Boy or Girl? Probably!

[Suezoled]

Okay, so at work I need to take down info if someone calls about a birth in the hospital. I really do think I'm the only person who wonders about transexuality. Is it a boy? Was it a girl? Yes? Maybe? Both?
This article runs on about those who are not or are both male and female, or are neither. (Lots of anecdotes, too)

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2379/4_40/63787449/p5/article.jhtml?term=hermaphroditism

Is this a reasonable evaluation of sex/gender issues?

Should a parent be allowed to refuse to assign sex of their child upon birth until the child can decide....erm, itself?

How would the classification system of sex and gender be reevaluated if a movement like this became widespread?

How quickly would Jeb Bush denounce these people as non-patriots and as bad as athiests?

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

I started a thread on Gender Identity some time ago. You might find it interesting, especially Earthborn's comments. Personally I wasn't deeply invested in the subject to pursue it further than the replies I have previously posted.
http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14333

 

[Earthborn]

Is it a boy? Was it a girl? Yes? Maybe? Both

Does it matter?

Is this a reasonable evaluation of sex/gender issues?

I think you can do worse than presenting an article of Anne Fausto-Sterling, who is pretty much an authority on these matters.

Should a parent be allowed to refuse to assign sex of their child upon birth until the child can decide....erm, itself?

You can reformulate that question as: should children be subjected to medically unnecessary surgery to fit them in a role in society before they can chose?

How would the classification system of sex and gender be reevaluated if a movement like this became widespread?

I think the easiest way is not to have a classification system at all. Issues like gay marriage, changes of the birth certificates of transsexuals and many of the problems intersexuals face in society could be changed if governments simply stopped registering people's genders. There would also not be any pressure to fit newborns in one specific gender or another.

Individual people can simply continue their lives having their individual thoughts about what 'gender' means. It just wouldn't be any of the government's business what someone has in their undies.

How quickly would Jeb Bush denounce these people as non-patriots and as bad as athiests?

Almost immediately, I'm afraid...

 

[Rolfe]

There was a fascinating case where a boy who suffered a bad circumcision accident was surgically reassigned as a girl, and in spite of the doctor repeatedly trying to claim that it had been a siccess, it was anything but, and the patient in adult life had himself reassigned again as a male.

Recent work that I've seen suggests that perceived sex is brain-determined, and that the sensible thing to do with an intersex is to wait till behavioural signs point one way or the other before doing surgery. However, whether the law would allow that is quite another matter.

Rolfe.

 

[Suezoled]

Re: Re: Boy or Girl? Probably!

Does it matter?I think you can do worse than presenting an article of Anne Fausto-Sterling, who is pretty much an authority on these matters.You can reformulate that question as: should children be subjected to medically unnecessary surgery to fit them in a role in society before they can chose?I think the easiest way is not to have a classification system at all. (snipped)
Individual people can simply continue their lives having their individual thoughts about what 'gender' means. It just wouldn't be any of the government's business what someone has in their undies.Almost immediately, I'm afraid...

Oh, I don't think it matters. I think it's a shame that modern-day social convention dictates that one be male OR female at birth. And if you don't fit that convention, you are MADE to fit it. But so much of the social convention is based on gender identity and sex identity. It's "bad" for a man to grow breasts naturally, etc.

No one at work thinks about this, though. I don't think they are even aware such an issue exists. They might know about hermaphrodites, but certainly not the complexity that is involved with One or the Other. Or the idea that it's a false dilemma, because people make it so.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

You'd think by now that the medical community would have hermaphrodite down as normal. I don't know the stats, but there are kids with 'ambiguous' sex born often enough.

The person born that way would obviously then have the right to decide what they want to do later, mabe they like being the way they are, or maybe they will want to be made into only one sex.

I figure it's the parents mostly that don't want their kid to be different. Counselling would certainly help there. If they knew that their kid will have a high chance of not turning out to be the sex they determined their child to be, then maybe they'll wait in order to spare their kid the confusion. I'm thinking this is a scenario that kids need more "rights" about.

 

[Brian]

You'd think by now that the medical community would have hermaphrodite down as normal. I don't know the stats, but there are kids with 'ambiguous' sex born often enough.

