middle school principal sex change - relevant to job duties?

Great Debates
21

As opposed to the average principle who is held up for ridicule by 95% of their students. Kids deal with this sort of thing much better than adults do. In a similar situation a kid was barred from doing the same thing and the kids protested.

If you found out that you had XX chromosones tomorrow would you be a woman? You could compete in the olympics as a woman:). If a person has XY chromosones, but is in every aspect a woman does that make the person a man or a woman?(otherwise known as AIS syndrome)

The gender of a persons brain actually has little to do with the person at all. Wether or not the person gets a certain amount of testosterone in between the first 2-5 weeks of pregnancy determines the gender of the brain.

Could you give a reason for this belief, other than simply someone might agree with it? Stuff like this belongs in IMHO, here we deal with facts. I’ve never met a person with complete mental and emotional well being so I would agree with it.

22

I’m not saying it ain’t so, but I’d really appreciate some authority concerning this “gender of the brain” stuff.

23

Could you clarify what exactly you want? You apparently believe that transgendered people do exist by your earlier statements.

24

I stated early on that I have some trouble with T, other thann GLB. For one thing, my understanding is that there are many different types of Ts.

I believe that there exist people who believe the body they were born with is not the appropriate gender. I am not judging the rightness or wrongness of this percepton, nor do I know whether this situation is emotional or physical in nature.

I generally understand “gender” to be used synonymous with “sex”, i.e. male or female, as borne out by my look this a.m. into Dorland’s and Webster’s. Dorland’s does, however, define “psychological sex”, as the self-image of the gender role of the individual. (I did not see in Dorland’s a def for AIS syndrome you cite. What is that?)

IANAE, but I understand that certain individuals are borne with, shall I say, unusual genetic makeups which render them other than strictly male or female - not strictly XX or XY. Again, this distinction is apparent on a genetic level. I assume that not everyone who undergoes SRS experiences such a genetic situation.

I also can look to the DSM-IV and find conditions such as “gender identity disorder” identified as a diagnosable mental/emotional condition. The APA apparently does not consider such individuals to possess a brain and body of differing genders. The DSM also identifies conditions such as factitious disorder (Munchausen’s) and body dysmorphia, which one might consider relevant in suggesting an emotional, rather than physiological cause for people desiring SRS. And I recently read an article (in The Atlantic, I believe) about people who undergo elective surgery, such as amputation of a limb, to satisfy their body perception.

(None of this is to say that people with beliefs/feelings/knowledge/awareness that they possess bodies of the incorrect gender/sex are “wrong” or “bad”, or that they should not be permitted to do whatever they want with their own bodies or minds to address this perceived need/desire. Further, I agree that, once an individual undergoes SRS, they should be treated in most, if not all, ways as a member of their reassigned gender. Not sure what sports organizations’ position is on this.)

I am unclear exactly what you and DocCathode mean in suggesting a gender-disjunct between brain and body. Perhaps you are defining “gender” in some way other than I am used to. Or perhaps you are using the word “brain” to refer to an individual’s emotional makeup. My brain is an organ made up of cells, and is the same gender as my liver and toenails. And I would suggest the same is true for people who consider themselves trapped in a body of the incorrect sex.

I am curious what exactly you mean by suggesting a person can have a brain and body of different genders, or a brain that is of different gender than their gentics or morphology, and what the source for your belief is.

You and Doc offered a phrasing I was not familiar with and do not consider necessarily intuitive or self evident. So I requested some support. I don’t know if I can explain my question any clearer than that.

"Brain and brain. What is brain?"
Who can identify this classic quote?

25

http://www.newswise.com/articles/1999/4/BRAIN3.AAN.html
The view of humans as male or female only, is false. Besides XX and XY, humans can be born: XXY-this is Kleinfelter’s syndrome and results in a sterile male with a feminised body shape, X (Sometimes shown as XO)-Turner’s syndrome, a sterile female who does not enter puberty or develop secondary sexual characteristics unless treated with hormones.

 For more information on this and related topics-
   http://www.isna.org

The Intersexed Society of North America

   Their site provides information on many conditions that place individuals somewhere between male and female.
26

DocCathode, is it your understanding that the majority of individuals undergoing SRS experience one of these genetic conditions?

Moreover, if an individual is XXY, XO, or some other variation other than the standard two options, are not their body and brain consistently XXY, XO, etc.? Again, your info does not seem to support the suggestion of two genders existing within the same being - one for the brain alone, and the other for the remainder of the body.

27

From the ISNA cite you link to:

intersexuality is a set of medical conditions that feature congenital anomaly of the reproductive system. That is, intersex people are born with “sex chromosomes,” external genitalia, or internal reproductive system that are not considered “standard” for either male or female.

This answers a question I did not ask, and, IMO, does not address the brain/body disjunct you and Sterra suggest…

28

Finally (and I apologize for not putting these 3 responses in one), the article you provide describes differences between the brains of males and females, but does not mention anything like “male” brains occurring in “females” (or vice versa), nor does it suggest any connection between its findings and individuals seeking SRS.

If you believe I am being pedantic or tedious, I apologize. But I honestly do not see these articles/cites as supporting what I understood you to suggest, that a fetus can develop a body of one gender, and a brain of another. Nor do I see support that this condition, if possible, is experienced by any significant portion of individuals seeking SRS. Please let me know if I misunderstood what you said.

29

From Star Trek TOS, first episode of the third season, “Spock’s Brain.”

30

Dingdingdingdingding!
We have a winner!

