Monday, July 21, 2008
Gender Switch
"Chase McCown and Heather Rushworth improv a scene based on the suggestion "Gender Switch" at The Second City in Hollywood, 2007."
. . .a caricature of verbal and nonverbal difference between men and women. How does it correspond to what you see now and then in your family, friends, and associates?
Should I help my 12-year-old get a sex change?
July 21, 2008
When children are adamant that they are trapped in the wrong body, is it ethical to offer them hormone treatment? A concerned mother and a Dutch psychologist believe the answer is 'yes'
Last year Sharon Lane* found her 12-year-old son Nick* trying to cut off his penis. Since he was a toddler, Nick has been adamant that he is really a girl. Aged 5, he declared: “God has made a mistake. I should have been born a girl.” A year later he asked, “When can I have the operation to chop off my willy and give me a fanny?”
Nicky - who suffers from a rare condition called Gender Variance (GV), sometimes referred to clinically as Gender Identity Disorder (GID) - started attending school dressed as a girl at the age of 9, unable to “pretend” any longer. She was the subject of constant bullying and harassment so severe that she now attends a special school for “at risk” children.
When Nicky hit adolescence, things just got worse. “She felt like an alien in her own body,” explains Sharon, who describes Nicky as her “daughter”. “When she started experiencing erections, she would scratch her skin raw.”
Nicky has twice attempted to cut off her penis and taken several overdoses. “Sometimes I felt like I was on suicide watch,” Sharon says. . . .Read More
When children are adamant that they are trapped in the wrong body, is it ethical to offer them hormone treatment? A concerned mother and a Dutch psychologist believe the answer is 'yes'
Last year Sharon Lane* found her 12-year-old son Nick* trying to cut off his penis. Since he was a toddler, Nick has been adamant that he is really a girl. Aged 5, he declared: “God has made a mistake. I should have been born a girl.” A year later he asked, “When can I have the operation to chop off my willy and give me a fanny?”
Nicky - who suffers from a rare condition called Gender Variance (GV), sometimes referred to clinically as Gender Identity Disorder (GID) - started attending school dressed as a girl at the age of 9, unable to “pretend” any longer. She was the subject of constant bullying and harassment so severe that she now attends a special school for “at risk” children.
When Nicky hit adolescence, things just got worse. “She felt like an alien in her own body,” explains Sharon, who describes Nicky as her “daughter”. “When she started experiencing erections, she would scratch her skin raw.”
Nicky has twice attempted to cut off her penis and taken several overdoses. “Sometimes I felt like I was on suicide watch,” Sharon says. . . .Read More
Thai teens seeking sex changes grapple with new rules
20 July 2008
by Elizabeth GibsonBANGKOK (AFP) — Valee Pancharoen watched her son transform as he became a teenager, first painting his nails, then wearing a wig and, finally, the dresses he had been wearing for years but hiding from his parents.
Now 18, Ponchalearm's changes are all the more striking as he sits, slim and ladylike in a top of white satin and black lace, next to his stern and athletic twin brother.
Ponchalearm's aunt absent-mindedly runs her fingers through his waist-length auburn hair extensions as the family quietly discusses whether Ponchalearm is ready for a sex change operation.
"It's my life and I've decided that I must do it before university," Ponchalearm says. "I feel happy, it's fun, I can express myself as I want. I'm lucky I have friends who understand me."
As he speaks, his mother softly cuts in to express her concern that he is too young to understand the long-term consequences of his decision. . . .Read More
Questioning Transphobia. . .
Transphobic Tropes #3 – “Reifying Gender”
July 21, 2008
by Lisa Harney
Moving on steadily. Hope you’re all enjoying these posts, though it feels a bit weird to not have an accompanying rabbit picture. Here’s another one that gets regular thrown at trans people, particularly by radical feminists.
Basically, it’s the notion that, by medically transitioning, we reify gender—which is something that feminism is supposed to be destroying.
This is a particularly stupid line of argument, that it nevertheless has had enough traction to convince enough people it’s worthy of repeating. And repeating. Usually, it’s tied to an argument that trans people have the most retrogressive of personal presentations. . . .Read More
July 21, 2008
by Lisa Harney
Moving on steadily. Hope you’re all enjoying these posts, though it feels a bit weird to not have an accompanying rabbit picture. Here’s another one that gets regular thrown at trans people, particularly by radical feminists.
Basically, it’s the notion that, by medically transitioning, we reify gender—which is something that feminism is supposed to be destroying.
This is a particularly stupid line of argument, that it nevertheless has had enough traction to convince enough people it’s worthy of repeating. And repeating. Usually, it’s tied to an argument that trans people have the most retrogressive of personal presentations. . . .Read More
Transgender Candidate For Hastings City Council
July 21, 2008
by Liz Collin
"The third ward was going to come up vacant and I thought, why not, it's time for a little change," said Estes.
Change is something she has more experience in then most. Lara used to be Lawrence. She said when she was young, she never felt like she fit in with the other boys. . . .Read More
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