Sure, I’d accept that, with the condition that we prove gender reassignment actually helps. To my knowledge, there is no literature available studying people diagnosed with a transgender condition (and the diagnosis IS important here) comparing pre-op and post-op transgendered people over a long period of time. There was a time that electroshock therapy and lobotomies were considered the best treatment available for psychological disorders, with a similar amount of evidence behind them, so the track record for physical medical intervention for psychological disorders is pretty grim. It’s very important to nail down just what transgender syndrome/disorder/whatever actually IS, whether we think we’ve found a way to treat it or not.
Read the link in post #2. The physical evidence for transsexuality can only be found by dissecting the person’s brain. This creates some obvious problems with using it as a diagnostic tool.
And sometimes lots of things. People on psychiatric medication who are currently receiving psychotherapy kill themselves all the time.
Good work with the scare quotes, though.
And people on chemotherapy sometimes still die of cancer.
Remember, folks, if there’s not a 100% reliable treatment for your condition, your condition must be all in your head!
When people post suicide anecdotes for your side, you let it slide. When people post suicide anecdotes from the other side, you vomit this gem out.
No, it’s not binary. There are chromosomes, sex organs, and the brain. They don’t all just line up and fall into one of two boxes. Assuming that someone whose brain is not in sync with his or her chromosomes or sex organs is nuts, doesn’t fit with what we now know about the complex subject of gender.
I don’t even know what this is supposed to mean.
Well, that’s kind of a novel theory: TG people are indulged because gay people say they should be indulged. And we all know how popular gay people are across all segments of society.
You see LGBT (or whatever) protests these days, but I don’t think that’s always been the case. Of course it also doesn’t explain the science.
Surely there have been studies done of post-op transgendered people to determine that the surgery does generally improve quality of life, happiness, suicide rate, etc., haven’t there?
MR. SLAVE, AFTER MR. GARRISON’S SEX-CHANGE OPERATION: Mr. Garrison, I’m gay! I don’t like vaginas!
If you’re thinking of the same person I’m thinking of, then I strongly disagree–while he may have seemed functional [in society] at a glance, after reading his posts it was obvious that he was not functional [in society] at all.
Agreed, and I’m surprised to hear that such studies may not exist, since sexual reassignment surgery has been around for some time, although obviously benefitting from general advances in the medical field.
Virtually every post-op anecdote I’ve heard has been positive, but I recognize this is not data.
So, Dopers – any study out there?
Consider this. We can’t make a male body into a female body, or vice-versa; that’s beyond our skill at the moment. Generally we’re pretty up on the body; we understand a good deal about how it works, there are certainly still mysteries and the like that we don’t get about it, but we understand quite a bit. But we can’t make a body of one sex into the body of another.
Now look at the brain. We understand some parts; but a lot of it is still a mystery. We don’t understand even some of the most basic processes. We don’t know how exactly it interacts with the mind. We can fix some problems with it, but not to the extent that we can with the body.
If our attempts at reworking the body are imperfect to one degree, what makes you think that our attempts to rework the brain will be better? To the extent it is possible is certainly the question, but if altering the body should be deemed Michael Jackson therapy altering the mind should be called sledgehammer-and-peanut therapy.
Sex reassignment surgery –> positive outcomes in a majority of patients (although not 100%).
Another brain structure study. fMRI differences. While these results are interesting from a scientific perspective, a technique has not been refined yet to allow clinical use.
BTW, everything I’ve read/been taught about transgendered people indicates that they “knew” from a very young age, unlike delusions and schizophrenia, which take time to develop and wax and wane. See the “John/Joan case”.
You really think transsexuals should be institutionalized? Heck, we don’t even institutionalize guys who think they’re the King of Denmark, unless they are proven to be a danger to themselves or others. Most really crazy people are left to wander the streets.
Again, the point is, if Bob wants to wear a dress and change his name to Loretta, how are you harmed? And how is Bob harmed? Is Bob harmed because he’s delusional, and you’re telling him his delusions are true? Except Bob knows he has a penis, he just doesn’t want one. He may be mentally ill, but he’s not delusional.
Just found the thread.
Again, transgender individuals have scientific evidence on their side.
Re Changing The Brain
While hormonal therapy in adulthood causes plenty of physical changes, I have seen zero evidence that it alters the brain. When the government forced him to take estrogen, Alan Turing began to grow breasts. Other than being depressed about the breasts, his mind remained the same.
Tests in mice (or was it rats?) show that hormones administered to a pregnant rat can change the brain of the rat in utero. Administering heavy doses of hormones to a rat a few days old can change the brain. Administering hormones to an adult rat does not have any effect on brain structures.
As others have said, the standards of care for gender dysphoria DO require years of therapy.
I understand your point but if the brain (at or near birth) has a physically identifiable attribute that can be altered then I think it’s easier to modify. All this is an academic exercise at this point but for the sake of argument I think it would be better to tweak the brain than the level of surgery necessary to alter the body. The destruction/reconstruction of the sex organs has to be a serious compromise. I used Michael Jackson as an example of a desire to be something else and what can happen. The difference is not just cosmetic, there are sexual nerve endings involved.
I try to put myself in a transgendered position and I would really rather go with what I got (from the get-go). So I suppose what I’m suggesting does not apply to an adult. Even if there treatment available a person would already be on a set path of desire and would not wish to change that even if it were possible.
And that’s a problem - it’s not something you can understand any more than you could just put yourself in the position of a Muslim woman.
On a larger note addressing the thread in general and not Magiver in specific, I’m always surprised at the people who come out of the woodwork on this message board as being suspicious or even intolerant of the transgendered, but then I guess I shouldn’t be, as that’s the way it’s been for more than a decade on here.
I mean, wow, here’s a good example.
And a sample size of one is…? Seriously, what’s your point - is your claim that most transgendered people do poorly from SRS, or did you just want to Google to point out a couple of cases where things turned tragic? And the “true natures” in quotes, nice touch.
Not to pick on you, but where exactly are these myriads? My experience has been that transgendered folks are pretty much the untouchables of Society, ranking just barely above child molesters in terms of how Society views them. Even among the LGB communities the transgendered are viewed with an attitude of “oh jeeze, I guess we have to let those freaks in for political reasons…dramatic sigh.” For the most part transgendered people are on their own.
It may be an area that defies conventional expectations. I am somewhat well known as one of the “few but proud” SDMB conservatives, and – correct me if you think I’m misjudging myself – I have never had suspicions or intolerance as to the transgendered. It’s always made perfect sense to me; regardless of my body, I know I’m male. If I were magically transported into a female body, I’d still be male. So it’s easy to imagine that someone else, someone that happened to be in a female body, might be as male as I – or the reverse; someone in a male body might happen to feel, to BE, female. Obviously it’s rare, but equally obviously, it exists.
Perhaps my claim would have better had it been more moderate, I was just making the point to **jtgain **that his theory about transgender supporters being all homosexual was pretty much the wrongest thing ever.