A.E.Brain: Search results for bigender

Showing posts sorted by relevance for query bigender. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, 4 May 2009

Year Four

Up until age 5, I was a child. No real concept of gender.

At 6, I went to school, and noticed something was wrong. I was dressed as a boy, I looked like a boy, but I didn't think like "other boys". I still liked toy guns, and Meccano rather than dolls, but I was different.

At 7, I knew I wasn't a boy, but didn't know what I was. I thought boys were puerile, and girls too silly and sissy. A classic Tomboy in retrospect.

At 8, I got to play hopscotch with other girls, and I felt at home. They thought like I did, they cried like I did. I still didn't see myself as more than an honourary girl though. Even if my favourite toy car was Lady Penelope's pink Rolls-Royce.

At 9, more by a process of elimination than anything else, I realised I was female. Boys could just as well have been an alien species. Girls were just like me, in feelings and values.

At 10, I was in a boys boarding school then, and I was able to make up boardgames of astounding complexity when it rained. I had my own secret garden in the nearby woods, with flowerbeds I'd planted. I could sit and read amidst the flowers, and was terribly happy. It was then I picked the name Zoe, and planned what I was going to do with my life. I wanted children, a husband, the white picket fence etc, but also to be a Rocket Scientist and to travel the world, things that Wives and Mothers Just Did Not Do in the 60's.

Even though it had been obvious since age 7 that I’d never be “svelte” or “petite”, that I’d be the girl “with the wonderful personality”. I didn’t cry about that – much. And not where anyone could see me. I was more worried about the practical problems I'd be having when I started having a female puberty. And vaguely concerned that boys didn't interest me at all. I was no naive I thought that was part of the package of being a girl. Was I a defective one?

It came as a terrible shock when I learnt that boys and girls are born looking different, and that my body was boy.

I didn’t take it well.

Basically, I failed my SAN roll, and convinced myself I had to be a boy, no matter how I felt inside. That meant forgetting a lot, suppressing memories, but it was either acquire a minor psychosis, or sink into despair, depression, and death.

A part of me still knew, but that part was in a box in a safe in the hold of a sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean on a planet circling a distant star.

I tried to be the best Man any woman could be. I did that for 47 years. It helped to be Asexual, mildly lesbian if anything. Sex was for having children, a form of cuddling and pleasing someone you loved, albeit a bit tiring after the first hour. Not something instinctive or natural.

Monday, 27 July 2009

Not quite another Piece of the Puzzle - Yet

But there soon will be one. And an existing piece has received a bit of a polish.

Two comments by Prof Italiano over at Theosophical Ruminations:

Dear Zoe, You mentioned the study by Cohen-Kettenis on 5 Alpha Reductase 2 deficiency and 17 Beta HSD 3 deficiency. I might add that this study was in the infamous ASB journal and Cohen-Kettenis seems to be adversely influenced by some of those people. For instance, she noted that some individuals develop a male gender identity and some develop a female gender identity in each of the two conditions and that this is independent of the severity of the mutation. She cites the noted endocrinologist Jean D. Wilson and his research on this. She then goes on to attribute the difference in the gender outcomes which are independent of the severity of the mutation to social factors, while completely OMITTING that Dr. Wilson suggested that the difference in gender identity outcomes which are independent of the severity of the mutation, are the result of variations in the compensation of alternative enzymatic pathways.

Peggy Cohen-Ketternis's work is quoted at BiGender and the Brain - and the rest of that article strongly points to a biological cause for the difference in gender outcomes. I wasn't aware of Dr Wilson's commentary, but the rest of the evidence, and Prof Ecker's later work, pointed very much in that direction.

The next comment is interesting, because it promises yet more evidence. Probably just confirming what we think we know, but if we're lucky, will point us in new directions instead.

You see, that's what I'm trying to do. Not push any particular line. I go where the evidence takes me, and where it's taking me is for a strict biological causation. Science though advances very slowly by accretion of evidence confirming what we think we know: the really exciting stuff is when we get to say "hmmm... that's odd", when evidence doesn't fit our neat theories. Now I don't think we will, but who knows, we might be lucky. I'd be astonished at this point if we were though, things look pretty clear and consistent.

Dear Zoe and Jason, You should note that there are more studies. I just gave a few examples. For instance, Talaya McCright-Gill has just published her undergraduate thesis where she investigated transsexuals and have found that the transsexuals respond in accord with their gender identity and brain sex and not according to their genital anatomy on a verbal memory task in the amygdala which is the seat of human emotional memory. Numerous studies by Larry Cahill (UC Irvine) have demonstrated that men and women differ in the response of the amygdala as demonstrated by functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
The transsexuals brains typed according to the sex they think they are and none of them were treated with hormones. It should be noted that the BSTc connects the hypothalamus to the amygdala.
Another study which will be out is another one by Eillen Luders group (with Arthur Toga). They have found in untreated transsexuals cortical thickness which corresponds to the brain sex and gender identity with which the transsexuals believe that they are and in discordance with the genital anatomy. Their group (number is 24) have not been treated with hormones either.

Here's Talaya McRight-Gill's description of her thesis:

Thesis title: "Brain Processing of Emotional Information in Transgender Individuals"
Mentors: Julie Dumas, Psychiatry, and Larry Rudiger, Psychology
Major: Psychology and Sociology
Background: My home is Brooklyn, NY. I am currently applying for Teach for America, and hope to teach after graduation. I love basketball and my favorite player is Shaquille O'Neal.

When I began the thesis process in January of this year (2008) I had no idea what I wanted to do it on, but I lucked out and my topic sort of just fell into my lap. I have been working for the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit since my freshman year and during my time there they have conducted various clinical trials exploring memory functioning with the use of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). So, when it was time to begin my senior thesis it was only natural that it involves memory and the use of fMRI. While discussing my thesis ideas with my boss and mentor we decided to incorporate transgender individuals into my thesis. After some research and much thought we finally came up with a topic.

For my senior thesis I am conducting a brain imaging study to examine the emotional memory and related brain activation in transgender individuals in order to learn more about the relationship between gender, hormones and the sexually dimorphic pattern of brain activation observed for remembering emotional information. We are looking to see if transgender individuals have brain lateralization in congruence with their gender identity rather than their biological sex.

Since my thesis involves the use of human participants I have had to apply for IRB approval which is something that many students writing a thesis will not have to do. The IRB process was very intense for me. I had to fill out an extensive application that required me to clearly define the reasons for the study, how we were going to implement the study, the criteria we would use to include and exclude participants, as well as background information that supported my hypothesis. I also had to explain the precautions we had taken to ensure participant safety. Finally I had to write a consent form clearly explaining the study and the possible benefits and risks for participants. After I completed the application, the IRB board had to discuss my work and then they sent me questions which required that I resubmit my proposal with the revisions and answers to their questions before I could receive approval from the IRB. It took me a total of about two months to complete the application, wait for it to be viewed and submit the revisions which also had to be reviewed, before I was able to get IRB approval and start recruiting.

I am currently still recruiting for my thesis and I have scanned 4 participants in the MRI machine to date. As for the writing part of the thesis I have completed two sections thus far, the abstract and methods sections. I would suggest that you break your thesis down into sections and write them separately bit by bit as you go along throughout the year. By doing this it should make the task of writing such a long paper less daunting. At least it has for me.

Science is a very human occupation, you see. No matter what she finds, I wish her well - and she has my personal thanks. My thanks to Professor Italiano as well. I'm just an amateur, a systematiser, someone who takes others' work and shows how different pieces of knowledge from different disciplines lead to a coherent picture. I put the pieces of the puzzle together, but I rely on others to do the real work of discovering them, teasing out Nature's secrets from the raw stuff of the Universe.

Friday, 9 January 2009

On Transsexuality and Transphobia

I should preface all of this by "to the best of our knowledge..." or "the evidence very strongly indicates that..." or similar weasel-words, rather than making flat statements. All I can say is that of the competing theories, this one is the only one consistent with all the observations. Where it has holes, there's plausible mechanisms postulated, and competing theories either have to invoke unique mechanisms found nowhere else in Science to cover their gaps, or more often, just plain ignore them.

OK, so what is transsexuality?

Simply, having a gender identity that differs from societal perceptions of the body's gender.

This definition in terms of "societal perceptions" covers the many cases where the body is Intersexed, or where surgical intervention shortly after birth reverses appearance of natural genitalia, or the various Intersex conditions that give rise to sex-reversal syndromes after birth.

For example, a boy who as the result of a botched circumcision ends up with no penis may be surgically altered to an apparently female form (I can think of 2 cases immediately). If the boy revolts against the outside assignation, he is deemed transsexual. The David Reimer case is well known, but Dr Zucker (that's PhD not MD) intervened in another case, and the patient as the result now identifies as a rather butch bisexual woman with severe difficulties in forming relationships and chronic depression. This Dr Zucker deems a "success", as he states on a video available at Youtube.

OK, so what causes transsexuality, this differing gender identity? How do we know that we are male or female?

