Will Humans want to alter their bodies to become 4 legged?

↑ MagentaYenta ↓

Wed, Jun 03 2015, 5:21 pm

FranticFrummie wrote:

I'm not trying to be snarky here, I'm trying to understand where you're going with this. Would the corollary to the underscored, mean that a woman who has cancer, and needs a complete hysterectomy and bilateral mastectomy become someone "not" totally female? Can femaleness (or maleness) be added and removed by degrees? How does that work on a driver's license, or in the Torah for that matter? Scratching Head

I can't like your post enough and no it's not snarky at all. I love it because it's thoughtful and naturally so and makes my brain work. With regards to DLs that's all down to states how they handle it. Some states don't change DLs others do after completion of transition regardless of any surgery.

I was reading some research during the winter about individuals with GD and their brains. There weren't a lot samples (most folks are reluctant to donate their brains for research) but there was a study of GD brains after death and postmortem examination indicates that those identifying as males (with female bodies) actually had male brains. Those identifying as females with male bodies actually had female brains. The article was largely about how much cexual identity was tied to the brain and what hormones influenced those identities. I'll see if I can find it. Heck we still don't know all of the chromosomes that are linked to gender or influenced by it for that matter. It's a fascinating subject.

animeme ↓

Wed, Jun 03 2015, 5:29 pm

Help me out, please. When I think of s-x as biological, I think of chromosomes. If you have xx, you're female. Xy is male.

All other things tend to come with those but there are exceptions. If you've had your uterus, ovaries and breasts removed prophylactically or because of cancer, you're still female. Right? Even if you have a hormonal imbalance and grow facial hair. I can see how someone can feel male, but how does that make them actually male if all their chromosomes are still xx?

↑ MagentaYenta ↓

Wed, Jun 03 2015, 5:54 pm

animeme wrote:

This is far too technical a study for me to accurately summarize. I'll post the link and the summary. It is a 2004 article and there may be more recent findings. http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr04/gender.aspx

Gender bender
New research suggests genes and prenatal hormones could have more sway in gender identity than previously thought.

By SADIE F. DINGFELDER
Monitor Staff
April 2004, Vol 35, No. 4
Print version: page 48

"It's a boy!" announces the doctor to the exhausted mother, a determination the physician makes instantly. And most of the time, the observed relations of an infant does match the genetic relations--with two X chromosomes producing a girl, and an X plus a Y resulting in a boy.

But in the rare cases where they do not, when prenatal development goes awry and genetic boys are born looking more like girls or vice versa, physicians and parents generally assign the newborn a relations. Most often the child becomes female, because female genitals are easier to construct, says William G. Reiner, MD, a child psychiatrist and urologist at the University of Oklahoma health services center.

The prevailing theory behind this long-standing practice, says Reiner, has been that a person reared as a girl will eventually embrace that category. Now, however, new research by Reiner suggests that perhaps such assumptions ought not to be made. A study by Reiner and John Gearhart, MD, of Johns Hopkins University, finds that biology--in particular the hormonal influences on developing infants' brains--programs children to eventually identify as either male or female, almost regardless of social influences, at least in the case of the children he's studied.
"It's fair to say that some people in the world of psychology have held that [gender] is socially derived, learned behavior," says Reiner. "But our findings do not support that theory."

However, other researchers, such as Sheri Berenbaum, PhD, a psychologist at Pennsylvania State University, maintain that determinates of gender identity may be more complex than that.

"Genetic and hormonal factors are just two of the many influences on gender identity and gender-typical behavior--social influences are certainly very important as well," she says. "And all of these factors seem to interact throughout a child's development."

New findings
This isn't the view of Reiner and Gearhart though, who point to the findings of their study, published in the Jan. 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (Vol. 350, No. 4). The study found that some infants whose brains were exposed to male hormones in utero later identified as male even though they were raised as female and underwent early-childhood operations. Reiner says that indicates that prenatal relations differentiation can at least sometimes trump social influences.

The study followed 16 genetic males with a rare disorder called cloacal exstrophy. Children with this disorder are born without penises, or with very small ones, despite having normal male hormones, normal testes and XY-chromosome pairs. Fourteen of these children underwent early relations-reassignment surgery and were raised as girls by their parents, who were instructed not to inform them of their early medical histories.
The researchers assessed the gender identities and behaviors of these children when they were anywhere from 5 to 16 years old using a battery of measures including the Bates Child Behavior and Attitude Questionnaire and the Child Game Participation Questionnaire. Researchers also asked the children whether they categorized themselves as boys or girls.

