Philosophical Stumper Of The Day
Never mind the texting, the three speeding tickets and one accident in recent years and the relative youth at 24. Should people who deny fundamental biological facts and claim to be of the opposite gender be entrusted with large public conveyances that carry dozens of commuters? Would it be discriminatory to question their judgment and stability? Should the NTSB be looking at possible medical issues, such as any effect hormone treatments for example might have on behavior, perception and judgment?
UPDATED after the jump.
Transgender trolley driver/texting crash background at Boston Herald. Discussion of MBTA hiring criteria Boston Globe looks at the youth and driving record issues, mentions the transgender aspect but does not take it into consideration.
Separate issue, what standard should there be for allowing people to claim a gender other than what they were born with on public documents and government identification cards? Also, seeing as it’s been coming up lately, what standard should there be for determining whether a man who wants to use the women’s room really believes he is a woman and just needs to pee, or is taking advantage of advances in legal thinking to be a perv? Public restrooms being the perv magnets that they already are.
UPDATE: About providing false information on vital government identification forms, it turns out all you need to do is swear that you think you are a woman and find a doc who will swear he agrees. Boston Herald, where you’ll find the following hurtful comment:
Inspectors found the accident caused by a faulty Tranny…
Officials are actually treating that issue like the proverbial third rail. But Gov. Deval Patrick did slam the T for its policies that allow the hiring of smooth-cheeked lads with bad driving records. Boston Herald, again.
Meanwhile, here’s some meanspiritednss on the subject from the Herald’s Howie Carr.
How come when Aiden Quinn brags on a Web site about being “FTM” – female to male – that’s celebrating diversity?
But if you bring up his sex change it’s hate speech.
Even if you mention Quinn’s gender-bending in the context of his apparently criminal behavior, it’s still a verboten topic. Why do you, the taxpayer, have any right to know about the person born Georgia Quinn, whose moronic behavior Friday night allegedly caused a $10 million accident that injured 50 Green Line riders and exposed the cash-strapped MBTA to millions in lawsuits?
So what if Quinn had three speeding violations and a traffic accident? Why can’t he put in 23 years at the T and then go out on a full pension like everybody else? He won the lottery, OK.
This whole story has got the Boston media tied up in knots, Politically Correct knots. Because it once again shows certain issues can no longer be discussed in public without the messenger being branded as a homophobe, or transgender-phobe, or something.
Look at the dying Globe. Yesterday, they waited until the 19th paragraph to mention Quinn’s sex change. That’s not burying the lead, that’s cremating it.
But then, promoting this sort of thing seems to be an obsession of the New York Times Company. Last month, the Times ran a story about Cleopatra’s tomb, describing her as “essentially a female king, an incongruity that elicits the kind of double take once reserved for men in drag.”
Once reserved?
I’m afraid I can’t endorse hurtful meanspiritedness. I have no problem with blokes dressing like sheilas and vice versa. It’s a free country. I do have a problem with the government officially endorsing delusion, however, and engaging in bizarre exercises in political correctness that create public safety risks. I approach these matters from a strictly scientific point of view. There are people with two X chromosomes, and people who have an X and a Y. This is not a state of mind. Until they figure out how to change an X to a Y, and a Y to an X, they can slice and dice all they want, but they haven’t changed anyone’s gender. Even then, I dunno … That’s apart from the public safety concerns mentioned above.
Topics: men, pervs, sex, women
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:47 am Comments (11) on Tuesday, May 12, 2009
11 Responses to “Philosophical Stumper Of The Day”
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May 12th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
I’m sympathetic to transgender issues (but not unduly so). However, I could give credence to hormonal problems (obviously, they may be a bit more chaotic than in confidently-gendered people). But in this case, I’d say the fault lies with the MBTA who failed to adequately research the traffic offense record (although I concede their research might have been hampered by name-and-gender changes). Such protocols might just have to take those things into consideration in future — welcome to the unpredictable future.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I think of the instructions under every regulation Frisbee: “Flat flip flies straight. Tilted flip curves. Experiment.”
May 13th, 2009 at 7:43 am
I’ll deal firstly with the problem of someone obviously risky being employed in such a capacity – shouldn’t have happened, regardless of the “gender issues”.
Having said that, I’d like to explain what we think we know about transsexuality, and also how it’s treated. The post seems to reveal a number of misconceptions. Most people don’t know this stuff, it’s not taught at schools – sometimes only glossed over even in med schools – so I can’t blame anyone for not knowing.
First, the treatment.
A minimum 3 month period of psych assessment to make sure the patients is not bonkers, and that they meet the diagnostic criteria for gender identity disorder (GID). Basically, there must be no gender confusion, they know what their gender is, even if their body doesn’t match that.
After that, an endocrinologist is brought in to administer body-changing hormones, if the patient requests that, and the psych thinks it’s needed.
Then, after some time, the patient starts the “Real Life Experience” or RLE. This means living in the gender role of the target gender, completely, 24/7. It also means maintaining employment in the new role, using the appropriate restroom for the target gender, changing name etc.
The RLE lasts a minimum of 1 year, often 2 or more in some places. That’s a minimum, it can last decades if the psych is not satisfied that the patient is accepted in their social millieu. Some people back out, finding it too difficult. For others, they either don’t feel the need, or don’t have the money for surgery afterwards, so for them it lasts the rest of their lives.
