
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So, what's wrong with "being" the other gender at age 9? The kid might be wrong. Okay, just like you were wrong in thinking you were gay. Does it produce harm to act like the other gender?
I guess what we might have to do is decide what it means to act like the other gender at age 9. Being a boy:
Wear pants? Clothes is a cultural construct. I don't see a problem with choosing a particular clothes-set on a personal level. That leaves the problem with outsiders affecting your emotions because of how you look.
As I think about it, it really feels like the definition of a tomboy. So what pushes it further past being a tomboy? Something psychological, I guess.
And as far as "being in DSM-IV" etc... I'm currently of the opinion that for something to be a "medical illness" it means the patient either 1) wants medical help or 2) requires medical help. The transgendered is presumably seeking medical attention in terms of hormonal treatments, surgeries, and psychological assistance. It doesn't bother me that it's labeled medical.
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quote:So, what's wrong with "being" the other gender at age 9? The kid might be wrong. Okay, just like you were wrong in thinking you were gay. Does it produce harm to act like the other gender?
I think it would have been harmful--if I had ever even talked to an adult about this--to have "indulged" this misconception as if it were accurate, and to socialize me as specifically gay. To be clear, I am NOT saying that the correct alternative is to socialize a child as heterosexual EITHER. Rather, I believe a prepubescent child is neither, and should not be sexualized one way or another. (And I find cutesy photos of little boys and little girls imitating adult dating behavior tacky.) Back to the case of this (hypothetical) girl, to say "Okay, Phillip is a boy" now I think will only do harm. Let Phyllis decide when s/he is older if s/he wants to make a change like that.
With regard to your question of what makes gender in a child, I agree that if she does not like to wear skirts, the sensible choice is to not make her wear them.
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quote: Efforts to "bring the child around" could easly lead to a situation of self hate, for wanting to be the "wrong" sex.
It seems to me like the child is already suffering hatred for their anotomical gender. Of course, if the brain really does have a male shape and a female shape, then the definition of anotomical gender becomes ambiguous.
Earlier Synesthesia mentioned that she does NOT support the notion of male brains and female brains. If that is the case, this girl thinking she has a boy brain would not be valid, or so it seems to me.
On the snopes link, Androgen insensitivity is not hermaphroditism. I'll repeat again, androgen insensitive XYs are more female looking than most XXs because everyone has some androgens. And if your androgen receptors don't work, you won't have any male oriented development.
Unless gender brain-ness is not related to sex hormones. This seems highly improbable, but who knows?
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posted
My women's lit professor was REALLY into this stuff. To her, sex was a medical term, but "gender" was a term of self-identification which no one could define for you but you. One of her favorite things to mention was that in... Sioux? I think? Anyways, in Sioux traditions they actually had six genders.
We didn't get along too much, to tell the truth.
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posted
Some native American tribes had women that dressed like men and men that dressed like women who did what th eopposite gender did.. It's interesting..
posted
As well, in some indigenous cultures -- I think it was traditional Inuit culture I was reading about when I came across this but I'd have to check -- shamans are seen as a kind of third gender that's not treated like either male or female. I think in these it's more a case of gender roles and activities than how they feel though. Of course, Inuit culture is less gender-divided than most on a spiritual level as well (on an activity level, it's very much divided though).
And yeah, if it's just clothing, I went to school with a lot of transgendered boys...or, girls. Is it normal for guys to wear sarongs in any other town in North America? I thought it was perfectly regular until I got to university.
Sorry, I'm totally derailing this thread. If that's not okay, just ignore me!
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posted
I just wanted to mention that doing the hormones at an early age(before mid-twenties) can allow the person to actually look like the sex they think they are.
posted
My husband wears sarongs every day. He sleeps in them and wears them around the house. In public, he wears jeans. But here, it's common enough to see men in sarongs in public. In some restaurants, for example, the waiter's uniforms will be a sarong. One man at church only wears a sarong to church. Other men will sometimes wear sarongs, other times wear pants. Average people I see on the street, perhaps 10% of them will be wearing a sarong.
In other words, it's common here. Not as common as it used to be, that's true, but still common.
