Über die Freiheit / de libertate

I am continuing my boycott of Utah.

The Atlantic has an excellent article up about transgendered children and the issues involved.

Spack’s own conception of the psychology involved is uncomplicated: “If a girl starts to experience breast budding and feels like cutting herself, then she’s probably transgendered. If she feels immediate relief on the [puberty-blocking] drugs, that confirms the diagnosis,” he told The Boston Globe. He thinks of the blockers not as an addendum to years of therapy but as “preventative” because they forestall the trauma that comes from social rejection. Clinically, men who become women are usually described as “male-to-female,” but Spack, using the parlance of activist parents, refers to them as “affirmed females”—“because how can you be a male-to-female if really you were always a female in your brain?”

I found this section, interesting and important. 

Transsexualism is far less common than homo­sexuality, and the research is in its infancy. Scattered studies have looked at brain activity, finger size, familial recurrence, and birth order. One hypothesis involves hormonal imbalances during pregnancy. In 1988, researchers injected hormones into pregnant rhesus monkeys; the hormones seemed to masculinize the brains but not the bodies of their female babies. “Are we expecting to find some biological component [to gender identity]?” asks Vilain. “Certainly I am. But my hunch is, it’s going to be mild. My hunch is that sexual orientation is probably much more hardwired than gender identity. I’m not saying [gender identity is] entirely determined by the social environment. I’m just saying that it’s much more malleable.”

Vilain has spent his career working with intersex patients, who are born with the anatomy of both sexes. He says his hardest job is to persuade the parents to leave the genitals ambiguous and wait until the child has grown up, and can choose his or her own course. This experience has influenced his views on parents with young transgender kids. “I’m torn here. I’m very ambivalent. I know [the parents] are saying the children are born this way. But I’m still on the fence. I consider the child my patient, not the parents, and I don’t want to alleviate the anxiety of the parents by surgically fixing the child. We don’t know the long-term effects of making these decisions for the child. We’re playing God here, a little bit.” 

Even some supporters of hormone blockers worry that the availability of the drugs will encourage parents to make definitive decisions about younger and younger kids. This is one reason why doctors at the clinic in the Netherlands ask parents not to let young children live as the other gender until they are about to go on blockers. “We discourage it because the chances are very high that your child will not be a transsexual,” says Cohen-Kettenis. The Dutch studies of their own patients show that among young children who have gender-identity disorder, only 20 to 25 percent still want to switch gender at adolescence; other studies show similar or even lower rates of persistence.

The most extensive study on transgender boys was published in 1987 as The “Sissy Boy Syndrome” and the Development of Homosexuality. For 15 years, Dr. Richard Green followed 44 boys who exhibited extreme feminine behaviors, and a control group of boys who did not. The boys in the feminine group all played with dolls, preferred the company of girls to boys, and avoided “rough-and-tumble play.” Reports from their parents sound very much like the testimonies one reads on the listservs today. “He started … cross-dressing when he was about 3,” reported one mother. “[He stood] in front of the mirror and he took his penis and he folded it under, and he said, ‘Look, Mommy, I’m a girl,’” said another.

Green expected most of the boys in the study to end up as transsexuals, but nothing like that happened. Three-fourths of the 44 boys turned out to be gay or bisexual (Green says a few more have since contacted him and told him they too were gay). Only one became a transsexual. “We can’t tell a pre-gay from a pre-transsexual at 8,” says Green, who recently retired from running the adult gender-identity clinic in England. “Are you helping or hurting a kid by allowing them to live as the other gender? If everyone is caught up in facilitating the thing, then there may be a hell of a lot of pressure to remain that way, regardless of how strongly the kid still feels gender-dysphoric. Who knows? That’s a study that hasn’t found its investigator yet.” 

Indeed the whole article made me rethink my views on this issue. This article puts forth both sides of the issue and put a lot of doubt in my mind that transgendered children are necessarily transgendered.

