Pat,

I don’t know why I ‘pinged’ you as female, I’ll blame that bad SNL skit from years ago.

Jody,

Thanks for your answer. I’m not a medical practitioner, but just still can’t get my head around altering the body to fix the mind. Thank you for correcting the name of the disorder though.

AE, I once met a woman, who was biologically a woman (and as far as I know genitals and chromosomes, etc.), but clearly exhibit the appearances and behaviors of a man. Even had male pattern baldness. I didn’t know her well enough to know her mental state, and whether she ever thought about having gender reassignment surgery, but I don’t think she thought she was a man. Perhaps felt she would have been better sutied as a biological male.

Maybe we are playing semantics here. Perhaps I would agree with you if a biological male thought he was a woman. It seems to me it’s more like he thinks he is better suited to being a woman.

Livewire, you are actually thinking of Body Integrity Identity Disorder — Body Dysmorphic Disorder is when people are preoccupied with minor flaws in their appearance — and I don’t know.

Again, it’s probably something neurobiological and not “acquired phobia,” like an inverse phantom limb phenomena. I believe V.S. Ramachandran talks about in A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness.

It’s also why I’m glad I don’t practice in any shape anymore….

AE, what you aren’t getting is that the discussions going on at the APA right now are precisely because of all of those studies others have posted here. The research shows that things aren’t as simple as you want them to be. Trans folks aren’t “nuts” in even the most general sense of the word.

We know that sense of gender, just like sense of sexual orientation, is something deeply rooted in the brain, above and beyond sex chromosomes or primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Again, like sexual orientation, something else again is at work in the brain, something that we’re only just now starting to understand.

The debate at the APA is over whether or not GID should continue to be included in the DSM as a disorder, if it really meets the standards for impairment. I’ve read several people who argue it should, that the arguments put forth by the transcommunity are lacking — and I’ve read the counter response right back. Once you get past the knee-jerk activists on both sides, and start getting into people who understand the science of it, it’s much better and more pertinent discussion.

The only treatment that has positive, long term outcome is gender reassignment surgery. And the way that’s paid for by insurance is because of the medical and psychiatric diagnosis stemming from the DSM. If you remove the disordered status, under our current health care system, you remove the key way trans folks get peace of mind. That’s a bit of a Catch 22.

Zoe,

I’m pretty sure the same or a similar studies have been done regarding homosexual brains, and homosexual brains have things in common with brains of people of the opposite sex as well.

That doesn’t make me a woman, it doesn’t make you a woman, it doesnt make chastity bono a man.

And regarding your studies, perhaps you should send them to the medical and psychiatric associations — because either they haven’t seen them, or they saw them, and were not persuaded. because their classification of transsexualism has not changed.

I wish you the very best. I support your right to do whatever you need to do in order to be happy so long as it isn’t illegal, immoral, and doesn’t infringe on others. But if and when people demand that others and the law recognize that you ARE a woman because you had drastic plastic surgery, radical hormone and other artificial treatments, that is when it begins to infringe on others.

Really, Livewire? Well, I do try to keep things toned down a bit here. Maybe that’s a female trait more than male, I don’t know. Perhaps I should have posted as “Patrick” to avoid any confusion, but I don’t want to change now.

But to take a perfectly functional body and render it into a non-functioning simulation, and expect someone else to pay for it as a ‘mental illness’ is wrong.

Perhaps so. Yeah, the body may be perfectly functional, but as you suggest, the brain is not functioning perfectly. If an operation can help, I’m all for it. But obviously, because of the nature of the surgery, it should only be done after plenty of counseling and medical consultations.

Frankly, if I was in that situation, I’m not sure what I would do. It sounds like if you were, you’d just bite the bullet and live with it. And that’s fine, too. A lot of people have done that as well.

Jody, do you support amputation of limbs to ‘treat’ body dysmorphic disorder?

