Gender reassignment? Is it really reassignment??

[Shy Tall Guy]

My assertion is that a guy with breasts and/or a vagina is still a guy with breasts and/or a vagina - especially the so called "chicks with dicks".

Same goes for women who get phalloplasties - they are still women but now they have a piece of their arm grafted to where their bodies.

I think most people will agree, that there are more differences between the genders than just genetalia - especially with regards to the way we think.

What do you think?

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Damn!

I could have swore I made that multiple choice, but I guess I goofed, so you only get to vote for one. Sorry.

 

[bluespoke]

My assertion is that a guy with breasts and/or a vagina is still a guy with breasts and/or a vagina - especially the so called "chicks with dicks".

Same goes for women who get phalloplasties - they are still women but now they have a piece of their arm grafted to where their bodies.

I think most people will agree, that there are more differences between the genders than just genetalia - especially with regards to the way we think.

What do you think?

Of course there are more differences than genitalia, obviously there's a womb for a start. The way we think is often the reason for these sex changes. The male/female believes that they were born in the wrong body.

They are already think they are the opposite sex. Having the sex change to them is putting right what went wrong in the womb.

'Chicks with dicks' as you charmingly put it is another matter all together. Not all of these are transgendered.

 

[Astro]

If a guy gets an operation and wants me to call him 'Her' I'll call her - her. Same goes for women who want me to call them 'Mr' after an operation. This is there choice and I would defend their rights to make the decision.

However they are still the sex they were born, as a scientist I say its the genes that control sex, XY and you male XX and your female. XXY. XXX and other unusal arrangments are medical conditions.

The feeling that they were born in the wrong sex of body may be to do with the level of hormones present during development.

A study on rats (similar enough to us to use for medical testing) showed that adult behaviour was strongly influenced by the level of hormones present in the womb. Female rats behaving as males and vice versa, though it is not possible to ask the rats what they felt about it. The above evidence does not support Tall-guys theory that these people have psychological complications.

 

[SweetBrat73]

I think your messed up. Why would you consider a man that has had a sex change as a man? He most likely didn't act like a man to begin with...same with a woman. Those what are called "chicks with dicks" are the ppl that are born with both...not a woman who has a penis attached at a later date.

"Same goes for women who get phalloplasties - they are still women but now they have a piece of their arm grafted to where their bodies." <----that's what you said...and that makes no sense what so ever.

And their are more differences between genders than genetaial. Have you ever known a drag queen before??? Most of those make better women than real women do! LoL You don't have to have a pussy to think like a woman and you don't have to have a dick to think like a man.


Brat

 

[seXieleXie]

people define gender in many different ways. having a sex change operation does not give a person *all* of the biological characteristics of that gender. however, i don't have a problem with calling transgender people the gender they are "crossing over" to, and i don't have any problem accepting them as that gender. so no, i don't think someone who has had a m-to-f sex change operation is "still a man." gender isn't the genitilia you were born with any more than it is the genitilia you got through an operation.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Re: Re: Gender reassignment? Is it really reassignment??

They are already think they are the opposite sex. Having the sex change to them is putting right what went wrong in the womb.

So, do you think that a physician/scientist could look at the brain (by whatever means) of people who have had gender reassignment, and categorize them as being the gender they were reassigned to?

Or would the males with female genetalia still have male brains?

Would the females with male genetalia still have female brains?

 

[Rubyfruit]

I think that gender identity issues are far too complex for any of us to really know how these people feel.

I know from what little I've read on the subject that men who wish to become women through surgery always "felt" like women inside and I respect their wish to be thought of as women.

I feel great empathy for the transgenered. I don't know that I've heard any success stories as far as post-ops finding love and being in a long-term relationship. Aside from the difficult task of getting your co-workers, friends and families to accept your new gender, I would think it would be next to impossible to find a mate.

At one of the lesbian clubs I used to go to, there was a post-op male-female who frequently came in. I had many talks with her about what led her to make such a drastic change in her life. I heard a lot of pain and sadness come from her heart.

