Transgender Question!

Dr. Baltar

Quickly, can someone point me to the name of a guy/girl that I read about ages ago on wiki that´s apparantly quite a famous story regarding transgender life.

Essentially, if I recall there was a guy (i think) at birth who had something eriously wrong with his "bits" so the doctors recommended he have a sex change. They studied him for the rest of his life and eventually he got depressed and comitted suicide.

I can´t remember for the life of me any more info than that.

Tanks in advance!

Links234

David Reimer

if you go to google video and search for "Dr. Money and the boy with no penis" you'll find a documentary about his life, it's incredibly sad.

Dr. Baltar

Thank you very much, I´ve been having a debate with a friend of mine recently about what it is to be a "man" and what it is to be a "woman" and I couldn´t remember the guy´s name at all.

Thank you so much!

Links234

tough debate to have, what was your friend's argument?

Dr. Baltar

Links234 wrote: »

tough debate to have, what was your friend's argument?

We were talking about transgender people and as neither of us are transgender, we were trying to understand it. I said that my way of understanding transgender people is to imagine a mind formed with a biological disease that places the mind into the wrong gender and that the transgender person feels that this needs to be corrected through hormones ect.

His argument was that no matter what treatment was received the transgender person could never transition fully to the correct gender.

I was using David Reimir as an argument to state that he is as much a man as anyone else regardless of his genitalia and gender role he received.

Links234

Dr. Baltar wrote: »

I said that my way of understanding transgender people is to imagine a mind formed with a biological disease that places the mind into the wrong gender and that the transgender person feels that this needs to be corrected through hormones ect.

I know what you are trying to say, but I really think that disease is a horrible thing to call it

I don't even like disorder, all these kinds of words used to describe trans people make it sound like something is "wrong" with us, and there's not. this is nothing more than natural human diversity, that's all.

like, here is a good explanation, bold for emphasis:

The fetal brain develops during the intrauterine period in the male direction through a direct action of testosterone on the developing nerve cells, or in the female direction through the absence of this hormone surge. In this way, our gender identity (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender) and sexual orientation are programmed or organized into our brain structures when we are still in the womb. However, since sexual differentiation of the genitals takes place in the first two months of pregnancy and sexual differentiation of the brain starts in the second half of pregnancy, these two processes can be influenced independently, which may result in extreme cases in trans-sexuality. This also means that in the event of ambiguous sex at birth, the degree of masculinization of the genitals may not reflect the degree of masculinization of the brain. There is no indication that social environment after birth has an effect on gender identity or sexual orientation.

I've got a load of other resources I've collected from various threads now:

Edit: messed up links, will fix them later

Dr. Baltar wrote: »

His argument was that no matter what treatment was received the transgender person could never transition fully to the correct gender.

well, I think your friend is very much mistaken, because when taking cross sex hormones the body takes on all the physical traits of that sex in every regard except for reproduction. the human body is very malleable. unless your friend is arguing from the point of view that reproduction is the definition of that sex, and therefor a woman who is infertile is not a woman, or a man who is impotent is not a man.

you know, there's amazing diversity in human sex development and sex or gender really aren't as simple as people like to think.

like, people look at the so-called "sex chromosomes" and they might say that XX = female and XY = male, but it's justnot that simple because there are examples of XY females and XX males and then there's examples of many other chromosome types like XXY. but NOW people are starting to understand what defines sexual characteristics is more complicated than even that. this is from an intersex website;

In addition to known gonad determining genes including SRY and DMRT1, novel candidate genes such as FGFR2, KANK1, ADCY2 and ZEB2 were encompassed.

The reality is that sex is determined by complex mechanisms all throughout the autosomes – the chromosomes that are not “sex chromosomes”.

you know about those sex or gender tests that they sometimes make women go through in sports? like what happened with Caster Semenya. it's actually really common, but the thing is there is absolutely NO scientific consensus on how to test for gender.

sex or gender just isn't that simple, and we still don't really know what makes us male or female, and it's pretty hard to define what that exactly is in strict terms. I think people who subscribe to genital essentialist ideas just don't know how complex gender and sex is. and if someone's saying they don't think a transgender person can fully transition to the correct gender, what are they basing that on, and how are they defining gender.

because to me, there has never been any definition or argument made by anyone that has ever even made me question if a transsexual woman who has transitioned is a woman. you know, a transsexual woman is a woman, there's nothing that holds any water to say otherwise.

sorry, going off on one again

Dr. Baltar

I will try my best to address your post in greater depth at some point but it´s 7am here at the moment so I can´t.