We're not completely sure, but Milton Diamond's Biased-Transaction theory is definitely proven for some cases. It may be true for everyone. Basically, hard-wired biasses, propensities, instincts, reflexes, and emotional rather than rational responses follow a BiModal distribution. One pattern peaks in females, the other peaks in males, though it's fuzzy. We "know" that we're boys or girls by comparing ourselves with others. "I do not think like X,Y, and Z. X,Y and Z are girls, so I cannot be a girl". Later, this gets extended to "I think like A, B and C. A. B and C are boys, and I know I can't be a girl, therefore I must be a boy". Such mostly or wholly subconscious comparison is usually reinforced by cues such as similar body appearance, social role, clothing and so on, but when these contradict the emotional and instinctive data, they are ignored.

So what causes these hypothetical biases?

This is one area we now have good, and improving, data on. It's all in the lymbic system of the brain, the hypothalamus and nearby structures. These are strongly sexually dimorphic, one common pattern for males, a quite different one for females. You could even say that this is the area that defines ones sex, rather than chromosomes, bodily appearance etc. For transsexual people, the neuroanatomy is strongly towards one extreme, which is discordant with societal perceptions of their "true" gender. Many people of both sexes are potentially "BiGendered", and could function with various degrees of adequacy in either social role, but perhaps 2/3 of people could not.

How can the lymbic nucleus become inconsistent during gestation?

We don't have a good handle on this. We do know that administration of certain hormonal drugs during pregnancy increases likelihood of Transsexuality 500 times. We know that certain gene sequences are associated with increased rates of transsexuality, with different sequences being involved in Male-To-Female as opposed to Female-to-Male transsexuality. The evidence is consistent with the theory that both one of a number of genetic propensities is needed (and we haven't identified more than a few yet), plus anomalous hormonal environment in the womb. Both circumstances are needed, they are both independant, both quite common and normal, but the combination is relatively rare.

The evidence is summarised in BiGender and the Brain, though as the article is over 6 months old, much of the most recent data that confirms the conclusions in it isn't included.

What is Transphobia?

For very good reasons to do with evolutionary development, anything to do with confusion about gender identity tends to cause instinctive and unreasoning disquiet, discomfort, and even revulsion. This can manifest as bigotry and hatred, but most often results in people "not wanting to think about it", and ignoring the evidence saying "I don't buy this whole woman trapped in a male body stuff". Conversely, because the neuroanatomy is bimodal rather than binary, some people have an instinctive partial understanding of the situation. While not transsexual themselves, they have elements of transsexuality in their psychic makeup, and could probably function reasonably well in an opposite gender role.

Transphobia is a perfectly natural instinctive reaction. But so is Xenophobia, Racism and many other evils. Transphobia and to a lesser extent Homophobia are the result of evolutionary pressures towards increasing chances of procreation. Many such beliefs are rationalised afterwards: the instinctive revulsion comes first. Fortunately, we're rational, and not slaves to our instincts - unless we want to be.

Monday, 18 August 2008

Hello Pharyngulites

For those visitors who have been flocking here from Pharyngula on the ScienceBlogs site complex, welcome!

Some of my more recent posts on Intersex, Transsexuality and Biology are:
BiGender and the Brain, Sex and the Brain, Square Peg, Round Hole, Mommy, Don't Take me There, and Transsexual Causation, the American Psychiatric Association, and Interpol. But you'll find a lot more, going through the archives. Plus "Blue Suede Shoes" in the original Klingon, thoughts on Euler's equation, and a miscellany of subjects. Quite a bit on TS and IS human rights too, or rather, the lack thereof. My experience has certainly been educational.

My own peculiar and ongoing story is described at Year Three and related posts.

Tuesday, 24 February 2009

The Evidence

In response to a request that read:

What I'm requesting from anyone and everyone that can help, to please provide me with any and all creditable medical and/or psychiatric documentation that supports our condition that are completely legitimate. I have to use facts because some will try their hardest to tear it apart. I would like to use as much as possible genetic/biological proof to go along with the DSM.

Here is my reply:

Male-to-female transsexuals show sex-atypical hypothalamus activation when smelling odorous steroids. by Berglund et al Cerebral Cortex 2008 18(8):1900-1908;

...the data implicate that transsexuality may be associated with sex-atypical physiological responses in specific hypothalamic circuits, possibly as a consequence of a variant neuronal differentiation.

Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. Kruiver et al J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041

The present findings of somatostatin neuronal sex differences in the BSTc and its sex reversal in the transsexual brain clearly support the paradigm that in transsexuals sexual differentiation of the brain and genitals may go into opposite directions and point to a neurobiological basis of gender identity disorder.

Sexual differentiation of the human brain: relevance for gender identity, transsexualism and sexual orientation. Swaab Gynecol Endocrinol (2004) 19:301–312.

Solid evidence for the importance of postnatal social factors is lacking. In the human brain, structural diferences have been described that seem to be related to gender identity and sexual orientation.

A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. by Zhou et al Nature (1995) 378:68–70.

Our study is the first to show a female brain structure in genetically male transsexuals and supports the hypothesis that gender identity develops as a result of an interaction between the developing brain and sex hormones

A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity. by Garcia-Falgueras et al Brain. 2008 Dec;131(Pt 12):3132-46.

We propose that the sex reversal of the INAH3 in transsexual people is at least partly a marker of an early atypical sexual differentiation of the brain and that the changes in INAH3 and the BSTc may belong to a complex network that may structurally and functionally be related to gender identity.

There's a pile more with URLs at BiGender and the Brain. See also Dr Veronica Drantz's Powerpoint presentations, and the specific quotes from Dr Harry Benjamin's The Transsexual Phenomenon at Two for the Reference Library.

Legal Findings:
Re Kevin – Significant Findings Of Justice Richard Chisholm In Respect Of The Expert Medical Evidence In That Case As To The Causation Of Transsexualism And As Strongly Affirmed By The Full Court (Australian Family Court) On Appeal. Deakin Law Review 2004 v22

At paragraph (247): 'In my view the expert evidence in this case affirms that brain development is (at least) an important determinant of a person's sense of being a man or a woman. No contrary opinion is expressed. All the experts are very well qualified. None was required for cross-examination, nor was any contrary evidence called'.

At paragraph (248): 'In my view the evidence is, in essence, that the experts believe that the brain development view is likely to be true, and they explain the basis for their beliefs. In the circumstances, I see no reason why I should not accept the proposition, on the balance of probabilities, for the purpose of this case.'

At paragraph (252): 'The traditional analysis that they are "psychologically" transsexual does not explain how this state came about. For example, there seems to be no suggestion in the evidence that their psychological state can be explained by reference to circumstances of their upbringing. In that sense, the brain sex theory does not seem to be competing with other explanations, but rather is providing a possible explanation of what is otherwise inexplicable'.

At paragraph (253): 'In other words (as I understand it) the brain of an individual may in some sense be male, for example, though the rest of the person's body is female'.

At paragraph (265): 'In my view the argument in favour of the "brain sex" view is also based on evidence about the development and experience of transsexuals and others with atypical sex-related characteristics. There is a vast literature on this, some of which is in evidence, and I can do no more than mention briefly some of the main points'.

At paragraph (268): 'It seems quite wrong to think of these people as merely wishing or preferring to be of the opposite sex, or having the opinion that they are'.

At paragraph (270): 'But I am satisfied that the evidence now is inconsistent with the distinction formerly drawn between biological factors, meaning genitals, chromosomes and gonads, and merely "psychological factors", and on this basis distinguishing between cases of inter-sex (incongruities among biological factors) and transsexualism (incongruities between biology and psychology)'.

At paragraph (272): 'In my view the evidence demonstrates (at least on the balance of probabilities) that the characteristics of transsexuals are as much "biological" as those of people thought of as inter-sex'.

Kantaras v Kantaras - some excerpts from the expert testimony.

