Intersexed people tend to keep a low profile. It's safer for us, and besides which, so much of the Gender Politics based on competing philosophies that ignore medical facts reminds us too much of Kindergarten. Not a happy place for some of us, by the way, And medical facts are things that can kill us if we ignore them, some of our medical conditions are life-threatening. There are amongst us people who identify as male - but with a congenital medical problem. There are those of us who identify as female, again with a congenital medical problem. I'm in that group, by the way. There are those of us who identify as neither, as Neutrius. And those who identify as Androgyne, something of both. Actual degree of physical Intersexuality has little impact on this, women can be born with bodies that look mainly male, and the reverse. There are a few of us whose appearance naturally changes over time - see Gender change in 46,XY persons with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency. by Cohen-Ketternis. Most such natural "sex reversals" are Female to Male, I'm in the tiny minority that go the other way, but the legal and social problems are much the same. Unlike most who are Intersexed, we can't hide. JB doesn't think we exist - or less charitably, if we do, then she thinks we shouldn't. You see, we are acutely aware of the real differences between Typical Male and Typical Female, as well as all the bluriness and complexity that makes a strict binary model of either Gender or Sex meaningless. We know that for some, the binary models fit really well, no matter what political philosophy you espouse. And for some, they don't fit at all, regardless of what various religious or political beliefs you hold. Reality doesn't care. Call me old-fashioned, but I thought the one battle we feminists won fair and square was to convince at least those left of centre that gender roles are made up. They are not real. We play at them. We develop traditional masculine or feminine traits by being indoctrinated, not because we are biologically programmed to behave in those ways. Our very existence denies that. Gender Roles are a social construct, there's no "gene" for girls preferring pink and boys blue. But Gender is not. There are very real neurological differences in the way we think. It's a Bi-Modal distribution, two peaks, one typically female, the other typically male, but with overlap and some who are in the middle. Complex I know, not simple, but biology is like that. Transsexuals - those whose emotional responses and thinking patterns (as opposed to learned Gender Role) are atypical for their body form get extreme discomfort. Some have neurology, a brain-body map, that gives them instincts contrary to their anatomy.This gives such intense discomfort, it's indescribable. Many suicide, and substance abuse and induced mental illness is common. Surgery to align brain and body has a 98% success rate (though the co-morbidities may remain after the cause is removed), and every other treatment - from "talking cures" to the full "Clockwork Orange" aversion therapy has a 0.000% success rate. That's in the literature, anyone on the net can verify it. See BiGender and the Brain for some of the science about gender. JB is Transphobic by the definition in Stonewall's own pamphlet, but this post by her shows it goes beyond that. She doesn't want to be associated with anyone at all different from her. And she claims the right to decide what's best for others on the basis of her normality, and in the name of philosophically pure Radical Feminist Lesbianism. She's a "worthy contender" for "Journalist of the year" - in her own mind. Others differ, and in her opinion, they have no right to. The problem is that STONEWALL, the organisation, is guilty not of Transphobia, but of "aiding and abetting". JB is just another shock-jock columnist, one who gets the Grauniad extra readers by being "controversial". A professional Troll, whose eccentric views are exploited to sell papers. That she often writes articles on genuine issues such as gynephobic violence is a bonus. Having such a person, one who has now revealed herself in this article as highly Xenophobic, nominated for an award is against every principle of diversity STONEWALL stands for. Or should do. We have been given good reason to doubt that now,
There are amongst us people who identify as male - but with a congenital medical problem. There are those of us who identify as female, again with a congenital medical problem. I'm in that group, by the way. There are those of us who identify as neither, as Neutrius. And those who identify as Androgyne, something of both. Actual degree of physical Intersexuality has little impact on this, women can be born with bodies that look mainly male, and the reverse.
There are a few of us whose appearance naturally changes over time - see Gender change in 46,XY persons with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency. by Cohen-Ketternis. Most such natural "sex reversals" are Female to Male, I'm in the tiny minority that go the other way, but the legal and social problems are much the same. Unlike most who are Intersexed, we can't hide.
