Idiot of the Day

[DjinnAndTonic]

The fact that this particular transgender girl is underage and unable to undergo surgery is, as Shale stated, another pretty strong reason not to be so judgmental of her situation. You dick.

I don't think she's stopped from surgery by age--some girl in England did it at something like 12 or 13 not too long ago (although most of the doctors in the field were like "WTF, the brain's not done developing its gender by then").  Youngest I'm aware of in the US is somewhere around 15 or 16.  That said, in the US it's a pretty blatant "your parents have to cough up $20,000 for this, because insurance companies don't cover anything."

I said this under the assumption that her parents either weren't supportive of her decision or were incapable of aiding her financially.

Actual gender reassignment is a long and involved process that has a shitton of steps, one of which is living as the opposite gender prior to surgery. Skipping all the prior steps, like hormone therapy and psychological consultation, smacks of self-medication, more than anything. Given that she lives in Orlando and hasn't had to get a job until she was 17, I also doubt she's searching the couch for two pennies to rub together.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that just because her parents are able to provide her enough financial support to stay in school such that she doesn't have to get a job until she's 17 does -not- imply that she nor her family are well-to-do. Especially in Orlando, have you ever -been- to Orlando? It's got upscale parts, yes, but so does Miami, and New York. You know, places famous for having slums, too.

Even assuming that her family IS well-to-do, it does not imply that they are supportive of her decision and would pay for the hormones, surgery, or even psychological counseling (though if they're crazy enough, they might throw her into Christian camp to scare it out of her.)

Seriously, there's no doubt in my mind that if she's self-identifying as female, she's doing it because she's serious about her gender identity. It's such a hard process to go through, I can't imagine any reason she'd have for doing it if she wasn't genuinely transgender.

Also...

If you want something, take it. If you're not willing to take what you want, it must not matter that much. If I want to be King, I'm going to knock over some third world shithole and put myself in charge, not go around wearing a crown and a robe and expect people to address me as Your Highness. And sure, the first is more difficult than the second, but that's how things are. You don't get what you want unless you are willing to rip it out of someone else's hands.

No shit fully committing to something is hard. And there's usually no going back.

The poor are just lazy.  If they weren't so lazy they'd have money.

FTFY

Yeah. It's clear you have more closed viewpoint problems than ones just directed at transgender people. That's pretty horrifying, to be honest.

[Cmdr_King]

I'm a little surprised she was able to identify as transgendered at 11 in the state of florida.  I mean, I don't get the impression that it's something you can work out without quite a lot of information on the subject.
Nevermind that you'd think in those parts that'd be a one-way ticket to callin' an exorcist {/token "Florida is full of hicks" comment}

[DjinnAndTonic]

Well, the area of Florida she's in doesn't have quite as many hicks as say... Tallahassee. And I'd imagine it's one of the few 'mental disorders' that it doesn't take much to make a self-diagnosis. Much like how when 'being gay' was still considered a mental disorder, I'm pretty sure it didn't take long after puberty to figure it out. Note that despite recent advances, 'gender identity disorder' is still considered a mental disorder in the current DSM-IV.

[Cmdr_King]

That... might not be wholly a bad thing.  Unlike simply being gay, a transgendered person really needs medical assistance to get their life around, ie change to their real gender.  If you class it as a 'psychological disorder', then the drugs used to treat it (hormones) can, with a little creative wording, be skewed into being covered by insurance and the like.  I dunno that this is on purpose, but it can't hurt.

And... I dunno.  When it comes to gender identity, I really have to think that realizing you're living in the wrong one isn't a natural conclusion.  A person is raised acording to their sex their entire lives, pretty much the whole of life experience to that point has specific treatment based on gender.  I'm not sure how a person at that age even has the right tools to assign words to what they would feel is wrong in their lives.

[DjinnAndTonic]

... how about "I wanna be a girl"? >.>;;

[metroid composite]

Well, the area of Florida she's in doesn't have quite as many hicks as say... Tallahassee. And I'd imagine it's one of the few 'mental disorders' that it doesn't take much to make a self-diagnosis. Much like how when 'being gay' was still considered a mental disorder, I'm pretty sure it didn't take long after puberty to figure it out.

And yet I know a shocking number of non-bi lesbians who used to be married to a man.  (Including quite a few butches and at least one former butch now transman).