When asked does a person choose their own gender identity? He (Doctor Bockting) replied:
"No. This is something that develops. It's believed to
develop very early on in childhood. There are some
theories that say that it is fixed at the age of two. So this is
not something we choose, this is something we become
aware of as we grow up."
...
Q. Would you say (transsexualism) is more of a
psychological problem or more of a physical
problem?
A. I think it's both. It's not physical in the sense that
they have been able to detect with certainty a
physical cause of their conflict.
Q. So you think its both, or you think its only
psychological?
A. I think its psychological distress, but there's also an
aversion - - - sense of a process that people feel
physically. I think that's part of this condition. It's
really the anatomical and the psychological really
interact in this condition ***
Well, I mean, another way of saying is that what
we have been able to establish very consistently the
emotional suffering and distress when somebody
has this conflict.
Yet, the way to alleviate that conflict it involves
physical changes because the conflict is very tied to
their body image. And, then - - - there is evidence
of studies that hormonal and sexual differentiation
of the brain is believed to play a role. So its really a
condition where all of these things come together.
Q. Right. But it's a medical condition, correct?
A: Its recognized – in the medical field, a recognized
disorder. That is, a mental health disorder - - -
where a physical intervention is providing the relief.
Q. Okay. And that's exactly my point. It's a
psychological disorder with a – what did you say?
A. Where a physical intervention - - - well, it's rather a
social role change.
Q. Okay, so it's a psychological disorder that physical
intervention medically physical intervention
relieves?
A. Correct.
...
Q. Dr. Cole, does the fact that a condition is listed in the DSM
mean that it necessarily has a purely mental or
psychological cause?
A. Absolutely not. It's listed in the DSM because it
has to do with the mind, with the brain, with
emotional suffering. I mean, you also have learning
disabilities in there.
You have, you know, people who have sexual
problems, a man with erection problems, a woman
with orgasm problems, that's listed in the DSM, but
it has nothing to do with somebody being unstable.
Q. So the fact that gender identity disorder is listed in
the DSM, does that tell us anything one way or the
other about whether the condition has a
physiological or biological cause?
A. No, it doesn't. It's very controversial even within
the Benjamin Association to have it listed in the
DSM. There are many people who argue it should
be moved over to a medical kind of diagnosis as
opposed to a psychiatric diagnosis.
...
Dr. Cole was asked about Michael Kantaras and if he is a victim of a more mental problem, there's been some suggestions in this case that because gender identity disorder is in the DSM that Michael Kantaras should therefore be viewed in a pejorative sense as sick, or unbalanced or mentally ill. He was asked some questions as an expert in this area to help sort through this issue. He was asked if he was familiar with the criteria for gender identity disorder in the DSM?
A. Yes, I am.
Q. And do those criteria refer exclusively to the
conflict between the person's gender identity and
their anatomy as well as distress that conflict
causes?
A. Yes.
Q. Is there anything in those criteria relating to having
any kind of bizarre or disordered thinking or
behavior or to any kind of emotional unbalance or
instability apart from the distress caused by having
the wrong body?
A. No.
Q. So would it be true that being diagnosed with GID
does not mean that the person is otherwise unstable
or disturbed or mentally ill?
A. Absolutely.
Q. In practice, are transsexual people who have
completed their gender transition anymore likely to
have psychological problems than non-transsexual
people?
A. No.

Mr. Minton thus asked Dr. Cole are transsexual people who have completed their gender transition any more likely to have psychological problems than people who are not transsexual? Dr. Cole answered "no" and added that in the mid-nineties he and his colleagues undertook a scientific study of over 400 charts of people they worked with at the clinic and found that this group of transsexuals had no more pathology, meaning problems with suicide attempts, depression, etc., compared to the normal American population. They took a subsample of 100 people who completed MMPIs, personality tests and they did not have significant elevations on anxiety, depression, or paranoia.
...
Q. Okay. So you don't see a gender disordered person
with gender dysphoria, you don't see that as any
psychopathology?
A. I see that as not in a typical example of the
schizophrenia or affective disorders, the
psychopathology of that nature.
Q. So you do or you don't? Maybe I didn't follow
you. You do see it as psychopathology or you
don't?
A. Oh, I don't.
Q. Well, does Harry Benjamin or the people in the
Harry Benjamin Association see it as some form of
psychopathology?
A. I don't think so. I believe it's simply seen as a
persistent misidentification in terms of that sense of
identity with anatomic self.
397
Q. Okay. Well, let me ask you something, why is it
listed as a mental disorder then?
A. Well, I think, as I said in my earlier testimony, that
is because it has to do with the mind and distress of
the mind it was listed in the DSM way, way back.
But there's still controversy even today of having it
listed in the DSM as opposed to some other type of
medical disorder.

Genes
Androgen Receptor Repeat Length Polymorphism Associated with Male-to-Female Transsexualism by Hare at al Biological Psychiatry Volume 65, Issue 1, Pages 93-96 (1 January 2009)

A polymorphism of the CYP17 gene related to sex steroid metabolism is associated with female-to-male but not male-to-female transsexualism by Bentz et al Fertility and Sterility , Volume 90 , Issue 1 , Pages 56 - 59

Functional MRI
fMRT zur Diagnose bei Transsexualität geprüft Ärzte Zeitung, 30.05.2006

So würden bei Männern das limbische System und dort vor allem Regionen im Hypothalamus, in den Mandelkernen und im Inselkortex wesentlich stärker aktiviert. "Diese Vorbefunde konnten wir beim Vergleich der heterosexuellen Männer und Frauen unserer Kohorte bestätigen", sagte Gizewski.

Bei den transsexuellen Männern gab es diese spezifisch männliche Aktivierung des limbischen Systems nicht. Die mit der fMRT erzeugten Bilder entsprachen vielmehr exakt denen der weiblichen Probanden.

Die Radiologen können also das, was die transsexuellen Männer angeben - daß sie sich nämlich "wie im falschen Körper" fühlen - anhand der Aktivierung des Gehirns auf erotische Stimuli bestätigen. Es gibt offenbar ein biologisches Korrelat des subjektiven Befunds.

Translation:

In men, the limbic system and upper regions of the hypothalamus, the amygdalae and the insular cortex were activated substantially more strongly. "We confirmed this finding in the comparison between the heterosexual men and women of our Cohort", said Gizewski.

This specifically male activation of the limbic system was not found in the transsexual sample. Under fMRT, the pictures corresponded rather accurately to those of the female sample.

Radiologists can now confirm what transsexuals report - that they feel "trapped in the wrong body" - on the basis of the activation of the brain when presented with erotic stimuli. There is obviously a biological correlation with the subjective feelings.

To which I'll add the Official American Medical Association policy on the subject.

Whereas, An established body of medical research demonstrates the effectiveness and medical necessity of mental health care, hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery as forms of therapeutic treatment for many people diagnosed with GID; and
Whereas, Health experts in GID, including WPATH, have rejected the myth that such treatments are “cosmetic” or “experimental” and have recognized that these treatments can provide safe and effective treatment for a serious health condition;
...
RESOLVED, That the AMA support public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender identity disorder (Directive to Take Action); and be it further
RESOLVED, That the AMA oppose categorical exclusions of coverage for treatment of gender identity disorder when prescribed by a physician (Directive to Take Action).
...
7. Brown G R: A review of clinical approaches to gender dysphoria. J Clin Psychiatry. 51(2):57-64, 1990.
Newfield E, Hart S, Dibble S, Kohler L. Female-to-male transgender quality of life. Qual Life Res. 15(9):1447-57, 2006.
Best L, and Stein K.(1998) “Surgical gender reassignment for male to female transsexual people.” Wessex Institute DEC report 88;
Blanchard R, et al. “Gender dysphoria, gender reorientation, and the clinical management of transsexualism.” J Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 53(3):295-304. 1985;
Cole C, et al. “Treatment of gender dysphoria (transsexualism).” Texas Medicine. 90(5):68-72. 1994;
Gordon E. “Transsexual healing: Medicaid funding of sex reassignment surgery.” Archives of Sexual Behavior. 20(1):61-74. 1991;
Hunt D, and Hampton J. “Follow-up of 17 biologic male transsexuals after sex-reassignment surgery.” Am J Psychiatry. 137(4):432-428. 1980;
Kockett G, and Fahrner E. “Transsexuals who have not undergone surgery: A follow-up study.” Arch of Sexual Behav. 16(6):511-522. 1987;
Pfafflin F and Junge A. “Sex Reassignment. Thirty Years of International Follow-Up Studies after Sex Reassignment Surgery: A Comprehensive Review, 1961-1991.” IJT Electronic Books, available at http://web.archive.org/web/20070503090247/http://www.symposion.com/ijt/pfaefflin/1000.htm;
Selvaggi G, et al. "Gender Identity Disorder: General Overview and Surgical Treatment for Vaginoplasty in Male-to-Female Transsexuals." Plast Reconstr Surg. 2005 Nov;116(6):135e-145e;
Smith Y, et al. “Sex reassignment: outcomes and predictors of treatment for adolescent and adult transsexuals.” Psychol Med. 2005 Jan; 35(1):89-99;
Tangpricha V, et al. “Endocrinologic treatment of gender identity disorders. ” Endocr Pract. 9(1):12-21. 2003;
Tsoi W. “Follow-up study of transsexuals after sex reassignment surgery.” Singapore Med J. 34:515-517. 1993;
van Kesteren P, et al. "Mortality and morbidity in transsexual subjects treated with cross-sex hormones." Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 1997 Sep;47(3):337-42;

How much more evidence do we have to give? How many more scientific articles, research papers, journals of neurology, reproductive science, psychology, psychiatry, endocrinology, and medicine must we quote? How many expert witnesses must we call, and how many legal cases must we lose, because even at college, people are only told about "usual" circumstances regarding sex and gender, and not exceptional ones? How many pardonably ignorant journalists must we seek to educate, because the colleges and universities have let them down?

People have been fired for being Transsexual. People have been fired for being Intersexed. ~~But now people are being fired for even teaching that Intersexuality exists.~~ - See important updates below and in the comments.

From Atlanta Progressive News (yes, the word "progressive" doesn't instill confidence, but the facts are the facts no matter who reports them.)

"I was basically fired for teaching about intersex people in my Introduction to Sociology course this Summer against the wishes of Stombler. Stombler said she agreed with me that sex is socially constructed-in that we, as a society, have to define how many sexes there are, who gets to fit into each category, and how to handle the anomalies-but she said that it was too advanced for 101 students," Cardinale said.

"Because we do define sex and gender in any 101 class, I felt it was important to define those terms accurately and inclusively from the beginning," Cardinale said.