Of the 14 children raised as females, three spontaneously declared they were male at the initial assessment. At the most recent follow-up, six identified as males, while three reported unclear gender identity or would not talk with researchers. The two participants raised as males from birth continued to identify as male throughout the study.

All of the participants exhibited male-typical behavior, such as rough-and-tumble play and having many male friends.
"If you are looking at the genetic and hormonal male, [s-xual identity may be] not plastic at all," says Reiner. "And it appears to be primarily influenced by biology."

Some researchers, such as Kenneth J. Zucker, PhD, a psychologist and the head of the child and adolescent gender identity clinic at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, applaud Reiner's study for renewing interest in the biological determinants of gender and calling into question the notion of some that gender identity is mainly socially constructed and determined by socialization.

That's not to say, however, that socialization isn't still a major or important factor, Zucker emphasizes. "The debate is still up in the air because there are other centers who have studied kids with the same diagnosis, and the rate of changeover from female to male is nowhere near what Reiner is reporting," he explains. "It must be something about their social experience that is accounting for this difference."

Contradictory evidence
Backing Zucker's belief that socialization still plays a major role--and biology is only part of the story--is research by Sheri Berenbaum, PhD, a psychologist at Pennsylvania State University, and J. Michael Bailey, PhD, a psychologist at Northwestern University.
In a study published in the March 2003 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (Vol. 88, No. 3), they investigated the gender identity of genetic girls born with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). Girls with this disorder do not produce enough of the hormone cortisol, which causes their adrenal glands to produce an excess of male relations hormones. As a result, they develop in a hormonal environment that's between that of typical boys and typical girls. These girls tend to have ambiguous genitals, and like the infants with cloacal exstrophy, they generally undergo surgery to remake their bodies in the mold of typical females.

The researchers recruited 43 girls with CAH ages 3 to 18 and assessed their gender-typical behaviors and gender identities using a nine-item questionnaire. One question, for example, asks the child if she would take the opportunity to be magically turned into a boy.
In comparison with a control group of normal girls, those with CAH answered questions in a more masculine way. However, when compared with hormonally normal girls who identified as tomboys, they scored closer to typical girls. And few, says Berenbaum, actually identified as male.
"They behave in some ways more like boys, but they self-identify as girls," she explains.

According to Berenbaum, this shows that prenatal hormones, while important determinates of gendered behavior, aren't the only ones.
"Social influences are also pretty important," she says. "I think the interesting question is how biological predisposition affects our socialization experiences."
Diane Ruble, PhD, a New York University psychologist specializing in early childhood gender identity, agrees.
"In Sheri's work, the hormonal exposure has some masculinizing influence on their play behavior," says Ruble. "That may feed into difficulties that children have even if the hormonal exposure prenatally did not actually directly affect their identities as girls or boys."

For example, she says, a girl who discovers that her behavior is slightly masculine may feel more like a typical boy than girl. She may then primarily socialize with boys, leading to even more male-typical behavior.
"Obviously, gender is both a biological and social phenomenon," says Ruble. "Researchers now really need to look carefully at the unfolding of biologically driven processes in interaction with social influences during the first three years of life and beyond."

Further Reading
Berenbaum, S.A., & Bailey, J.M. (2003). Effects on gender identity of prenatal androgens and genital appearance: Evidence from girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 88, 1102-1106. Martin, C.L., & Ruble, D.N. (in press). Children's search for gender cues: Cognitive perspectives on gender development. Current Directions in Psychological Science. Martin, C.L., Ruble, D.N., & Szkrybalo, J. (2002). Cognitive theories of early gender development. Psychological Bulletin, 128(6), 903-933. Reiner, W.G., & Gearhart, J.P. (2004). Discordant s-xual identity in some genetic males with cloacal exstrophy assigned to female relations at birth. The New England Journal of Medicine, 350(4), 333-341. Zucker, K. J. (1999). Intersexuality and gender identity differentiation. Annual Review of relations Research, 10, 1-69

↑ PinkFridge ↓

Wed, Jun 03 2015, 6:07 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

FWIW I think GD means gender dysphoria. Not gestational diabetes. Or Graves' Disease.