If that’s okay, I’d like to take a crack at this. My answer would be no. It seems to me that there is something else going on here, and amputation would probably not solve the mental disorder anyway. This seems different than what’s going on with a transgendered person. But any surgery should not happen without counseling to make sure what what’s going on. This is necessary to make sure the issue is gender identity, and not something else. Or external causes, such as a boy being told that he’s not masculine enough, and then believing it.

they already have decided, and it is a psychological disorder. It is only liberal activists who utterly wasted their college years wallowing in liberal psychobabble in “gender studies” who say it isn’t.

The psychiatric associations all agree it’s nuts.

AE, my point is, what part of it is a psychological disorder? Is it because they have a body that doesn’t match their hardwiring? Or is it something else. An amputee who has a psychological disorder would likely be because they have loss of limb(s). Should they just accept it, or try to do something medically about it, if possible?

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.

Testimony in Kantaras vs Kantaras:

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.

Given the attitude expressed by some commentators, no wonder so many trans people have been driven nuts. Until 1995, no-one had taken the “male brain in female body” conjecture seriously enough to do autopsies, and the genetic testing and MRI scanning technology is even more recent. We now have evidence from totally independant teams working in the disperate fields of neuro-biology, endocrinology, genetics, tomography, and psychology, all individually insufficient for proof, but all, without exception, saying the same thing. When sample sizes were in the 10’s, and in only one field, it was possible to say that the evidence was thin. But with samples in the multiple thousands, and that means every trans person in a population of tens of millions, to continue to say it’s “unproven” defies belief.

Hi Zoe,

Yes, we gave our presentation to 60 plus psychiatrists from the US, AU, FR, IT, EU, UK, Holland etc.

We spoke for 2 1/2 hours on why cross gender identity was a normal inherited variation of humans. We showed how Transgender Brains think, smell, and hear like the opposite sex. We presented internationally accepted guidelines for hormonal treatment of transsexuals to be published Summer 2009.

Here are my slides and with my participants’ permission I shall send you theirs. We are now in print in the APA Syllabus and soon in the APA Journal this summer. I am checking if we were recorded.

My greatest personal compliment came from Frank Kruijver, from Holland, whose research of the human brain in TSs started it all. He thought we have taken his work very far in our understanding of the human brain. Hope you can do something with this.

Sid Ecker, M.D.

Professor Ecker gave his presentation to the American Psychiatric Association annual conference, in the seminar ” The Neurobiological Evidence for Transgenderism” along with Prof. Milton Diamond.

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/05/brain-gender-identity-presentation-by.html has links to the slides, and the extensive bibliography, giving the results of human and animal experimentation over the last 25 years.

Gender identity and sexual preference are orthogonal; there are gay, straight *and* bi transsexuals.

Livewire is way off base believing genetics define gender; there’s lots of real-world cases that demonstrate why this is so…and it’s a core reason why the State shouldn’t be trying to define who may marry whom especially by gender. See http://tinyurl.com/lhbc2j for a PoV from a professor of anatomy and cell biology for more details.

As for the results of FtM surgery being “non-functional”, I can’t really comment. But I do know that successful MtF surgery is functional.

“Mental disorder”, well… the current DSM calls transsexuality a personality disorder. “Personality disorders, formerly referred to as character disorders, are a class of personality types which deviate from the contemporary expectations of a society.”

I guess that’s why homosexuality used to be one.

Let me add one thing, after 12 hours of sleep.

I don’t see an issue with someone making cosmetic alterations, with their own pocketbook (provided they can find a doctor willing to stretch their ethics) I think it’s a damn shame, and sad (I don’t even dye the grey in my hair) it’s their body and assuming they’re not in the process of carrying a passenger it’s their choice. But to take a perfectly functional body and render it into a non-functioning simulation, and expect someone else to pay for it as a ‘mental illness’ is wrong.

Jody, do you support amputation of limbs to ‘treat’ body dysmorphic disorder?

or, in layman’s terms, cuckoo

and as further scientific evidence, you refer me to a french article that also refers to a political decision, not a scientific one.

Actually, Jody, you have it exactly backwards. YOU are the one who is arguing that it is so because you believe it to be so.

