tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5573426.post639855023346936888..comments2024-02-20T15:17:48.594+11:00Comments on A.E.Brain: DexamethasoneZoe Brainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712045376060102538noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5573426.post-67300450734857827742012-07-21T12:55:27.835+10:002012-07-21T12:55:27.835+10:00I can't possibly agree with you that we should...I can't possibly agree with you that we should try to prophylactically prevent transsexuality. The vast majority of the pain I experienced was not from the initial dysphoria, but the inability to remedy it.<br /><br />Dysphoria itself, if temporary and easily ended, has to be one of the most validating experiences I can name. I know who I am and what I have because of how WRONG it cumulatively felt to pretend otherwise. I wish everyone could have a year of that, without the residual existential distress caused by feeling one's body is marked for life.Valerie Keefehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05715748655909242883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5573426.post-52949544498047511402010-07-04T07:40:03.754+10:002010-07-04T07:40:03.754+10:00When it comes to Dr. Dreger, I'm not really su...When it comes to Dr. Dreger, I'm not really sure what's going on... but it doesn't look good to me.<br /><br />Item: "Yesterday, Dr. Alice Dreger had an Op-Ed published criticizing women who, by their strenuous opposition, evidently derailed the appointment of Dr. Lawrence Summers as Secretary of the Treasury. They characterizing him as a 'sexist' because he had described the failure of women to attain higher positions in academia as the result of lesser ambition and innate talent, rather than discrimination. According to Dr. Dreger, 'These women are only objecting to Dr. Summer's appointment out of <i>narcissistic rage</i> in response to the <i>narcissistic injury</i> they feel in response to Dr. Summer's clear exposition of the facts refuting their belief in the 'Feminine Competence Narrative'; they are incapable of accepting that their interest in microbes, rocketry, or particle theory is merely an expression of a paraphilic obsession with themselves as scientists, when in fact 90% of them will never be able to pass successfully as scientists.'"<br /><br />Oops! That one came from an alternate universe! Sorry!<br /><br />It appears that she has a bias that's relevant to transsexuals here... I'm not going to dignify her deployment of the swear-word "anti-democratic" as founded on a "value", since I have little use for elitists (physicians or not, bioethicists or not) who appoint themselves as Ethics Guardians for Unaccredited Folk who Just Don't Get It.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fetishes-i-dont-get/201006/have-is-hold-0" rel="nofollow">To Have Is To Hold</a>:<br /><br />"A democratic medical establishment does not alter people's bodies to fit regressive social norms; it advocates for patients by demanding the social body get its act together. As a white woman who grew up with a black brother, I can tell you that the solution to my brother's suffering was not to have his skin bleached and his hair straightened, prenatally or postnatally."<br /><br />...<br /><br />"3. Trying to prevent homosexuality in the womb is akin to cosmetic "medical" procedures in that it is inherently anti-democratic. I've ranted elsewhere about why medicine needs to be liberated from recent profoundly anti-democratic trends"...<br /><br />"ranted elsewhere"... what is this "profoundly anti-democratic trend"? ... see <a href="http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=3662" rel="nofollow">Medicine Needs a Declaration of Independence from Cosmetic Procedures</a>:<br /><br />"... “cosmetic medicine” represents a corruption of the core principles of both medicine and democracy." <br /><br />And here's a really weird statement from Dreger:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.alicedreger.com/informed_dissent.html" rel="nofollow">Informed Dissent</a>:<br /><br />"For dissent to be effective, for it to be sustainable, for it to be <i>ethical</i>, it has to be factually right." [Dreger's emphasis]<br /><br />Wow... what a profoundly <i>illiberal</i> attitude. People have the <i>right</i> to dissent even if they're dishevelled, incoherent, and obviously wrong... dissenting would only be "unethical" if they lied about their beliefs. I wonder how much this <i>profoundly anti-democratic</i> belief influenced Dreger in her "history" on the BBL controversy... ?<br /><br />(Anyway, to address the main point here, where Dreger has it right: shame, shame, shame.)Anne Rose Blayknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5573426.post-83015485668513396852010-07-04T02:33:27.434+10:002010-07-04T02:33:27.434+10:00You kind of lost me here, Zoe. All I can say is, I...You kind of lost me here, Zoe. All I can say is, I was told I was male, although many implied I wasn't really. I gradually awakened to the fact that I wasn't. Switching to the female role was an easy process. Then came the medical treatment that helped relieve a lot of tension. I don't put a lot of stock in notions of rigid gender identities. Clearly, living as a male was not working for so many different reasons. Living as female is a much better fit that seems mechanical, fit being the operative word. Nothing is perfect but I wouldn't want to be anybody except for the person I am.edithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09701591930524246717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5573426.post-23896064051953500122010-07-03T15:03:35.820+10:002010-07-03T15:03:35.820+10:00Edith -
