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Transgendered Folks Encountering Document/Database ID Hassles
An anonymous reader writes "Most of us hear the equivalent of 'let me bring up your record' several times a week or month when dealing with businesses and government agencies; sometimes there's a problem, but clerks are accustomed to dealing with changes in street address, phone numbers, company affiliation, and even personal names (after marriage). But what about gender? Transgendered folks are encountering embarrassing moments when they have to explain that their gender has changed from 'M' to 'F' or vice versa. While there are many issues involved in discrimination against transgendered individuals, I have to confess that the first thing that came to my mind was the impact on database design and maintenance."
Nothing has really changed...
I used to work for the government of Canada at an agency which I cannot name. I ran into an awkward situation when I was speaking with a woman who had recently gotten married to another woman and as I was putting the info in, the software I was using told me there was an error that needed to be corrected before proceeding. I was both embarrassed and furious. I could not believe our software was not written with same sex couples in mind and I apologized to her and kept on going with the rest of call. I doubt this issue has been fixed yet, this happened about a year ago.
Make the field optional. In addition to male and female, add both and neither. Also, review the reason you even keep that information. It may not be necessary at all.
Databases are annoying, as no-one really models gender changing over time (most glaring to me in the medical industry, where I work). That said, i'd much rather see something done about the reactions of people, rather than the contents of databases. I now live 600 miles from my hometown, because I got tired of being physically attacked for being myself in public. Show me how changing a database table will turn around a truck full of beer 'buzzed' rednecks, and i'm all game.
Anonymous, for all the wrong reasons. I'd rather post as myself, but I've learned not to be honest in public, unless I want death threats. Thanks for the 5 minutes of attention, but we've got trouble all day.
And why not? Call the column isMale or isFemale instead of Gender to avoid any confusion and you're good to go, while making it technically impossible to enter invalid data and sidestepping any issues of character based data in non-canonical form.
Of course that breaks down a bit when encountering hermaphrodites or asexuals (biological ones, we're not discussing sexual orientation), but those are such a vanishingly small percentage of the population that it's unlikely the database would be coded to handle them anyway.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Who the hell voted this up?
The reason why it's embarrassing is because trans people are still treated like crap by a large portion of society and we'd rather not have our private lives paraded around in front of others so that we can be treated like a fucking circus exhibit. That's why.
Besides, for most things you don't even NEED to know our gender.
I presume you'll be fine with the doctors refusing to help you when you get struck down with some rare form tropical disease then?
A problem being suffered by a minority is still a problem.
This illustrates how discrimination is embedded in our society. We want to know details about someone (gender) so that we can assume other things (entitlement to maternity leave, say). But this supports treating people differently. The entitlement should be that anyone who gives birth or (or perhaps adopts) a baby is entitled to the leave. No need to identify gender.
-- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
Hmm, on second thought gender is actually a fairly poorly defined concept in medical terms. We tend to classify people based on whether they come equipped with a slot or a dongle, but that's just the most obvious marker, and doesn't necessarily correlate well with several other biological gender properties (as hilighted not-so-recently by that African female olympic runner)
I suppose a more accurate measure would be a floating point value indicating the degree and polarity of genderdness, but that would still have trouble distinguishing asexuals and hermaphrodites. Perhaps two semi-independent values indicating degree of maleness and femaleness? I doubt anyone would want to get a thorough medical exam just to be able to put a number in a box though, much less have any particular desire to share that data. And even if we could formulate the tests I imagine there could be significant personal and sociological fallout from quantifying such a thing on a wide basis, and not necessarily much benefit.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
So because there is one exhibitionist out there, everyone must be an exhibitionist? Does that also mean that, because you're a bigot, everyone must be a bigot?
I'm in my mid-30s and just starting down the road of correcting my body. It is because of people like you that, despite knowing since I was 3 years old, I tried to live in denial. It is because of people like you that trans people have a suicide rate nearly 3 times higher than gay people. So you don't support us because you don't even try to understand us... that's fine. But don't belittle us.
I didn't wake up one day and decide that I want to spend $50-100k (just facial electrolysis can cost anywhere from $5k and up and can't be done in one session, it takes months, sometimes several years, to catch all of the hair follicles during their growth phase so you can kill them), have to endure the social stigma of telling my friends and family - all while knowing that I would lose some of them in the process, etc on a whim. I've struggled to deal with who I am for my entire life and I've been suicidally depressed for most of the last ten years. My need to change stems from the fact that, if I don't, I cannot continue to live this life in the way I was forced to.
There are lots of reasons behind gender issues ranging from genetic to in utero underexposure to hormones (or chemicals that mimic estrogen being present in our public water supply). It's amazing that, in a day where we can accept people are born gay, that it isn't a choice, that we will mock and degrade people who feel that their external sex doesn't match their internal gender.