↑ animeme

Wed, Jun 03 2015, 6:09 pm

It's been a long day so I may not be reading closely enough, but the upshot of both the studies quoted here seems to be that the chromosomes/genetic tend to prevail.

↑ youngishbear ↓

Wed, Jun 03 2015, 6:13 pm

I stopped following this thread for a while. 8 pages later, I must say, for such a wacky title, this sure contains lots of intelligent comments, statistics, facts, opinions, and links.

↑ zaq

Wed, Jun 03 2015, 6:16 pm

animeme wrote:

That's a stumper. The reverse is easier to explain. Nature's default value is female. (Females of some species like bees can even reproduce asexually by parthenogenesis, and the offspring are then female. The species could be perpetuated without any males at all, though without the benefits of the genetic scrambling you get from s*xual reproduction.) In the absence of the proper environment which includes sufficient male hormones like ~~tastosterone~~ * testosterone, or after exposure to excessive female hormones like estrogen or estrogen-like compounds during early development, genetically male organisms from fish to human beings will develop as females. (Females will develop as males if they are flooded with testosterone, but will otherwise remain female even if they have too little estrogen.)

Depending on the developmental stage at which the organism is exposed to the unbalanced environment, the fish or person may have any combination of male and/or female behavior and physical characteristics. External anatomy may or may not match the internal, there may be both male and female parts, and a whole host of other anomalies. In fact, there are species of fish that are going extinct for lack of males. The fish live in waters polluted by chemicals that have a feminizing influence, so all hatchlings are female and no males are being produced. The few remaining males are old and approaching the end of their life expectancies, after which, unless the fish develop the ability to reproduce by parthenogenesis, the species will be extinct when the current generation dies.

Exposure in utero to an excessive surge of estrogen or some other chemical that feminizes the brain may account for males who feel female. Maybe females who feel male were exposed to a corresponding surge of testosterone that masculinized the relevant portions of their brains.

*the hormone that accounts for liking beer and cigars

amother

Floralwhite ↓

Wed, Jun 03 2015, 10:07 pm

Personally I would be very uncomfortable taking a shower in a gym with someone who was born a man and now associates as a women.

Bash away at me. But I'm still allowed to have my own feelings of modesty.

My father in his office had a co-worker who was living as a man (born a women). It was extremely uncomfortable sharing a bathroom. I know my father was not the only one uncomfortable as a few employees (not Jewish) complained to the manager but its the law.

In some ways this is taking away that right from all of us as well.

↑ Sadie ↓

Thu, Jun 04 2015, 1:02 am

amother wrote:

Would you want this person showering next to you in the locker room? He was born female. Where is he supposed to shower?

↑ DrMom ↓

Thu, Jun 04 2015, 1:15 am

amother wrote:

I do think this is a confusing issue because it goes beyond "people can do whatever they want, as long as it doesn't impact me."

Wellesley College, one of the "Seven Sister" all-women colleges, will now accept applications from "any student who lives as a woman and consistently identifies as a woman" -- even if he looks like a man and possesses male genitalia an other secondary sx characteristics.

Other women's colleges -- Simmons and Bryn Mawr for example — are open to any students assigned "female" at birth, regardless of whether they identify as "male" at the time of submitting an application.

http://www.advocate.com/politi.....women

So women enrolling at Wellesley can get assigned as a roommate a man who claims he "feels like a woman?"

And women enrolling at Simmons & Bryn Mawr can get assigned a roommate who looks like the fellow in Sadie's post?

I'm not sure what the correct policies should be, but we must admit that this has an impact beyond the individual himself.

ora_43 ↓

Thu, Jun 04 2015, 1:17 am

Barbara wrote:

A friend of mine, who happens to be gay, is now in compassionate care for advanced cancer. BH, HIPAA allows the doctors to give information to her wonderful wife, who has been her partner for more than 25 years. And anyone who would deny her the right to be informed, to make decisions, to be there -- all of which are a direct result of gay marriage -- is indeed a bigoted, hateful and evil person.

All of those things were legally possible before gay marriage. What do you think single people do regarding medical care? You're allowed to pick someone who isn't your spouse to make medical decisions for you.

