Gender (re?)Defining and Skepticism

[ixly_one]

Just a quick entry, but one I highly recommend you read. In fact, I request that you do, and that you comment. This is one of those subjects that gets my mind tick-ticking away (and yes I'm pretty sure I'm only saying that because my pocket watch is tick-ticking away right near my keyboard, I am easily influenced by noise), and I would be really

Comments

[stungauge]

Hey Ix. So I recently went on a long foray into youtube videos of FTM trans people who had been posting their progress. It was kinda weird because most of the people I was watching were REALLY young- I understand the urgency of feeling like you're in the wrong body and I'm sure it helps to start taking testosterone before the body fully develops but I guess I never thought that they would have the money/support when they were like 16 years old. Anyway, I found one girl/guy (guy I guess?) who was saying that when he was growing up he didn't know he was a boy and that the only indicators were things like...he hated wearing dresses, he didn't have many girl friends, he had different interests than girls, he was almost homophobic towards other girls. Now...aside from the homophobic thing, I definitely was just like him. I grew up as a straight (he's straight too but that stuff could also be considered butchy) girl who identified with the female gender of things...hmmm. I also lack maternal instinct like woah. So I'm not at all a normal

[eloarei]

Interesting articles, both of them. But like any article I read on the internet (or anywhere else, for that matter), I can't really completely agree or disagree. It's all biased, in one way or another

[adrawer4ever]

So hey, crazy random happenstance! Have I mentioned how my mother wants to get my hormone levels tested for the very reason that they might be "abnormally imbalanced"??? 8D

Granted I'm not familiar with alot of the jargon being thrown around, but I have to say on the subject of the "correctional" surgery I'm quite opposed to surgery, especially on infants, without consent of the individual themselves.

On the subject of the "deficiencies", if they really do actually affect behavior then that's quite an interesting curiosity, but that's about it. I wouldn't see the need for "correcting" the deficiency unless it was actually causing serious medical problems.

[lao_hu]

Hmm. I have to agree with eloarai on this one. Even after reading the two articles I'm still a bit skeptical. Maybe not in the sense that you use; I mean, there are valid points in both articles but they still seem skewed. Not necessarily opposing views, but these counter-point views do show some facts. First I think it occurs occasionally on its own so I agree that nature doesn't make pure males and females. There is lots of other biological and psychological evidence to prove this. (i.e. hermaphrodites, gender-bending, ftm/mtf surgeries etc). I agree that mucking about in the womb can cause problems; whether that be something like drinking while pregnant or hormone injections, whatever. It's generally not a good idea.

Although I personally think it's wrong to change a child's biological gender; that doesn't mean that other people will agree with me. There are all sorts of gender issues you could pile on top of this but it doesn't change the fact that you're fucking with biology here. *sigh* It all sounds too close to Gattaca,