Anyway, I'm probably rambling, but I didn't vote on this thread because no matter how I might view them, I think it's up to them to define who they are.

 

[Astro]

Tall Guy _ I belive I mentioned the behaviour in the study on rats. They behaved as if they were the sex they acted as ie: the control mechanism in the brain was responding to cues appropiate to those of the oppisate sex.

Its easy to look at the brain, however what you are suggesting would be a detailed study required the person to be dead and me to have their brain on the table.

 

[Rubyfruit]

... Those what are called "chicks with dicks" are the ppl that are born with both...not a woman who has a penis attached at a later date.

Brat, you are quite mistaken. Most "chicks with dicks" are men who take hormones to grow breasts. For some, that's all they want. Others are on the way to having surgery.

 

[seXieleXie]

Re: Re: Re: Gender reassignment? Is it really reassignment??

So, do you think that a physician/scientist could look at the brain (by whatever means) of people who have had gender reassignment, and categorize them as being the gender they were reassigned to?

Or would the males with female genetalia still have male brains?

Would the females with male genetalia still have female brains?

your idea of the difference between male and female brains seems to be vastly inflated. the main difference is size... men are typically larger, they have larger heads and slightly (~5%) larger brains. the only other difference scientists have found is nerve density in a few select areas. however, they have not been able to relate these structural differences to functional differences.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

I think your messed up. Why would you consider a man that has had a sex change as a man?

Because he still has the same male brain, and as Astro pointed out, he still has the same chromosomes.

Those what are called "chicks with dicks" are the ppl that are born with both...not a woman who has a penis attached at a later date.

True hermaphrodites are extremely rare, psuedo hermaphrodites are more common and have genetalia that looks male or female, but is actually the opposite. I was not talking about either of these medical conditions; I was talking about "chicks with dicks"; a term often used here and elsewhere to refer to guys who have had breast implants, and often hormone therapy. Some at a later time go all the way and have a "vagina" added, some are happy the way they are.

I did not coin the term and I don't like using it; I prefer "men with breasts".

"Same goes for women who get phalloplasties - they are still women but now they have a piece of their arm grafted to where their bodies." <----that's what you said...and that makes no sense what so ever.

Look up phalloplasty; one of the common techniques used is to take tissue from the arm to construct a penis - and no, it isn't pretty.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Gender reassignment? Is it really reassignment??

your idea of the difference between male and female brains seems to be vastly inflated. the main difference is size... men are typically larger, they have larger heads and slightly (~5%) larger brains. the only other difference scientists have found is nerve density in a few select areas. however, they have not been able to relate these structural differences to functional differences.

Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
10-Dec-99

Differences Between Male and Female Brains

Scientists at Johns Hopkins have discovered "striking" differences between men and women in a part of the brain linked with ability to estimate time, judge speed, visualize things three-dimensionally and solve mathematical problems. The differences, the researchers say, may underlie well-known trends that vary by sex, such as the fact that more men than women are architects, mathematicians and race-car drivers.

In a study reported this week in the journal Cerebral Cortex, the researchers show that a brain region called the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) is significantly larger overall in men than in women. The area is part of the cerebral cortex and appears on both sides of the brain, just above ear-level.

Also, there's a symmetry difference, with men having a larger left IPL than right. In women in the study, it's the right IPL that's somewhat larger, though the difference between the two sides of the brain is less obvious than in men, says psychiatrist Godfrey Pearlson, M.D., who headed the project.

"This is the same part of Albert Einstein's brain that was particularly large compared with controls," says Pearlson. "Scientists have noticed this region is also larger in the postmortem brains of other physicists and mathematicians."

In the study, researchers reviewed MRI-scans of the brains of 15 closely matched men and women. They used new computer software created by Hopkins psychiatrist Patrick Barta, M.D., Ph.D. to compare overall IPL volume by gender. The software lets scientists highlight the IPL by "painting" it in on computer images of each subject's brain; it then calculates a highly accurate volume. Researchers also compared IPL volumes on the left and the right sides of the brain. After allowances for men's larger overall head and brain size, men had roughly 6 percent more IPL tissue than women.