I hope one day, something doesn't cause you to face the same ridicule you're so happy to perpetrate on others...
It is not a choice. It's who someone is. A lot of people feel like they're not in either one of the two "Gender" categories.
If for any reason, someone is trans-gendered it should be made as easy as possible. There's already enough bigotry and phobia out there making their (and our) lives miserable.
The SSA has now formalised their new arrangements recently to reflect on recent developments and have dropped requirements for surgery from their process [ http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2013/06/14/social-security-removes-surgical-requirement-gender-marker-change ]
While I may not fully understand why it happens, I try my best to make trans folk feel as comfortable as I can. When you live with someone who has faced all the discrimination, sat through the tears or seen the pain in their eyes just for trying to be something they hate less than the alternative, you'd be slightly more understanding.
Trans people are people too.
What I understand even less is that my gender needs to be noted in most databases anyway. There are still rules saying that as a male I can only marry a female (which for me works well), so I guess the government needs to know so that they can stop me pissing off their god by marrying someone of the same sex. And maybe my insurance company needs to know so they can better charge me according to my risk. But the various utility companies don't need to know, and neither does my bank. A title (Mr/Ms/Lord/Lady/Dr/Comrade etc) or something might be required which would hint at gender but that would be about it.
Don't forget File_Not_Found
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I imagine you're part of the "pray the gay away" crowd.
Just because you think it's a mental disorder, and that they are circus freaks, and that they are delusional, and that they are mutilating themselves, doesn't mean it's so. All it does is show that you are an insensitive and ignorant asshole.
Of course that breaks down a bit when encountering hermaphrodites or asexuals (biological ones, we're not discussing sexual orientation), but those are such a vanishingly small percentage of the population that it's unlikely the database would be coded to handle them anyway.
So, they won't be recoding Match.com?
Hermaphrodites getting together could make for some serious hookups... vapor lock, even...
If you use both isMale and isFemale they can be Boolean and you have all bases covered. 1 and 1 for hermaphrodites, and 0 and 0 for asexuals... anybody else should be a 0 and 1 or 1 and 0.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
It may be unique but it is becoming more common. For better, or worse, we will need to figure something out at some point.
I have some ethical questions about "fixing" what is a mental health issue with something so drastic as surgery but I'm fortunate to not be in that position so I'm not sure my ethics matter.
So yeah it is interesting. There's a site that I frequent which has an amazingly high percentage of transgendered people on it. (It is Fark actually.) They have, for whatever reason, managed to attract a lot of them. I've made it a point to be open minded and to listen to them (I don't much care as it doesn't apply to me but I am a curious person) and I'm not sure that I agree that modifying the body to fix a mental illness is a good solution.
Either way, there's going to be conflicts in databases. There are going to be issues and bathrooms and additional healthcare are a couple of places where this is going to come into play as it becomes more popular. There are plenty of bigger problems with society though so this isn't all that important. If you dye your hair then you put your real hair color on the form at the DMV. If you wear contacts to the appointment at the DMV you still tell them that you need corrective lenses to drive even though they can't see them. But, well, none of those changes are permanent. Then again, sex changes may not be considered permanent either. So, it's a quandary and we're going to have to face it eventually. We can't stuff it into the closet and hope it resolves itself.
Now, HOW we resolve this will be a measure of our growth as a society. That, though, is a topic for another day.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
There are a lot of biological causes for transgenderism, the mental health issues stem from these, not the other way round. A lot of people find that just going on HRT fixes long standing anxiety and depression that nothing else has been able to touch.
How is it substantially different from getting a boob or nose job? We pander to people's dissatisfactions with their bodies left, right, and center, what's one more indulgence?
And it's not like gender is a two-state classification to begin with, for all that we like to pretend it's fully determined by what's between your legs (and even by that measure there are still a few individuals who are either both or neither). Physical gender is actually the combination of several largely independent biological properties, so if you could somehow measure your "maleness" and "femaleness" the two numbers would not necessarily bear any relationship to each other. In fact the discrepancies can get so extreme that there are occasionally people born whose physical gender is actually at odds with their genetic gender - sometimes puberty can trigger at least a partial transformation (I seem to remember reading about a south-american villiage where this is actually not uncommon - some promiscuous ancestor several generations back with an interesting genetic anomaly), but some people only discover the discrepancy when getting a genetic test for unrelated reasons.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
No offense, but being transgendered does not automatically make you an authority on the origins of transexualism ( just as being human does not in itself make one an expert on the origins of humanity. )
The degree to which transgender people are born transgender is quite an open question, and there is currently not a whole lot of strong evidence to support that claim (as reflected in the wikipedia article you linked to -- evidence of genetic contributions is scant, and differences in brain structure cannot indicate innateness). Most likely transgenderism involves a complex interaction of genetic, epigenetic, hormonal, developmental, psychological and social factors.