The whole subject of pre-pubescent transgenderism is interesting, though.  Yeah, you can get extreme cases where, say, an 8-year-old boy will want to wear nothing but pink, refuse to play with anything but barbie, etc.--the kind of stuff that adults simply can not miss.  About 30% of these early-childhood cases stop being transgender when they hit puberty.  Conversely, a lot of people who showed little or no signs of transgenderism pre-puberty can suddenly have it hardcore once they hit puberty (like...age 13-15 or so).  If she's been full time since age 11, it's pretty much guaranteed she was an early childhood case.

Note that despite recent advances, 'gender identity disorder' is still considered a mental disorder in the current DSM-IV.

I'm of two minds of this.  On the one hand, branding people with a mental disorder on their record when they are perfectly functional human beings is definitely troubling.  On the other hand, it's a condition whose "cure" includes psychotherapy, medication, and surgery, and which left untreated can lead to suicide--that sounds similar to some genuine mental disorders.  Of course, there's always the reverse perspective on this--that it's not a mental condition at all, but a purely physical condition--the body needs to be fixed.  Given current treatment approaches to transgenderism, this is probably the most logical choice, just because the nature of the treatment is pretty much entirely physical (the psychologist is basically just there to make sure you're not making a terrible mistake).

[metroid composite]

... how about "I wanna be a girl"? >.>;;

That doesn't really cut it.  For example, there are an awful lot of tomboy girls (it's actually a known and potentially diagnosable psychological state).  It would not be unreasonable for them to say "I wanna be a boy"--even expected.  If a parent concluded from that statement alone that their child was transgender, then frankly that's a poor parent.  Maybe 1% of tomboys are transgender.

Granted, it's a bit more of an understandable conclusion in the other direction, probably, as I feel like there's a lot more social stigma against saying "I wanna be a girl" so it's a bigger plunge to take.  At the same time it's probably still the wrong response to, just based on that statement, be like "oh, okay my daughter, let's buy you some girlie clothes and have you go full time."  Even with lots of similar small evidence, a lot of parents will conclude "oh it's just a phase, don't worry about it."

When push comes to shove, someone has to understand and recognize transgenderism.  There's three solid possibilities here: the child finds it on the internet (I'd believe an 11 year old capable of that, but most wouldn't).  The parent finds it on the internet.  Or a psychologist diagnoses the child.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Well, that is certainly a much more thoughtful way of explaining how it could happen.

[Grefter]

Tell me this, could you tell me what you wanted to be doing at the age of 60 when you were 12?  Is it still the same thing?  Were you dead sure that is what you wanted to do when you were 12? 

There is a reason this stuff is incredibly strongly recommended people wait until they are past the age of consent for before comitting to, maybe even the age of majority for most cases.  Yes you can do it earlier in extreme cases of something people are dead set on, people that have the monetary backing AND have parental consent.  It does happen.  It certainly isn't common practice and there is a damn good reason for it.  I think it is fantastic for anyone that has followed it through and is happy with it, but in every single case this is something that you approach with utmost caution as a professional.

Just because someone wants to do something doesn't make it good for them at the time and that is what you are going for as a mental health practitioner and you are not getting that kind of surgery without a Psychologist/Psychiatrists okay.  When you have someone who is 17 or so and has been doing it dry for  years?  Yeah I would probably suggest they tough it out through puberty before fucking around with their hormones.

[DjinnAndTonic]

The huge difference here is that once gender has developed in the brain, it tends not to change, and if the body doesn't match, then it causes extreme physical and mental discomfort. And the longer it continues, the harder it becomes to reverse the effects of the wrong hormones on a body. Secondary sex characteristics are very difficult to 'fix', and it becomes harder as time goes on.

I personally agree that age 11 or whatever is far too soon to know if one has GID, but by age 17, it should be clear in a majority of GID cases.

Regardless, this particular individual clearly -does- believe she is a case of GID, and it's pretty offensive to imply that she is somehow 'not serious' about it because she hasn't gone through with hormones or surgery at age 17, even assuming that her parents were supportive and reasonably well-off.

[Grefter]

She may have it, that doesn't mean you treat it (any more than living in the gender you identify with already does which is the best treatment I could suggest).