↑ ora_43 ↓

Thu, Jun 04 2015, 1:20 am

marina wrote:

Upon further consideration, I also think that part of the harshness towards transgender individuals is because we as a society are not particularly accepting of people's inner dynamics and their internal reasons for wanting this change. I think many people are thinking, Jeez, who cares that you "feel" like a woman? Get over it!

In contrast, say, a woman from Sudan had the operation to become a man, and said: look, I did this because it is dangerous to be a female in my country. I've been raped countless times, I've been sold into s-xual slavery, I've been treated worse than dirt and I'm tired of it, so now I will be a man.

We would still find that unusual, but we'd be WAY less critical, I think. So it's more about the reason than the actual act.

I think it's because the first is an attempt to completely redefine gender, and the second isn't.

In the first example, someone is trying to define female as a "feeling." The idea being that your gender isn't a biological reality, or even a social reality. It's almost mystical. That's what's new, and that's why people react differently.

↑ ora_43 ↓

Thu, Jun 04 2015, 1:28 am

MagentaYenta wrote:

The problem with this is that it's to some extent circular reasoning.

If you find someone with XY chromosomes and a "female brain," you could decide they must actually be a woman. But you could also conclude that the idea of "male brains" and "female brains" is flawed.

In this case, the idea of gendered brains is being used to support the idea of transexualism as innate, which in turn is proof of gendered brains...

↑ Sadie

Thu, Jun 04 2015, 1:35 am

ora_43 wrote:

In theory yes, but in practice it often didn't work that way. First of all, most people don't walk around with their power of attorney documents on them, so in case of an emergency one might not be able to access their documents before it's too late. Sometimes the documents are not honored. If the hospital refuses to recognize your documents you can go to court to force them, but by the time you are able to enforce your rights, the person you are trying to visit or make decisions for might be dead and buried by their parents, at a funeral you weren't invited to.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05.....?_r=0

Quote:

A similar lawsuit is under way in Washington State, where Sharon Reed says she was denied access to her partner of 17 years, Jo Ann Ritchie, who was dying of liver failure. Although the hospital had liberal visitation policies, a night nurse from an employment agency insisted that Ms. Reed leave her partner’s room, the lawsuit says.

“One of the things her partner said to her was, ‘I’m afraid of dying. Don’t leave me alone,’ ” said Judith A. Lonnquist, a lawyer for Ms. Reed. “That’s why the suffering was so enormous — she felt as if her partner was thinking she had betrayed her trust.”

In both cases, the couples had prepared for a medical emergency, creating living wills, advanced directives and power-of-attorney documents.

[...] Ms. Langbehn says that a hospital social worker informed her that she was in an “antigay city and state” and that she would need a health care proxy to get information. (The worker denies having made the statement, Mr. Alonso said.) As the social worker turned to leave, Ms. Langbehn stopped him. “I said: ‘Wait a minute. I have those health care proxies,’ ” she said. She called a friend to fax the papers.

The medical chart shows that the documents arrived around 4:15 p.m., but nobody immediately spoke to Ms. Langbehn about Ms. Pond’s condition. During her eight-hour stay in the trauma unit waiting room, Ms. Langbehn says, she had two brief encounters with doctors. Around 5:20 a doctor sought her consent for a “brain monitor” but offered no update about the patient’s condition. Around 6:20, two doctors told her there was no hope for a recovery.

Despite repeated requests to see her partner, Ms. Langbehn says she was given just one five-minute visit, when a priest administered last rites. She says she continued to plead with a hospital worker that the children be allowed to see their mother, even showing the children’s birth certificates.

“I said to the receptionist, ‘Look, they’re her kids,’ ” Ms. Langbehn said. (Mr. Alonso, the hospital spokesman, says that except in special circumstances, children under 14 are not allowed to visit in the trauma unit.)

Ms. Langbehn says she was repeatedly told to keep waiting. Then, at 11:30 p.m., Ms. Pond’s sister arrived at the unit. According to the lawsuit, the hospital workers immediately told her that Ms. Pond had been moved an hour earlier to the intensive care unit and provided her room number.

At midnight, Ms. Langbehn says, her exhausted children were finally able to visit their unconscious mother. Ms. Pond was declared brain-dead at 10:45 that morning, and her heart, kidneys and liver were donated to four patients.