A while back a friend was discussing the story of a child who was born with gender dysphoria or in other words the child acted contrary to its physiological parts. This issue is probably the greatest challenge to the belief that sexual orientation is a straightforward matter. I do not pretend that I have any great insight into the issue other than I believe the child should be allowed to act the way that is natural to them assuming that parents understand the cultural norms present and the challenges that are implicit.

What reminded me of this issue was a comment on a blog (which I can’t seem to find) about a gay man who did not like being lumped in with transgendered persons. Typically one sees the LGBT/GLBT or Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered lumped together in one ‘movement’. (Wikipedia’s pages talk about this topic, see here and here.) Again I have no specific experience in this area being neither homosexual nor transgendered, but I do believe that there is a fairly strong case for separating the groups. Certainly one could see that having an interest in the same-sex is different than having sexual organs which do not match the natural thoughts and actions of the person.

With this in mind I recalled how the parents of this child were introduced to a medical student who happened to be gay and they felt it a good opportunity to ask his opinion on the matter since he would presumably have some particular opinion that others couldn’t provide. The medical student’s opinion was that the child should have sex reassignment surgery as quickly as possible. I see a couple problems with this outlook. First, I believe that, despite the inevitable hardship that will be endured during childhood and youth, such a drastic step would be best left for the individual to make. If not at legal adulthood at least in the teen years when one might be better able to decide if it was best of them. Among my group of friends this seems to be agreed upon.

The second issue is somewhat different. I wonder why merely because someone is homosexual that they would really have a more significant opinion on the matter. A typical heterosexual is attracted to the opposite and really only knows those feelings. A typical homosexual is attracted to the same sex and understands that. But a transgendered person who is born with male genital but acts and thinks like a female is a much more complex issue. Certainly it would be a mistake to call such a person gay or straight, so it seems to value a homosexual person’s opinion on the matter is of no greater importance. Indeed, assuming the example I just provided, a heterosexual might have a closer understanding since both attractions as defined in the mind and regardless of the physiological aspect, are to the opposite sex.

Now obviously consulting with a wide variety of people for opinions is good. I just fear that putting undue value on one person’s opinion might not be best for the child in the long run. Indeed, the best person to ask would be a transgendered individual, like, say, the great economist Deirdre (Donald) McCloskey.

Overall, I do not envy parents in this situation and hope that I do not ever have to make such a difficult choice with important implications for child development.

Re: “Beliefs basis for Nichols’ appeal” (Leader-Post, June 19.)I can sympathize with marriage commissioner Orville Nichols in his appeal against the decision of the Human Rights Commission. Imagine having to ask two men, or two women, to promise to “Love, honour, and cherish” one another. Those are such sinful acts!

E. J. Adams
Regina [Leader-Post]

“I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing,” said the Rev. John Hagee, John McCain’s ex-BFF, when asked about Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans just before a “massive homosexual rally,” aka an annual street party called “Southern Decadence,” was supposed to take place in the French Quarter. “I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment. And I believe that Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.”

And God got his way: By drowning little old ladies in attics in the Ninth Ward, God prevented that massive gay rally—for one year.

So how does a douchebag like Hagee explain away the tragedy in Iowa last week? A tornado struck a Boy Scout camp, killing four and injuring scores more, and the Scouts are famously antigay and antiatheist. Well, we need only to consult the same interview with Rev. Hagee to learn the answer: While all natural phenomena represent God’s “permissible will,” says Hagee, “it is wrong to say that every natural disaster is the result of sin… No man on Earth knows the mind of God.”

See how that works? Not every natural disaster is the result of sin, you see, because sometimes natural disasters happen to us, not just to them, and when they happen to us, well, the Lord sure moves in mysterious ways, and no man on Earth knows the mind of God. But let a natural disaster strike San Francisco this week, next week, or ever again, and Rev. Hagee will be able to read the mind of God like it was a large-print edition of Highlights for Children. [Savage Love]