Last summer, an Atlanta Police Officer, Darlene Harris, came out as intersex, as reported in Southern Voice Magazine, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Atlanta Progressive News.

Cardinale had invited Harris to come in and speak to his class about her experiences as an intersex person, to help illustrate the social construction of sex. Unfortunately, afterward, Stombler took issue with Harris's guest lecture and said the Department would not support Cardinale's lesson plans.

Enough. To persecute us for existing is one thing : to deliberately conceal that we even exist, another.

The next time someone who's a product of this mis-education system starts saying "Oh, I read somewhere the treatments don't work", or "don't give me any of this brain-sex nonsense", or "but aren't they just, you know, crazy like the DSM says?" - please quote them this article. Especially the last part, which shows them why not only don't they know the facts, but what facts they were taught are often wrong.

UPDATE: Please see the comments section for a first-hand account that differs significantly from that reported by the Atlanta Progressive News. Here, I'll quote:

It's unfortunate that Matthew had a bad experience, but there is much more to this story. For a Graduate Student Instructor to get taken out of the classroom, there have to be a lot of problems in the classroom, with the course design and the instructor. Every GSI undergoes extensive pedagogical training and ongoing evaluation. It is peculiar that one would claim to get fired for featuring an intersexed speaker within a climate where we are encouraged to include intersex issues in gender, sex, and sexuality curriculums.
...
..I hope you'll take the time to consider that there are other factors involved here. Please consider my alternate viewpoint and divergent experience in teaching and studying intersex at GSU.

As always, my thanks to those who comment here, and for this comment in particular. I don't claim to be correct all the time, but do try to issue corrections, or where the situation is unclear, give all the evidence.

UPDATE II
As the result of numerous comments from people with first-hand knowledge of the situation at the University concerned, I'm now convinced that the situation has been substantially mis-reported. Rather than deleting the incorrect part of the post, and pretending I hadn't got it completely wrong, I'll just unreservedly retract my statements with apologies, and refer readers to the comments section as to why my opinion has changed. It's not just a matter of accuracy or inaccuracy though. My comments were unjust to the people concerned. I can't apologise for the initial error given the limited data, but I can and should apologise for the injustice I've done them, and in public. I so do, here, now.
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”- John Maynard Keynes

Wednesday, 16 June 2010

A Girl Speaks Out - And is Listened To

The Australian Family Court has one of the more enlightened and humane attitudes towards the issues of Intersex and Transsexuality in the world. It's not perfect - but it's vastly better than most places.

This is exemplified by the AFC actually listening to a child with 5ARD syndrome, and asking them what they want.

It hurts sometimes, knowing I have this condition. Sometimes I blame myself, because I feel like I am not normal. Sometimes I get angry, even though I know why and how it happened. I get a bit frustrated, because my mum always blames herself, but I keep telling her it’s not her fault. It’s just something that happened. The doctors have told me that if the gonads would remove, it would completely stop any further male development.
This is what I want.
...
When I was told what the lumps were, and that they were gonads, the first thing I thought of was that they could get rid of them. I want the gonads removed now, rather than wait until I am 18, as I want to start living my life now. I feel that once the gonads are removed, then I can get on with my life and accept my condition. I want to put the issue of the removal of the gonads behind me, and I can only do this if the gonads are removed.
…
I know that after the gonads are removed, I might have to have more surgery for my vagina. Dr [X] has told me that he does not want to go to more surgery, because it might wreck sensation. He said that I would only have surgery if all else fails. If I needed surgery to look more like a normal female, I would want to have it. I know I can never have babies, but I want to be as much like a normal woman as possible. I don’t know how I would feel if I could not have the gonads removed now. I do not want to think about them not being removed. I suppose I would just wait until I was 18, and then I would have them removed as soon as I could.

Sally's testimony, in RE: SALLY (SPECIAL MEDICAL PROCEDURE) [2010] FamCA 237

5ARD and 17BHDD syndromes often result in an apparent natural sex change. Well, the body changes, the brain does not. Gender Identity is unaffected. So the condition may cure Transsexuality when the patient has a male gender identity, or induce it when they have a female gender identity, as here.

And for some, they go with the flow, as I wrote about in my post, BiGender and The Brain. The degree of masculinisation also varies, from extreme to miniscule. Intervention without consent can be a disaster, as may lack of intervention when it's desired.

This is what it means though, in human, personal terms in one common case. A girl who, because of a relatively minor genetic whoopsie, was condemned to have her body masculinise. That is NOT a good situation to be in, to put it mildly. I know, from personal experience, but as I was a Tomboy with probably a less feminised brain than she has, it likely wasn't as bad for me. There are degrees, biology is fuzzy and messy.

1. Sally was born into a loving family in 1995. She had no health difficulties at birth and, to all intents and purposes, appeared to be a happy and healthy baby girl.

2. That remained the case until she was about 11. At that time, her mother deposes
… she told me that she’d found two lumps; one in the right side of her abdomen, and the other in her left labia. She asked me if they were “nuts” meaning testes. I immediately said no, but due to [Sally’s] concerns, I arranged for her to see our local GP. The GP examined [Sally], and said that the lumps were a normal part of the puberty process. I thought nothing of it after that.
3. Sally’s mother goes on to depose,
When she was in grade 7, she asked me why she had not started her periods, as most of her friends at school had started to get periods. I told her that girls start to have periods [at] different times, and not to be too concerned about it. [Sally’s] breast development appeared to be normal.
[Sally] had also raised the concerns regarding a deepening of her voice.
The deepening of [Sally’s] voice had happened gradually. I had never really given it any thought; as far as I was concerned, it was [Sally].
4. In early 2009, behavioural issues manifested themselves at school. Ultimately, Sally consulted a paediatrician. Initial tests revealed that Sally had XY genotype, did not have a uterus, and had gonads present in her pelvis. That initial investigation led to further specialist medical consultations, to which further reference will shortly be made.

5. Ultimately, specialist medical and psychiatric opinion aligns in recommending a surgical procedure which 141/2 year old Sally also seeks, and in which she is supported by each of her parents. That procedure is the performance of invasive and irreversible surgery; a gonadectomy, which would see removal of her gonads, and, thus, all vestiges of her, as it were, “maleness.”

6. Orders are applied for by the Hospital who would have responsibility for those doctors who would perform the mooted operation. That hospital applies for orders, relevantly, that the proposed surgery, involving the bilateral removal of her gonads, be authorised by her parents and that this authorisation operate as all such authority as is needed at law, by which to perform that operation.

The Order was approved. So what does it take to avoid putting a teenage girl through such a nightmare?

Loving Parents.
A Humane Legal System.
An Absence of Superstition, and a Knowledge of Biology.

Just little things really. I can't do anything about the first - but the rest, maybe I can. And who knows, maybe a parent with a child with 5ARD or 17BHDD will read this, and see what a loving parent should do under these circumstances. Ask their child what they want. That's all.

Tuesday, 22 July 2008

More Parts of the Puzzle

CNN is now reporting on the same kind of research on opposite-sex twins that I mentioned in BiGender and the Brain.

And the latest issue of Cerebral Cortex has an article, Male-to-female transsexuals show sex-atypical hypothalamus activation when smelling odorous steroids. by Berglund H, Lindström P, Dhejne-Helmy C, and Savic I.

As per usual, lesbian MtoF women are described as "nonhomosexual". One day, the penny will drop.

From the article itself (rather than the online abstract) :

Transsexuals have the strong feeling, often from childhood onward, of having been born the wrong sex. The possible etiology of transsexualism has been the subject of debate for many years (Benjamin 1967; van Goozen et al. 2002; Swaab 2004; Gooren 2006). Investigation of the genetics, hormone levels, gonads, and genitalia of transsexuals has not produced results that explain their status (van Goozen et al. 2002; Swaab 2004; Gooren 2006). In experimental animals, the gonadal hormones that prenatally determine the morphology of the genitalia are shown to also influence the morphology and function of the brain in a sexually dimorphic manner (Fels and Bosch 1971; Yalom et al. 1973; Baum 2003 2006). This led to the hypothesis that sexual differentiation of the brain in transsexuals might not have followed the line of sexual differentiation of the body as a whole and that transsexual persons may have sex-atypical cerebral programing (van Goozen et al. 2002). Such a scenario can be evaluated in humans by comparing transsexual and control subjects with respect to sexually differentiated cerebral functions.
...
In the quest for reliable in vivo methods to study sex differences in the neurobiology of the hypothalamus, we designed positron emission tomography (PET) activation experiments measuring changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) during smelling of 2 steroidal compounds: the progesterone derivative 4,16-androstadien-3-one (AND) and the estrogen-like compound estra-1,3,5(10),16-tetraen-3-ol (EST) (Savic et al. 2001, 2005; Berglund et al. 2006). AND is present in human male secretions such as sweat, saliva, and semen (Grosser et al. 2000), whereas EST has been detected in the urine of pregnant women (Thysen et al. 1968).
...
Several centers currently recognize essentially 2 types of MFTRs who can be distinguished on the basis of their sexual orientation (Chivers and Bailey 2000; Smith et al. 2005). The first type is homosexual transsexuals, extremely gender-transposed (feminine) men, whose sexual object choice is toward men instead of women. The second type is men, whose sexual object choice is interpreted to be toward the image of themselves as women. For this group, the primary motivation for changing sex is to become the object of their own desire (Chivers and Bailey 2000; Smith et al. 2005). In this respect, all our patients can be regarded as nonhomosexual (gynaecophyl) transsexuals (Chivers and Bailey 2000), although we used a more operative approach in our classification, taking into consideration also the sexual partners, sexual fantasies, and expressed attractions (Kinsey 1953Go).