In some sense I understand why transexual people and gay people (the majority of whom in my experience seem to be committed to the idea that sexual orientation is innate) want this to be the case -- we have good societal analogies for a class of people who are innately different gaining equal status. But in the long run the case for equal rights and humane treatment should probably separate itself from this question, which is purely scientific and far from settled. If the case for equal rights is built upon such an assumption, it may fall like a house of cards as science progresses, and the fact is that we should treat people humanely regardless of the origins of their condition.
XY = Male ... XX = Female
What if you're mixed? There are XX males and XY females. XXY and XYY are also possible. Sometimes twins are conceived, but one absorbs the other. It's not quite as simple as you make it out to be.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Supposedly this is more than made up for by the fact they can live the rest of their life how they feel they should be.
Maybe. There are people that do regret it. If you do, there's no magic reset available. On this earth you will never fully be again what you once were.
Are sex change operations justified?
Sex changes are not effective, say researchers
'I will never be able to have sex again. Ever'
But what worries other psychiatrists is the mounting evidence that surgery may not actually improve the lives of those who feel they were born with the wrong body. A review of more than 100 international studies of post-operative transsexuals by the University of Birmingham found there was no scientific evidence that surgery was effective and, in many cases, patients were left feeling more distressed. Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University — which housed one of the pioneer gender clinics — no longer performs sex-change surgery due to such concerns.
A recent British review found suicide rates of up to 18 per cent among people who had undergone gender reassignment surgery. Doctors from London's Portman Clinic say they see many patients who feel trapped in "no-man's land" after surgery, finding themselves with a body which is no longer recognisable as male or female. Psychotherapy, the experts believe, may have saved them from such a fate but few gender clinics offer it. -- more
Long-term follow-up of transsexual persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery
It's a difficult issue for all concerned.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
To the biologically illiterate AC:
47,XXX
48, XXXX
49 XXXXY syndrome
49, XXXXX
Klinefelter's syndrome
Turner syndrome
XX gonadal dysgenesis
XX male syndrome
XXYY syndrome
XYY syndrome
I'm surprised at all the bigotry here on Slashdot. I hope you guys get a chance to know a transgendered person at some point, it might change your attitudes. I have, and it totally changed my misunderstandings on the subject. I suppose it is natural to be unbelieving in things which seem foreign to our way of thinking, but even if you cannot accept the idea right now, at least give people the benefit of the doubt rather than spew your ignorance as if it were facts. Why not have a look and see attitude? You might be surprised. I feel lucky to have met the transgendered persons I have known in my life, I hope you get the chance.
Comments like this make me proud to have had you on my "foes" list for a good long time. You're going to die. Hopefully your place is taken up by someone more open minded, more sympathetic, and more understanding. No, I'm not a transgendered person. I see them as mentally ill, certainly, but I don't see that as a bad thing - just a thing that they are and of no concern of mine. They don't deserve pity, they don't deserve extra attention, they don't deserve anything special - they deserve to be treated as individuals who are judged by their deeds.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I know exactly how they feel. The puzzled stares... The uncomfortable questions... It's gnarly.
Seriously? The choice for most of us is to transition and embrace the way our heads our wired or suicide. I don't see a choice there. I didn't have a choice. I didn't choose to have my marriage explode either. Our society is about gender binaries, Male or Female, for the number of people who fit someplace outside of that precise box, having documentation and paperwork that does NOT match their presentation can be crippling in this binary society where people think that if looks don't match that M/F field, then something is very wrong automatically.
How would you like to hit a TSA checkpoint and almost be denied in the ability to pass beyond the checkpoint to catch your flight because your ID says your Male and you have breasts and look like a Woman? Or better yet, when you present your identification, and people completely change their interaction with you, their tone of speaking, and begin using word that remind you of the pain that you endured.
Preventing the ability to change documentation is not only for people that are transgendered, its for everyone else who has to see/interact with that identity information. It is inhumane to both parties to prevent the ability to correct the information.
I think that the severity needs to be considered as well as the underlying issues that cause one to want to modify themselves. Gender re-assignment surgery is not realistically compared to a piercing, a tattoo, or similar. However, there are those who would take such to extremes where they are obviously mentally ill. First, being mentally ill isn't a bad thing entirely of itself (the term is mentally ill and I didn't make that term up but it does imply connotations of badness). Second, the severity of change needs to be considered. Would I say that those people should seek mental health assistance prior to getting alterations done? I would say that's a broad subject... I'd say that when such alterations impede your life, or will be seen as so life-changing that they are deemed a requirement by the subject, then yes they should seek mental health care prior to engaging in those acts. Would I FORCE that, the mental health care bit, on them? By no means.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
That is true in some cases. There are others who have no biological issues at all but simply feel they were born into the wrong body (I've spoken to a few of these who've gone ahead with the gender re-assignment) and it's a difficult position for them to be in. While your statement is true for some it certainly isn't true for all.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Mostly, it's just a head's up to database designers: transgendered people exist, make your database able to correct gender changes or input mistakes easily.
we'd rather not have our private lives paraded around in front of others
Forgive my ignorance but is it really any more embarrassing to correct that information in a database than any other? I would imagine vast amounts of data are inaccurate on everybody. I've called and changed my birthday, I've accidentally listed 'male' for my girlfriend when filling out forms online (out of habit). If you're embarrassed just say you erroneously filled out the form or say you were reviewing your records and noticed a big inaccuracy.
