If it were as easy as X and Y, testicles and ovaries—or if everyone was born into a perfect mold--there wouldn’t be any question.
The reality is that many babies aren’t born fitting that perfect mold. Some are born missing limbs, some have genetic differences like Down Syndrome, or any number of congenital issues. A number of them, a lot more than most people think, are born who can’t be immediately classified as boy or girl by the delivering doctor. Often, a specialist is called in to try to make the final call--if possible.
If a genetic test returns XXY or some other combination, or if ultrasounds looking for internal organs are unclear, and external features look like a combination of both or neither sex…what call should be made on the gender of a newborn?
Our culture doesn’t like talking about our naughty bits. New parents aren’t going to tell their friends and family about any of these problems. They’re likely to pick a sex based on their best guess and stick with it. Sometimes that was the wrong choice of the coin toss.
Then there are the really tricky cases, like how some people are born with XY chromosomes but have complete resistance to male hormones. They develop female characteristics in the womb and develop like any other typical women as they grow up. They’re usually even more feminine than most XX women, because natural testosterone is completely blocked in their bodies. They may go most of their lives without noticing anything out of the ordinary, until they learn for one reason or another, maybe a mail-order genetics kit or a fertility doctor, that they are actually genetically male. Try explaining that one to your husband.
Yes, most of us fit the easy male/female mold. Some don't.
From a legal standpoint, there has been male/female/other for millennia.
Yet, in the public arena….
charlie
Comments
The Intersex Question
This is probably a better title for your blog, Charlie.
We who are born male all have a little bit of female in us. Why do we have nipples? Why is there a seam on the scrotum? Have you heard of mullerian ducts? The fact is that all humans see to be basically female, with males just carrying some modifications to allow us to function as something else.
But the transgender question is a more difficult one. As a condition it is more prevalent in some with certain intersex or genital issues, and there is evidence of physical differences in the brains of transgendered persons, but fundamentally it is rooted in the mind.
It is not an illness anymore than homosexuality is, and it has existed for all time, as my soon to be published Amazon book on TG characters through history might show.
I have never checked, but I assume that I am XY. I know that I am TG. When I was a small child I had a security blanket that I used to tie around my head with a ribbon and pretend it was my beautiful long hair. It is probably my earliest memory.
I am not intersexed. Maybe if I was it would be easier for me?
Yesterday I read this article: https://www.lovewhatmatters.com/you-are-biologically-a-femal...
It seems to me that "The Transgender Question" is far more complicated than "The Intersex Question"
Maryanne
I was thinking more about...
When I was writing this, I was thinking more about the way people are trying to define how we classify male and female in the public and private domain. Genitalia vs Gender. Which really makes you a man or a woman--especially if you have a congenital condition or are diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria. Forcing the non-conforming person back into the box he or she was born with (the box checked "Male" or the box checked "Female") is not an answer.
There has to be some middle ground to be found which will not stigmatize those who try to bring their bodies into congruence with their souls.
That was what I was trying to address.
charlie
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/missing-without-a-trace-cha...
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/832524
Hi Charlie, in the past they
Hi Charlie, in the past they used to see a tiny or misformed penis and decided the baby would be better off as a girl. Even using statements like easier to make a hole than a pole.
It was a very misogynistic view. A man with a tiny or no penis will never be happy as a man right?. He'll be much happier as a woman who can never have a baby?
Well at least they will be able to have a sex life. Obviously without sex life is not worth living. I don't think this was done maliciously, it was just the prevailing view at the time.
This isn't an intersex case , but it proves the pitfalls of raising someone in the wrong gender. You may have seen it. One twin had his penis burnt during circumcision. Dr. John Money thought it would be a perfect way to prove nurture over nature.
It was seen as a huge success, many feminists said it proved what they had been saying was true. It was a lie that resulted in the death of both boys. A very sad story
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11814300
Yet what David did not know was that he had still been immortalised as 'John/Jane' in medical and academic papers about gender reassignment, and that the "success" of Dr Money's theory was affecting other patients with similar gender issues.
"He had no way of knowing that his case had found its way into a wide array of medical and psychological textbooks that were now establishing the protocols for how to treat hermaphrodites and people who lose their penis,"
This is going to sound bad, but he 13 year old me had read of this case, which at the time was still on-going. When I was circumcised at 13 I went to sleep hoping they would cut it off by mistake. They didn't of course.
Leeanna
David Reimer
He killed himself on my birthday.
And...
"In the past"?
Nope. IGM (intersex genital mutilation) still goes on. The first country in the world to ban it was Malta, which was then followed by Portugal and Austria, and then, in 2020 IIRC Germany. The rate of surgery in Germany alone can be summed up by rounded figures for 2016: 2,000 feminisation surgeries, 1,000 masculinisations, on infants. The reason for the disparity is simple: the feminisation is a simpler operation for the surgeon. "It is easier to dig a hole than build a pole".
I know all of this because I am intersex. I was operated on at birth, at 10 and at 25. I only discovered the truth in my fifties when being assessed for GCS. The operations included a hysterectomy. I had been assigned male at birth because of the presence of a sort of penis. I know I am 46XY, as my variation is linked to the Y and there are no other indications of, e.g., Klinefelter's (47XXY or 48XXXY).
I actually represent and support I/VSC people and deliver awareness training as part of my day job.
I/VSC: Intersex/variation in sex characteristics.
Oh: and in the case of poor David Reimer, I wish there was a special place in hell for John Money.
I've Been So Blessed
Very early on in my life I was deemed to feminine and very roughly handled. Later as an Adult, Science advanced incrementally and I was Genetically tested and found to be XXY, Unknown Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome and other stuff. Standing naked before a Genetic Doctor, it all shows despite my having had rather remarkable appearing Genethlia. These days after Corrective Surgery.... Wow.
I just finished reading an article in KSL (The Salt Lake City Mormon mouthpiece) about a Transgender youth in the Davis School District. The President of their Church was a Heart Surgeon, I'm told. Perhaps in another 50 years such Genetic Issues will be corrected before birth? Presently, despite having had surgery and living as a woman, It still haunts me that I can not grow a female pelvis, or bear children.
It's so sad Gwen how people
It's so sad Gwen how people who fall outside the perceived gender stereotype get picked on by their peers. I saw it at school all the time. Girls used to mentally bully the "ugly" girls too.
Leeanna