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Topic Started: Jan 29 2007, 07:40 PM (620 Views)
Eral
Kopi Luwak
Umm, psychological=medical. Mental illness. See the link?

I'm pretty sure he is aware of that. So is everyone involved. It's still so important to the boy he wants to live that way. He is not experiencing normal responses to his body and gender.
Many people choose to live trans-gender. There are many people who are congenitally inter-sex, and they choose a gender or have had one assigned to them. This boy is going to have a life like that, because living as a male is unacceptable to him.

You can describe him using any term you like: fake women, mutilated man; but can we seriously deny him, and people like him, a procedure that helps them because it makes us feel uncomfortable?

Please don't refer to inability to menstruate or have children as a defect. We are having enough trouble with the Japanese minister who thinks women are child-bearing machines.:blink:
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Joe
Coffea Canephora
Bex
Jan 30 2007, 11:57 PM
And women who will never be able to have children are also physical mockeries?

If you realize this isn't my point, then why ask such a preposterous question? A woman who is unable to have children does not possess that ability because something in her internal wiring is off, not because she used to be a man.

Slicing one's penis in half and having it shoved inside one, along with extensive hormone treatments, does not a woman make.
In the shadow of the light from a black sun
Frigid statue standing icy blue and numb
Where are the frost giants I've begged for protection?
I'm freezing
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Joe
Coffea Canephora
Quote:
 
Umm, psychological=medical.


First of all, not necessarily. Psychology versus psychiatry.

Second of all, I admit to a poor choice of words. My point is that if this person needs help, it should be focused on his mind and brain, not the rest of his body. They're just appeasing his his illness rather than trying to cure or negate it.
In the shadow of the light from a black sun
Frigid statue standing icy blue and numb
Where are the frost giants I've begged for protection?
I'm freezing
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
In this case, the body is the source of the problem.
Not all psychiatric/psychological problems can be cured. With some disorders, the sufferer has to learn to live with the problem. Anxiety, bi-polar disorder, eating disorders, schizophrenia: they're all treatable, but they don't just go away.

I have never heard a story of someone who went through trans-gender surgery saying they regretted it. They all say it brought them peace.
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Joe
Coffea Canephora
Quote:
 
In this case, the body is the source of the problem.


As in....not the brain/mind?

Quote:
 
Not all psychiatric/psychological problems can be cured. With some disorders, the sufferer has to learn to live with the problem. Anxiety, bi-polar disorder, eating disorders, schizophrenia: they're all treatable, but they don't just go away.


How is this a treatment? Nothing is done to treat the person's brain malfunction, whatever it is.

How many of the males here would be able to love or sleep with one of these people? Ladies, how would you feel about being with a woman who became a man?
In the shadow of the light from a black sun
Frigid statue standing icy blue and numb
Where are the frost giants I've begged for protection?
I'm freezing
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
*sigh*
The mind cannot cope with the realities of the physical body: there is a perceived mismatch.
How do you treat such a misperception?
I can't help think how homosexuality used to be treated as a psychological disorder, and it was believed that if people just pulled themselves together, they'd be hunky dory.

Maybe, this is the correct treatement. I don't know. If it relieves suffering, then it has a benefit.

I'm pretty sure that acceptance by others is not the top priority for trans-gender people. I think they are looking for some peace within themselves.



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Bex
puppet dictator
Joe
Jan 31 2007, 03:40 AM
Ladies, how would you feel about being with a woman who became a man?

Love the inside, sweetheart.
I belong to one of those families that does not speak to or see its members as often as we should,
but if someone needed anyone to fall on a sword for her, there would be a queue waiting to commit the deed.
-Min Jin Lee
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Bex
puppet dictator
Well, it is about trying to get the outside to match the inside. You can say that body parts aren't important to what makes a woman (or a man), but frame it in the trauma of a mastectomy due to breast cancer, or even look at how many women cry hysterically after cutting off their long hair (and that grows back). We do associate femininity with these trappings. Appearances are part of identity, and symbols are a huge part of our communication.

Counter to that, if we take the strictest biological stance (not unlike Neil Gaiman's moon), it's all down to chromosomes, and no amount of surgery or hormone treatment can change those. There are creatures who have naturally evolved to have males without Y chromosomes (a type of vole springs to mind; all the coolest sex-related science involves voles), but for us, if there's a Y chromosome in your makeup, you're biologically male.