JB doesn't think we exist - or less charitably, if we do, then she thinks we shouldn't. You see, we are acutely aware of the real differences between Typical Male and Typical Female, as well as all the bluriness and complexity that makes a strict binary model of either Gender or Sex meaningless. We know that for some, the binary models fit really well, no matter what political philosophy you espouse. And for some, they don't fit at all, regardless of what various religious or political beliefs you hold. Reality doesn't care.
Call me old-fashioned, but I thought the one battle we feminists won fair and square was to convince at least those left of centre that gender roles are made up. They are not real. We play at them. We develop traditional masculine or feminine traits by being indoctrinated, not because we are biologically programmed to behave in those ways.
Our very existence denies that. Gender Roles are a social construct, there's no "gene" for girls preferring pink and boys blue. But Gender is not. There are very real neurological differences in the way we think. It's a Bi-Modal distribution, two peaks, one typically female, the other typically male, but with overlap and some who are in the middle. Complex I know, not simple, but biology is like that.
Transsexuals - those whose emotional responses and thinking patterns (as opposed to learned Gender Role) are atypical for their body form get extreme discomfort. Some have neurology, a brain-body map, that gives them instincts contrary to their anatomy.This gives such intense discomfort, it's indescribable. Many suicide, and substance abuse and induced mental illness is common. Surgery to align brain and body has a 98% success rate (though the co-morbidities may remain after the cause is removed), and every other treatment - from "talking cures" to the full "Clockwork Orange" aversion therapy has a 0.000% success rate. That's in the literature, anyone on the net can verify it.
See BiGender and the Brain for some of the science about gender.
JB is Transphobic by the definition in Stonewall's own pamphlet, but this post by her shows it goes beyond that. She doesn't want to be associated with anyone at all different from her. And she claims the right to decide what's best for others on the basis of her normality, and in the name of philosophically pure Radical Feminist Lesbianism.
She's a "worthy contender" for "Journalist of the year" - in her own mind. Others differ, and in her opinion, they have no right to.
The problem is that STONEWALL, the organisation, is guilty not of Transphobia, but of "aiding and abetting". JB is just another shock-jock columnist, one who gets the Grauniad extra readers by being "controversial". A professional Troll, whose eccentric views are exploited to sell papers. That she often writes articles on genuine issues such as gynephobic violence is a bonus.
Having such a person, one who has now revealed herself in this article as highly Xenophobic, nominated for an award is against every principle of diversity STONEWALL stands for. Or should do. We have been given good reason to doubt that now,
I have nothing to add except a green glow to read it by. keep to the Fen Causeway
And thanks for that comment, tho I gave up on wading through the comments on CiF and wouldn't have seen it if Paula Thomas hadn't directed me from Facebook. keep to the Fen Causeway
This is where I know there is a conflict between many transsexuals and many queer-feminists. Both groups are (imo) primarily working from self-observation. In one case, Gender is experienced as a biological fact, in the other Gender is experienced as a social construct.
From the short argument presented in the comment here I would suppose one could have a heated debate around the meaning of "think", what constitutes "neurological differences", interpretation of data, how thought-patterns evolve and relate to society etc. Or it could start in some other end.
As both groups tend to have incorporated the experience deaply in the understanding of self, I have rarely seen a productive discussion however and would be loath to start a flamewar.
Just to clarify, Bendel does not appear to be a queer-feminist. She has actually nothing to do with the comment I have just written. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
I don't profess to understand it in any but the broadest terms (Zoe's the rocket scientist, not me), but I have always found the manichean versions of nature vs nurture unpersuasive.
Gender identity must be to a greater extent innate, for the simple reason that we are primarily animals. Animals aren't just higher apes, they're the lowest mammals, gender identity is hard-coded in the same structures identified in birds, reptiles and fish. It's not just our lizard brain that tells us if we're male or female, it's older than that.
What nurture does is about learned gender roles. But gender roles can't trump identity. Oh, you can fake it, I did, but it doesn't make you happy. eg David Reimer
David Reimer (August 22, 1965 as Bruce Reimer - May 4, 2004) was a Canadian man who was born as a healthy boy, but was sexually reassigned and raised as female after his penis was accidentally destroyed during circumcision. Psychologist John Money oversaw the case and reported the reassignment as successful, as evidence that gender identity is primarily learned. Milton Diamond later reported that Reimer never identified as female, and that he began living as male at age 14. Reimer later went public with his story to discourage similar medical practices. He committed suicide at the age of 38.