The person born that way would obviously then have the right to decide what they want to do later, mabe they like being the way they are, or maybe they will want to be made into only one sex.

Which locker room would this child shower in? Which restroom would he use? Would we create a third room that would quickly become the freak room?
How about much younger when the kids are playing "I'll show you mine if you show me yours"?

Just some thoughts. I think the parents and doctors may be trying to do what they think is best for the child.

 

[Suezoled]

*giant animated hedgehog appears, yells out "Dinsdale" and scurries off*

 

[Suezoled]

Which locker room would this child shower in? Which restroom would he use? Would we create a third room that would quickly become the freak room?
How about much younger when the kids are playing "I'll show you mine if you show me yours"?

Just some thoughts. I think the parents and doctors may be trying to do what they think is best for the child.

I have no doubt the parent and doctor are thinking of what's best for the child. But is applying modern day standards of sexual type early in life the best thing for a child? Maybe these modern day interpretations are in fact too narrow and should be reevaluated.

 

[Suezoled]

*giant animated hedgehog appears, yells out "Dinsdale" and scurries off*

wow. That Spiney Norman gets around.

 

[MoeFaux]

There was a great show about this on Discovery or The learning Channel about a month ago.
I think that it should just wait. I think that determining the sex of the child is something that can just be adressed later, and idealy, by the child.
Man, I wish I could remember the name of that show.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Moe, I think you're referring to "What Sex Am I?"

I'm afraid to google or check discovery.com for it since I'm at work, but I recall a show by that name being on recently.

 

[BillyJoe]

I think we need some statistics here.
If 99 out of 100 are happy with early reassignment surgery, it would be inappropriate to change the status quo for the sake of the 1 in 100 who would be better off, unless this 1 in 100 could be identified.
However, if a large majority were unhappy with their early reassignment surgery, then perhaps a cautious change should take place. I say "cautious" because delayed surgery will not necessarily improve the long term outcome. There could prove to be difficult problems no matter how the condition is handled.

 

[Brian]

I have no doubt the parent and doctor are thinking of what's best for the child. But is applying modern day standards of sexual type early in life the best thing for a child? Maybe these modern day interpretations are in fact too narrow and should be reevaluated.

Well, I don't know. Primates on this planet fit three classes right now: Male, Female and Freak. Biologicaly speaking at any rate.
At some point we may become a 3 sex planet like the philosophy 101/creative writing 101 question. Untill then, letting kids with two sets grow up that way would be a big social experiment, at the kids expense.

 

[Dorian Gray]

GIRLS WHO ARE BOYS
WHO LIKE BOYS TO BE GIRLS
WHO DO BOYS LIKE THEY'RE GIRLS
WHO DO GIRLS LIKE THEY'RE BOYS
ALWAYS SHOULD BE SOMEONE YOU REALLY LOVE

 

[Earthborn]

Which locker room would this child shower in? Which restroom would he use?

Why are these segregated anyway?

How about much younger when the kids are playing "I'll show you mine if you show me yours"?

That problem doesn't go away by surgery. Top Ten Myths About Intersex:

MYTH #5: Surgery makes normal-looking genitals.

This simply isn't true in the vast majority of cases. As Cheryl Chase, the Executive Director of ISNA, noted in Intersex in the Age of Ethics, "Surgery is good at removing structures . . . it is much less useful for creating structures."

Man, I wish I could remember the name of that show.

Perhaps it was: Is It A Boy Or A Girl?

I think we need some statistics here.

I agree we should have such statistics, to evaluate how successfull these surgeries are. Until such research is conducted, I would like to hear about one single individual who says to be happy to be unnecessarily operated on in early childhood. I would be extremely surprised to hear that such a person exists.

I say "cautious" because delayed surgery will not necessarily improve the long term outcome.

I think allowing someone to choose themselves later in life whether they want such surgery, and not unimportantly performing the surgery on adult tissue instead of tissue that still needs to grow, necessarily improves the long term outcome.

There could prove to be difficult problems no matter how the condition is handled.

No one is denying that. But are those medical problems, or societal ones?

Primates on this planet fit three classes right now: Male, Female and Freak. Biologicaly speaking at any rate.

Following that logic we are all biologically freak with varying degrees of male- and femaleness.

