Gender

[Sunshine1]

Regardless of your chromosomes and/or your sex, does anyone consider gender...hummm....I don't know just something like a hobby that you can take or leave?

Aimee

[Betsy]

Maybe with a lobotomy. I think we are born with a gender. That doesn't mean I think our hard-wiring in the brain is necessarily in the binary though.

Betsy

PS...will we see you in Florida?

[Sunshine1]

Dear Betsy:

Ouch ...lobotomy. I guess my view of gender didn't go over that well. Oh well, (lol) there were certain life experiences that brought me to the conculsion that gender (not someone's sex or chromosomes) is nothing more than a hobby or game that each individual person (intersex medical condition or not) plays if they want to and/or in some respect if they can. I've had certain people in my life do a flip- flop with regard to certain general gender ideas.

Where are you going to be in South Florida? It would be interesting to take in one of your presentations.

Aimee

[Betsy]

DOH...I probably should have put a smilie face in there .:p While I was serious about it, it was also said quite tongue in cheek. I think our gender ---whether in the binary, or outside, is pretty ingrained in our brain. The fluidness that some people experience, I think, is really the result of getting in touch with their inner self and being honest with themselves.

Florida...our schedule is here: http://www.bodieslikeours.org/upcomingevents/upcomingevents.htm If you are interested in the FIU/Miami items, write me off line and I'll give you details. They are graduate level classes at FIU and while not open to the public per se, arrangements have been made to allow interested people to attend. This is for anyone interested.

Betsy

[Jules]

All Gender behavoir is the result of the interaction of two major factors: inborn factors, either genetic or developmental, and environmental factors. The relative importance of these two determinants varies, but even in the most rigid, genetically determined behavoir can be modified by the enviroment that we live in.
A good starting point for determinants of behavoir is the concept of instinct.
Modern usage of the term instinct dates to the influentail writings of Charles Darwin. Darwin suggested that the behavour of lower animals must not be guided only by instinct but also by primitive forms of the same reasoning processes that guides humans. Therefore, because humans (could) have evolved from animals we must to some part be guided by instinct. For example, Sigmund Freud claimed that all normal and abnormal behavoir is powerfully shaped by two major fundamental instincts. The LIFE instinct: (Sexual) and the DEATH instinct: (aggresion) In contrast William Dougall (A Introduction to Social Psychology) claims that humans have up to a dozen instincts.(fight or flight, repulsion, pugnacity, self- assertion, curiosity, sexual pleasure ect,,)
Instinct refers to stereotyped observable sequences of moter behavour that are unlearned.
athough It is even temping for me to veiw all gender behavoir as a biological controled mechanism.

:D

[Betsy]

Originally posted by Jules
This thirty year lonitudinal study, reported by Money and Ehrhardt involves a set of monozygotic male twins, sharing an identical genetic constitution, and sharing the same hormones in the womb. Durring a circumcision procedure at seven months (Way beond the critical peroid) one of the boys penus was removed accidently by the means of electrocautery. Eight months later the child was reassigned a girl and reconstruction of the genitalia was done. The boy changed into a girl took to his new role perfectly. Become very very femmine unlike his brother who was very mascline. She even found a male sex partner in adulthood whome she married and now even knowing the truth about her past could never see herself as a man!!


Hi Jules,

You are a little bit confused here. You are referring to the Joan/John story, a well known case commonly referred to as the John/Joan story. By the time "Joan" was 14, she knew she wasn't a she, and over the course of time, did go back to living as male, happily..."

The case is well-documented, has been studied extensively starting with Milton Diamond (who blew it open for the most part when he tracked "John" down and discovered that Money had for the most part been lying when he said that the case was a success when in fact, it was an complete failure. The case has also been written about and covered extensively in popular media, most notably by John Colapinto who wrote the best seller, "As Nature Made Him" David Reimer ("John's" real name) has been interviewed on several news magazines and is married and has grandchildren.

Betsy

[obsequium]

Jules wrote:
"A single dramatic example should reminded us all that a overriding role of life exsperiences can mold human sexuality and gender. This thirty year lonitudinal study, reported by Money and Ehrhardt involves a set of monozygotic male twins, sharing an identical genetic constitution, and sharing the same hormones in the womb. Durring a circumcision procedure at seven months (Way beond the critical peroid) one of the boys penus was removed accidently by the means of electrocautery. Eight months later the child was reassigned a girl and reconstruction of the genitalia was done. The boy changed into a girl took to his new role perfectly. Become very very femmine unlike his brother who was very mascline. She even found a male sex partner in adulthood whome she married and now even knowing the truth about her past could never see herself as a man!!"


