Dial Up-sound? Really, Australian media?

>> ^DerHasisttot:

Dial Up-sound? Really, Australian media?

Damn, and I never even tried videochatting with my 56k.

I should never have upgraded!

I so want to punch that "chatholic ethicist" repeatedly, but luckily for him he is half a world away and I am a pacifistic and moral person.

Can't we just agree that every person can do (or let do) whatever he/she/it wants to his own body? Who gave anyone the right to interfere with the body of someone else without their consent? This mindset would eliminate quite a lot of humanity's problems.

...but, I'm preaching to the choir.

and she's a cute girl. fortunately for her, she will be able to enjoy the body she was supposed to have been born with, still in her teen years.

wow, I'm pleased to read such open minded comments.

And you (probably) didn't have to attend the extensive diversity trainings and seminars on human sexuality that are required for my profession as a psychotherapist.

Now, because Kim's appearance is so convincing natural female (and not a transexual one), I wonder if she will even tell adult boyfriends about how she was born.

I think the most interesting aspect of this are the medications involved to stave off puberty and really make her female. You'd have to have amazing parents and an amazing society to get that going without much huffing & puffing by media, the school district or what have you. I just hope she starts listening to old german bands and then starts playing some good old german space rock pop or something.

>> ^Trancecoach:

wow, I'm pleased to read such open minded comments.
And you (probably) didn't have to attend the extensive diversity trainings and seminars on human sexuality that are required for my profession as a psychotherapist.
Now, because Kim's appearance is so convincing natural female (and not a transexual one), I wonder if she will even tell adult boyfriends about how she was born.


Yes all very progressive and open minded comments I am pleased as well.

Hopefully she learns how to make a good sammich in that new body.

>> ^Trancecoach:
>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Trancecoach:

wow, I'm pleased to read such open minded comments.

And you (probably) didn't have to attend the extensive diversity trainings and seminars on human sexuality that are required for my profession as a psychotherapist.

Now, because Kim's appearance is so convincing natural female (and not a transexual one), I wonder if she will even tell adult boyfriends about how she was born.


Yes all very progressive and open minded comments I am pleased as well.

Hopefully she learns how to make a good sammich in that new body.

Indeed. One of the reasons there is a much higher rate of depression (and suicide) amongst mtf than ftm transsexuals is that the treatment is administered too late, after the male hormones of puberty have irretrievably shaped a male body. The result is that, while they feel and are 100% women, they are not perceived as such by society because of the scars of masculinity: the pain of being in the wrong body becomes externalized, embodied in the perception others have of them as a "surgically rearranged male".


@Trancecoach
In the second part of the report she tells the interviewer that she would tell a potential boyfriend of her origins, and that she's not interested in dating someone who's too closed-minded to care about it.

>> ^EMPIRE:

and she's a cute girl. fortunately for her, she will be able to enjoy the body she was supposed to have been born with, still in her teen years.

>> ^Trancecoach:

wow, I'm pleased to read such open minded comments.
And you (probably) didn't have to attend the extensive diversity trainings and seminars on human sexuality that are required for my profession as a psychotherapist.
Now, because Kim's appearance is so convincing natural female (and not a transexual one), I wonder if she will even tell adult boyfriends about how she was born.


I was skeptical our current level of medicine could create a convincing and functional neovagina, but it doesn't seem to be a problem.

This document shows photos of a convincing neovagina, and writes that they tend to be experienced by sexual partners as 'tighter' than the natural human vagina.

@Trancecoach @hpqp"the pain of being in the wrong body"

From the perspective of human potential, it doesn't really seem proportionate for someone to care that much which gender they are.

Is one gender really better than the other, or are they both within the range of reasonable human experiences? Are people's personalities really that inflexible and unadaptive?

It's really not that difficult to study gender roles and charisma and learn how to play a male or female well.

I fail to grasp your point. It's not about how the person feels about themselves; indeed, while a non-operated transsexual is still "male/female" biologically, they are the opposite sex in their minds, their self-identity and behaviour. The problem is the image of themselves that is reflected back on them by society (the perceived identity).

