(no subject)
"A Boy's Life" in the Atlantic discusses transgendered children. (It's nearly a year old, you may have already read it.) I had a personal interest in it, as Dr. Spack is my endocrinologist, and in my mind the man that gave me the "keys to the castle". But the article also brought something up to me, which is the shifting sands of the narrative about trans childhood development.
I want to knock one thing out of the park immediately: the disparaging way sexual reassignment is referred to in the article. I used to be guilty of this perspective myself, but I am well past it: phalloplasty or metiodioplasty is not a dire, pathetic outcome for any of us. It can be a satisfying, completing event for a man. And this is not to ignore the happy non-op individuals, too. It is true that most of us would rather have had the parts made at the factory, so to speak, but it doesn't mean that connecting to our natal sex at any cost of our conscious identity is worthwhile. I think the implicit suggestion is that with such brute simulacrum, infertility, or misuse, why wouldn't we do anything to identify with the ripe functioning fruit of our original sex? This constitutes a cissexual prejudice, in my opinion. It ignores the numbers (only 1% of studied transpeople regretted SRS enough to want to go back) and it ignores our voices.
My real subject, however, is the work of Dr. Ken Zucker, mentioned by the article, and one who is rather infamously of the current guard working on the DSM. Against Zucker, I would recommend this article by Curtis E. Hinkle. I saw another blog review of the Hinkle article which I believe misinterpreted Hinkle and his criticism, so I want to give my understanding.
Zucker considers transsexualism to be the worst out-come of childhood GID, where the better (or at least expected) outcome is homosexuality. I've been watching the last few years as more and more mud is hitting the water between the development of trans people and that of gay people. But Zucker has gone for an all out bait and switch where since homosexuality can't be treated (or at least not explicitly), GID must be treated to prevent transsexuality. (If it happens to cure some pre-homosexual boys of their homosexuality too, I guess that's gravy, though one currently holding no water.) This reflects an established prejudice where as transsexuals we are merely a sort of Super Homo, the ultimate inverts.
But it is mixing with another psychological tradition to explain gay and lesbian transpeople, that of the autogynephiliac: where a trans person transitions merely to "eat the other" and become their own erotic object. Other psychologists like Lawrence and Bailey are now carving us up into those who are homosexual and those who are non-homosexual based on the two traditions in the literature above detailed. Reading their papers is quite confusing as they never deign to renounce our natal sex, so that as a currently straight man I'm considered a female homosexual transsexual. Were I a lesbian MTF, I would be a male non-homosexual transsexual. Confused yet?
The question is this: do transsexuals and homosexuals suffer the same pre-sexual gender identity disorder? In other words, do we share a common psychological origin? Hinkle was interpreted in the blog review as having denied that trans people have cross-gendered behaviors and beliefs as children totally, but I argue that's a simplification. I think he might be going too far to say "most" trans people "suffer in silence" (he means they don't recognize or express their dysphoria as gender-based) but his point is sound. One thing which many reparative therapists neglect to mention is that while most children with GID grow up to be homosexual, not all homosexuals had GID. More importantly, not all transsexuals have recognizable GID. So it would be oversimplifying to say that GID accounts for both homosexuality and transsexuality, as it is a sufficient pre-condition, but not necessary. This is not to deny the overlap, either, as some transpeople live as homosexuals before they transition (myself included).
The truth is that human sexuality is still the Wild West of science. Where empirical sexology lies on the matter is obscured by the psychoanalytic tradition, and the commerce between the two is not strong. We have hints and leads as to possible psychological, cultural, and biological origins of sexualities and to the sexes themselves. But we don't have anything approaching a coherent, sound, empirically justified, well-reasoned science, especially one which gives us a clear picture of "treating" identities in childhood before they are formed. Zucker believes homosexuals and transsexuals simply mis-identify in childhood for psychological reasons, with a psychological solution. This may be a possible origin of homosexuals or transsexuals. But we need to pursue more sophisticated maps of sexual development, in all its dimensions, before we accept a common descent with homosexuality.
I want to knock one thing out of the park immediately: the disparaging way sexual reassignment is referred to in the article. I used to be guilty of this perspective myself, but I am well past it: phalloplasty or metiodioplasty is not a dire, pathetic outcome for any of us. It can be a satisfying, completing event for a man. And this is not to ignore the happy non-op individuals, too. It is true that most of us would rather have had the parts made at the factory, so to speak, but it doesn't mean that connecting to our natal sex at any cost of our conscious identity is worthwhile. I think the implicit suggestion is that with such brute simulacrum, infertility, or misuse, why wouldn't we do anything to identify with the ripe functioning fruit of our original sex? This constitutes a cissexual prejudice, in my opinion. It ignores the numbers (only 1% of studied transpeople regretted SRS enough to want to go back) and it ignores our voices.
My real subject, however, is the work of Dr. Ken Zucker, mentioned by the article, and one who is rather infamously of the current guard working on the DSM. Against Zucker, I would recommend this article by Curtis E. Hinkle. I saw another blog review of the Hinkle article which I believe misinterpreted Hinkle and his criticism, so I want to give my understanding.
Zucker considers transsexualism to be the worst out-come of childhood GID, where the better (or at least expected) outcome is homosexuality. I've been watching the last few years as more and more mud is hitting the water between the development of trans people and that of gay people. But Zucker has gone for an all out bait and switch where since homosexuality can't be treated (or at least not explicitly), GID must be treated to prevent transsexuality. (If it happens to cure some pre-homosexual boys of their homosexuality too, I guess that's gravy, though one currently holding no water.) This reflects an established prejudice where as transsexuals we are merely a sort of Super Homo, the ultimate inverts.
But it is mixing with another psychological tradition to explain gay and lesbian transpeople, that of the autogynephiliac: where a trans person transitions merely to "eat the other" and become their own erotic object. Other psychologists like Lawrence and Bailey are now carving us up into those who are homosexual and those who are non-homosexual based on the two traditions in the literature above detailed. Reading their papers is quite confusing as they never deign to renounce our natal sex, so that as a currently straight man I'm considered a female homosexual transsexual. Were I a lesbian MTF, I would be a male non-homosexual transsexual. Confused yet?
The question is this: do transsexuals and homosexuals suffer the same pre-sexual gender identity disorder? In other words, do we share a common psychological origin? Hinkle was interpreted in the blog review as having denied that trans people have cross-gendered behaviors and beliefs as children totally, but I argue that's a simplification. I think he might be going too far to say "most" trans people "suffer in silence" (he means they don't recognize or express their dysphoria as gender-based) but his point is sound. One thing which many reparative therapists neglect to mention is that while most children with GID grow up to be homosexual, not all homosexuals had GID. More importantly, not all transsexuals have recognizable GID. So it would be oversimplifying to say that GID accounts for both homosexuality and transsexuality, as it is a sufficient pre-condition, but not necessary. This is not to deny the overlap, either, as some transpeople live as homosexuals before they transition (myself included).
The truth is that human sexuality is still the Wild West of science. Where empirical sexology lies on the matter is obscured by the psychoanalytic tradition, and the commerce between the two is not strong. We have hints and leads as to possible psychological, cultural, and biological origins of sexualities and to the sexes themselves. But we don't have anything approaching a coherent, sound, empirically justified, well-reasoned science, especially one which gives us a clear picture of "treating" identities in childhood before they are formed. Zucker believes homosexuals and transsexuals simply mis-identify in childhood for psychological reasons, with a psychological solution. This may be a possible origin of homosexuals or transsexuals. But we need to pursue more sophisticated maps of sexual development, in all its dimensions, before we accept a common descent with homosexuality.