Untill then, letting kids with two sets grow up that way would be a big social experiment, at the kids expense.

The way these kids are handled today comes at their expense too.

And very few people are advocating introducing a 'third gender'. What people are advocating is not being so uptight about ambiguity that it needs surgical correction.

Intersex Society of North America says:

All children should be assigned as boy or girl, without early surgery.

No radical changes towards 'thirdness'.

 

[Correa Neto]

Itchy subjects...

People will always segregate other people, for sex, skin color, belief (or lack of), etc. I don't see this changiing anytime soon. And children are not the little saints some people think of. They can be very cruel, since they lack the breaks we have (or are supposed to have).

I tend to think that sexual orientation is something that becomes clear (if it ever becomes) sometime after sexual maturity is achieved, and in some cases after some experimenting.

Why the bathroom and lockeroom seggregation? Becuse people get afraid of what could happen if one joins boys and girls. Plain and simple cultural restriction. They seem to forget that the very same thing may happen between boys or between girls, but withour pregnancy... And when two (or more) people decide to do it, chancs are they will, regardless the barriers one places between them. I belive that if we were raised on such a way to have less secrets regarding the bodies of people of the opposite sex, the society would be better.

And I am sure that if people could care less about the other's personal peculiarities and impose behavior patterns, the world would be better. What's the importance if a given person is straight or not or celibatary? Unless you are sexually interested in that person, this information is absolutely irrelevant in most cases.

However, this utopy is very far from being close...

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Freak room?

What about teaching the brats some tolerance. If my son came home and asked about a child that was more ambiguous, then I'd explain how some kids are born different and will have a tough time because of it. Most of all I always tell my children to put themselves in that other child's place, empathy you know. My own son has tourettes and certainly knows how it feels to be different. He is the first one to make friends with other children that are 'different'.

Which room should the child change in? Whichever they feel most comfortable. By the time a kid is changing for gym class, they may already feel like one sex over another.

Until then the parents can get the kid neutral colored clothes. There are enough of them out there.

There used to be a time all kids were dressed more girly until they were past the toddler years in European countries.

If anything, I would educate other parents about how a child can be different if they asked about the gender.

Educate, don't assign. Just as Earthborn suggested already, if the parent absolutely can't handle it, then assign the kid, but without surgery.

 

[BillyJoe]

Earthborn,

Why are [shower rooms] segregated anyway?

Only a female could ask that question because males already know the answer.

.....I would like to hear about one single individual who says to be happy to be unnecessarily operated on in early childhood. I would be extremely surprised to hear that such a person exists.

Are you saying: "I don't think there is a single individual who is happy to have been operated on unnecessarily." If so, I would find it hard to disagree

I think allowing someone to choose themselves later in life whether they want such surgery, and not unimportantly performing the surgery on adult tissue instead of tissue that still needs to grow, necessarily improves the long term outcome.

Sh!t, is it me or......perhaps if I leave out the bit between commas......

"I think allowing someone to choose themselves later in life whether they want such surgery necessarily improves the long term outcome"

Well, that is your opinion but it is not necessarily correct.
If an individual makes the decision as an adult to have surgery, don't you think that it is possible that that individual might regret that the decision was not made for it in childhood?
Don't you think that it is possible that, if the decision had been made in childhood that the long term outcome might have been better?

Okay, I'll try the bit between the commas....

"and not unimportantly performing the surgery on adult tissue instead of tissue that still needs to grow"

Are you saying that the surgical outcome is better if performed on tissue that has finished growing than on tissue that is still growing? If so, my understnding is that you are not correct in this view.

BillyJoe

 

[Earthborn]

Only a female could ask that question because males already know the answer.

Okay, so tell me... What is it?

If an individual makes the decision as an adult to have surgery, don't you think that it is possible that that individual might regret that the decision was not made for it in childhood?

If the operations were perfect and people ended up with normal looking and functional genitalia, then maybe yes: that might be possible. It would mean that some of them could live normal lives and not need to ever make such a decision.

The problem is, these operations are far from perfect.

Are you saying that the surgical outcome is better if performed on tissue that has finished growing than on tissue that is still growing?

Yes, that is what I'm saying. Even if only because a large body part is easier to operate on than a small one. Am I wrong about this?