This example of the flexibility of gender in humans is, in fact, erroneous (not to say gender flexibility doesn't occur -- because it does certainly appear to in some cases, as best i can tell). The case you're describing, here, however, unless i'm seriously mistaken, is the infamous "John/Joan" case. It has, for some thirty years, been the sole test case used to justify thousands (hundreds of thousands? Who really knows?) of genital surgeries on infants -- surgeries that have left people scarred, humiliated, insensate, and even dead. The follow-up in the "John/Joan" case was grossly incomplete (one is tempted to call it "incompetent," in fact) and certainly did not follow the patient closely for thirty years, though Dr. Money claimed in his initial publication that he had been thorough and the patient was "happily" living as a female. In fact, Dr. Money lost contact with the patient when "she" was fourteen years old, if i remember correctly. "She" certainly did not go on to live happily as a woman -- in fact, the patient in question is now living as a man and married to a woman. Even in childhood, the "girl" in question (whose biography, btw, is now available in the book -As Nature Made Him-) never felt comfortable in "her" assigned role. "She" conformed to the female role because "she" felt there was no choice. Today, the patient speaks of the pain and humiliation of his childhood openly. Dr. Money either allowed his enthusiasm to cloud his judgment (it was clear early on that the adjustment to a female role was, in fact, not happening) or openly lied in his published findings; either way, he acted in error and committed serious indiscretions where methodology was concerned. To this day he continues to refuse to acknowledge (though it is widely known) that his methodology was deeply flawed and his results were, in a word, bogus.

This very case is the sole evidence originally used to justify nonconsensual surgeries on intersex children -- IMHO, a pretty scary reality. Physicians have long implied to their students that there was good science behind this practice -- in fact, there never has been. Studies on intersexual patients have been massively insufficient and frequently flawed in their methodology. Control groups were generally not used. Most intersex patients have been "lost to follow-up" early in adolesence.

It's not only bad medical practice but is *extremely dangerous* for researchers to point to one test case in determining treatment protocols for an entire group of patients. First of all, one test case does *not* a representative sample make; to state that this case suggests the universal flexibility of gender was, on Dr. Money's part, at best, extremely careless and, at worse, criminally negligent. First, with only one case in question, flaws in researchers' methodology and approach may not come to light. Second, one cannot make a broad determination based on one individual patient -- there may be an anomaly in the test case that would e.g., if we thought strychnine might cure influenza, and only tested it on one patient, and that person happened to be immune to it and seemed to recover soon after the administration of strychnine, and we then widely prescribed strychnine for 'flu, the result would be a tragedy of monumental proportion. We have an example of the potentially disasterous results of poor follow-up in such drugs as the infamous "Phen-Fen" (which caused fatal heart attacks in a number of patients and left many others with heart disease) and the little-known "Pamelor," an antidepressant that was pulled off the market because it caused people (who did not have latent epilepsy) to develop epilepsy -- sometimes severe, intractable epilepsy -- not to mention other serious side-effects. Both these drugs were hailed as the next big thing in their fields. Both were released without adequate testing. Both resulted in discomfort, debility, and even death. i hope the analogy i'm trying to draw is a clear one. Had follow-up really been pursued across a broad enough spectrum of time, the researchers in the "John/Joan" case would have realized that the end result proved their initial hypothesis false. My point herein is that a single example, no matter how dramatic, can not prove a medical hypothesis (not even "misquito bites are itchy" -- some people don't react to them). At best, it bumps the hypothesis into the "theory" stage ... but even theories can be proven wrong (the history of physics demonstrates that!).

This is not to say i don't believe at all in the flexibility of gender -- i do think there are *some* people out there whose sense of gender is pretty flexible. Mine, however, is not (this is not to say it's "standard," by any means -- i admit freely that i'm not what the Western world thinks of as a "typical guy," not by a mile -- but that gets into the question of gender role vs. gender, which is fodder for another discussion entirely, IMHO). My parents spent ten long years trying to raise me as a girl -- it didn't work. The same can be said for many intersexuals (not to mention the transexual population, some of whom feel that their gender was a choice but many of whom feel it was inborn). There number of cases in which intersexuals subjected to early gender reassignment have later "changed horses midstream" is far from insignificant. The medical establishment, however, really doesn't like to admit its errors and is also slow to change -- so the momentum of revelation of this gross error in judgment on Dr. Money's part and its propagation throughout the medical establishment has been slow. It is, however, gaining momentum now.