As a woman of transsexual history, I often...Edith -<br /><i>As a woman of transsexual history, I often wonder how my life would be different if I had the masculinizing genital surgery I was told I needed as an adolescent. </i><br /><br />So why did you tell them you were male?<br /><br />Because if you didn't - how come they thought you needed it?<br /><br />We both know the answer.<br /><br />I put it down to ignorance though.<br /><br />The more we know, the more power we have. It's up to all of us to make sure that power is not misused. Remaining ignorant makes things worse though, not better.Zoe Brainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13712045376060102538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5573426.post-4012550536535275602010-07-03T14:52:37.180+10:002010-07-03T14:52:37.180+10:00Hi Zoe,
you wrote:
"Treatment to prevent Tr...Hi Zoe,<br /><br />you wrote:<br /><br />"Treatment to prevent Transsexuality, again if it had no side effects, is something I would consider even more strongly justified though. Even if Society was sane. Because there could be a substantial mismatch between body-image and somatic form, which can cause immense suffering."<br /><br />from Alice's last article in the Hastings Center Bioethics forum: <br /><br />"New’s “paradigm for prenatal diagnosis and treatment” suggests a reason why activists for gay and lesbian rights should be wary of believing that claims for the innateness of homosexuality will lead to liberation. Evidence that homosexual orientation is inborn could, instead, very well lead to new means of pathologization and prevention, as it seems to be in the case we’ve been tracking"<br /><br />Read more: http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=4754&blogid=140#ixzz0saTwwjAD<br /><br />and then this on Dorner's work:<br /><br />"Dörner et al. even advocated altering the hormonal environment of the fetus. These researchers made it quite clear that they were attempting to eradicate homosexuality. Earlier, Dörner stated,<br /><br />It was concluded from these data that... it might become possible in the future -- at least in some cases -- to correct abnormal sex hormone levels during brain differentiation in order to prevent the development of homosexuality. However, this should be done, if et al., only if it is urgently desired by the pregnant mother.<br /><br />Researchers at the Psychiatric Institute in New York also work toward identifying the prenatal hormonal influences on sexual orientation and gender behavior, although they reject the use of this information to alter sexual orientation."<br /><br />http://www.doctorsilverstein.com/publications/history.html<br /><br />And this about Steinach:<br /><br />"Steinach in 1917 was the first to use a surgical technique to attempt to cure homosexuality. First, he performed a unilateral castration on a homosexual man, then transplanted testicular tissue from a heterosexual man into the castrated patient. He did this in the belief, prevalent in those times, that homosexuality was a form of hermaphrodism. Steinach was in step with the belief that homosexuality represents a "third sex," and idea originated by Ulrichs and popularized by Hirschfeld. At least 11 men were operated on from 1916 to 1921. Complete castration was not performed in the belief that after transplantation of the "normal" testicular tissue, the man would be cured, married, father children, and lead a heterosexual life. The experiments were a failure."<br /><br />http://www.doctorsilverstein.com/publications/history.html<br /><br />I am someone from a country that has no universal health care. If you don't have the money or the insurance to cover a procedure, you don't get the treatment. As a woman of transsexual history, I often wonder how my life would be different if I had the masculinizing genital surgery I was told I needed as an adolescent. I know others who did have surgeries that were somewhat similar to the procedure or procedures as it was explained to me, but not very clearly, that the doctors intended to do. The two people I know who did have the procedures performed are very angry about what happened to them.<br /><br />The caveat issued by Dreger is not lost on me. I think it is why a lot of people object to the search for a definitive neurological link to transsexualism. Personally, I do believe there are neurological links but I think the reasons are unique to the individual for the most part. I have to ask why you seem to be encouraging the kind of quackery that has persisted in society's attempts to normalize people. I strongly object to comparisons involving obvious physical disabilities to the phenomena of transsexualism, intersex and sexual orientation.<br /><br />Examining Silverstein's quote at the end of what he has to say about Dorner, I am reminded of what Ken Zucker and the rest of the staff at the CAMH attempt to do when it comes to "gender behavior":edithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09701591930524246717noreply@blogger.com