They have a very diplomatic way of saying that Civers and Bailey are full of it. Because "men, whose sexual object choice is interpreted to be toward the image of themselves as women" would hardly have female anatomy, would they? If they did, then how could we classify them as "men", except arbitrarily? And the studies show pretty conclusively that they do have at least feminised anatomy, when it comes to parts of the brain.

The generated data relate to reports by Swaab's group of a female size of BNSTc in MFTRs (Zhou et al. 1995Go; Kruijver et al. 2000Go). Although structural and functional dimorphism are not directly translatable and the BNST is too small to be detected with the imaging methods applied, it is of note that this nucleus in animals mediates pheromone signaling and that it in humans has reciprocal connections with the anterior hypothalamus (Eiden et al. 1985Go). Both Swaab's and our findings may, therefore, reflect a common organizational deviation of certain sexually dimorphic circuits involved in human reproduction. Whether and how this links to the perception of sexual identity remains unclear and awaits further investigations.

I would have said "gender identity and sexual orientation", two separate concepts, but no matter.

In summary, albeit the present study does not provide conclusions concerning the possible etiology, it suggests that in transsexuals the organization of certain sexually dimorphic circuits of the anterior hypothalamus could be sex atypical. It adds a new dimension to our previous reports by showing that the observed effects are not necessarily learned and that a sex-atypical activation by the 2 putative pheromones may reflect neuronal reorganization.

Having had a look at the study, they went to extraordinary lengths to shackle all the variables. They even insisted on only right-handed subjects being included. All in all, extremely good Science.

At some stage... eventually... the American Psychiatric Association and others are going to realise that they can't continue to ignore the neurological data in favour of psychiatric conjectures.

And finally, for my own reference as much as anything else, their list of articles:

Allen LS, Hines M, Shryne JE, Gorski RA. Two sexually dimorphic cell groups in the human brain. J Neurosci (1989) 9:497–506.[Abstract]

American Psychiatric Association Task Force on DSM–IV. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM–IV (1994) Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.

Baum MJ. Activational and organizational effects of estradiol on male behavioral neuroendocrine function. Scand J Psychol (2003) 44:213–220.

Baum MJ. Mammalian animal models of psychosexual differentiation: when is ‘translation’ to the human situation possible? Horm Behav (2006) 50:579–588.

Benjamin H. The transsexual phenomenon. Trans N Y Acad Sci (1967) 29:428–430.

Bensafi M, Brown WM, Khan R, Levenson B, Sobel N. Sniffing human sex–steroid derived compounds modulates mood, memory and autonomic nervous system function in specific behavioral contexts. Behav Brain Res (2004) 152:11–22.

Bensafi M, Tsutsui T, Khan R, Levenson RW, Sobel N. Sniffing a human sex–steroid derived compound affects mood and autonomic arousal in a dose–dependent manner. Psychoneuroendocrinology (2004) 29:1290–1299.

Berglund H, Lindstrom P, Savic I. Brain response to putative pheromones in lesbian women. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A (2006) 103:8269–8274.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Blanchard R. The classification and labeling of nonhomosexual gender dysphorias. Arch Sex Behav (1989) 18:315–334.

Canli T, Gabrieli JD. Imaging gender differences in sexual arousal. Nat Neurosci (2004) 7:325–326.

Chivers ML, Bailey JM. Sexual orientation of female–to–male transsexuals: a comparison of homosexual and nonhomosexual types. Arch Sex Behav (2000) 29:259–278.

Cohen H, Forget H. Auditory cerebral lateralization following cross–gender hormone therapy. Cortex (1995) 31:565–573.

Cohen–Kettenis PT, van Goozen SH, Doorn CD, Gooren LJ. Cognitive ability and cerebral lateralisation in transsexuals. Psychoneuroendocrinology (1998) 23:631–641.

Eiden LE, Hokfelt T, Brownstein MJ, Palkovits M. Vasoactive intestinal polypeptide afferents to the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis in the rat: an immunohistochemical and biochemical study. Neuroscience (1985) 15:999–1013.

Fels E, Bosch LR. Effect of prenatal administration of testosterone on ovarian function in rats. Am J Obstet Gynecol (1971) 111:964–969.

Frackowiak RSJ. Human brain function (2004) Amsterdam (London): Elsevier Academic.

Friston KJ, Holmes A, Poline JB, Price CJ, Frith CD. Detecting activations in PET and fMRI: levels of inference and power. Neuroimage (1996) 4:223–235.

Friston KJ, Holmes AP, Worsley KJ. How many subjects constitute a study? Neuroimage (1999) 10:1–5.

Gooren L. The biology of human psychosexual differentiation. Horm Behav (2006) 50:589–601.

Gottfried JA, Deichmann R, Winston JS, Dolan RJ. Functional heterogeneity in human olfactory cortex: an event–related functional magnetic resonance imaging study. J Neurosci (2002) 22:10819–10828.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Grosser BI, Monti–Bloch L, Jennings–White C, Berliner DL. Behavioral and electrophysiological effects of androstadienone, a human pheromone. Psychoneuroendocrinology (2000) 25:289–299.

Haraldsen IR, Egeland T, Haug E, Finset A, Opjordsmoen S. Cross–sex hormone treatment does not change sex–sensitive cognitive performance in gender identity disorder patients. Psychiatry Res (2005) 137:161–174.

Hillert L, Musabasic V, Berglund H, Ciumas C, Savic I. Odor processing in multiple chemical sensitivity. Hum Brain Mapp (2007) 28:172–182.

Jacob S, Garcia S, Hayreh D, McClintock MK. Psychological effects of musky compounds: comparison of androstadienone with androstenol and muscone. Horm Behav (2002) 42:274–283.

Jacob S, Hayreh DJ, McClintock MK. Context–dependent effects of steroid chemosignals on human physiology and mood. Physiol Behav (2001) 74:15–27.
Jones–Gotman M, Zatorre RJ. Olfactory identification deficits in patients with focal cerebral excision. Neuropsychologia (1988) 26:387–400.

Karama S, Lecours AR, Leroux JM, Bourgouin P, Beaudoin G, Joubert S, Beauregard M. Areas of brain activation in males and females during viewing of erotic film excerpts. Hum Brain Mapp (2002) 16:1–13.

Kimura D. Sex, sexual orientation and sex hormones influence human cognitive function. Curr Opin Neurobiol (1996) 6:259–263.

Kinsey AC. Sexual behavior in the human female (1953) Philadelphia (PA): Saunders.

Kruijver FP, Zhou JN, Pool CW, Hofman MA, Gooren LJ, Swaab DF. Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

La Torre RA, Gossmann I, Piper WE. Cognitive style, hemispheric specialization, and tested abilities of transsexuals and nontranssexuals. Percept Mot Skills (1976) 43:719–722.

LeVay S. A difference in hypothalamic structure between heterosexual and homosexual men. Science (1991) 253:1034–1037.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Lundstrom JN, Goncalves M, Esteves F, Olsson MJ. Psychological effects of subthreshold exposure to the putative human pheromone 4,16–androstadien–3–one. Horm Behav (2003) 44:395–401.

Lundstrom JN, Olsson MJ. Subthreshold amounts of social odorant affect mood, but not behavior, in heterosexual women when tested by a male, but not a female, experimenter. Biol Psychol (2005) 70:197–204.

Lundstrom JN, Olsson MJ, Schaal B, Hummel T. A putative social chemosignal elicits faster cortical responses than perceptually similar odorants. Neuroimage (2006) 30:1340–1346.

McGlone J. Sex differences in functional brain asymmetry. Cortex (1978) 14:122–128.

Oldfield RC. The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia (1971) 9:97–113.

Royet JP, Koenig O, Gregoire MC, Cinotti L, Lavenne F, Le Bars D, Costes N, Vigouroux M, Farget V, Sicard G, et al. Functional anatomy of perceptual and semantic processing for odors. J Cogn Neurosci (1999) 11:94–109.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Savic I, Berglund H, Gulyas B, Roland P. Smelling of odorous sex hormone–like compounds causes sex–differentiated hypothalamic activations in humans. Neuron (2001) 31:661–668.

Savic I, Berglund H, Lindstrom P. Brain response to putative pheromones in homosexual men. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A (2005) 102:7356–7361.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Savic I, Gulyas B, Larsson M, Roland P. Olfactory functions are mediated by parallel and hierarchical processing. Neuron (2000) 26:735–745.

Schaltenbrand G, Bailey P. Einfèuhrung in die stereotaktischen Operationen: mit einem Atlas des menschlichen Gehirns. [Introduction to stereotaxis, with an atlas of the human brain] (1959) Stuttgart (Germany): G. Thieme.

Slijper FM, Drop SL, Molenaar JC, de Muinck Keizer–Schrama SM. Long–term psychological evaluation of intersex children. Arch Sex Behav (1998) 27:125–144.