I think it's really quite dangerous to try to say of psychological and neurological ideas, "All humans experience x state in y fashion." (This is not to say, btw, that i thought Jules was saying that.) Psychology, by its nature, is an inexact science -- because we, as humans, have such complex and varying personalities. Neurology is still in its infancy; we can tell, for example, that a sample of gay men had smaller hypothalami than a group of straight men, but not where the cause and effect lay (were they born that way? Did that occur as a result of behavior? Was it noted as a potential factor in the results that a great many of the test patients in question had advanced AIDS, which is known to cause wasting of the brain tissue?). Certainly, i believe a grave danger lies in stating that female genitals = female brain = female role and attempting to use this idea to enforce "traditional" ideas regarding gender, since obviously this isn't the case. The brain is more sensitive to hormonal fluctuations in utero (and also takes longer to develop) than the genitals; it is, at present, impossible to say for certain that one who is born with a physiologically male body will be born with a physiologically male brain. i think it's probable that some of us are born with neutral brains.

More or less, what i'm getting at is that i don't believe we can, with our present knowledge, say for certain much of anything at all about the etiology of gender. Our evidence is largely anecdotal -- e.g., you and i know how we identify, but we know little or nothing about the structures of our brains. Science doesn't precisely how brain structure affects gender; it also doesn't know where the cause/effect relationship occurs or which way it travels. i am conservative by nature; it is my inclination to say that we should be free to make all the hypotheses we want ("i identify as male because i wore argyle socks as a child" is a valid hypothesis; so was "the universe rotates around the earth"; hypotheses are by their nature uncertain, and it is research that proves them right or wrong) but it is also my inclination to think that we should stop saying "X = X" until we're certain that X does not, in fact, also equal Y, N, P, Q, and R (for values of X...).

Heh, um, that was my $0.02. Sorry it's so long, lol. This concludes my broadcast day ^-^

--asher--

[Jules]

Well, what can I say if the imformation that I'm reading is a lie then I do have to rethink what I said so I will remove a part of that post so that I'm not giving misimformation, thanks Besty for pointing that out so that I don't sound like a fool;)

[Betsy]

Jules, no problem...;)

Maybe you are reading Money? He is still in denial as Asher wrote.

Betsy

[Jules]

thank you for your response!! The more posting, the more idea put on the page here the better understanding we have about what we are trying to learn. I'm very open mined and trying to understand the whole intersexed situation. feel free to post your ideas because you seem to have some good ones that I'm interested in!!:D

[Andi]

I had a message here but decided I wanted to delete it. I can't find a way to do that so this is what will replace the original posting.

Andi

[PJ]

To Sunshine - If I am to believe my Grad Psych studies... there have been many studies done on the prenatal development of rabbits, which are said to closely resemble the human neuro-psychological profile (both physically and behaviorally) --- If memory serves, there are 6 stages of prenatal development in which the presence or absence of ANDROGENS can significantly alter the resulting newborn either physically or behaviorally... the 1st stage causes or prevents the differentiation of the urethra (inside the clitoris/penis or just below) ... the 2nd stage causes the differentiation of the gonads into ovaries or testes... the 3rd stage causes or prevents the clitoris to become a penis... the 4th stage creates the scrotal sac or creates the vagina and labia... the 5th stage determines gender identity in the brain... and the 6th stage determines sexual orientation... - The really interesting thing about these tests was that it showed partial differentiation in every one of these stages if the androgens were introduced a few hours/days late or restricted a few hours/days early within each stage's time cycle...AND the same results were shown to occur regardless of the chromosomes of the fetus (the results would be same for the xx and xy fetus) - there have been many studies since the 1950s which support these results. Again this is shown primarily in lower mammal lifeforms as human embryos are not experimented on, I hope. These results open the situation to definitions of gender(sex) based not solely on chromosomes and/or secondary physical characteristics... Gender can be defined as reproductive sex and/or hormonal sex and/or gonadal sex and/or so on... - These studies can give us clues as to how and why we were created IS... and support strongly the case of Nature (rather than Nurture)... but as we are also cognitive beings, I personally believe there may indeed be an element of nurture involved in our emotional development as well. I hope this isn't more confusing for you...
---
PJ