I've heard a number of transgender people ask for options which are more inclusive and specific--but that would go against your complaint since it would make your transgender status front and center and 'parade around it around in front for others'.
I agree though on the point that tracking gender is pretty pointless for almost all forms.
Undoing a mod to reply to you.
John Hopkins... humm...
A recent British review found suicide rates of up to 18 per cent among people who had undergone gender reassignment surgery.
Feh. Beats the 50% rate of suicide without bottom surgery. All it shows is how uncaring and inhuman people like you are.
What you don't realize is the huge bias against transgendered identities in psychology.
Here's the whole problem. Trans folks are routinely denied their voice in these matters. The system prefers objectifying them and finding every excuse to discredit any benefit they've found from HRT and bottom surgery.
This is how deep the problem goes. We're talking about "transgendered folks," but nobody yet in this entire /. discussion has acknowledged trans men.
Trans men exist. There are a couple in the local support group. Yes, that's right. Folks born with their reproductive systems on the inside who desire becoming men. They take testosterone. They have facial hair. Their voices deepen and become male voices. If you met one, you'd never know it, because they become practically indistinguishable from cis men (men who were born with their reproductive systems on the outside).
How do you explain that in terms of childhood sexual abuse or a desire to rape women in the bathroom or any other kind of theory of sexual perversion and sexual domanance that psychology assures us that the misguided trans woman is merely trying to acquire?
I'd recommend the book Whipping Girl by Julia Serano. It adequately sums up how utterly broken the treatment of trans women is. Did you know that it was until recently that trans women weren't even allowed to start HRT unless they could appear sexually stimulating to a psychologist?
There is a trifecta of religion, psychology, and feminism that is utterly undermined by the idea that somebody born into the male gender caste would desire being a woman. What I mean by gender caste is the idea that the gender one is assigned at birth on the basis on body parts is somehow far deeper than skin, much like the caste system in India. Religion finds this idea natural in its sole focus on reproduction. Feminism finds its construction of a woman as a victim undermined by the idea that someone who was born a rapist/aggressor/man would, of their own free will, desire to become a victim/woman. However, psychology has the solution. The trans woman could only make the decision to undergo gender transition on the basis on mental illness. Here we finally see the trans woman as the depraved serial killer in a woman suit she is.
The research you linked to is a direct product of that bias. We have bought into this narrative that men are sexual aggressors and women are victims so deeply that we cannot comprehend why a sexual aggressor would choose to become a victim except by painting it as mental illness.
Let me clue you in on something. When strangers see me, they believe I'm female. I also have no reason to argue with their assessment. This presents a dilemma. How can you tell somebody who is obviously female and being gendered female by others that she is really, somehow, a man? The only option you have is to do a Crocodile Dundee test and grab me in the crotch.
So, how, exactly, do these researchers figure that sex change surgery is not effective? It's highly dubious, especially after one considers how many trans women have had their lives improved by bottom surgery. However, their voices are easily dismissed because they do not fit into the narrative that femaleness is artifical vanity that womyn-born-womyn are helpless victims of and that maleness is somehow authentic. We look at the trans woman and we are deeply suspicious of her going about her day with long hair, which we understand the womyn-born-womyn only wears long because she's forced to by some vast male conspiracy (see the article "My Hair Is My Accompli
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
And it's not as simple as just saying that all humans are equal regardless of gender.
Men cannot typically compete in women's sports, because human males tend to have an advantage in several areas of athleticism. Mothers tend to have default parental and custodial rights beyond those of the father. There are a multitude of medical reasons to categorize humans as male and female.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
There's nothing more fun than watching ignorant bigots parade just how contemptibly stupid they really are. Thank you for sharing you small minded bigotry.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There are various diseases, dysmorphia, accidents and disorders that affect how one perceives one's gender and which affect how other's perceive one's gender.
If we want an accurate Object definition for Class>>Gender it has to be implemented to have a pair of small integers as attributes and presented/interacted with as a pair of Sliders.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
you can thank the socialist left for this situation... libertarians think the government and all it's associated minions should just stay the fuck away from all that, which is the way it should be
We'll also be paying for you to extend your life way past its useful point. If it resolves a mental health problem (which is subject to debate) and increases their quality of life then it's probably worth it. A healthy populace is good for everyone as a whole.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I'm not going to flame you because I came at this from the same direction. I discovered that I was wrong. You are correct that transgendered people have a mental-physical mismatch, and you can certainly describe this as a mental problem and be accurate, if perhaps insensitive.