Smith YL, van Goozen SH, Kuiper AJ, Cohen–Kettenis PT. Transsexual subtypes: clinical and theoretical significance. Psychiatry Res (2005) 137:151–160.

Sobel N, Prabhakaran V, Desmond JE, Glover GH, Goode RL, Sullivan EV, Gabrieli JD. Sniffing and smelling: separate subsystems in the human olfactory cortex. Nature (1998) 392:282–286.

Swaab DF. Sexual differentiation of the human brain: relevance for gender identity, transsexualism and sexual orientation. Gynecol Endocrinol (2004) 19:301–312.

Swaab DF, Fliers E. A sexually dimorphic nucleus in the human brain. Science (1985) 228:1112–1115.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Talairach J, Tournoux P. Co–planar stereotaxic atlas of the human brain: 3–dimensional proportional system: an approach to medical cerebral imaging (1988) New York: Thieme.

Thysen B, Elliott WH, Katzman PA. Identification of estra–1,3,5(10),16–tetraen–3–ol (estratetraenol) from the urine of pregnant women (1). Steroids (1968) 11:73–87.

van Goozen SH, Slabbekoorn D, Gooren LJ, Sanders G, Cohen–Kettenis PT. Organizing and activating effects of sex hormones in homosexual transsexuals. Behav Neurosci (2002) 116:982–988.

Wyart C, Webster WW, Chen JH, Wilson SR, McClary A, Khan RM, Sobel N. Smelling a single component of male sweat alters levels of cortisol in women. J Neurosci (2007) 27:1261–1265.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Yalom ID, Green R, Fisk N. Prenatal exposure to female hormones. Effect on psychosexual development in boys. Arch Gen Psychiatry (1973) 28:554–561.

Zald DH, Pardo JV. Functional neuroimaging of the olfactory system in humans. Int J Psychophysiol (2000) 36:165–181.

Zatorre RJ, Jones–Gotman M, Evans AC, Meyer E. Functional localization and lateralization of human olfactory cortex. Nature (1992) 360:339–340.

Zhou JN, Hofman MA, Gooren LJ, Swaab DF. A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. Nature (1995) 378:68–70.

Thursday, 9 October 2008

Today's Battles

TOP MODEL Contestant is Transgender - Yuck!.

I confess I had some very uncharitable thoughts about the author when I read that. I am a most imperfect human being, and I don't even have the excuse of ignorance as a defence.

And at An Archdiocese of Wash DC Catholic.

I've had some good results when debating with Catholics. Even when they disagree, they tend to be logical and rational, and even charitable. Alas, we sometimes operate from very different premises.

I am extremely encouraged by the fact that I'm not the only one giving rebuttal to these articles. I try to be cool and scientific, whereas many other replies are blisteringly scathing. I have been tempted, sometimes very tempted, to give a dose of well-deserved vitriol with my reply. But what's the point? Either they're operating from false assumptions and pardonable ignorance, so deserve some slack being cut for them, or they are evil bigots who it's not worth wasting spare electrons on. The latter are very rare indeed, in my experience. Most people are basically decent, and the only reason they are engaging in bigotry is because they have high moral standards.

The trick is to make their own consciences do my work for me. And frankly, I'm no saint. If I can't cut others slack, I don't deserve any myself. I certainly could do with some! I thought some very uncharitable thoughts indeed about the author of the first article, and if there is a God, I'll need a lot of forgiveness for that.

Update: My post in reply to TOP MODEL Contestant is Transgender - Yuck! was deleted. Here it is, repeated:

Zoe Brain has left a new comment on the post "TOP MODEL Contestant is Transgender - Yuck!":

I know that most people don't know much about this stuff, it's embarrassing, and not safe for work, and generally icky.

First, I'll have to explain "Intersex". Although 98.3% of people are born normally male or female, 1.7% aren't, quite. Of those, about half have trivial, insignificant differences from the norm, but some of the rest have significant differences. Some people are genetically male, but have female bodies, or the reverse. Others have their genes screwed up, so instead of being 46xx (female) or 46xy (male), they are 47xxy, or even a mix of 46xy and 46xx cells.

Now, I'll explain "What is a Transsexual". Some people - the Intersexed - have normal bodies, normal neural (brain) development, but cross-gendered genitalia. But others have normal bodies, normal genitalia, but cross-gendered brains. Genital development happens in the middle of the first trimester, neural development at the end. Little boys "know" they are boys before age 6, little girls "know" they are girls before age 6 too, and this has nothing to do with their body shape or upbringing, it depends on the neural development that was programmed in long before they were born.

Sometimes - about 1 in 500 according to Professor Lynn Conway, things go wrong to a greater or lesser extent. It's possible to end up with a wholly male body, but a female brain, and a female mind. The opposite happens too, but as we all start with a basically female template, it's easier to have a glitch that stops the masculinization of a male than to introduce extra masculinization in a female. That's why only 1 in 4 transsexuals are "Female to Male", men literally trapped in female bodies.

Many transsexuals whose "glitch" was partial can live with it, in various degrees of discomfort. But in at least 1 in 7 cases, or about 1 in 3500 people, the "glitch" is not partial, it's complete. These people, normal men or women who happen to have the wrong shaped body for their brains and minds, get a very severe degree of discomfort indeed. And it gets worse with age. Their brains just don't work very well with the hormonal blood chemistry they have, and their instinctive behavior is all wrong. Oddly enough, this has little to do with their sexual preference : many such women actually become ostensibly "lesbian" as the result of all the male hormones in their system, and the outside world thinks they're normal, straight males.

There's no "cure" for this congenital condition, but there is an effective treatment that's got a 97% improvement rate. That is to alter the sufferer's body with Hormones, and largely change it so it conforms to the brain's setup. But HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) can only do so much, some surgical "detail work" is usually required so that the sufferer can look normal, and resume their place in society, but as a member of the opposite sex. The one they've always truly been, inside, since long before their birth.

It's just a minor, and quite common, congenital abnormality. Unfortunately, it has far-reaching societal effects. Today, the problem is often picked up early enough so that intervention occurs during or shortly after puberty. But our knowledge of this syndrome is relatively recent, and due to the maternal instinct, a lot of transsexual women (those with male bodies) who were born in the 40's, 50's, 60's or even 70's are married and with children. As the discomfort gets worse with age, many are forced to "transition" at average age 45 no matter what the effect on their loved ones or careers, or suffer permanent and crippling psychological damage. But 45 is an average, some can last till 60, others have to transition before 30.

You can read extracts from some of the many medical papers on the subject at BiGender and the Brain, an article that has made peer-reviewed "best of" collections in both medicine and neurology.

You'll see the Catholic theological aspects discussed (with references) at Christian forums.

You showed malice out of pardonable ignorance, and with the best of motives. You mistook a medical condition for moral corruption. The mistake is pardonable, and understandable. The malice I leave up to you to deal with. I fear you own conscience will punish you far more severely than any judgement I'd pronounce, so please, you're forgiven, and don't be too hard on yourself.

Just please don't do it again, Ok?

Oh yes, my own unusual story is told in COSMOS Science magazine. Biologically female, I had to live most of my life with a masculinised body, when for reasons still not well understood, my body normalised. So I've been in Isis' shoes.

It could have been you. Or one of your children.

Monday, 23 June 2008

HBS

There is a political group within the Transsexual movement called "HBS" or "Harry Benjamin Syndrome".

I'll quote from the The Original HBS Site :

Harry Benjamin's Syndrome is an intersex condition developed in the early stages of pregnancy affecting the process of sexual differentiation between male and female. This happens when the brain develops as a certain sex but the rest of the body takes on the physical characteristics of the opposite sex. The difference between this and most other intersex conditions is that there is no apparent evidence until much later after the baby is born or even as late as adolescence.

I completely agree about the medical issues, as I've posted about earlier. The evidence that they're correct is overwhelming. So what has this to do with politics?

It's about elitism. And transphobia. And homophobia too.

Please read this article by Charlotte Goiar at the International HBS forum. I agree with pretty much everything as far as the paragraph "Practical and definite Terminology and its meaning.". There I depart.

Persons with HBS are people who have Harry Benjamin’s Syndrome (HBS), a purely physiological condition. They are simply men or women. Such people are born with the characteristics of both male and female. In common with others who exhibit typical sexual development, they desire to modify their phenotype and endocrinal system to correct it to their dominant sexual identity, an identity that is determined by the structure of the brain. The person with HBS does not change sex, as gender identity is fixed at birth, and the medical treatment involved is only physical correction.Transsexualism (TS), Gender Identity Disorder (GID), or Gender Dysphoria is a mental condition that consists of the desire to live and to receive acceptance as a member of the opposite sex. Do not confuse this with HBS, as it is not medical.

It isn't? It's a symptom of cross-gendered neurology. Call it HBS or anything else, it's in the brain, and no amount of psychotherapeutic mumbo-jumbo will affect it in the slightest.