I have pointed out that the medical associations agree with me, to which you have responded with the pronouncements of political organizations and political activists.

Even your own political organizations still must admit the medical view has not changed and that these people are still considered psychologically disordered. aka. cuckoo.

you did however, provide one, un-reviewed, un-replicated study that says “male gender identity might be partly mediated through the androgen receptor.” [emphasis mine] the corollary conclusion being that it also might not… which means, in layman’s terms, they didn’t come anywhere near establishing anything, and you are nonetheless citing it as science upon which the declassification of transsexualism as a mental disorder should be based.

In short: you say it is so, because you want it to be so, but the expert associations still agree with me. Biology still agrees with me. There is even a book by a transsexual who regrets having gone through the surgery and agrees with me that it is a mental disorder, I dont remember the name, but perhaps someone else does.

Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina, trannies have issues. God bless them all with every happiness in the world, but please dont ask me to call someone a male because she cut off her breasts, scooped out her vagina and had some skin from her ass removed and reshaped into something resembling a penis and sewn on in the front.

because that was the name of this low-budget flick they put together in the late 1960s and it was during the course of this filming that Cher discovered she was pregnant.

Hank Hill type “Uggh.”

Don’t know what’s worse, Pete. The sex change or the fact that you know that info off the top of your head.

That there is a debate over the politics GID and the the science isn’t in doubt. Based in on the science, other western countries no longer regard transexuality as a mental illness. So my original point that it’s under debate at the moment stands.

The extent of your argument remains it’s so because I believe it to be so, which, in the end, is the same justification the gender studies, queer studies and homophobes use.

American Elephant, I’ll leave it to the professionals to decide if being transgendered in and of itself is a psychological disorder.

Pat,
they already have decided, and it is a psychological disorder. It is only liberal activists who utterly wasted their college years wallowing in liberal psychobabble in “gender studies” who say it isn’t.

The psychiatric associations all agree it’s nuts.

Jody,

Don’t worry, You dont insult me. You sound like one of the gender studies timewasters I spoke of. And despite all your meaningless pyschobabble, the medical and psychiatric associations still agree with me.

Its nuts.

I couldn’t get to the links at work. Damn firewalls.

For some reason I always ‘heard’ your posts as if you were female.

Sorry, but it IS an urban legend. Jamie Lee Curtis is not a hermaphrodite. Follow the link:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/jamieleecurtis/a/jamieleecurtis.htm

Regards,
Peter H.

I don’t think anyone is taking issue with that.

Changing your body parts doesn’t change your hardwiring any more than putting a Mercedes logo on an Escort.

Exactly! For example, if tomorrow morning, I woke up as a female physically, it’s not going to change my hardwiring. Thankfully, I doubt very much that such a scenario would happen. What’s unfortunate is that there are people born as a male, but yet are hardwired as a female, and vice versa.

Gay is men who love other men. That’s it. Gay is not about gender confusion. I am not confused about my gender or the gender to which I am attracted.

That’s pretty much true, except that there are still people that believe that you and I are confused. Similarly, a transgendered person isn’t necessarily confused either. They know what their gender identity is. They just don’t have the body parts that match it.

Horsehockey!

We’ve known for over 50 years that all of us have an internal “sense” of sexual orientation, of gender, of even “self.” It always line up with chromosomes and there’s really no convincing evidence you can forcibly change it.

Mooney was one of the first to articulate this, though he thought gender identity was fairly plastic and could be reset with gender reassignment, a lot of socialization and therapy. Didn’t work out so well. Reimers case was further confirmation, and the tragedy of it has, in part, contributed to our whole reassessment of the diagnosis of “Gender Identity Disorder.”

Having worked in an asylum, this is anything but that.

I don’t mean this as an insult AE, but you sound a heck of a lot like all those folks I encountered during homophobia education programs, who said if you had a cock you were to stick it in a vagina. They were quite sure that everything else was “horsehockey” As Haldane said, the universe is not only queerer than we imagine is queerer than we can imagine.