Just wanted to maintain the high intellectual level of this debate. :wink:

That is one of those quotes that I inflexibly blurt out in response to various casual conversational stimuli. Results in either knowing chuckles or confused stares.

See, I must have a Star Trek/Monty Python brain residing in this PeeWee Herman body. (joke, not intending to demean the significance ot te debate topic.)

31

Gotta go now.
Be back on Tuesday.
Feel free to carry on in my absence.

32

bump

Are sterra and Doc unable or unwilling to further support their proposition?

I’m a little surprised this has not been of more interest to more of you, but I will now let it drop on my end.

Now back to your regularly scheduled debate…

33

There is a big problem finding information about transexuals online. Basically if you type transexual with any other qualifiers into a search engine you wind up with 50 trillion porn sites. You can always check out some psychology books from a library but that is more work than what most people want to do. I don’t have specific sites but basically whoever below said that the brain’s gender is determined in utero is the common, accepted principal most psychologists currently support. Anyway, go to the local library and check through the human sexuality books (make sure they are recent) and look up transexuals there. Perhaps the DMVIV(whatever the current number is) would be another place that would have good information for you too. Unfortunately sifting through all the porn sites for a good site of what you are looking for isn’t feasible on the internet; although, it is an easy task for a decent library.

HUGS!
Sqrl

34

I’m typing this in the same pajamas I’ve been wearing for
the past 40 hours or so. I ran out of meds this past week. My HMO gave me the kind of trouble only a beaurocracy can give. I ran out of food this weekend. It has not been a good time for me. I’ve been searching for links to a documentary which included much information on the subject of a brain of one gender in the body of another. I can’t find it. Many searches on the subject of brain and gender turn up Cosmo quizes. As sqrl said, any list generated by a search on transexual has about 100 porn sites for each medical or scientific site.

So while I maintain my position, I am sadly unable to prove it at this time. I had the same problem when searching for the man building a rocket in his back yard. Searches on the ship’s name, EarthStar One, turned up nothing. Only when an SDMB thread provided a link to his site http://www.rocketguy.com , did I find it. I will continue to search for cites on my position. Much like my keys, they’re here somewhere.

35

As I see it, sqrl, I should not have to do the research to support their proposition.

Perhaps the distinction is not that important. Mental health/illness is as real as physical health/illness. And mental conditions range from innocuous to incapacitating. Looking through the DSM, we each can undoubtably find diagnosable conditions that we could assign to ourselves. We can find others, tho, that we would not want manifested in our child’s teacher or principal.

I believe there is at least room for a difference of opinion as to whether in individual is entirely mentally and emotionally healthy/stable, is they are physically of one gender yet believe/know they are of the opposite - absent the type of genetic transsexual situations described in the links provided. I guess I’m in the minority.

I’m not saying anyone should be prohibited from engaging in just about any activity they wish, provided it does not harm anyone else (clearly open to interpretation). But it does not necessarily follow that people who think otherwise should not express an opinion about that behavior. And such expression of free will should not necessarily be free of repercussions.

36

From

http://www.genderweb.org/~janet/znature.html

This-

2 November 1995
Summaries of some of this week’s stories

The transexual brain
Transsexuals feel, often from childhood, that they were born the wrong sex. What is the aetiology of transexuality? No distinctive differences in genes, gonads, genetalia or hormone levels have been found. Zhou et al., however, examine a region in the hypothalamus which is essential for sexual behaviour and is markedly smaller in women than in men. Strikingly, the region was of female size or smaller in six male-to-female transsexuals, regardless of sexual preference or hormone treatment. The result supports the hypothesis that gender identity stems from an interaction between the developing brain and sex hormones.
J-N Zhou, M A Hofman, L J G Gooren & D F Swaab
A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality
Nature 378, 68-70 (1995)

Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1995, Registered No.785998 England.

Sadly, the page does not provide a link to the full article. But, in a post or two, I will.

37

Thanks for the link, Doc.

Hope things improve for you soon.
Certainly give priority to things far more important than my stupid queries.

Looks like work is cranking up here. I’ll most likely check back tomorrow.

38

Apparently, their online archives only go back to 1996. I’ll try to get to a library soon and get hold of a copy of issue 378.

 Dinsdale, you are correct in pointing out that my performance in this thread has been poor. I am not fishing for pity, I was only trying to explain why I have not been able to argue my position in my usual stellar fashion.

PS
Look around the boards. You’ll discover that there is
such a thing as a stupid question. None of the questions
you’ve asked here qualify. Additionally, I appreciate the care you’ve taken to avoid offending any Dopers.

39

I was away at dragon con for a few days myself too:). By then it was off the first page and I didn’t go looking for it.

AIS is where someone with XY chromosones has a high tolerance for androgen(testosterone) so they develop as a female.

I’ve also had trouble finding a study on the subject. I’ve seen them before occasionally, but most just accept it as obvious and never actually try to prove it. All the articles I have seen on the subject usually are from message boards and the posts no longer exist. Though if you just use “transgender” it wont turn up so many porn sites.

You could look at why the standards of care for transsexuals were made at all. Men who thought they could become women by having a sex change did so and they became unhappy when they found that they couldn’t. Transsexuals on the other hand improved in happiness once they started living as the other sex. Thus the standards of care were created to weed out non transsexuals. Now about 98% of sex changes don’t make the person unhappy afterwards. The 2% who became unhappy afterwards did not follow the standards of care.

Why would that make someone emotionally/mentally unstable? I would like to hear your reasons.

40

I am trying to come up with a screen play for an episode of Boston Public whereby the principal suddenly appears as a woman on the podium in the gym in front of the entire student body. Can you picture it?