That's where some (and I stress some, not all) of the more fanatic elements of HBS theory start going wrong. Various kinds of HBS fanatics insist that only they are Intersexed, and others are psychiatrically ill. Some require anyone who's "really" HBS to be straight, to transition early, to be post-operative, to have had facial surgery and breast enhancement, to eschew all "boy stuff" and be perfect models of 1950s womanhood, or some combination thereof. And of course to have nothing to do with Gays or those freakish "Transgenderists" who are totally unlike them.

I'll quote from Laura's HBS Peer review :

As the owner of a Transsexual,Transgender web site I have always provided the latest information on Transsexual research on my site long before HBS was first uttered. So the research on HBS sites was very familiar to me. In order to learn more I joined the Official Yahoo HBS Support Group. What I learned had little to do with HBS. It instead turned out to be an anti-GLBT group. People who asked simple questions and needed support, were diagnosed by militant members as being transgendered, perverts and fetishists. Gays and lesbians were also denigrated with frequent slurs. In fact those who did support GLBT rights were banned simply for supporting them. Several that were diagnosed by those without medical degrees were affirmed post-ops with similar stories to mine. One thing Yahoos HBS groups are not is an HBS Support Group. The group moderator defends the constant anti-GLBT slurs as member venting.

It's difficult for me to be in this position. They're right about so much, but some (and I emphasise some) are total fruit-loops in other ways. Hateful too. I just don't understand how a group of people so badly persecuted can join in the persecution of others.

I don't identify as "transgendered", nor as gay. In fact, they are both as alien concepts to me as is, well, masculinity. But I'm no androphobe, my homophobia is mainly a thing of the past, and my transphobia under control. Mainly. It leaks out on occasion, as you'll see below.

I'm a member of the Australian HBS support group, simply because they're right about so much. Here's what I wrote in reply to one of the more strident members, not fanatical, merely hard-line:

The evidence is what it is, and I reserve the right to alter my opinions based on the evidence.

I do not ask you to "accept" anything. It would be useful if you could give more data, or if not, propose experiments that might prove your viewpoint is correct.

We "see through a glass darkly" here, taking clues and hints from all sorts of sources, some more reliable than others. I place little weight on most psychological studies, they've been proven to be unreliable in the past. I place more weight on MRI scans, and other objective data.

I place zero weight on my own self-perceptions, that I'm just a woman with an interesting medical history . Likewise my own desires as to what "should be". For if I had my druthers, there would be a nice neat binary, with HBS men and women easily and clearly distinguished from a variety of self-advertising publicity-seeking "TG Pride" paraphiliacs and fetishists.

For that matter, I would like to be either regarded as Intersexed or Transsexual(ie only neurally Intersexed), and not something in-between, with characteristics of both. Still, if I'm going to dream, let's go back to conception and give me 46xx chromosomes and a standard factory model female body, one that matches my brain.

My reading of the data though leads me to conclusions I don't like, but accept pending data that would contradict them.

1. That CG sexuality is not usually associated with extreme CG Gender
Identity, but in a third or so of cases, it's associated with mild CG
behavior, butch Lez or femme Gay, and rather more CG gender behaviour in childhood.

2. That CG gender identity is often (50%) associated with CG sexual
orientation, hence CG gender behaviour in childhood. 1/3 of children
showing CG behaviour are TS.

3. That CG gender identity is always associated with CG patterns of
thought - emotional response in particular- but not necessarily CG
sexual orientation (and childhood CG gender behaviour etc)

4.That CG gender identity is often associated with CG body image,
something else determined in a nearby part of the brain, and in most
cases this will require hormones, and in extreme cases, surgery to
alleviate the dysfunctionality.

But... that CG sexual orientation, gender identity, and body image, while coupled, are not absolutely so. They are distinct things. It's possible that only one will be affected, or two of the three. Worse, there are degrees, so both degrees of bigender and bisexuality exist, as do people not particularly enamoured with either M or F pattern bodies.

I will explain "CG" though, "Cross-Gendered". I define it as being "in relation to the arbitrary assignment at birth", and not in relation to genitalia, endocrinology, or anything else. Otherwise it can't be applied to any Intersexed people, for whom the chromosomes etc differ from the assignment. Furthermore, in relation to people with CG Gender Identity, who are strongly gendered, it can be more useful in a practical sense to reverse the polarity.

So a transWOMAN does not have a strongly CG gender identity, she has a strongly normal gender identity for a woman. It's her chromosomes (usually), her genitalia(usually), and in general her body apart from the brain that is cross-gendered for a woman. Sometimes her body image is cross-gendered too, and she's non-op. Sometimes her sexual orientation is cross-gendered too, and she's lesbian.

You may prefer to believe in a strict binary, where all 3, gender identity, sexual orientation, and body image are always the same. Either M or F, with no "degrees", just a binary. And anything else is an artifact of abnormal psychology, not neurology. My reading of the data indicates otherwise, but not only may my reasoning be wrong, the datasets are too small for comfort. I can't say that you're definitely wrong. Your belief would certainly simplify all sorts of issues, legal
and otherwise.

I have stated my conclusions. I have stated the evidence I base my conclusions on. In terms of "HBS activism", the political aspect, the fact that to me the evidence of a biological cause of "transsexuality" means I have to support the rationale for HBS activism. "It's the neurology, stupid! Female brains and minds lumbered at birth with male bodies!". And despite the "degrees" and "blurriness" of the biology, sometimes you have to simplify. It's *not* a rainbow spectrum, it's Red and Blue, but with a small band of purple between , some more red than blue, some more blue than red, and some just purple. To say it's Red or Blue, while not 100% accurate, a least won't confuse the ignorant, while all sorts of scientific disclaimers might just give them the totally false impression that colour doesn't exist.

If I may make an analogy - the Earth doesn't orbit the Sun. They orbit each other around a common centre of gravity, which is really close to the Sun's centre. And that's a simplification, because other planets perturb things a bit, and the Moon causes even more perturbation., And the orbit isn't circular, but elliptical. It's complex.

But to say "the Earth doesn't orbit the Sun", while strictly accurate, is misleading to the ignorant. I support the Heliocentric model of the solar system to the same extent that I support the HBS theory, if you get my point. That's why I'm here, to give battle to the Geocentricists and Flat Earthers, the followers of Bailey, Raymond and the like.

I'm hoping the Australian HBS group retains the moderate stance it has taken so far - basing its views on medical data, rather than psychological insecurities and elitism.

Why does this all have to be so complicated? *SIGH*

Tuesday, 11 November 2008

Another piece of the puzzle

Perhaps a "tipping point" has been reached now, with more and more data clarifying the situation, and confirming theory.

Professor M.Italiano of Gendercare Inc. and Organisation Intersex International (to whom many thanks) very kindly sent me an advance copy of a new article, whose abstract is available from Oxford Journals.

From A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity by
A. Garcia-Falgueras A and D.F. Swaab.

In the present study we investigated the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus, which is composed of two subnuclei, namely interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus (INAH) 3 and 4. Post-mortem brain material was used from 42 subjects: 14 control males, 11 control females, 11 male-to-female transsexual people, 1 female-to-male transsexual subject and 5 non-transsexual subjects who were castrated because of prostate cancer.
...
We showed for the first time that INAH3 volume and number of neurons of male-to-female transsexual people is similar to that of control females. The female-to-male transsexual subject had an INAH3 volume and number of neurons within the male control range, even though the treatment with testosterone had been stopped three years before death. The castrated men had an INAH3 volume and neuron number that was intermediate between males (volume and number of neurons P > 0.117) and females (volume P > 0.245 and number of neurons P > 0.341). There was no difference in INAH3 between pre-and post-menopausal women, either in the volume (P > 0.84) or in the number of neurons (P < 0.439), indicating that the feminization of the INAH3 of male-to-female transsexuals was not due to estrogen treatment. We propose that the sex reversal of the INAH3 in transsexual people is at least partly a marker of an early atypical sexual differentiation of the brain and that the changes in INAH3 and the BSTc may belong to a complex network that may structurally and functionally be related to gender identity.

The key phrase here is "complex network". You can point to one place, the BSTc layer, and say that's a definitive marker, but it can't be causal. The difference appears after symptoms of transsexuality. It's something more subtle, and more complex, involving more than one part of the brain, and in more than one characteristic. There are overlaps, there is fuzziness, there is complexity, and we still have a lot to learn.

The presence or absence of testosterone appears to be important in actively changing neurological structures - how else to explain the "intermediate" figures for castrated males? But it's not the whole picture, as the FtoM subject had male-typical neurology even 3 years after discontinuing hormones for medical reasons. Both hormonal balance and genetic propensity appear to be required, as current theory predicts. There are certainly multiple genetic causes that can potentialise the same effect, but without anomalous hormones, the potential remains just that.

We still don't know enough to draw conclusions about the details, but in my opinion, biological causation is no no longer proven "on the balance of probability", but beyond reasonable doubt. Not beyond all doubt whatsoever, but as they say, "a jury would convict". While no single experiment is definitive, there are now a dozen or more experiments in widely separated areas of knowledge all suggesting the same thing, and sometimes strongly suggesting it. Taken separately, none of the experimental evidence is enough to say anything other than a "definite maybe". Taken together, and with exactly zero evidence to contradict them (a rare thing in Science), there's no "maybe" about it any more.

