Leelah Alcorn, transgender teen, commited suicide

[newyorkguy]

What I am asking is, if a male has hormone treatments and sexual reassignment surgery, does that really make him female? In a legal sense I guess it does -- he can use a woman's restroom or have 'F' stamped on his passport or driver's license -- but isn't being a woman much more than taking hormones and having your genitals surgically altered?

 

[Meadmaker]

James Carville was once talking about how difficult it was to run presidential campaigns in Ohio. He said, "It's New York on the East side, Ohio on the West side, and Alabama in the middle."

.Oops. I meant how difficult it was to campaign in Pennsylvania

 

[Butter!]

.Oops. I meant how difficult it was to campaign in Pennsylvania

It's probably not much different in neighboring Ohio. But yeah, he's totally right. It's uncanny.

 

[king catfish]

It's probably not much different in neighboring Ohio. But yeah, he's totally right. It's uncanny.

In my circle we call the area in the middle of the state Pennsyltucky.

Seriously, it's frightening, banjo-music-in-the-background redneck country.

 

[Butter!]

In my circle we call the area in the middle of the state Pennsyltucky.

Seriously, it's frightening, banjo-music-in-the-background redneck country.

I know, right?

No, there won't be any widespread acceptance of gay people, let alone trans people, forthcoming in areas like that (or the one I'm in now, frankly, though it's not quite as bad as Pennsyltucky-land) for quite some time. Even amongst young people, there's a long road ahead.

 

[Pup]

What I am asking is, if a male has hormone treatments and sexual reassignment surgery, does that really make him female? In a legal sense I guess it does -- he can use a woman's restroom or have 'F' stamped on his passport or driver's license -- but isn't being a woman much more than taking hormones and having your genitals surgically altered?

I think the argument would be that that's certainly true--women need to have female brains. And though we haven't identified what exactly defines a woman's brain, any more than we've found a "gay gene," transexuals claim they can feel that that's what they have (or in the case of FTM, a male brain). And until there's a physical test, we have to take their word for it, with behavioral observation too of course, just as there's no physical test for being gay but one can take a person's word for it as well as observe their attraction to the same sex.

 

[marplots]

What I am asking is, if a male has hormone treatments and sexual reassignment surgery, does that really make him female? In a legal sense I guess it does -- he can use a woman's restroom or have 'F' stamped on his passport or driver's license -- but isn't being a woman much more than taking hormones and having your genitals surgically altered?

Well, the premise is that such a person already has the mysterious components and only lacks the physical tags. That is, they are already "female" inside.

 

[newyorkguy]

I think it was writer Lillian Hellman who once observed, speaking about Warhol transgender film star Candy Darling, "Darling is not a woman. In order to be a woman one must first grow up as a little girl."

There are many physiological differences between men and women. It's a lot more than having "female brains." Here's a site that lists most of them. Link

 

[shuttlt]

Well, the premise is that such a person already has the mysterious components and only lacks the physical tags. That is, they are already "female" inside.

It's a MacGuffin. There is no mysterious component with "100% true authentic female" stamped on the side. People may find something and write it on themselves, but that's different.

 

[marplots]

It's a MacGuffin. There is no mysterious component with "100% true authentic female" stamped on the side. People may find something and write it on themselves, but that's different.

I kinda leaned that way, not having such a handle for my own gender, but was informed that it was invisible to me because my biological sex and my perceived gender were aligned. Not having the collision, I'm left in the same position I am with other experiences I can't access - I'll take their word for it.

However, I wouldn't say that "100% true authentic female" is really needed as a justification. It only has to be relative to whatever the culture identifies as female characteristics.

 

[shuttlt]

If people happen to include being born with a vagina in their definition of female, we're kind of unlikely to find anything to prove them wrong by looking in brains.

 

[marplots]

If people happen to include being born with a vagina in their definition of female, we're kind of unlikely to find anything to prove them wrong by looking in brains.

That just gets you to a round of nuanced category making:
"born with a vagina and a male brain"

See?

 

[Pup]

I think it was writer Lillian Hellman who once observed, speaking about Warhol transgender film star Candy Darling, "Darling is not a woman. In order to be a woman one must first grow up as a little girl."

There are many physiological differences between men and women. It's a lot more than having "female brains." Here's a site that lists most of them. Link

A lot of the things at that link are either averages (my wife must not be female because she's 70", the same height as the average man there) or are secondary sexual characteristics that can be affected by hormones, such as muscle mass. There are lots of better examples, such as chromosomes, DNA, etc.

But the underlying issue is: That's great if everything that we can identify about a person is all one sex or the other. What about physically intersexed people, easily identifiable by the methods we have now? If such a person is raised one sex but insists on identifying as the other and switches, is the way they were raised the determining factor? How can one tell each of these people whether they're male or female? http://www.isna.org/faq/conditions

In fact, I think we're at an uncomfortable point in medical knowledge, where we can at least say that intersex people are intersex, even if we can't be confident what gender to assign them. But transexuals cannot be physically identified, so they are left trying to communicate their condition.

If an intersex person says they are unhappy with the gender assigned at birth, they can self-identify as the other and be supported with treatment. So apparently doctors cannot predict which physical component overrules the gender of the brain.

From http://www.isna.org/compare (bold added)
"The doctors and parents recognize, however, that gender assignment of infants with intersex conditions as male or female, as with assignment of any infant, is preliminary. Any child may decide later in life to change their gender assignment; but children with intersex conditions have significantly higher rates of gender transition than the general population, with or without treatment. That is a crucial reason why medically unnecessary surgeries should not be done without the patient’s consent; the child with an intersex condition may later want genitals (either the ones they were born with or surgically constructed anatomy) different than what the doctors would have chosen."