↑ ora_43 ↓

Thu, Jun 04 2015, 2:15 am

Sadie wrote:

In theory yes, but in practice it often didn't work that way.

Sure, but there's a huge difference between "hospital officials are sometimes d*cks about power-of-attorney forms" and splitting the world into "people who support gay marriage" and "people who want gays to die alone and in pain, without their loved ones at their side."

↑ ora_43 ↓

Thu, Jun 04 2015, 2:23 am

chavs wrote:

Anyways, I agree, it's been a slippery slope! From female equal rights (voting!?!), to blacks and Jews being allowed on the same buses and benches as white ppl, to gay marriage. It's indeed been a slippery slope! It's a terrible she we've been living in!

You're cherry picking here. It would be just as logical to talk about a slippery slope from high divorce rates, to gay marriage, to a massive increase in the percent of kids born outside marriage, to euthanasia.

(Disclaimer: I'm not saying that would make sense either.)

amother

↑ Floralwhite

Thu, Jun 04 2015, 5:09 am

Sadie wrote:

Would you want this person showering next to you in the locker room? He was born female. Where is he supposed to shower?

You are correct. It is a difficult question.

I would think this issue goes both ways. Wouldn't it be possibly unsafe for a man with female genitalia to take a shower in a men's locker room, or at the most uncomfortable for the other men. (I know my father or husband would be most uncomfortable showering with a women even if he looked like a man).

Again these decisions affect all of us.

↑ Scrabble123 ↓

Thu, Jun 04 2015, 6:04 am

animeme wrote:

It's not the X or the Y chromosome that make the individual male or female. It is what the cells do to the developing baby that turn it into a particular s*x. The Y chromosome has a gene called the SRY gene. When a female with two X chromosomes mistakenly gets the SRY gene, she will look like a he and when a baby with both an X and a Y chromosome is missing the SRY gene, he will look like a she. It's the SRY gene that essential tells the baby: "become a boy." Obviously SRY is not the only gene that encourages a baby to develop into a boy... there are probably genes that don't appear to have any obvious characteristics screaming, "this child is missing some boyness" until later on in a child's life.

Again, it's the SRY gene that actually encourages the production of testoterone which in turn allows other genes like the AR gene to develop his masculine genitalia. This is basic biology. I don't know anything more advanced or specific because I'm going off of what we learned in High School, but it's not like the Y chromosome just instantly makes a boy: it basically encourages the production of hormones that will encourage the production of boy parts which will therefore make the baby a male.

Actually there are more chromosomes involved in s*x and many many genes so it's way more complicated. There's something called an AIS which I learned about from my mother's friend who is considered an expert in the field. Babies with AIS will have both an X and a Y chromosome but the AIS prevents the Y from doings its thing and making the baby a complete boy. I'm sure that you could find a lot of reading on the topic, and probably could find such simple information in any high school development or biology textbook.

↑ Scrabble123 ↓

Thu, Jun 04 2015, 6:08 am

amother wrote:

Are you uncomfortable because the individual is a man? Or looks like a man? Would you be uncomfortable with an open Lesbian who looks very feminine? Are you concerned with tznius? Is this a Jewish thing? Can you pinpoint or it is just "funny" and irrational?
Men also have an added issue with homophobia because some guys who were straight were often often of being considered gay since it was such a disgraceful embarrassing thing at one point. They may feel uncomfortable being a dressing room with a male turned female because it awakens their uncomfortably regarding the topic. Even looking at and hearing about such individuals make some non prejudiced men feel very strong rejections and feelings which would otherwise not be typical.

gittelchana

Thu, Jun 04 2015, 6:23 am

amother wrote:

Being transgender is very accepted these days. Good for those who achieved their long awaited dream!

Will the day come that people will cry out to be trans-creation (from human to animal) and "need" to alter their bodies to suit their "real selves" and need to look like and live the life of a four legged creature?

Some doctors will definitely do it to make a buck!

And imagine the reality show that would result. Hmmmm.

It already exists.

Being politically correct helps no one.

Let's face it - trans people have a messed up life, before and after surgery. Surgery does nothing to change that. Surgery is a huge disservice to these people. It denies them the true help they need.