[metroid composite]

Just because someone wants to do something doesn't make it good for them at the time and that is what you are going for as a mental health practitioner and you are not getting that kind of surgery without a Psychologist/Psychiatrists okay.  When you have someone who is 17 or so and has been doing it dry for  years?  Yeah I would probably suggest they tough it out through puberty before fucking around with their hormones.

And the longer it continues, the harder it becomes to reverse the effects of the wrong hormones on a body. Secondary sex characteristics are very difficult to 'fix', and it becomes harder as time goes on.

These two reasons combined are why they typically give the child puberty blockers at around this age time.  It prevents onset of gender characteristics from the wrong gender.

There are still physiological disadvantages to not doing target-gender hormones as well.  A lot of your bone structure (in the case of a transwoman, wide hips, for instance) is determined through core puberty years (11-16) and to the best of my knowledge, puberty blockers don't push those seven years forward--merely turn off hormones for...well in most treatment case around half of those years.

At the same time, even years where no treatment or blocking has taken place are hardly 100% time lost for bone structure.  The body will actively undo some of its bone changes if they were made very recently (for instance, a lot of teenage transwomen report losing a couple inches of height).  The same can be said for blocking puberty in people born female--breast growth from the past year or so will disappear.  The one I don't know about (which seems like it would be the important one for transwomen) is voice, and I -suspect- it works similarly.  But voice is also often the first thing to change so that's a nasty clock right there.

[Grefter]

Still fucking around with the hormones a lot.  A Psychiatrist may take a different view on this than I would with my Psychology background (Psychiatry being far more medical based than Psychology) though, so take that as you will.  I am always erring on the side of avoiding using such things until the person's body (and mind) are stable.  You see how strong my distaste for anti-depressants and mood stabilizers are and those are bread and butter in the industry, get me into hormones and I just don't want to even go there until I know it is safe.  Edit - This is me admitting that this may be a lack of professional application of the degree and being far more theory based than practical application of the knowledge.  My favouring of Psychoanalysis and Gestalt therapy both kind of suggest that I like to think of working with patients for a while and the real world applications obviously are something quite different.

Others quite clearly disagree with this though (there being some very strong benefits you have outlined here).  I still question the effects the use of pubert blockers has on the subject in this case the mind is going to be doing some very strange things in that kind of case (And not in a transgender kind of "strange" I mean just in a basic developmental way compared to most.  Puberty kind of sucks, but some of it is a crucible that does form a part of your mental development and plenty of it stems from the parts of puberty that go beyond Estrogen and testosterone).

[metroid composite]

Still fucking around with the hormones a lot.  A Psychiatrist may take a different view on this than I would with my Psychology background (Psychiatry being far more medical based than Psychology) though, so take that as you will.  I am always erring on the side of avoiding using such things until the person's body (and mind) are stable.  You see how strong my distaste for anti-depressants and mood stabilizers are and those are bread and butter in the industry, get me into hormones and I just don't want to even go there until I know it is safe.  Edit - This is me admitting that this may be a lack of professional application of the degree and being far more theory based than practical application of the knowledge.  My favouring of Psychoanalysis and Gestalt therapy both kind of suggest that I like to think of working with patients for a while and the real world applications obviously are something quite different.

I agree with the general rallying against anti-depressants (as do most people I know who've been on anti depressants).  In general you need to fix the source of the problem--if there's something in your life that's making you unhappy you have to deal with it (anti-depressants should only be a short term "keep me functioning through this" when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel and just need to hold it together until you get there).  Or that's the explanation I've read anyway--never actually been depressed >_>

Here's the problem, though: being trapped in the wrong body MAKES a lot of people depressed.  You can't cure the core problem WITHOUT prescribing hormones.  On the other hand, there's a double-edged sword here--putting people on hormones essentially throws them into puberty (regardless of their current age), and puberty is an emotionally unstable time for...basically everyone.  For this reason it's dangerous to put an extremely depressed person on hormones.

And as far as talking it out before starting hormones?  Yeah, that's generally actually required (for different regions I've heard numbers from 3 months to 2 years of therapy required before starting hormones, and generally the therapist can decide to not write the patient a letter of reference if he or she doesn't think the patient is ready).  So...no, this doesn't sound like a rapid "oh well I'll just write you a hormone prescription then."  I would consider 6 months of therapy for anything to be pretty long, and a sign of serious problems.