That said, there is no treatment available that works better than sexual reassignment surgery. I feel that the minor adjustments that we need to make to accommodate these people pale in comparison to what we do to accommodate people with physical handicaps, and we should probably help them if we want to see ourselves as compassionate. If a person who is obviously a dude wants to behave as a lady, the least I can do is go along with the ruse if it means they are more likely to be happy and less likely to commit suicide.
Like any condition, if an option someday arises that works as well or better than surgery, they should definitely pursue that - but in the meantime, just have some compassion for someone with a very difficult life.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I write software for a blood center and birth sex is critically important for proper handling of donated blood. I had no idea that male and female blood had to be handled differently, but it largely boils down to how a pregnancy (even one that spontaneously aborted and a woman might not even realize she had) can affect blood antibodies. An F->M transgender should report that fact.
As a starting point of research for the curious, check out TRALI.
Even though the plasma from female donors is used for manufacturing (as is ALL plasma collected at places that pay for it), I still encourage women to donate, especially platelets! (Technically, the plasma from AB+ females can be used.)
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
What makes you say that having none reproducing members of the family/clan/tribe to help the reproducing members raise their children is suicidal? I'm pretty sure there have been studies that show that species where some members reproduce and other members assist them is beneficial to the group and species.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
That is how jails do it. No matter how far along you are in gender reassignment - if you have a penis you're going to a men's facility.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
There will be certain cases - a lot of medical data, for example - where gender truly is important.
But in a lot of cases, you could reasonably have a person simply refuse to provide the information in the first place, or even just need a temporary value if gender is unknown at the time of record creation. A serious database has to anticipate those cases; this is not a big step.
And a database which needs gender for some legitimate medical purpose already needs to deal with special cases.
(And that's all without worrying about the question of whether those cases are lifestyle choices, genuine metabolic disorders, or something else entirely - the technology does not care about attitudes.)
You/someone needs to come up with a better solution. I'm tired of your 3 year old staring at my junk.
I see them as mentally ill, certainly, but I don't see that as a bad thing
If it's not a bad thing to be mentally ill, why use the word ill?
She's not staring, she's squinting ;p
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Those poor 0.0000001%. It's so tough for them.
Are you trying to tell me there's only 6 transgender people in the world? You clearly have not been to Thailand.
This isn't a joke. It's about a tiny but very real group of people being able to live their lives safely and in dignity.
Leaving aside questions of what data is needed in the medical profession to handle biology correctly - which is a completely different issue - the attitude that people deserve to have their secrets outed so that other people can entertain themselves by laughing at them is just... not the geek world I grew up in having programmed computers since the age of 8. My mum got me into it, in a family where everyone writes code.
As a lesbian geek girl, I'm disgusted by a lot of the comments here, and really don't know if I even belong on this forum any more. I don't write much but have been reading on a daily basis since the late 1990s.
The transgender community seems to be under attack these days since they're small enough not to be able to fight back in the way that the gay and lesbian community and various ethnic minorities have. Finally all the bigots and religious fundamentalists have found a group of people who it is "safe" to bully.
But please, not on slashdot!!
Surely, as so called "nerds" you would know something about the history of your industry. Have you heard of Alan Turing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing), who developed the model for the general purpose computer, only to be arrested for being homosexual, clinically castrated, and driven to suicide? You probably have, and I assume he's one of the reasons why a lot of IT companies are very good at accepting gay men and lesbian.
What about Lynn Conway, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, who literally wrote the book on VLSI design (Introduction to VLSI systems). She's alive, fortunately, but we all lost a lot of her work when she was forced to start again "at the bottom of the ladder" as a contract programmer in mid-career to hide her gender past from your bigotry and intolerance.
What about Lana (formerly Larry) Wachowski who co-produced the Matrix Trilogy? She came close to not surviving the hate growing up, and if she hadn't survived, we would never have gotten to see The Matrix.
And - he might not have been a geek, but - what about Mike Penner, who committed suicide after an unsuccessful attempt at gender transition?
Seriously, wannabe geeks, as tiny a minority as the transgender community is, the IT industry is packed full of transsexuals and transgender people. And many of us here have romantic partners, or parents, or brothers and sisters and friends who are. At least here in Melbourne, Australia, you can't write code and hang out in the industry without getting close to many of them.
It seems that all the gay men and lesbians are too successful and too powerful for you to attack now. So like all bullies, you run off in search of an easier victim.
Getting back to the topic, why exactly do you need databases to say things about people's gender that don't match how they present themselves? To out them and embarrass them because they "deserve" it? How little compassion and caring do you have for other people? Would you want to be treated this way yourselves if you had some type of secret you had to keep from people who would hate you because of it?
