Is it okay to encourage a child who chooses to be transexual?

[Broomstick]

@Lemur866

And as I said earlier, I don’t quite understand why transgendered people HAVE to be transgendered. What’s wrong with being a femme man or a butch woman? Counseling intended to help people be happy as a femme man instead of a transgendered woman doesn’t seem like such a horrible idea.

As I understand it (and I confess I don’t understand it much at all) it isn’t that there’s anything wrong with being a femme man or a butch woman, but rather that for a transsexual it’s not enough. Or that a MtF doesn’t want to be a “femme man”, the person wants to be a woman.

On the flip side - one can be a femme man who is happy being a man with no desire to have the genitalia of the opposite gender whatsoever. Or one can be a very butch woman who is happy to be a woman and wants to be a woman, not a man.

[Bosstone]

@Broomstick

On the flip side - one can be a femme man who is happy being a man with no desire to have the genitalia of the opposite gender whatsoever. Or one can be a very butch woman who is happy to be a woman and wants to be a woman, not a man.

Right. While the posts thus far in this thread have been saying “it’s not about the genitalia” and that’s correct for social interaction, privately it means a lot more. A woman stuck in a man’s body has this grotesque thing between her legs that her brain is telling her should not exist. A man in a woman’s body has curves that he knows he shouldn’t have.

It’s not entirely about the genitalia, of course, and a huge milestone for my MtF friend was walking up to a counter in a store and being treated as female with no confusion or hesitation. That made her happy on a level she’d never been able to attain before. But the physical, private differences are very real too.

[Giltathriel]

@Captain_Carrot

Could everyone please stop comparing transsexuals to people wanting to be animals?

I think the better comparison would be between transgender people and people with body dismorphic disorder, where someone’s self-identity is that they should be an amputee even if they have a perfectly functional set of limbs. It’s similar in that their body is clearly different from the way they want to be and the way they think of themselves.

It’s similarly controversial - should such a person undergo therapy to be okay with the natural state of their body or undergo surgery to have their body match their self-image?

[Guinastasia]

@begbert2

My question is, what is this physical difference in the brains, and can it be detected by an MRI or something? (That is, without killing or maiming the person.)

How would an MRI or brain scan kill someone? :dubious: (If you do indeed mean an MRI)

@Jimmy_Joe_Meager

In other words… you can think whatever you want about yourself, but please don’t insist that I think whatever you want about yourself.

You don’t have to THINK anything. All people INSIST on is that you TREAT people as they wish to be treated.
Why is that such a foreign concept?

[Revenant_Threshold]

@Guinastasia

How would an MRI or brain scan kill someone? :dubious: (If you do indeed mean an MRI)

I suppose it’s possible he means that the difference might only be detectable with an autopsy or some procedure too invasive to be without risk. Which wouldn’t affect the existence of those differences, but would mean we’d have considerable problems in checking particular people’s brains for the evidence.

[SteveG1]

@Jimmy_Joe_Meager

I wasn’t, but I really, really, really think that I am. Does that make it so? According to this thread, yes. It does.

It’s not the same, you’ll never be as good as me.

Obviously I’m making a joke there.

Seriously though, some people are simply wired differently. They are born that way for some reason. Nobody knows why it happens. Is it genetic? Is it some sort thing that happens during development prior to birth, or some time after? Is it chemical or is it structural? No one really knows. It just happens sometimes. Considering what these people must go through, I sure can’t imagine they chose it. I’d be willing to bet every one of them would have preferred not to go through any of it. I’d be more inclined to give them some slack. They deal with enough crap already. In reality, I don’t have to understand it, or approve, or anything else. They don’t need my approval. Like I said, they deal with enough already.

In short, live and let live.

[tumbleddown]

@Jimmy_Joe_Meager

Why is it that we do not see heterosexual males “transitioning” into “females”… who are then still sexually attracted to females?

In the U.K. where there is legal recognition of gender reassignment as well as civil partnerships for same-sex couples, there is a legal procedure codified as to how a legally married couple must proceed to retain legal recognition of their marriage after one of the partners has transitioned. In order to get a final legal recognition of new gender, the couple must legally divorce. The gender recognition certificate is then granted ASAP, and then the couple can choose to undertake a civil partnership ASAP without the customary waiting periods.

A friend of mine recently “remarried” her wife, had a big old shindig and a fluffy white gown (the missus wore silver, it wasn’t her first time as a bride, after all) and a three-tiered cake and string quartet. It was quite a party. I was sorry I couldn’t fly over the ocean to attend.