Then… ANOTHER psych gets called in, this time a specialist with post-doctoral qualifications. They review the case, and must put their professional reputation on the line to say that the patient is perfectly sane, and is just suffering GID. If the patient is not unusually psychologically stable, then they can’t give informed consent to surgery. It’s this that makes the situation so paradoxical: to have surgery requires a diagnosis of the ‘mental illness” GID, but any patient who actually shows signs of any mental illness can’t give informed consent. GID is thus the only “mental illness” in the DSM – the psychiatric Diagnostic Standard Manual – which doesn’t meet the definition for a mental illness contained in the manual.
So if it’s not a “mental illness”, what else to call it? It involves extreme misery, with a very high suicide rate if not treated. And that’s where the causation of it comes in.
About 1 person in 60 is technically Intersexed, under the broadest definition, meaning “with a body neither wholly male nor wholly female”. For 59 people out of 60, chromosomes, body frame, genitalia, neurology, hormone balance all match. Either Male or Female, not both, not neither, and all consistent.
For most of the other 1 in 60, it;s not a major problem – except that they may be sterile. In many cases, it would take a thorough physical exam, or even a gene test to detect it, and it would have no symptoms. But for about 1 in 1000, the symptoms are obvious, and in a minority of those, quite spectacular and often life-threatening
May 13th, 2009 at 7:46 am
.So what does this have to do with Transsexuality? Transsexuality is just another Intersex condition. Male brain in female body, or the reverse, basically. That’s a gross over-simplification, only the Lymbic nucleus – the bit controlling emotional responses, instincts, body map, gender identity and sense of smell – need be affected, but more may be. And there are often other Intersex conditions present as well, the body may look female, but actually be somewhat masculinised under close examination.
May 13th, 2009 at 7:46 am
I’m talking about things you can see in autopsies and MRI scans.
Unfortunately this is so contrary to most people’s daily experience that they “deny fundamental biological facts” that Intersex conditions exist, and are far more common than most people realise. Transsexuals aren’t confused about their gender, but other people sure are!
May 13th, 2009 at 7:51 am
(Sorry about the split posts – you have an over-enthusiastic spam filter)
You can see references to the few of the 300+ articles on this that are available online on my blog. Feel free to request evidence, there’s a certain degree of sensible scepticism that has to be overcome, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
For example, the debate as to whether GID should be in the next version (5) of the DSM.
From Psychiatric News February 20, 2009 Volume 44, Number 4, page 13:
The remaining symposium, “In or Out? A Discussion About Gender Identity Diagnoses and the DSM,” will focus on diagnostic issues specific to gender identity disorder, particularly the issues of having gender identity disorder listed in DSM-V and the implications of removing it. Several leaders in the transgender community will speak at this symposium.
S6. “In or Out?”: A Discussion About Gender Identity Diagnoses and the DSM (DSM Track DM03)
1. The DSM-V Revision Process: Principles and Progress William E. Narrow, M.D.
2. Beyond Conundrum: Strategies for Diagnostic Harm Reduction Kelley Winters, Ph.D.
3. Aligning Bodies With Minds: The Case for Medical and Surgical Treatment of Gender Dysphoria Rebecca Allison, M.D.
4. The Role of Medical and Psychological Discourse in Legal and Policy Advocacy for Transgender Persons in the U.S. Shannon P. Minter, J.D.
That’s seminar s6 at the forthcoming American Psychiatric Association annual meeting.
Also of interest, seminar s10:
S10. The Neurobiological Evidence for Transgenderism
1. Brain Gender Identity Sidney W. Ecker, M.D.
2. Transsexuality as an Intersex Condition Milton Diamond, Ph.D.
3. Novel Approaches to Endocrine Treatment of Transgender Adolescents and Adults Norman Spack, M.D.
May 13th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Hmm.
Should a similar criteria apply when selecting a Supreme Court judge?
I’m just askin’…
May 19th, 2009 at 8:09 am
And there are people with 1 X chromosome, and others with 2X’s and a Y, and others with XY in some cells and XX in others, and… it’s not that simple.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:10 am
Please, please, please Google “*Intersex” to find out just how much variation there is, and how unreliable chromosomes are for determining sex. There are 46XX people who have fathered children, and 46XY ones who have given birth.
The Scientific view is that gender isn’t that simple. That chromosomes are a good guide, nothing more.
It’s not the things we don’t know that are the problem: it’s the things we know that aren’t so, and don’t bother to check.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:11 am
I happen to be Intersexed. In 1985, I was diagnosed on the basis of a simple physical examination and some blood tests at a fertility clinic as a mildly intersexed male. I thought of myself as a transsexual woman, the traditional girl in a (mostly) male body, but I could handle that, and pretended to be a guy. There didn’t seem much point doing anything else. I looked like a football player, not a cheerleader.
In 2005 I had what is best described as a female puberty, which caused much consternation, as you can imagine. After MRI scans, ultrasounds, innumerable blood tests, genetic tests etc it was decided by the medics that I was most accurately described as a severely intersexed woman. By then I no longer looked remotely male. The relief at dropping the pretence was indescribable.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Things like that are rare, but they happen. Far more common, a hundred times more common, is someone who looks female at birth masculinising. Natural sex changes in humans are rare, but less so than you’d think. One in 50,000 maybe in th USA, but 1 in 90 in the Dominican Republic and certain parts of New Guinea.
Chromosomes don’t change, but body shape and genitalia do. Things are not as simple as most people believe. Please so some research on this, OK? You’re not just a journalist, you’re a darned good one, who has earnt my respect many times over.