Imagine a gay man who, despite telling everyone he is gay, and acting as stereotypically "gay" as possible, is constantly treated as straight: gay men ignore his advances because they believe he is heterosexual, and women shun him because he's not a real "wo-/man". The analogy isn't perfect, but the fact remains that "no man is an island, entire of itself" (Donne). Our lives and identities are affected by the perceptions and reactions/judgments of others.

edit: no amount of openmindedness can change that fact that sexual attraction is affected by a person's physical attributes. A heterosexual male, for example, will generally react more positively (in terms of sexual responsiveness) to a convincing trap than to a masculine-looking transsexual. That's where ftm transsexuals have an advantage: it is easier to acquire masculine traits with testosterone (and thus attract heterosexual women/gay men) than vice-versa. Remember, we all begin as "girls" in the womb.

>> ^chilaxe:

@Trancecoach @hpqp"the pain of being in the wrong body"
From the perspective of human potential, it doesn't really seem proportionate for someone to care that much which gender they are.
Is one gender really better than the other, or are they both within the range of reasonable human experiences? Are people's personalities really that inflexible and unadaptive?
It's really not that difficult to study gender roles and charisma and learn how to play a male or female well.

@hpqp

"Biologically, they are the opposite sex in their minds, their self-identity and behaviour."

My point is that our mind/personality can be changed, and if we want to become a high human potential person, we can expect to have to develop and fine-tune our mind/personality in many areas, rather than relying on the arbitrary identity and habits we were born with.

That being said, most people are more oriented toward their natural experiences and feelings, rather than increasing intelligence and prosperity, which is the perspective I'm coming from, so Kim's solution is probably a good one for most people in her position.

I have to admit, It doesn't sit with me well that this is being done to kids.

Adults on the other hand, go nuts. I just think it's kinda dangerous to do this to a kid. I'm not going to fall into the trap of attempting to determine when exactly is a good age to allow gender reassignment surgery. I'm just asking though, how do you reliably determine when someone is genuinely able to make that mature decision and when is someone just being a fickle child of rich parents? Are we going to subsidize gender re-assignment surgery for the poor kids too?

I just have to be honest though, I have had zero experience dealing with this in real life. I've known exactly one person my entire life who has went through with gender re-assignment and i'm not exactly privy to this person's daily struggles so I just have to admit I don't know.

So yeah, I have to echo Chilaxe here as I don't understand how someone can be that uncomfortable with their own gender and lack the flexibility and adaptability Chilaxe mentioned.

@VoodooV

Did you watch the video? She knew who she was since very early childhood. I agree that gender reassignment surgery should definitely not be done on a whim, but such was not the case here, nor is it even possible, considering all the medical and legal procedures one must go through before getting it.

>> ^hpqp:

@VoodooV
Did you watch the video? She knew who she was since very early childhood. I agree that gender reassignment surgery should definitely not be done on a whim, but such was not the case here, nor is it even possible, considering all the medical and legal procedures one must go through before getting it.


What part of "very early childhood" do you not understand? You don't just accept stuff like that because a kid tells you so. They're kids, the vast majority don't know shit, especially about sexuality.

Again, I'm not saying every kid is the same, I'm just saying its extremely dangerous to make such an expensive and permanent decision just because a kid one day says they don't like their gender.

And my question went unanswered. Do we subsidize gender-reassignment surgery for poor kids who are "really sure" they're not in the right gender if it's that traumatic? If not, then tough luck, guess only rich people get to be in the right gender.

Why are we accepting at face value what these kids say about their sexuality when they're not even hitting puberty? It's ridiculous. I'm not against the surgery, I'm just against these families that apparently let the kids do the decision making.

@VoodooV

"One day"? You definitely didn't watch the report, nor the interview.

Gender isn't just about sexuality btw, and gender identification happens a lot earlier than puberty. When did you know you were a boy (or girl)? Only at puberty?

As for if it should be covered by state healthcare insurance: of course it should (I wouldn't be surprised if it already was in the case of Kim).

edit: who should be doing the "decision making" about someone's body, that person or that person's parents? You talk as if it were a whim to get grs, and the parents got it for their kid like they would an ear-piercing.

My friend's kid swears up and down he's a jackalope. His parents are considering antler-reassignment surgery.

there are way too many people here that are way too cool with genital mutilation

@hpqp

What about the issue of consent? I can see the obvious advantages of earlier (pre-pubescent) reassignment. At the same time, you can't go back. It makes the question of consent really murky. For instance, you don't know that hormonal changes at puberty wouldn't alter her sexual identity. Do we have any data on the number of false alarms? We might, but there are probably sampling biases inherent in that sort of data.

I guess I don't like body modification in general, but that's just me.

I think being open-minded is all well and good, and I hope that Kim and all others that have a gender-reassignment surgery at any age remain completely happy with their decision to do so.