Even chromosomes aren't perfect. Males can be born XYY or XXY. A study was done to see if more XYYs end up in prison, but the results weren't statistically significant over a sample of the normal population. They do apparently tend to be larger than normal males, and XXYs are more likely to grow excessive breast tissue. Women with XXX are very small in stature, and are supposedly very docile and maternal (though not capable of bearing children, they make excellent caregivers). Matters of temperament are difficult to judge objectively, I think, and of course there's always the outrage over defining aggression are a "male" characteristic and nurturing as "female."

I believe all people with a triple sex chromosome combination are sterile. But I studied this stuff quite a number of years ago, so this is all from faded memory. Still, it's pretty interesting. It's also possible for a female to have been exposed in utero to an excessive amount of androgen, and later in life this expresses in the development of more masculine characteristics (physical and social).

Fascinating case study in a textbook I have at home, of a young male who started growing breasts and experiencing other secondary sex changes, apparently spontaneously (can't remember what country it was in; I think the patient was identified only as "Alice"). Since the condition didn't go away, and he was adamant about making the change complete and permanent, eventually gender reassignment surgery was performed. It wasn't until years later that she admitted to the initial changes resulting from self-administered hormone treatments, from stealing her mother's estrogen pills (mother was apparently on too many meds to keep track).

What was really intriguing about this case study was that it wasn't in one of my normal psych books, but part of a course in Ethnomethodology, which is the study of how we interpret the world on a micro-level. How we recognize the difference between a 0 or an O is a question for Ethnomethodology, or how we can tell that something is upside down. The Alice case study was in the book accompanied by questions about perception; the exposure of the ruse involved was outlined in an appendix, to be read later. How did that change things, if it did?

I always figured that just being able to ask the questions was more important than coming up with answers.
I belong to one of those families that does not speak to or see its members as often as we should,
but if someone needed anyone to fall on a sword for her, there would be a queue waiting to commit the deed.
-Min Jin Lee
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Regullus
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Reliant
In reply to Joe's question, maybe but it's not really a pertinent question for the topic.

Your concerns seem to be that it was paid for by the taxpayer and you consider it a type of elective treatment. Two, are they treating the kid correctly? Should they have refrained from the hormonal treatment until the boy was an adult.

There's a lot discussion as to what should or should not be covered under insurance or national health. In Germany and I believe England too, they cover this situation.

In the US, we don't cover sex change operations but we would cover the kid's psychiatric treatment and maybe we would cover the hormone treatment. I think we cover erectile dysfunction under insurance. I don't think ed is life threatening. The goal of an insurance company is to make money and they will try and limit coverage and there are questions as to what is or is not elective.

It's a complicated issue but so far in this case, what the medical community has done, is reversible and the progression can be stopped. The only real unknown is whether this treatment will have negative health effects in later life. However if there were serious concerns that Kim would have attempted suicide without this treatment then perhaps later possible consequences of the treatment are moot.

As Bex learnedly pointed out, these conditions are real and do appear to have organic causes.


tempus_teapot
 
I'd like to add that at this point I have taken my Spider Jerusalem action figure and tied his wrist to my Cassidy (from Preacher) action figure just so I can work out which positions are feasible with them and which aren't.

Read that and weep, internet. Weep!

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Blood_Raven
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Come burn with me.
Another example where the parents need to be fixed. Breeding stupidity in the world should not be allowed. I have nothing against the kid, not his/her/its fault for being confused, but the parents agreeing to do this.
TheFrozen North forums. Where it's at.
Mood for today: Perfection
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
Geez, BR. :rolleyes: What else were they supposed to do?

In Fiji (?) there is a group of people where it is common for puberty to initiate drastic changes in physiology among children who have been raised as girls. Previously inter-sex organs develop into penises, they develop facial and body hair and musculature and height. We learned about it at uni, as part of study on gender and roles. The young people who change do not have difficulties taking on their new identities as men, and it is accepted in the community.
There is another group, where men change sexual identity, and take on a woman's role. It is viewed as holy.
In India, the same sort of attitude is taken to transexual men: but as I recall, they are viewed as a bit scary.
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lara
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Kopi Luwak
Joe
Jan 31 2007, 05:33 AM
Ok. Well please go back and try to understand what I said.

He will never be able to have children or menstruate. By that I mean he will not have ovaries, fallopian tubes, etc. He's just a physical mockery of a woman.

I see what you're getting at. In my tangential debating style, I am pointing out that it is not easy to define what makes a person a woman. I do not find this to be a discussion with easy answers. I don't know these people, so I don't feel comfortable judging the situation, which is very complex, as are questions of gender. I have learned that gender isn't a black-and-white thing; there are shades of grey to just about everything in this world, it seems.


(edited to correct their to there, argh)
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Joe
Coffea Canephora
Quote:
 
I am pointing out that it is not easy to define what makes a person a woman.