This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of developmental influences, but since both types of factors are known to play such interacting roles in development, many modern psychologists consider the question naive - representing an outdated state of knowledge. The famous psychologist Donald Hebb is said to have once answered a journalist's question of "which, nature or nurture, contributes more to personality?" by asking in response, "which contributes more to the area of a rectangle, its length or its width?"
There is no reason why a mechanism cannot exist that allows a fluity in creatures for which it is a specifically beneficial adaptive behaviour, but generally it is a hard-coded situation because it is the mechanism that provides best results across populations. keep to the Fen Causeway
And the "hardcoding" can come from many places : tortoises' sex is decided by the temperature of the eggs' surrounding, not genes. There's no reason something that indeed is subjectively felt as a hardcoding could come from very early unconscious socialisation and education - and indeed have biochemical effects. The human brain is extremely malleable.
I wonder if those studies on biochemicals, etc..., have also been conducted in places where some sort of transgenderism are socially accepted and even mandated, like, if I remember correctly, some Pacific Islands ? Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
As I said, zoe goes into some of that, but a biological science with ongoing investigation into a phenomena is not yet in any position to make definitive statements. Preliminary findings suggest we think gender identity is coded here (points to primitive part of brain) and that in higher animals it seems to be hard coded (with specific exceptions). Beyond that, write to zoe.
I'm resistant to the idea of nurture hard-coding, simply because what little of what I've read of the literature (pop simplifications, I freely confess to not understanding the full-on stuff) suggests that this is not how the brain develops. Nurture can allow fluidity of gender role and behaviour, which may suit the class of gay men more than straight men in a conformist society.
However, the superficialities of transvestism etc are possibly nurture related (I genuinely don't know) and may be able to be adopted in some socieites. I can however tell you with considerable vehemence that transvestism was meaningless to me, it didn't scratch my itch and didn't address or reduce my inner distress.
However, regarding hard coding, I return to a point I made during an essay I wrote over a year ago; I felt physically and psychologically poisoned by testosterone; or rather the absence of oestrogen. Once I started taking oestrogen the pain melted away rather suddenly after 6 weeks. This was not something I expected as the pain of testosterone was "normalised" and was my expectation of how life felt, nor did I have any concept of wellness until it went away, so the chance of a placebo affect is unlikely (I don't discount them entirely).
It is hard to imagine how such a response could be an encultured expectation. It was purely in my head, like somebody removed a nagging tooth.
But actually I've never seen anyone come up with a description of how being transgendered feels to someone who doesn't know, it's like trying to explain colour to a blind person. keep to the Fen Causeway
Our society also insists on real biological links with social phenomena - parenthood is only "real" if the child bears the genes of both parents, and people will go to impressive lengths to get such a "real" child. Maybe you needed more than transvestism for similar reason, because you can't feel as a woman without the physical attributes which are so important in our society (And then, probably you really needed those hormones).
I'm also thinking of the cases of the basketball players getting late, large growth spurts, in how encultured behavior could have very large physical effects. The intersection of the cultural and the physical is much larger than we often estimate ; and much of it remains unconscious. Maybe our "nurture", our competition friendly society, causes higher testosterone levels that make transgenderism hard, whereas Pacific cultures wouldn't cause such level of testosterone, particularly for someone raised as a girl...
Sometimes the localism of much of Neuroscience and Hormonal research (like much of experimental behavioral research) is depressing : it would be interesting if these sciences studied more that US college students and a few others... Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
I'm sorry. Ask Zoe, but I suspect she doesn't have a full answer either.
I go with hard coding of gender identity cos that's what medical science is so far suggesting and I go with what is described as the bi-modal bell curve model (twin peaks) for susceptibility to nurture.
I was hard codedfemale, I "know" that cos I has such a positive physiological reaction to oestrogen that the idea that it was nurture related seems ridiculous. Especially given how hard I work daily to deal with the nurtured aspects of my behaviour that remain undeniably and spirit crushingly masculine. I really do know the difference in the phenomena and I can assure you they are not the same. keep to the Fen Causeway
All but one case (Terry Wright in the UK) were TS before the change. Mr Wright has become TS as the result, poor guy.
thanks for correcting me keep to the Fen Causeway