[Sunshine1]

Dear PJ:

I have no problem with Nature vs Nurture. I was having a little fun with the first post. Nobody thinks so much more about gender than me, I'm almost... OK... I am paranoid about it now. If I buy a man's plaid shirt, I'm afraid some sociologist is going to be behind the pillar going "See, I told you someone like THAT would buy it." When my home - girl that doesn't have any condition buys the same shirt just because it looks fly, the sociologist is gone somewhere buying a cookie and misses the whole picture. Also, when I'm buying a plaid mini skirt from Calvin Klein, the sociologist is still not back yet because she stopped of at Barney's for a Mocha but she shows up just in time to see me buy some work boots and that is all she sees OR ELSE WHY WOULD SHE BE THERE ?

I'm well aware that the presence or absence of androgens can significantly alter the newborn either physically or behaviorally. I have CAH and things zigged when they should of zagged along the metabolic pathway. With my body lacking the ability to make cortisol to surpress androgens, those wacky androgens were free to run amuck and mess up your stage number 3. Girls with CAH have only female chromosomes, a uterus, and ovaries with no male sex organs (the testes), however, a small number of us externally can look like males. It comes in different degrees called the Prader scale. When I was born they thought I was a boy, then they hoped a hermaphrodite and then after tests they realized that I was a female with CAH and because of the external male virilization a pseudo - hermaphrodite via the CAH. Surgery good or bad was going to come sooner or later to help with my period and other fun stuff.

I've always had blood test to check that the androgens were surpress by the hydrocortisone (cortisol)that I take. You can die from not taking the hydrocortisone but nobody wants to hear about that.

For me, Gender is whatever that person's brain tells them it is. Simplistic? Yes, but it sure cuts through alot of the crap. Upon talking with other people with CAH and other intersex conditions such as your AIS, I'm fasinated in the vast differences of our perspectives on gender. It started when I kept reading about people with CAH are great in math and they shy away from doing this, this, and this. For example they shy away from make- up at an early age, they don't date early, and they don't want kids or marriage but prefer a career. I suck at math, I loved wearing make-up around 11yrs old, I dated at a early age and I would trade my career in a second for kids and marriage. I could give other examples from studies but I think you get the picture. After reading study after study and particular to CAH that some of us don't have virilization and many just have and enlarged clitoris and then those like me whose clitoris was trying hard to look and work like a penis. It's obvious that the andorgens affect the stages in different ways. I'm not a lesbian but people with CAH as I understand have a 50/50 shot of that happening that in itself is interesting. I'm not even bi-sexual much to the disappointment of some of my male friends. So, I do find it very much find it interesting as to what happens when along the different stages. I guess that is why I get so irked at people that want to blend us together and say we are all like this or like that. I consider that very dangerous at the most and at the least unfair.

Anything manish that I do is also done by women that don't have any intersex conditions. I used to think that I was more like one of the guys until I worked with 99% men. I might laugh at SOME of their jokes but that is it. I can have my hair cut short, wear no make-up and look like I just crawled out of a mud bough with grease on my face from a car part, and it's still the same thing "You're a cute little thing ! here let me help you with that !" and I'm thankful for the help.

Back under my rock I go,

Aimee

[Girlyboy]

Originally posted by Jules
Well, what can I say if the imformation that I'm reading is a lie then I do have to rethink what I said so I will remove a part of that post so that I'm not giving misimformation, thanks Besty for pointing that out so that I don't sound like a fool;)

Jules, you would never strike me as a fool. You strike me as being quite articulate and intelligent. And also cute. :) Have you considered immigrating to Australia?

[Jules]

I want to say thanks. I do try to show both sides of the coin when writing about this very senstive topic. I have a yahoo messenger # here if you want to chat. I would love to hear from the ones down under. I'm a little crazy, but in a happy, fun way. I can only hope that I do help some of the readers here. I see that a lot more people read the sites then post. I've also noticed that I'm getting a lot of reads on my posts so somebody out there thinks my writing is worth reading. Thanks again Girl/boy:D