Yes, but as the physical traits are being emphasized by the treatment of this boy, I am saying that he cannot become a woman in that sense, ever. It's a costume.
In the shadow of the light from a black sun
Frigid statue standing icy blue and numb
Where are the frost giants I've begged for protection?
I'm freezing
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
Yes. But the point is, the boy's distress is now eased.

Should we be concerned we are now running the risk that someone is going to be tricked by this pseudo-woman and have to deal with a horrible homosexual quandary? I know, we'll write to his parents and ask to have the boy correctly labelled.
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Krazy
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I haz powah!
Joe, and what's the problem with you have with that if it makes Kim feel better? I would suggest it is all about him getting other people to believe that he is a woman because that is how he feels on the inside and wishes society to treat him like one. :unsure:
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Joe
Coffea Canephora
I don't believe the real problem is being addressed.
In the shadow of the light from a black sun
Frigid statue standing icy blue and numb
Where are the frost giants I've begged for protection?
I'm freezing
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
What is his real problem?
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Joe
Coffea Canephora
The fact that he's fucked in the head. There's nothing wrong with his body.
In the shadow of the light from a black sun
Frigid statue standing icy blue and numb
Where are the frost giants I've begged for protection?
I'm freezing
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
How will his real problem be addressed?
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Joe
Coffea Canephora
Medication and/or counseling.
In the shadow of the light from a black sun
Frigid statue standing icy blue and numb
Where are the frost giants I've begged for protection?
I'm freezing
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
What kind of medication will help him accept his body as male? What method of counselling will enable him to stop believing he would rather be female?
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Joe
Coffea Canephora
That's up to psychiatrists and psychologists, not me or some surgeon. The problem is that the headshrinkers aren't even trying.
In the shadow of the light from a black sun
Frigid statue standing icy blue and numb
Where are the frost giants I've begged for protection?
I'm freezing
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Eral
Kopi Luwak
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...1/31/wkim31.xml

This reminds me of the woman who experienced multiple personalities and didn't want to go through the process of integration.
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Regullus
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Reliant
Two comments: He can suck it and wait two years. I wonder how happy the good doctor's patient is who got a sex change op if the patient is still in therapy so many years later.

I honestly don't think going to a psychiatrist is bad but if I'm terribly well adjusted and happy, why am I going to a psychiatrist? 'Course, the article doesn't actually say the patient is still in counseling but if the patient isn't in counseling then how does the doctor know how well adjusted and happy the patient is?

One other comment, I've heard of this situation before when a child as young as two sexually identifies themselves. My daughter is going to be two in May and I have hard time believing she will be talking about her gender or particularly playing with dolls either. For the moment, her toys are pretty gender non- specific. She saw a doll, some months ago, and what seemed to interest her was the hair. My niece is three and half and I don't think there's been a lot of gender talk, I could be wrong.

To lara - Does your daughter talk about her gender?
tempus_teapot
 
I'd like to add that at this point I have taken my Spider Jerusalem action figure and tied his wrist to my Cassidy (from Preacher) action figure just so I can work out which positions are feasible with them and which aren't.

Read that and weep, internet. Weep!

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Eral
Kopi Luwak
There is evidence that children learn about gender and roles right from the beginning, when adults refer to them as "a big strong boy" and "a pretty little girl". When told an infant is a boy, people will dress it in blue, and use words words like handsome, strong: if told the infant is a girl, they will dress it in pink, add ribbons, and use words like pretty, beautiful.
Having watched the film of this study I have scrupulously used beautiful, clever and strong when talking to all babies. I am guilty of girlying up my nieces.
Children usually start to be aware of gender differences by age three, earlier if they see nudie people with different bits to them. They are sometimes surprised, but usually satisfied. It is part of becoming aware of their seperate identity from their parents, of their own ability to choose and do.

Every child I have seen has been very comfortable with their gender: even the little boy I know who wants a ballerina dress is happy being male.
We don't teach boys to be emotional cripples anymore, or girls to be helpless and dependent: thank Christ. But we still have deeply embedded ideas of who men and women are, and we pass those on. My brother-in-law suffered from an extreme crisis of nerves when his oldest son decided he was Mary Poppins at age 4.

The boy in question is disturbed: he can't just suck it up. Like depressed people can't just snap out of it. :rolleyes: He is still seeing a psych because though he is happier now, he still needs support, and probably will for a long time.

EDIT: I realised this morning that Regullus wants the boy to wait until he is 18 before any surgery -hence her reference to him sucking it up. I totally agree with her, and retract my statement "he can't just suck it up."
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