[Der_Trihs]

@Giltathriel

I think the better comparison would be between transgender people and people with body dismorphic disorder, where someone’s self-identity is that they should be an amputee even if they have a perfectly functional set of limbs. It’s similar in that their body is clearly different from the way they want to be and the way they think of themselves.

It’s similarly controversial - should such a person undergo therapy to be okay with the natural state of their body or undergo surgery to have their body match their self-image?

There is an important difference however. Being male or female is a rational thing to wish to be; wanting to be damaged is not rational. Being male, or being female isn’t a bad thing.

@Bosstone

Right. While the posts thus far in this thread have been saying “it’s not about the genitalia” and that’s correct for social interaction, privately it means a lot more. A woman stuck in a man’s body has this grotesque thing between her legs that her brain is telling her should not exist. A man in a woman’s body has curves that he knows he shouldn’t have.

I’m reminded of a quote from a FtM that having breasts felt like having two huge tumors on his chest.

@Revenant_Threshold

@Guinastasia

How would an MRI or brain scan kill someone? (If you do indeed mean an MRI)

I suppose it’s possible he means that the difference might only be detectable with an autopsy or some procedure too invasive to be without risk. Which wouldn’t affect the existence of those differences, but would mean we’d have considerable problems in checking particular people’s brains for the evidence.

It’s mentioned upthread that you can identify a brain as transsexual by appearance - which require opening the skull and cutting up the brain. To quote :

@Fish

If it is true that this child has some kind of gender dysphoria, and this isn’t a temporary phase, consider this:

Slice open the hypothalamus of a heterosexual male. You will find it is speckled, as with a five o’clock shadow. Homosexual male: same.

Slice open the hypothalamus of a heterosexual female. You will find it is clean and clear. No speckles. Transsexual male: same.

[Guinastasia]

Well, in my defense, he DID say MRIs. (Which suck, but won’t kill a person.) Speaking of, WOULD an MRI be able to detect anything? Or a CAT scan?

[Zephyurs]

Jimmy, you have a perverse take on gender. You carping on this “well if I dressed as a skyscraper people be right to mock me for thinking I am one” analogy is like a New Age mystic claiming “well scientists believe in invisible things like atoms, so I can just as justifiably believe in energy and chi!” You fail to even establish a basis for the analogy besides assertion.

Let’s take a look at it, the assumptions behind it, and the implications it carries.

For one, it betrays a profoundly shallow level of thought about trans issues. No one is really caring whether a trans-man is “really” the same as a cis-man. Indeed, everyone recognizes trans-people and cis-people are different (that’s why they have different names!), even insofar as you can consider sex to have a reality to it.

Next issue: not all personal claims are the same class of truth claims. In one instance, you have identity claims. Identity claims are claims about the self knowledge of the subject, e.g. I am male. On the other hand, you can have relational claims. If you say, I am sexy, it’s a direct statement about how society relates to and interprets you. Your personal take on it has no bearing on its truth or not; you can have identity claims that are similar to it, such as “I am a sexual being worthy of dignity and respect” or “I am sexually attracted to myself.”

Lastly, it’s incredibly arrogant for anyone to flippantly deny a claim someone is making about their own identity. It’s not a topic that’s inherently inappropriate to discuss; going back to the original news article, there’s good reason to be open minded but cautious about what the child is saying, because children are not always fully able to appreciate how society will interpret what they’re saying. It takes careful observation to figure out how a child actually perceives itself.

But for adults, saying you know better than they about their personal identity is disturbingly arrogant. For trans-folk, all they’re saying is that they have the psychological makeup of the opposite gender and that, to one extent or another, the tension between their birth body and their psychological makeup is generating stress.

Are you really so brilliant that you know better than they do about who they are?

[matt_mcl]

@Broomstick

As I understand it (and I confess I don’t understand it much at all) it isn’t that there’s anything wrong with being a femme man or a butch woman, but rather that for a transsexual it’s not enough. Or that a MtF doesn’t want to be a “femme man”, the person wants to be a woman.

On the flip side - one can be a femme man who is happy being a man with no desire to have the genitalia of the opposite gender whatsoever. Or one can be a very butch woman who is happy to be a woman and wants to be a woman, not a man.

Speaking!