However, I think that @VoodooV has a good point. I was a dumbass when I was 13-15 years old, and the idea that I might have been able to make some sort of permanent alteration to my body sounds exceptionally risky to the me that is around now.

Many reasonable people would be very reluctant to allow a 13 year old to get a tattoo, let alone something like this. I think that it is quite reasonable to be extremely cautious when allowing kids to go through with this sort of thing...

LOL @ the dial-up modem sound effect.

@MilkmanDan

Please watch the video and interview. There is no way a kid can get anywhere near hormonal treatment, let alone grs, before going through a battery of psychiatrists and doctors over a period of many, many years. Do you think a "dumbass" with mixed ideas about their identity could possibly slip through?

As for calling this "genital mutilation", @CaptainPlanet, I am frankly disgusted at your flippant use of the term. You know what would've been genital mutilation? When a young Tim Petras tried to cut off her penis out of frustration of being in the wrong body. As a strong opponent of genital mutilation (including male circumcision performed on minors), I am doubly insulted, as would surely be Kim. Calling grs "genital mutilation" is akin to calling this "facial mutilation": technically true, connotatively false.

@bmacs27

Talking about consent makes it seem the parents were the ones who pushed this on her, instead of vice-versa. I doubt that's what you meant, but I just thought I'd clarify. Like I mentioned above, gender identity isn't solely a question of sexuality, and it is defined long before puberty. Moreover, the hormonal treatment - which is reversible at any time - spanned at least four psychiatrist-followed years. I'm pretty sure if there had been the slightest inkling of a doubt during that period the shrinks would have picked up on it and vetoed the surgical procedure. Also, please notice that her grs was not "pre-pubescent": seriously, how many kids hit puberty at 16? Moreover, while the hormone treatment is reversible, male puberty is not (cf my above comments).

As for data, there surely is (too lazy to look now), showing that those who come to the idea of grs because of confused sexual identity or problems linked to abuse are kindly redirected during the long psychiatric process. I happen to know a psychiatrist who specialises in transsexualism (in CH you are required by law to see one minimum 1 year before being considered for hormonal treatment, 2 years for grs, in addition to being over 18), and she told me that cases of perceived transsexualism due to childhood abuse and/or confused sexual identity (notably repressed homosexuality) are not rare. There are instances of hormone use, namely in Brazil, for simply lucrative purposes ("dick-girl" prostitution), which I am obviously against if pressured upon the person (sadly the case sometimes).

frankly your disgust comes off a bit conceited. Genital mutilation, or the mutilation of genitals, is never ok. as someone who claims to 'oppose' circumcision, how can you look in the mirror and see anything but an ugly face hypocrite? some people are so 'open minded' their brains really do fall out

as per your Brazilian girl, i'm sure she would love for you to tell her it was "elective surgery", bitch-fuck-holeintheass

you also said that you are lazy, which i am inclined to agree with. anyone who can quote laws strictly dictating these disgusting procedures not be administered to anyone under 18 and at the same time intentionally over looks the fact that the woman in question is 16, is a lazy piece of shit and hope you dead

you disgust me. you clearly dont see the point at all. if you are so intentionally blinded by your own lack of identity that you have to attribute your gender confusion to a CHILD, seek therapy elsewhere.

>> ^hpqp:

I fail to grasp your point. It's not about how the person feels about themselves; indeed, while a non-operated transsexual is still "male/female" biologically, they are the opposite sex in their minds, their self-identity and behaviour. The problem is the image of themselves that is reflected back on them by society (the perceived identity).
Imagine a gay man who, despite telling everyone he is gay, and acting as stereotypically "gay" as possible, is constantly treated as straight: gay men ignore his advances because they believe he is heterosexual, and women shun him because he's not a real "wo-/man". The analogy isn't perfect, but the fact remains that "no man is an island, entire of itself" (Donne). Our lives and identities are affected by the perceptions and reactions/judgments of others.
edit: no amount of openmindedness can change that fact that sexual attraction is affected by a person's physical attributes. A heterosexual male, for example, will generally react more positively (in terms of sexual responsiveness) to a convincing trap than to a masculine-looking transsexual. That's where ftm transsexuals have an advantage: it is easier to acquire masculine traits with testosterone (and thus attract heterosexual women/gay men) than vice-versa. Remember, we all begin as "girls" in the womb.
>> ^chilaxe:
@Trancecoach @hpqp"the pain of being in the wrong body"
From the perspective of human potential, it doesn't really seem proportionate for someone to care that much which gender they are.
Is one gender really better than the other, or are they both within the range of reasonable human experiences? Are people's personalities really that inflexible and unadaptive?
It's really not that difficult to study gender roles and charisma and learn how to play a male or female well.

