John/Joan in fictional television

[lindiril]

I just watched an episode of Law and Order: SVU that borrowed heavily from the case of John/Joan, a case in which a gender identity different from biology was forcibly assigned to one of a pair of twins. Having read about that case fairly recently online, I could see the major "plot twist" for the episode coming a mile away (the sister confessed to

Comments

i dunno...

[lexx_kun]

I'd venture a guess that sex is determined by genetics, and I pity the poor souls whose brains are wired contrary to their sex chromosomes.

What was the design flaw of your LG tablet that forced you to get it fixed?

Re: i dunno...

[gharbad]

the word sex is defined as physical attributes. Hence genetics.
Gender, is your mental gender. How you feel, whether it's male or female.

Not sure if that's what you meant by sex is determined by genetics. Mainly because that statement is vacuously true.

Re: i dunno...

[yiab]

i would say that there are actually three attributes in question here:
genetic sex (i.e. whether your chromosomes are XX or XY)
physical sex (the configuration of your genitalia)
gender (whether you identify with masculinity or femininity)

in the case mentioned above, we get John/Joan being genetically male, physically female and mentally male as well. There are other individuals whose genetic and physical sexes match but whose gender disagrees with that sex.

by the way, physical sex is not entirely determined by genetic sex, even barring surgery. exposure to unusual mixtures of hormones in the womb can cause, for example, a genetically male fetus to be born physically female. this is one, but certainly not the only, cause for a disparity between physical sex and gender.

in any case, i believe that what lexx_kun meant, expressed in this paradigm, was that both physical sex and gender are determined by genetic factors and that ey pities the individuals where the two are genetically determined not to match.

Re: i dunno...

[lindiril]

As you say, Yiab, physical and genetic sex can differ without surgery.

There are XY females, who are male fetuses who fail to develop testes and do not differentiate as male (I read of a case in a magazine once where this ran fairly commonly in one family; as I recall, the affected persons developed as attractive but infertile women because they were not receptive to androgens, although according to this article on Swyer's syndrome, I don't think this is a common state as the undeveloped testes are incapable of producing either androgens or estrogens).

There are intersexed people, whose genitalia are poorly differentiated at birth, and who in modern times are often assigned a sex at birth, sometimes genetically incorrectly, and a gender identity that may or may not suit them (arguably a better-intentioned approach than displaying them as circus freaks; the idea in doing so rather than allowing them to mature and choose for themselves is largely to preserve these children from confusion and derision as they grow up, but unfortunately

[kalmakka]

A lot of churches are now acknowledging that homosexual feelings, urges, etc. are probably in-born and not the individual's fault, and are concentrating on the suppression of the behaviour rather than the feelings.

From what I've been told, this has more or less always been the standpoint of the Catholic Church. The way I see it, protestants have far too great focus on faith and feeling instead of actions. Since you in general can't control how you feel about things or who you desire, but only how you act upon your feelings/desires, by the Protestant faith you have very little control over yourself. And no control implies no responsibility.

Religions that remove responsibility from Man are the worst religions out there, in my opinion.

;)

[anonymous]

I wonder what link there is between species and gender dysphoria.

[bradbeattie]

Again with the forgetting to log in.

[lindiril]

Lately, it seems that normally if I try to comment anonymously, it tries to ask me to interpret the text on one of those humanity-testing distorted text images. Does it not do that for you?

[lindiril]

That's an interesting question. My understanding of gender dysphoria is that it often has to do with a discomfort with the gender role assigned to a person. I'm not certain that the other species with which we are familiar, being other animal species native to our planet that we typically consider less advanced than ourselves, have complex gender roles that extend beyond reproductive duties.

Actually, I guess that's not correct; there are cases where other animals assign typical gender roles to areas outside of reproduction. In lion prides, I believe, females are responsible for hunting for food. So it would be interesting to know if other species experience that disconnect between physical sexual identity and gender identity, and how it's expressed.