I identify as a femme, non-transgendered man. I have always identified as male and am (more or less) comfortable identifying as male and intend to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

My being femme does not mean I “feel like a woman.” I feel like an effeminate man. And there are tons of trans guys who are femme like me. Nobody would mistake them for women; they don’t behave or present “like women,” they present like femme dudes.

As has been pointed out by others, being transgender is not a matter of you are just more and more effeminate until finally you fall over. Gender identity – the gender you identify as – is separate from gender expression – to what extent you fit the social norms for how your gender is meant to look and behave.

Just like I don’t identify as a woman because I like guys, as people used to think, I don’t identify as a woman because I am femme either. Likewise, just like not all trans people are heterosexual, not all of them are femme women or butch guys.

[Giltathriel]

@Der_Trihs

There is an important difference however. Being male or female is a rational thing to wish to be; wanting to be damaged is not rational. Being male, or being female isn’t a bad thing.

Right, and I don’t mean to imply that being transgendered is bad. Body Dismorphic Disorder isn’t really equivalent, it’s simply the closest real condition I could think of. I don’t think there’s a more than a scant handful of people who identify as tigers or horses strongly enough to request surgery, but there are enough people who want amputations that some doctors will consider it.

[Marley23]

@Giltathriel

I think the better comparison would be between transgender people and people with body dismorphic disorder, where someone’s self-identity is that they should be an amputee even if they have a perfectly functional set of limbs. It’s similar in that their body is clearly different from the way they want to be and the way they think of themselves.

It’s similarly controversial - should such a person undergo therapy to be okay with the natural state of their body or undergo surgery to have their body match their self-image?

Actually I believe those people usually don’t want to have the limb amputated, they just feel it isn’t theirs and doesn’t belong there. Which is not quite the same as being transgender, and it’s probably treatable other ways.

[Giltathriel]

@Marley23

Actually I believe those people usually don’t want to have the limb amputated, they just feel it isn’t theirs and doesn’t belong there. Which is not quite the same as being transgender, and it’s probably treatable other ways.

Well I definitely just messed-up the name of the condition - it’s Body Integrity Identity Disorder and not Body Dismorphic Disorder, so you can take that with a grain of salt.

[waterj2]

@Giltathriel

Right, and I don’t mean to imply that being transgendered is bad. Body Dismorphic Disorder isn’t really equivalent, it’s simply the closest real condition I could think of. I don’t think there’s a more than a scant handful of people who identify as tigers or horses strongly enough to request surgery, but there are enough people who want amputations that some doctors will consider it.

I believe that what you are referring to is actually not Body Dismorphic Disorder (BDD), but Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID). Personally, from the bit I’ve looked into the matter, it does seem that there are some people who would probably be better off with a safe amputation than being unhappy and perhaps injuring themselves trying to get what they want. The information I’ve found on the internet seems to be pretty scant, often biased, and overlaps with amputee fetish fantasies, but it does seem that some people really do feel wrong in their un-amputated bodies.

This is not to imply some sort of slippery slope that starts with transsexuals, continues past those with BIID, and soon enough we’ve got people that want us to accept their new equine nature. But there are a couple accounts I’ve read that make me think that voluntary amputation would be the least fucked-up alternative available. I wonder if anyone would refuse to think of someone who had a limb voluntarily amputated as a “real” amputee, the way some apparently refuse to think of a FTM as a “real” male.

[tomndebb]

Jimmy Joe Meager, sarcasm works better when it makes sense. It works much better in this forum when you do not clip text out of context in order to use it to directly insult other posters.

Do not do this again.

[ /Moderating ]

[Fish]

@begbert2

My question is, what is this physical difference in the brains, and can it be detected by an MRI or something?

To my knowledge, no, not yet — we do not have the tools to diagnose this biological difference with non-invasive procedures. A biopsy of the hypothalamus is impractical.

There is some real potential with Lamia’s concept of a hormone deficiency, because as I understand it, the hypothalamus acts as the “master control switch” for deploying hormones to the body’s glands, hormones which cause the glands to deploy their own hormones. If the hypothalamus develops a dysfunction, perhaps it will continuously attempt — and continuously fail, like running a refrigerator with the door open — to reach the hormonal balance it seeks. The hypothalamus might constantly demand that these glands produce more estrogen, more estrogen! and the body simply cannot produce estrogen in sufficient volumes.

What does it feel like when your hypothalamus goes kerfutz? I don’t know — it’s buried deep in the lizard-brain of our distant ancestry, well below conscious thought. It’s a tiny nodule right behind the sinus cavity, sitting underneath the mass of the brain. Complex, ancient, and who knows how the hell it does what it does. We might one day have the ability to detect this kind of structural difference, but not yet.