Stay classy. (<-- that's about all the time I feel like wasting on your ignorant drivel)
>> ^CaptainPlanet:


frankly your disgust comes off a bit conceited. Genital mutilation, or the mutilation of genitals, is never ok. as someone who claims to 'oppose' circumcision, how can you look in the mirror and see anything but an ugly face hypocrite? some people are so 'open minded' their brains really do fall out
as per your Brazilian girl, i'm sure she would love for you to tell her it was "elective surgery", bitch-fuck-holeintheass
you also said that you are lazy, which i am inclined to agree with. anyone who can quote laws strictly dictating these disgusting procedures not be administered to anyone under 18 and at the same time intentionally over looks the fact that the woman in question is 16, is a lazy piece of shit and hope you dead

>> ^hpqp:

@MilkmanDan
Please watch the video and interview. There is no way a kid can get anywhere near hormonal treatment, let alone grs, before going through a battery of psychiatrists and doctors over a period of many, many years. Do you think a "dumbass" with mixed ideas about their identity could possibly slip through?
...

I did watch it. It is important to note that I self-applied the term "dumbass", I wasn't suggesting that Kim or any other specific/general example of this type of treatment is deserving of the term.


What I am saying is that when I was around this same sort of age, I held some strong beliefs that now I look back on and wonder how I could have been so wrong, and perhaps more importantly how I could have been so confident and arrogant in my wrong beliefs. Hence referring to myself as a dumbass at that age. Anyway to answer your question, yes -- I think it is possible that a person at that age can feel 100% confident of something, to a high enough degree that they can convince a gauntlet of psychiatrists and doctors that they won't regret their current convictions in the future, and then nonetheless look back on it when they are older and feel that they made a mistake or were incorrect.

With the battery of psychiatric evaluations etc. over a period of years as you mentioned, it wouldn't be likely for someone that will eventually regret their decision to slip through, but possible. Hence my reaction that I think it is very reasonable to be exceptionally cautious about even considering something like this.

I'm not dead set against this sort of treatment, I just think that caution is important. Maybe the level of scrutiny that you refer to is enough to satisfy that need for caution, but there is a whole lot of gray area. Parents probably (hopefully?) know their kids better than a psychiatrist, so their input should definitely be considered. On the other hand, some parents might be so opposed to the whole idea that they take their own personal beliefs and put them ahead of what they actually think would be best for their kid.

The whole situation can get messy in 1,000 different ways, which just strengthens my opinion that caution is key. But again, I hope that it pans out great for Kim and that she never has any regrets about it.

@hpqp

I didn't mean consent in the sense that this was forced on her. I meant consent in the legal sense. That is, society does not consider her competent to do things like read, understand, and sign contracts. Or at least such a signature is not considered "informed consent." Nor is she considered competent to independently pursue other avenues of body modification such as tattoos, or piercings. Clearly those laws exist not to protect her from other people, but rather to protect her future self from her present self.

I think I'm just part of the chorus that thinks progress in these areas is laudable, but caution is also warranted. I find it hard to believe e.g. that we have long term data on people having early grs. Somebody needs to be the first, and I'm sure they've been careful to select the best candidates. I've been working on my PhD in psychology. It's not my area, but I'm exposed to the clinical literature. I know how murky case work of any sort can be. Skepticism about radical intervention is always appropriate.

I mean, there are people that really feel they need to cut off their appendages. Should we help them do so, or should we try to change the way they look at their limb? I know this isn't exactly the same thing, but isn't it? I mean, does she really know that someday she won't feel the urge to conceive a kid? Does she really understand what that means?

WTF, people are born with two half/completely whole sets of genitals are the time. I think the numbers for hermaphroditic birth are about one in a hundred, and the doctors and parents decide right then what gender the child is going to have. For better or worse, this happens all the time. It always amazes me that people act like this stuff is so new just because the person chooses their own gender later in life.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

WTF, people are born with two half/completely whole sets of genitals are the time. I think the numbers for hermaphroditic birth are about one in a hundred, and the doctors and parents decide right then what gender the child is going to have. For better or worse, this happens all the time. It always amazes me that people act like this stuff is so new just because the person chooses their own gender later in life.