One thing we don't know for sure is how these neurological anomalies lead to another anomaly, a difference from the expected norm, transsexuality. I won't call it a "disorder", that has far too many negative and unevidenced connotations. It is an anomaly though that, in conjunction with societal attitudes, can lead to significant distress. When it involves the body-image, even if there was a wholly benevolent societal attitude, it will lead to distress so extreme that suicidal ideation, anxiety and acute depression are not just common, but almost universal.

A nose by any other name would smell, and although I have no wish to offend anyone who sees all this as just a "natural variation" like red hair or blue eyes, I can see the reasoning behind calling it a disorder, even if I disagree strongly with that view. Certainly the anxiety and distress in some cases can only be called a medical condition, one caused by biology, and wholly treatable in most cases by aligning body and brain so there is no conflict. The only reason I say most cases is that since the cause is biological, hence messy and fuzzy, there will be some people who will be miserable with either typical male or typical female configurations. Some may be happy as androgynes, but I'm sorry to say that there may well be some for whom there is no good solution, just a "least worst". A significant minority of people with post-operative regret are not merely victims of substandard surgery, they transition back. And more often than not, wish they could go back again after that. I'm not sure I know what can be done to help such people, and I don't think they know what can be done themselves. We should listen to them anyway, because although they may be clueless, we certainly are.

Conversely, there are some Intersexed people perfectly happy with unusual bodies, and highly resentful (as they have every right to be) of those who would force them to conform to majority expectations - expectations often based on pseudo-religious beliefs that actually contradict scripture - and not what would be right for the individual concerned. Some are very unhappy indeed, having been surgically mutilated as infants in order to please others. In extreme cases, they have been butchered and forced into becoming effectively transsexual, with a brain-gender that is exactly the opposite to their somatic-gender. No wonder they feel more than just a teeny bit ticked off by this. Even those proponents of early intervention admit that they get it wrong this way in at least 10% of cases.

From Endocrinology Today :

There are some kinds of medical decisions, such as sterilization and organ donation, that parents alone can’t authorize. In these cases, a court must determine that the decision serves the child’s best interest. The legal rationale for these exceptions to the general rules of parental consent arguably apply to infant genitoplasty as well: the procedures are elective; they are irreversible with dramatic lifelong consequences; and there is a potential for conflict between the interests of parents and child. (Indeed, some providers have recommended genitoplasty in the belief that it is necessary for the parents’ well-being.)

And that I find the most jaw-droppingly outrageous thing I've read in a very long time. I knew it happened from talking to the victims, but to have it openly admitted is another matter. I applaud the author for airing this dirty laundry in public, as she wants to make sure that we - society, the medical profession, and parents - do the right thing for these children.

Getting back to Transsexuality... we don't know the mechanism behind the causal relationship. That it is causal has been proven now, though not absolutely. Only correlation has. I've mentioned Diamond's Biased-Transactional theory before in BiGender and the Brain. It says that an anomalously cross-gendered brain (the "Bias") will lead to a cross-gendered identity by the child comparing itself to others (the "Transactions").

I am only an expert in myself, not others. In my case, his theory fits perfectly, though it doesn't involve culturally gendered behaviour as such, only instinct and emotional reactions. I liked toy guns, toy cars, I was stereotypically male when young in what is normally regarded as gendered behaviour. If gender was purely a social construct, I would have been indubitably and unambiguously male, no question of it. But my inner thoughts, my feelings, my emotions, and my hard-wired instincts, they were quite different, and (in hindsight) stereotypically female, more so than even I realised at the time. I did realise it enough to pick the name "Zoe" though, at age 10. I thought I'd have a female puberty, you see. As I did, just delayed 35 years *sigh*.

So we know that the Biased-Transactional theory is true - for one case. Moi. For others, it seems to fit too. For all? I don't know. Perhaps if we could study adults whose gender identity is still crystalising - say those who attempt transition, but temporarily or permanently de-transition for other than economic or family reasons - we could say more.

But in the meantime, this is theory, not hard fact. We have hard facts though, more every month, and this paper is yet another piece of the puzzle.

Today's Battle

At the Grauniad, where noted Transphobe Julie Bindel was nominated for an award as "Journalist of the Year" by UK GLB(but not T) group STONEWALL. Named after a riot against police oppression of trans* and gays started by a Transgendered woman, to add a touch of Irony.

Julie B is what is known as a second wave Radical Feminist Lesbian. Meaning she hates men. Literally, she's written an article on why she feels that way. She also is committed to dissolving gender boundaries, stating as an axiomatic matter of faith that all gender is purely a social construct, so men don't actually exist. So that's why she wants a woman-only space with strict gender apartheid, and wishes to eliminate or deny the existence of anyone who proves that gender is partly biological.

Consistency - and even basic humanity - are not her strong suites.

Here's Julie in full cry :

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.
...
Think about a world inhabited just by transsexuals. It would look like the set of Grease.

The paper was forced to apologise for that one - though Julie says she was just apologising for the gratuitous insults and tone, not the content.

Here she is though after being given the news that her nomination came last in the field. You see, the largest transgender demonstration ever held in the UK protested - in a very civilised English way - outside STONEWALL's galah awards, and she didn't like that, not one little bit. How dare they!

Being nominated for an award is supposed to be a nice thing, right? Well not for me. When I was told a few weeks ago that I had been shortlisted for a journalist of the year award by the gay rights organisation Stonewall, I knew I would not win. I was certainly a worthy contender, but I knew from that moment that all hell was about to break loose.

You need a little history first: in 2004 I wrote a column in this newspaper about a Canadian male-to-female transsexual who had taken a rape crisis centre to court over its decision not to invite her to be a counsellor for rape victims. I questioned whether a sex change would make someone a woman, or simply a man who has had surgery.

The fact that the counsellor had been raped herself, and had previous experience counselling other victims, with ratings such as "excellent" and "gifted"... that doesn't matter.

We became "lesbian and gay", but soon bisexuals shouted, "Us too". Transsexuals, having received short shrift from heterosexual society, asked to be included in our rainbow alliance, followed by Queer (anyone who is into "kinky" sex), then Questioning (those having a think about who and how they might shag in the future), and finally (for now) Intersex (those born with biological features that are simultaneously perceived as male and female).

Queer meaning anyone into "kinky" sex? I can't believe the depth of pig-ignorance this displays. It's exactly the kind of thing I'd expect from flat-earth fundamentalists. To continue:

But I for one do not wish to be lumped in with an ever-increasing list of folk defined by "odd" sexual habits or characteristics.

You know, like those Freaks with Intersex conditions. She's Normal, and so has the right to dictate what others should and should not do, in the name of Politically Pure Radical Lesbian Feminism.

Shall we just start with A and work our way through the alphabet? A, androgynous, b, bisexual, c, cat-fancying d, devil worshipping. Where will it ever end?

Hopefully with a change of career for her, from a noted columnist an a national newspaper. Well, maybe if she didn't classify transsexuals, bisexuals and the intersexed amongst satanists and practicers of bestiality, it might help.

Anyway, here's what I wrote in the comments. The usual attempt to inform rather than insult.

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.

So why does all this matter? Surely it's just more silly sophomoric political games, people shouting at each other in the battle of the -isms, with no-one but they interested in the outcome?

It matters because of this - the events I wrote about in Nothing Unusual. I'd ask you to read that first. Here's the video anyway.

There's a sequel. From Eyewitness News :

MEMPHIS, TN – Duanna Johnson was found shot to death in North Memphis, according to her lawyer.

Memphis police say it happened just before midnight at Hollywood near Staten Avenue, Sunday, November 9, 2008.

According to detectives, when officers arrived at the scene, they found the body lying in the street. Police say a witness heard gunfire and then saw three people running away from the scene. Investigators do not have any suspects at this time.

Lawyer Murray Wells confirmed to Eyewitness News that the person who was killed is his client Duanna Johnson. He says Johnson was often in the area where she was killed.

Murray says Johnson was trying to leave Memphis and go back to her hometown of Chicago. According to Murray, Jonson was just about homeless trying to live in Memphis. He says the apartment where Jonson was living did not have power. Murray says he was helping Johnson buy a bus ticket to Chicago.

It matters because just as the beating of Duanna Johnson was not widely publicised in MSM, her murder will go unremarked either, even if a ballistics exam shows (purely by coincidence) a police-issue weapon was involved. It matters because if the Julie Bindels of the world are allowed to preach their poisonous Xenophobia without being called on it, then consequences such as this are inescapable.

A.E.Brain

Monday, 4 May 2009

Year Four

Monday, 27 July 2009

Not quite another Piece of the Puzzle - Yet

Friday, 9 January 2009

On Transsexuality and Transphobia

Monday, 18 August 2008

Hello Pharyngulites

Tuesday, 24 February 2009

The Evidence

Wednesday, 16 June 2010

A Girl Speaks Out - And is Listened To

Tuesday, 22 July 2008

More Parts of the Puzzle

Thursday, 9 October 2008

Today's Battles

Monday, 23 June 2008

HBS

Tuesday, 11 November 2008

Another piece of the puzzle

Today's Battle

Pages

About Me

Reviews

Followers

Labels

Politics

Space

Space (Alt)

Software

Just Plain Good

Submarine

Comics

TS/IS Stuff

Archives