If you were in Europe circa World War 2, would you insist that records there included whether or not a person was Jewish, based on genetic testing? With no ability for a person to change their record to say they were, say, Russian, if it could give them a better chance of finding employment or even survival?
In case you think the analogy isn't fair (and yes, I am Jewish, and migrated from Russia with my parents as a three year old), have a look at what the Salvation Army (who the government in Australia got involved in finding jobs for the unemployed a few years ago) are saying and doing:
what about caring about intersex people who were born with ambiguous genitalia and have to deal with this shit as well? Is it okay to be persecuted by tyranny of the majority because we are, as you put it. "a tiny minority" that is even smaller than the TG minority? Is that okay in your opinion?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
For those not familiar, go look up "epigenetics". I've been pointed to some studies in which there are identical twins who grow into adulthood -- one is gay (for example, pick your LGBTQ?) and the other is not. This being evidence that it's not "genetic" per se, but is epigenetic
The counterpoint to this being that even though there's examples where one's gay and the other isn't, the statistical probability that both twins are gay is several orders of magnitude higher than it is for non-twin siblings, suggesting that there is probably still a genetic correlation.
The counter-counterpoint is that there's also a statistically significant probability that later children will be gay (a woman's 1st son has X percentage chance, her 5th son has X+Y percentage), which suggests that homosexuality may actually be a biological response to overpopulation, and that there's hormonal triggers in utero which can cause it.
Likely, as the GP says, there's a very large number of factors, and people are making mistakes by trying to single out an individual factor as the cause. This also goes for transgenderism, which, as the GP says, should be treated on basis of "they're human, they deserve equal treatment", not "they're different, they deserve equal treatment".
"a tiny minority of people who knew going into it"
You mean before they were born?
(This is going to sound a lot like the kind of lecture you used to have to give people about sexual orientation, but that's how it goes....)
Being transgender isn't something that someone just decides to do one day, as an adult. It's about people who are designated "male" or "female" at birth (usually based on whether they have an identifiable dick or not) but grow up feeling that they've been miscategorized. The "how"s and "why"s of it aren't especially well understood, but the fact that it happens is (or at least should be) well established and accepted.
Those who go through with legal and/or physical gender reassignment don't do it by "choice", but because they feel a need to. Yes, they know they'll face pointless bureaucratic red tape, and possibly a lifetime of trying to explain to friends, coworkers, employers, and service providers with crappy customer service. They do it for their sense of self-identity and emotional well-being. It can be a nightmare. Even though it doesn't need to be. But it is, mostly because of dismissive jerks like you, who don't want to be bothered by taking it seriously.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Why did they choose 1/2? Could they not have gone with A and B? 419 A and 419 B
Thank you. I was trying to find a good way to tell that person he was quoting idiots, but I don't think I can do it any more eloquently than you.
There's a particularly insidious branch of feminism (and I use that word because that's how they identify, not because I consider them feminists) which seems to think that you are only female if you were born that way, and that you're only male if you're born that way. One of the most obvious examples of this would be the kerfluffle that blew up over the last few years with Dianic Wicca, but that opens up an entirely different can of worms on this forum, and isn't really germane to the discussion.... the point I'm making is that these people claim to be feminists, but the ideas they espouse are the antithesis of feminism. These are the people who believe that it's not possible for men to be feminists, either, which is utterly wrong. Real feminism is inclusive, both of men who want to do more to help women be treated as equals, and of transwomen who should be accepted as women, without the need for the "trans" identifier. (and the same for transmen)
Now, I fully expect that some people are shitheads, and will probably find a way to give you flak for what you've written. For that, you have my sympathy. But you do have allies here, and out there, and I wanted you to know that.
I was curious about whether you tried testosterone therapy and it didn't work? I can't tell if that's what you're saying or if you feel like you were abused by yourself for producing testosterone.
Most of the transwomen that I know view the body's natural production of testosterone to be the body slowly poisoning itself, in a circumstance where they have a hard time convincing a doctor to give them a treatment which can stop it. This is one of the major reasons why transgendered people have a very high suicide rate among those who haven't had treatment.
I'm curious about this statement too.. you're saying your heart may tell you you're a woman. What does that mean? Is there some feeling that all women have that men aren't supposed to feel?
Self identification. You think of yourself as a man (I assume). The GP identifies herself as a woman. The difference is that you (assuming you're male) have the dangly bits to go with it, so there's no discord between your identified gender and your physical sex. For a transgendered person, their physical sex does not match their identified gender, and that clash can cause serious body image issues, severe depression, and suicidal behaviour. Usually, the only effective treatment for somebody in that situation is to start living as their perceived gender, and almost universally, once a transperson starts their real life experience (long before they get any kind of surgery), the depression and other mental issues disappear very quickly.