It's nowhere near as common as you think. 1 in 100 is ridiculously common... This german study found it to be '2 per 10,000 births with ambiguous genitalia per year in Germany. ',

So, no, it's not super common at all. Not to say it doesn't happen, but also what you're describing is a different thing to this. Gender association and having the deep feeling you are not the sex your body is, is a different thing to having ambiguous genitalia. Also... there are horrendous cases of babies having their sex chosen by doctors/parents in those cases and it being the opposite of what they identify with, and becoming horrendously unhappy people. Very sad.

>> ^spoco2:

>> ^Ryjkyj:
WTF, people are born with two half/completely whole sets of genitals are the time. I think the numbers for hermaphroditic birth are about one in a hundred, and the doctors and parents decide right then what gender the child is going to have. For better or worse, this happens all the time. It always amazes me that people act like this stuff is so new just because the person chooses their own gender later in life.

It's nowhere near as common as you think. 1 in 100 is ridiculously common... This german study found it to be '2 per 10,000 births with ambiguous genitalia per year in Germany. ',
So, no, it's not super common at all. Not to say it doesn't happen, but also what you're describing is a different thing to this. Gender association and having the deep feeling you are not the sex your body is, is a different thing to having ambiguous genitalia. Also... there are horrendous cases of babies having their sex chosen by doctors/parents in those cases and it being the opposite of what they identify with, and becoming horrendously unhappy people. Very sad.


Yeah, it's been a long time since I took that sociology class. 1 in 100 "differ from standard male or female" and 1 in 1000 have surgery to "normalize genital appearance".

http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency

Anyway, my point wasn't really that a gender change later in life is the same as an operation at birth. Merely that surgery "down there" occurs all the time. We act like the surgery is so uncommon when it's not. It's really just the changing of gender that most people have a problem with. But the point everyone misses is that this girl didn't change her gender... she's always felt she was a girl. She just simply had an operation that changed her physical appearance.

And just wait until the public finds out that she's a lesbian!

besides, being put through years of psychiatric and medical and legal inquiry before a procedure like this can be done is by no means a magic failsafe that this could never happen to the wrong person who didn't really "need it"

people can be bought. Just take a look at regular cosmetic surgery. You think for one second those people care about the ethics of what they're doing? Nope, it's just a price tag that needs to be met and they'll do whatever cutting on a whim if someone pays the right price. All most of these people see is a market to be exploited and weak-minded people to prey upon their insecurities

Petras couldn't even articulate in a mature way how people react to her when they find out that she used to be a boy. But yet we just accept it at face value that she's mature enough to make a lifelong decision like this?

maybe if it is your child who is genitally mutilated you will stop and think about what the reason is for this complete lack of human dignity
>> ^hpqp:

Stay classy. (<-- that's about all the time I feel like wasting on your ignorant drivel)
>> ^CaptainPlanet:

frankly your disgust comes off a bit conceited. Genital mutilation, or the mutilation of genitals, is never ok. as someone who claims to 'oppose' circumcision, how can you look in the mirror and see anything but an ugly face hypocrite? some people are so 'open minded' their brains really do fall out
as per your Brazilian girl, i'm sure she would love for you to tell her it was "elective surgery", bitch-fuck-holeintheass
you also said that you are lazy, which i am inclined to agree with. anyone who can quote laws strictly dictating these disgusting procedures not be administered to anyone under 18 and at the same time intentionally over looks the fact that the woman in question is 16, is a lazy piece of shit and hope you dead

Wow. CaptainPlanet is not behaving how I might have expected!

For the people who think she's too young, keep in mind that her brain was, by all appearances, already a female brain when she came out of the womb.

Things like unusual embryonic hormonal events when the brain is at a crucial point of development but the genitals are not affects the brain and not the genitals.

Children with normal-gendered brains don't try to cut off their penis.

That society waited until she was 16 just shows how carefully this issue is approached.

>> ^kymbos:

Wow. CaptainPlanet is not bahving how I might have expected!


I thought he/she was permabanned.

You're thinking of CaptianPlanet420.

isn't this supposed to be like 20 comments saying "I'd hit it!"

I guess we Sifters are above that?




*waits to be inevitably proven wrong*>> ^deathcow:

isn't this supposed to be like 20 comments saying "I'd hit it!"

*ahem* *cough cough*

I'd hit it.