"The inferior parietal lobule is far more developed in people than in animals and has evolved relatively recently," says Pearlson. It allows the brain to process information from senses such as vision and touch, and enables the sort of thinking involved in selective attention and perception.

Studies link the right IPL with a working memory of spatial relationships, the ability to sense relationships between body parts and awareness of a person's own affect or feelings. The left IPL, Pearlson says, is more involved in perception, such as judging how fast something is moving, estimating time and having the ability to mentally rotate 3-D figures.

"To say this means men are automatically better at some things than women is a simplification," says Pearlson. "It's easy to find women who are fantastic at math and physics and men who excel in language skills. Only when we look at very large populations and look for slight but significant trends do we see the generalizations. There are plenty of exceptions, but there's also a grain of truth, revealed through the brain structure, that we think underlies some of the ways people characterize the sexes."

Earlier research by Pearlson showed that two crucial language areas in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain were significantly larger in women, perhaps explaining their advantage in language-associated thought.

Other researchers in the study were Melissa Frederikse, M.D., Angela Lu and Elizabeth Aylward, Ph.D. Funding was through the National Institute on Aging.

Related Web Site: http://pni.med.jhu.edu

The study "Sex Differences in the Inferior Parietal Lobule," appeared in Cerebral Cortex, December 1999, vol 9, no 8

Another useful article is "The Exceptional Brain of Albert Einstein," The Lancet, June 19, 1999, vol 353, pp 2149-2153.

 

[seXieleXie]

* the first rule of research is "corrilation in data doesn't not equal causation"

*15 people were used in this study. there are a lot of variables not mentionsed, like occupation and social class

*the said in the article that the data was not sufficient to draw any conclusions from


i have to go to class now, so don't think i'm backing out of the discussion

 

[BustyTheClown]

Well Tall Guy, I understand where you're coming from when you say that a man with a vagina and breasts is still a man and a woman with a penis is still a woman. I, too, would probably have some trouble empathizing with and being able to fully accept the actions of someone who got a sex change.

However, that doesn't give me the right to assign to them a gender they denounce. Like others on this board, I would call them whatever they wanted without any hesitation whatsoever, because that's who they are to themselves and who am I to tell them otherwise? It's sort of like a drastic name-change, you know? My uncle changed his name a few years ago and my family still has lots of trouble calling him by his preferred name because he's been Fred to them for the past 50 or so years. That's what the problem seems to be for people who have trouble empathizing with people who get sex changes. Our society has such clearly defined roles for men and women that when they want to switch roles, we have a LOT of trouble understanding why they'd ever want to do it! There are a lot of questions about how it happens -- because we know that there is more to gender than just genetalia -- and what their brain activity is like and all that... But the only thing that really truly matters is what the people themselves want. If I changed my name, I'd want people to call me by my new preferred name. If I changed my gender, I'd want people to at least address me as a man, whether or not they really accepted it in their hearts and minds. It's a matter of respecting others' wishes, really. No matter how much trouble we may have figuring out why people are what they are, or why they do the things they do, we can't make their decisions for them.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

If a guy gets an operation and wants me to call him 'Her' I'll call her - her. Same goes for women who want me to call them 'Mr' after an operation. This is there choice and I would defend their rights to make the decision.

Okay - whoa people!

Before you all come running the defense of people who have this problem and/or operation, stop to read my posts; I nowhere said anything about these people being in any way inferior, that they didn't have the right to with their body as they wished, or that they should be discriminated against!

What I did state was that I consider gender to be more than genetalia, and that, to me, such operations as merely cosmetic with regards to gender.

However they are still the sex they were born, as a scientist I say its the genes that control sex, XY and you male XX and your female. XXY. XXX and other unusal arrangments are medical conditions.

Thank you for pointing out a more fundamental difference - one that surely cannot be changed with "gender reassignment" operations.

The above evidence does not support Tall-guys theory that these people have psychological complications.