I know it's difficult to wrap your head around... usually the only way to understand it is to go through such a change yourself or (in some cases) to know people before/after their transition and see for yourself the positive difference it makes in their life, but there is a distinction between a person's physical sex and their gender identity. These are two distinct and separate variables that go into the definition of "you", and when the two do not have the same value, it causes problems. Since there isn't really a way to change one (gender), the only effective treatment is to look at the other.
Is we need to define what we mean when we ask for someone's sex or gender on a form. I think part of the problem is different people identify what it means differently. Some in the transgender community say it is 100% about what you personally choose to identify as. So you could be genetically male, have an XY chromosome set, and biologically male, as in have male genitals and body structure, but identify yourself as female and that's what you should mark down. However other people might disagree. If you went in to the woman's dressing room at a rec center the biological women in there might not be at all comfortable with that since they identify you as male, due to your biology.
So one of the things we need to do is clarify the terms, and perhaps have different terms for identifying someone's genetic structure, biological makeup, and sexual identity.
Like when you are talking to a doctor, the genetic definition matters. Reason is that health issues do NOT affect both genders equally, and it has nothing to do with appearance or identity, it has to do with genetics. So even if you've had a sex change operation and all that, proper identification as genetically male could be relevant to medical providers.
For most people it is more about biology, as in what bits do you have between your legs. We visually identify people as male or female, and most are pretty clearly one or the other. That is one of the reasons it gets asked for lots of forms of ID is to help ensure that the ID is for the person holding it. For that, we might want to use your biological appearance. If you undergo a sex change surgery, then you change that identifier.
In terms of the pronoun you wish people to use to identify your gender, that really is up to you, though you need to understand it can be confusing to people if you appear and sound different than you identify.
So as you say we need to review why the information is collected, and then define terms to say what sort of thing we are talking about. We can't just say "Well let people identify as whatever they want," since reality doesn't work that way. However if you are just collecting it for no real reason, then don't and let people identify how they wish.
Bollocks [sic]. Attitudes like this are why trans people have such a struggle day-to-day. Wake up, it's not about balls, it's about brains. As a signifier for gender, what you have between your legs is irrelevant, and it's about time people started to understand that.
One of my requirements was the need to handle a F-F marriage with kids in the family. ... Amazingly, there were few choices that met an important requirement that I had.... genealogy
I think I solved the mystery.
Neither gender or sex belongs in most databases any more than race, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or any other sort of information that has no bearing on the business or government agency's interaction with the person. Storing more information than you should in your database only leads to headaches and possible legal liabilities.
Self identification. You think of yourself as a man (I assume). The GP identifies herself as a woman.
I know.. I'm wondering what the distinction is between a guy who identifies with women vs. a guy who identifies as a woman. What does it mean to feel that you are a woman? Does it require a belief in a soul, and a gendered soul specifically?
I'm assuming you don't believe that gender is a social construct, since that means our gender is defined by society's view of us, not some inherent feeling. What do you think decides which way that feeling points?
I agree that modifying the body to fix a mental illness is a good solution.
Riddle me this: is a phantom limb in place of a lost one a mental illness?
Why assume that physical is right and mental is wrong? For all of neural plasticity, why do TG people exist at all?
All rites reversed 2010
Any half-decent database system already DOES have the ability to change both gender and race.
Not so much to support transgender or theoretical "transrace" people, but simply because users sometimes make mistakes and systems must allow such mistakes to be corrected.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Something like 3-4 per 1,000, though the numbers may be higher than that due to under-diagnosis, as the most common ones (XXX and XYY) are frequently asymptomatic.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Actually there are far more intersex people than transgender. And many transgender people are in fact intersex people who suffered forced sex assignment surgery as an infant. We are talking about up to 1:150 people here, if not more. From XXY, to AIS to full-blown hermaphroditism. Intersex conditions are everywhere and often lead to the gender hell described.
I'm a hermaphrodite myself. I was marked as being male at birth because my female genitals weren't visible. During puberty my body however turned fully female (breasts, hips, etc.). Yet my ID card still said that I was male. This was really fun because everyone recognized me as being female (looks, voice), but my official gender said something else. So many embarrassing and awkward situations.
It's taken me over eight years now to get my condition acknowledged and my first name as well as my official gender changed, the latter being the first time ever for an intersex person here in the Netherlands. I'm also suing the largest gender team in the Netherlands (VUmc, Amsterdam) for dismissing me as possibly intersex, instead trying to fool me into thinking I had to be transgender.
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
If the body is male (has penis/gonads/musculature), you're male. If the body is female (uterus/ovaries etc), you're female. End of story. What you 'feel' is irrelevant.
Even the Iranian government is less ignorant than you.