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posted
There are two basic types of sarongs as far as I know. One is a strip of cloth, say, five or six feet long, and the wearer ties a knot in it to keep it in place. Western women on vacation in tropical places like these commonly use them as beach cover-ups. At the stores here, they commonly come in rayon, cotton, and silk, and tend to be beautiful, colorful, flowered, or other ornate designs. Here, this style is known as a woman's sarong.
The other type is a strip of cloth that's been sewed to form a tube, locally known as a man's sarong. The man then steps into it, then tucks the excess fabric from either side in front much the same way you would a terry towel after a shower. They commonly come in cotton, Egyptian cotton, and more cotton. Usually plaid, sometimes solid ie white for special occasions, and sometimes batik. One example of Fahim in a sarong, although he's looking kind of odd in this photo.Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:I'll repeat again, androgen insensitive XYs are more female looking than most XXs because everyone has some androgens. And if your androgen receptors don't work, you won't have any male oriented development.
It's actually quite a bit more complicated than that. There is a medical differentiation between CAIS (complete) and PAIS (partial), as the degree of receptor insensitivity varies -- it is not like an on/off button, but rather a range of functioning.
The child I described earlier in the thread has PAIS. She has some male features (body build, wrist size, etc) but externally female genitalia. She is not "hyper-feminized" in apperance, but rather somewhat masculinized. I did not attend her clinic visit, as her parents (and the clinic staff) were very sensitive to not innundating her with residents. They wanted to keep her life, including clinic visits, as normal as possible -- and entirely appropriately. I knew she would be attending clinic because we had discussed her case in clinic rounds at the beginning of the week. Although I did not attend her visit, I was able to pick her out in the waiting room by sight. You did have to know what to look for, though. She is within the range of normal (although not typical) appearance for a female.
quote:Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), formerly known as testicular feminization, is an X-linked recessive condition resulting in a failure of normal masculinization of the external genitalia in chromosomally male individuals. This failure of virilization can be either complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS) or partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS), depending on the amount of residual receptor function.
Both individuals with PAIS and individuals with CAIS have 46,XY karyotypes. Individuals with CAIS have female external genitalia with normal labia, clitoris, and vaginal introitus. The phenotype of individuals with PAIS may range from mildly virilized female external genitalia (clitorimegaly without other external anomalies) to mildly undervirilized male external genitalia (hypospadias and/or diminished penile size). ... PAIS is a more complicated problem for gender identity. Just as the genitalia may be highly varied in the degree of virilization, gender identity may be either female or male. At present, no reliable predictors of eventual gender identity have been identified, including genotype or degree of genital virilization at birth.
Were such a child to receive estrogen therapy to supplement puberty and maintain typical levels of estrogen for a woman of fertile age, she would likely continue to have a more masculine build and bone structure, although her skin quality and other secondary sex characteristics (e.g., breasts) could appear hyper-feminized. Of course, lacking a uterus, she would be unable to conceive in the typical way.
I think that is what is in part behind the rumors about Jamie Lee Curtis. However, they are just rumors -- nothing more -- and really none of anyone else's business.
posted
The Intersex Society of North America has a thorough and medically accurate site, including a page entitled How common is intersex?
Of note, the current standard estimate is that 1 in 100 people have "bodies [that] differ from standard male or female." This does include conditions such as hypospadias, and so the definition of "differ" is a broad one.
The ISNA is linked to at the bottom of the Snopes article. They also have a page specific to PAIS as well as other non-typical sex circumstances.
posted
Back to the sarongs for just a second: I had no idea there were male and female versions of them! The guys I knew all wore the female kind. Maybe I ought to mention the difference to them if any ever plan to go to Sri Lanka...
And yes, 1 in 100 "not standard male or female" is the stat I was given in my genetics classes as well, but it was pointed out that that includes a very broad range of conditions. Still, it's more common than most people think I would argue.
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posted
Syn, unless her carrying a baby to term were an integral part of a relationship to you, I'd say the truth of it is (properly speaking) completely irrelevant.
posted
She has adopted children and has written some really nice books about that. Sorry I mentioned it on this forum.
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