Here’s a guy who had a primary CNS lymphoma affecting his hypothalamus. What did it feel like to him? He was thirty all the time. They were unable to biopsy the hypothalamus, as it is not readily accessible from the outside.

More promising is the idea that we might perform a short-term clinical trial of artificial hormones, to see how the patient responds to treatment. If transgendered people report that the hormones made the biggest difference in their lives, a noticeable difference that made them swiftly happier, then put likely candidates on a 3-day trial period or something.

[bengangmo]

@Lemur866

The question is, what do we do about the problem? Tell the kid he’s delusional, he’s not a girl, he’s a boy, and if he plays with girl toys or wears girl clothes he’ll be punished? And when he’s a teenager and still feels this way, amp up the pressure? And when he’s an adult and still feels this way, kick him out of the house and pretend you never had a child?

Or do we allow the kid to dress as a girl and play with girl toys–if he wants to? And not encourage dressing as a girl, but providing clothes appropriate to either gender and letting him pick which ones he wants? And providing all sorts of toys and letting him pick which ones he wants to play with? And if he plays with dolls instead of trucks, not freaking out?

Nothing in particular has to be done, until the child begins to enter puberty. Then we have to make harder decisions. Is the child really, I mean really-really committed to spending the rest of their lives as the other gender? The fact is, all the surgery and hormone treatments in the world won’t transform them into a girl. If we could wave a magic wand and turn him into a girl it would be one thing, but we can’t. It’s a difficult and painful and only partially satisfactory process.

Sorry I don’t have the time to wade through the whole thread right now, but this is a well thought through commnet.

A couple of thoughts on what I have read so far… in hte OP the sentences “chooses to be a girl” is a really unfortunate choice of words from the reporter. It implies a decision, as in choosing a blue bike over a pink bike.

One would certianly hope that there is more “evidence” driving the decision than this - as in genetic testing, observable traits, pyschologist reports etc. If there is not this sort of “back-up” then the parents are crackpots.

But in the US today, there is no reason why the sex can’t be left totally ambivalent for the next few years…what difference would it really make? And I think that if its just about what clothes are worn or what activities are undertaken, then he’s not really trnasgendered by rather bullied or gets a feeling of jealously or similiar over the “fun” that girls get to have dressing up.

[Fish]

Here’s some more science on the brains of transgendered folks.

@http://etransgender.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=510

Researchers in the Netherlands have discovered that a region of the hypothalamus, located at the floor of the brain, is about 50 percent larger in men than in women, and almost 60 percent larger in men than in male-to-female transsexuals. … Significantly, the region of the hypothalamus does not differ in size between gay and straight men, and so it cannot be said to play a role in male sexual orientation. … Such findings, which remain deeply contested, have troubled many people for the simple reason that gay men overwhelmingly think of themselves as men, not as abnormal women. But genetic men who undergo sex reassignment often claim that they felt like girls from early childhood on.

Bolding mine.

Here’s another: these are photographs of the hypothalamus. You want proof that there’s a biological difference in a transgendered person? Here it is. The photograph has four quadrants to it. The left quadrants (patients A and C) are a heterosexual male and a homosexual male, respectively. The right two quadrands (B and D) are a heterosexual female and a transsexual male-to-female.

A and C are similar; B and D are similar. These are actual differences in brain biology. This isn’t some shit that somebody made up to get attention for themselves.

Studies in female-to-male transsexuals is pending, according to a website I read, because the phenomenon is so much rarer. It took them 11 years to collect 6 MtF brains to study; FtM are even rarer still.

[Jimmy_Joe_Meager]

@Hilarity_N.Suze

Here’s what I can’t get my mind around. You have a division between what your body is and what your mind thinks it is. Our current solution is to modify the body, and we can do that now (as opposed to a hundred and fifty years ago). Why don’t we work on the mind thing?

Good point.

If a man says he honestly, sincerely, *emphatically *believes he’s being subjected to mind control rays from outer space, the current course of treatment is *not *to (1) tell him he’s 100% correct, (2) surgically and permanently attach a tinfoil hat, and (3) insist the rest of society play along.

However, if a man says he honestly, sincerely, *emphatically *believes he’s a woman, the current course of treatment seems to be to (1) tell him he’s 100% correct, (2) surgically and permanently remove his genitals, and (3) insist the rest of society play along.

I just don’t get it.