But I will quickly mention your point about "disease". Just to clarify, I didn´t mean it in a derogatory sense whatsoever, but was simply trying to convey to my friend (more ignorant than I, and I am ignorant) what it would be like to be a transgender person.

Essentially, (and correct me if I am wrong). Transgender people are born a certain way, and wish to change a physical attribute about themselves. Where as my friend was suggesting that this was a problem of the mind, I was suggesting that it was a "problem" of the body in that the sex of that body is incorrect for the person who inhabits it.

Whereas LGB people are born a certain way and wish to embrace their sexuality (and have others embrace it too) Transgender people want to change themselves; to correct themselves.

If what I´ve said is wrong/offensive, I would honestly like to send my apologies and would be more than happy t be enlightened.

deirdre_dub

Dr. Baltar wrote: »

Essentially, (and correct me if I am wrong). Transgender people are born a certain way, and wish to change a physical attribute about themselves.

I wouldn't call it a "wish" - I would call it a need. I need to fix what's wrong with my body in exactly the same way that someone with a broken leg needs to get it fixed.

Where as my friend was suggesting that this was a problem of the mind, I was suggesting that it was a "problem" of the body in that the sex of that body is incorrect for the person who inhabits it.

It seems to me that there is what you might call a female brain, and a different thing called a male brain. It seems to me that I have a female brain in a male body. There are two ways to fix that - one would be to fix the brain. In other words, to apply to me some treatment that, if it were applied to a genetic woman, would convince her that she is male. Such a treatment, thankfully, does not exist. The other way to fix it is to fix the body. Such treatments exist, and are quite effective.

Whereas LGB people are born a certain way and wish to embrace their sexuality (and have others embrace it too) Transgender people want to change themselves; to correct themselves.

Again, I wouldn't call it a "want".

The difference transition has made to my life has been utterly enormous. I was depressed, unhealthy, grossly overweight, and isolated - transition has had a significant impact on all of those issues I had. It most certainly isn't anything that I ever "decided I wanted" - it is something I "discovered I needed". It is the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life, and it is now a source of constant background low-level fear in my life, in that I'm now exposed to discrimination and violence in a way that I've never been exposed to it before. This isn't a decision I've made - it is something that was foisted upon me.

If what I´ve said is wrong/offensive, I would honestly like to send my apologies and would be more than happy t be enlightened.

Ignorance isn't a crime, and I greatly appreciate your willingness to be enlightened.

D.

Eebs

Dr. Baltar wrote: »

Transgender people want to change themselves; to correct themselves.

I never felt any desire to change or correct myself. I just wanted to be accepted for who I am by the world. Sadly, in order to do that, the world insists you change yourself physically.

Louisevb

Firstly I'm writing from the m2f point of view, but the reverse is equally applicable

For a transgender person to feel comfortable the feeling of being the opposite gender to the born gender is quite distressing mentally. It manifests itself in being unable to identify and operate in the born gender to the point where depression and self esteem tend to be quite low. Health can be neglected and generally there can be a tendency to use alcohol and perhaps substance abuse as a refuge for the feelings encountered.

This in turn can lead to the inability to function in whatever area of life the person intends to make a living from or can result in a person working in something that they hate in for example a male role which they were encouraged to enter, when in denial to prove their maleness. Only later do they discover why they are doing something for the entirely wrong reasons.

This mental in between stage of having a male body and feeling female is quite horrible and I would not wish it on my worst enemy. The first point on diagnosis is to go on hormones which will correct the mental feeling of unease and put the person into the correct metal place i.e. female... The second stage over a period of time is the physical effects of the hormones and how they will change the body shape to match the mental state. Depending on what happens at this stage, some will get better results with hormones than others then surgical intervention follows and included is SRS.

There are however those who have no desire to physically change their bodies and yet who do not feel comfortable in the born gender. For these people there is a problem because if the mental stage is to be dealt with by hormones of the opposite gender the body shape will change and that may be something that they don't wish to happen. Gender Dysphoria comes in varying degrees of strength. That's a fact of life.

For those born intersexed with the genitalia of both sexes if the parents shortly after birth choose to have medical intervention and choose the wrong gender for the child than difficult choices can occur in teenage years when this possible incongruence emerges. Most intersexed babies are medically designated as female for obvious reasons, so if the child grows up with a male mind and a female body possibly treated by hormones at an early stage of puberty severe mental problems can occur.