Actually, I think it does. Bear in mind that "psychological problems" include conditions that are caused by chemical imbalances in the body, including the brain.

I am not saying that gender dysphoria is the result of some boy being dressed as a girl by his mother, or something like that. I do not know enough about this disorder to say what the cause is, and it doesn't really matter to me; whatever the cause it does not make their problems any less significant.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Well Tall Guy, I understand where you're coming from when you say that a man with a vagina and breasts is still a man and a woman with a penis is still a woman. I, too, would probably have some trouble empathizing with and being able to fully accept the actions of someone who got a sex change.

Read my previous post. I am not stating anything to do with empathy - I am talking about the physicality and scientific basis for what is gender.

As I said, if people want to do this, and it makes them happier, then more power to them, but to me, it does not change their gender.

Hypothetical; suppose a man was kidnapped and forced to undergo a gender reassignment operation, along with hormone therapy. Would this guy be a male or a female?

What would be the difference between this person and someone who did this voluntarily? Their state of mind right?

So, is their gender a state of their mind or is it the state of their body?

Generally, science considers gender to be determined at birth and that it cannot be changed via cosmetic surgery.

http://www.genderweb.org/~zenith/fgid.html

"Can a person actually change sex?
Not really. A person's chromosomes and reproductive organs cannot be changed to those of the opposite sex. With hormonal treatment and surgery, however, most transsexuals can achieve satisfactory physical appearance and sexual function. "

 

[Astro]

I am talking about the physical and mental basis for what is gender. I am not refering to hormone treatment after birth, before birth. Same as talking chemicals can cause harm to the baby, this alters the chemical make up of the individual.

YOur kidnap scenaria is different, the hormone treatment were would be short term and would not change brain structure in teh permant way I mentioned.

 

[Jersey Citizen]

other

What fucking difference does it make? You afraid she's gonna beat you at tennis? (à la Renée Richards) Maybe you'll get kooties if that babe you fucked last night had a dick once.

What business of it is yours?

(psst, leXie--type slower, or switch to de-caff)

 

[Guest]

I admit I am ignorant to all the studies and information on the given subject.
But, I do weigh the issue based on nature vs. nuture. While biology has heavy bearing on our physiological make-up, there is much, much more to a person than genetalia.
I've never known, intimately, a transgendered person. But, I've had two clients dealing with societal pressures.
Both never felt comfortable within the sexual identification given by birth. While we all have masculine and feminine sides to our being, I do believe we identify with the more dominate nature.

 

[lavender]

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Re: other

What business of it is yours?

Have you ever heard of academic interest?

If you don't like the topic you don't have to participate, but one of the characteristics of this BB is that discussions of controverisal topics occur. As you can see this particular topic seems to be of interest to a lot of people and it also seems to be controversial.

As most people who know me will agree, I am not one to shy away from controversial topics, and I am always interested in learning new things, including how other people think on a particular topic.

Finally, I did not say whatever gender someone considers themselves to be was any of my business - what gender I consider them to be is my business however.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Its easy to look at the brain, however what you are suggesting would be a detailed study required the person to be dead and me to have their brain on the table.

Actually I do not believe that to be true; there have been for some time, methods of examing the brain short of dissection PET scans, MRI scans, etc.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

* the first rule of research is "corrilation in data doesn't not equal causation"

*15 people were used in this study. there are a lot of variables not mentionsed, like occupation and social class

*the said in the article that the data was not sufficient to draw any conclusions from

Just do a google search using "are there differences between male and female brains?" and find a bit more data, references and studies. Just a few I found:

http://www.epub.org.br/cm/n11/mente/eisntein/cerebro-homens.html

http://www.megafoundation.org/Ubiquity/sprubiq01/Gender.htm

http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/ap/seeleyap/nervous/reading28.mhtml

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/VirtualSchool/genderbr.htm

http://www.sfn.org/content/Publications/BrainBriefings/gender.brain.html

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/heshe.html

 

[EvilBrat74]

Doing everything you can to prove yourself right above everybody else aren't you?
LOL