Hi, I wanted to throw my 2 cents in, and this seemed like the best post to respond too. (Although the original poster has almost certainly run into this same type of response before.) I wanted to start by saying that this is my first post, ever, as an AC. I have never been afraid to state unpopular opinions or connect anything that I've said here with my real life. But this topic changes that. Not because I have an unpopular opinion, (I think, at least) but because I am transsexual. Now, the real horny issues here arise not only because I'm transsexual (TS), but because I'm not publicly out yet. Only a few friends, my therapist, and my endocrinologist have any idea that I'm not a normal twenty-something male. Not even my whole family, including my parents, have any idea. I have been on HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) for about 11 months now. Because of living and social circumstances, I have not been able to transition socially yet, and probably will not complete a social transition for quite some time yet. Anyways, I just wanted to outline the reason that I am posting AC, aside from the general fears of physical violence, discrimination, and unemployment that transgendered (TG) people face anyways.
Now, before I really get to the meat of the post, I suppose a little background is in order. I am 27, was assigned male at birth, and have a shiny, almost new, only slightly scuffed BS in mathematics with a minor in computer science that I earned last year. I recently failed out of grad school, for reasons I will discuss shortly, and have relocated to a new city and state. (And if anyone has a job for a poor freak looking for work, let me know! I'm a good problem solver! Very outside the box, you know!) I came upon the discovery of my transsexualism later than I would have liked, as I only started to even suspect that I might be TG when I was in my early twenties. This story is, of course, completely anecdotal. However, it is a story that I've heard, first hand, many times before, and the conclusions that I will be drawing from it have been backed by research, or are standard views among those medical professionals that wish to treat TG persons in the most effective way possible.
I guess, to make my story as clear as possible, I should probably be a little overly verbose and in-depth. When I was very young, I broke gender norms, but I didn't shatter them. My favorite color was hot pink, but I love digging holes on the playground and playing with my Tonka trucks. The toy kitchen and stove we had were my favorite play-set, but I abhorred dolls. I loved to play at war and shoot fake guns at things, but I also loved to draw... and I almost never drew scenes of violence that are so stereotypically male. I don't think, at the time, that anyone would have thought I was anything other than a normal, well adjusted little boy. Looking back, I felt very comfortable with myself, and I liked myself as a person. I was popular, personable, and exceptionally extroverted. Sadly, my 3rd grade year, that all changed. I was 8 or so, (perhaps 9, I've never had a firm grasp of my early age in my memories) and over the course of that year, I began to discover that something was wrong with me. Playing with the other boys was... not enjoyable, and I felt left out and isolated. I felt much more comfortable with the girls, but I knew I didn't fit in with them, either. I became very introverted, and retained only a few friends, even though I was in a class with the same 25 or so children through all of elementary school. This change, in and of itself, was probably not a terrible one. However, this year is the first year I remember being truly depressed. I had always been a serious underachiever, but now I started to tell myself every night that I was a failure, that no one liked me, and that the world would be a better place without my presence sullying it. I became suicidal, and often thought about ways in which I could kill myself. No one was ever allowed to know about these feelings of despair, and o
And if you, because of disease or accident, have had your penis amputated, should you therefore be sent to the women's facility?
FRANCIS: Why are you always on about women, Stan?
STAN: I want to be one.
REG: What?
STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me 'Loretta'.
REG: What?!
LORETTA: It's my right as a man.
JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
LORETTA: I want to have babies.
REG: You want to have babies?!
LORETTA: It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.
REG: But... you can't have babies.
LORETTA: Don't you oppress me.
REG: I'm not oppressing you, Stan. You haven't got a womb! Where's the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!
LORETTA: crying
JUDITH: Here! I-- I've got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans', but that he can have the right to have babies.
FRANCIS: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.
REG: What's the point?
FRANCIS: What?
REG: What's the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can't have babies?!
FRANCIS: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
REG: Symbolic of his struggle against reality.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Yes, that's a great argument. Magical thinking people held them in special regard. Ancient people did a lot of stupid shit.
Native American Culture is dead. has been dead for 60 years. This trying to hang onto what are ancestors did while using rifles, driving cars, and running casinos is a laughable abuse of ones own culture. All cultures die eventually, the question is do you want you kids and their kids to continue to live in squalor, or move on?
Frankly, a lot of people I talk to seem more interested n their option of culture surviving then their own children's welfare.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Exactly this.
With our understanding of many mental illnesses and with the overwhelming consistency of having one set of genitals and naturally identifying as that same gender, I can see why we have this bias and why we so readily dismiss the abnormality. It seems easier to conclude that these are mental issues and, therefore, the mind should be addressed instead of catering to mental illness with such drastic physical/legal alterations.
However, if nature can get minds wrong, it can certainly get bodies wrong -- which means just as much weight must be given to the possibility that what someone feels they are is legitimate as what they appear to be.
This also raises conflicts. How in the hell can we possibly determine when we should be caring for a mental problem and when we shouldn't, so that the person can just make the change and move on with their life?