I don't know how much problem they run into being told they''re not real men or women afterwards. I suspect it's less than transexuals, but I don't know. If it is less, that's one reason it would be helpful to identify that brain anomalie that causes a person to feel transexual, and then they would be in the intersex category, rather than being identified by many people as someone who was really born all one sex or the other, or someone who just wants to change sex on a whim.

 

[shuttlt]

That just gets you to a round of nuanced category making:
"born with a vagina and a male brain"

See?

What do you mean by a "male brain"? Surely there are lots of features of brains that might be described as typically male, or typically female? Are you assuming that this brain in the wrong body that we are talking about will be unambiguously male, or unambiguously female?

 

[marplots]

What do you mean by a "male brain"? Surely there are lots of features of brains that might be described as typically male, or typically female? Are you assuming that this brain in the wrong body that we are talking about will be unambiguously male, or unambiguously female?

This is biology, ambiguity comes with the territory.

As to brains, you could do it like a Turing test. Can one tell, by the answers given alone (no checking DNA or naughty bits!) whether or not someone would be classified as female by society at large? If they can be, then what are we to think other than there is something different about brains that makes it so? If they cannot, then we have trouble and the category slips closer to the fiction side.

I haven't looked into it, but I gather there's a lot of "gender" research out there that might inform this conversation. I'll give the experts the nod on this one.

But suppose we find out there is no demonstrable thing as a male or female brain. Would it matter? I mean, would it matter if it costs me nothing to bow to someone's eccentricity on the subject? I don't think there's a God either, but I allow Christians and Muslims to have their fun and don't deny that there is such a thing as a Christian. So what if there were no biological basis and no gender-brain? Wouldn't we then just define it as "someone who believes they are X, when their body looks like Y?" In that case, all we end up with is someone who believes a thing that can't be proven - quite a common occurrence with God botherers.

 

[shuttlt]

This is biology, ambiguity comes with the territory.

As to brains, you could do it like a Turing test. Can one tell, by the answers given alone (no checking DNA or naughty bits!) whether or not someone would be classified as female by society at large? If they can be, then what are we to think other than there is something different about brains that makes it so? If they cannot, then we have trouble and the category slips closer to the fiction side.

This sounds like an arbitrary choice. If we choose to define gender like that, then you'll get a different answer to if you define it in a different way.

But suppose we find out there is no demonstrable thing as a male or female brain. Would it matter? I mean, would it matter if it costs me nothing to bow to someone's eccentricity on the subject? I don't think there's a God either, but I allow Christians and Muslims to have their fun and don't deny that there is such a thing as a Christian. So what if there were no biological basis and no gender-brain? Wouldn't we then just define it as "someone who believes they are X, when their body looks like Y?" In that case, all we end up with is someone who believes a thing that can't be proven - quite a common occurrence with God botherers.

We could, but it strikes me we could do that even if it was decided that brains were gendered and somebody was in the wrong brain.

What I'm uncomfortable about is the notion that there is some objective thing called "male" and "female" that is free from context or arbitrariness of definition.

 

[marplots]

What I'm uncomfortable about is the notion that there is some objective thing called "male" and "female" that is free from context or arbitrariness of definition.

Why would this be at all disturbing, considering we make those kinds of arbitrary lines all the time? I can say that adulthood starts at 18 years old, using age as an objective, measurable fact, but it's still just a convenience I invented to give a working definition for the term "adult."

Earlier, I suggested that one's chromosomes ( XX or XY) could give an objective standard. That works as well as the age/adult thing does. But it turns out the things that interest us (someone's own feelings about their gender) do not flow directly from their sex chromosomes. So we end up with a nice, objective definition that doesn't address the attribute of interest. Just as using age doesn't capture what we want to know when we talk about "maturity."

 

[shuttlt]

Why would this be at all disturbing, considering we make those kinds of arbitrary lines all the time? I can say that adulthood starts at 18 years old, using age as an objective, measurable fact, but it's still just a convenience I invented to give a working definition for the term "adult."

Earlier, I suggested that one's chromosomes ( XX or XY) could give an objective standard. That works as well as the age/adult thing does. But it turns out the things that interest us (someone's own feelings about their gender) do not flow directly from their sex chromosomes. So we end up with a nice, objective definition that doesn't address the attribute of interest. Just as using age doesn't capture what we want to know when we talk about "maturity."

Sure, we make arbitrary judgements all the time. My only objection is to picking some arbitrary definition and then saying that somebody is therefore objectively a woman/man and anybody who says different is ignorant, prejudiced and wrong. At least some posters seemed to me to be wanting to say that whether or not someone was a man or a woman was something that one could be objectively right/wrong about without reference to questions of definition and meaning.

 

[newyorkguy]

A lot of the things at that link are either averages (my wife must not be female because she's 70", the same height as the average man there) or are secondary sexual characteristics that can be affected by hormones, such as muscle mass. There are lots of better examples, such as chromosomes, DNA, etc.

Very true I'm sure.

If a white person had their skin darkened to appear African American would that make them black? If a European had cosmetic surgery so they appeared to be Asian, would they literally become Asian?

Anyway, I'm not sure transgendered males really claim to be women. My understanding is they identify as being transgender.

 

[shuttlt]

Anyway, I'm not sure transgendered males really claim to be women. My understanding is they identify as being transgender.

I wouldn't be surprised if that depended on who you asked.