I still question the effects the use of pubert blockers has on the subject in this case the mind is going to be doing some very strange things in that kind of case (And not in a transgender kind of "strange" I mean just in a basic developmental way compared to most.  Puberty kind of sucks, but some of it is a crucible that does form a part of your mental development and plenty of it stems from the parts of puberty that go beyond Estrogen and testosterone).

I'll be honest, I couldn't tell you specifics of how puberty blockers affect the brain.  I don't even know if they're necessarily legal in America, even, or what the actual drugs are (I was reading about some school of transgender children in Europe, which is where I came across the concept, but it would not surprise me at all if America was more draconian).

As far as psychological social development, though, that can shut down in transgender cases (they do not want to grow as their original gender, so they basically put their personality in cold storage).  That said, someone who is living as the target gender may not actually have these developmental issues, as they may be getting the teenagerhood they want, and thus not be putting on the mental brakes.

[Grefter]

Yeah that is pretty much all that I was getting at.  Psychiatry vs Psychology point for me is more I can see a Psychiatrist using the hormones as a form of treatment to get to the theart of the matter first while a Psychologist is more likely to spend more time trying to find more mental channels to try and calm things down.  Which of these is better in general is going to be up for debate (and would differ on a case by case situation anyway and of course if you found somoene who obviously needed them straight away you would probably go for it).  If you had someone approach you about it and after 3 months they were stable, certainly go right ahead.

And yeah the Hormones making things all over the place mentally is exactly why I would avoid them on someone who is unstable at the time, I would think people tend to have a more violent rejection of the process then since things were already hard for them and then you just go and make it harder?  The last thing I want is for someone to start the basics of a sex change and regret it.  Obviously the feeling of being in the wrong body for you is going to perpetuate some depression, but someone who has a goal they are aiming for who cannot overcome that depression has issues with dealing with conflict resolution and just general patience for a lengthy process.  There may be some self esteem issues to work on there as well (There is ... so much more to yourself than the flesh).  They need to work on that before I will give them hormones.  A big step to working on some of these is going to be living as the gender they want for some period.  Doing so would also help a great deal with regards to mental development also.

[metroid composite]

And yeah the Hormones making things all over the place mentally is exactly why I would avoid them on someone who is unstable at the time, I would think people tend to have a more violent rejection of the process then since things were already hard for them and then you just go and make it harder?  The last thing I want is for someone to start the basics of a sex change and regret it.  Obviously the feeling of being in the wrong body for you is going to perpetuate some depression, but someone who has a goal they are aiming for who cannot overcome that depression has issues with dealing with conflict resolution and just general patience for a lengthy process.  There may be some self esteem issues to work on there as well (There is ... so much more to yourself than the flesh).  They need to work on that before I will give them hormones.

Here's the interesting thing about hormones, though, and I realize this could very well be a placebo effect.  Most TSs report a feeling of rightness when on hormones; a calm and a feeling that their emotions are behaving the way they should.  In people who aren't TS, the wrong hormones generally makes them feel very wrong.  Again, I suspect placebo here--although the story of Alan Turing (the mathematician) jumps to mind; gay man--government tried to cure "teh gay" by giving him lots of Estrogen.  He grew boobs and killed himself.

Though, as an interesting note, using hormones to "test" for TS (based on brain reaction) may be more reasonable than it sounds.  Boobs, for instance, won't be permanent flesh unless the tissue remains for over a year (which is why pregnant women often shrink back to nearly their old cupsize).  A year is a really long time with lots of opportunities to say "okay, no, I don't like this and want to stop."  A year is much longer than people get for deciding whether or not to have an abortion.  Granted, some of the changes that transmen undergo might be permanent in a shorter timeframe than a year--I don't really have a good example of a short-term testosterone spike.  (The main thing I'd be worried about here is voice and moster-sized clitoris--facial hair doesn't grow until late in puberty anyway).

A big step to working on some of these is going to be living as the gender they want for some period.  Doing so would also help a great deal with regards to mental development also.

As far as living in the role first before hormones--actually a non-negligible number of cases do it completely in the reverse.  Start hormones, but continue to live in the old gender for a while.  The advantage here is that when they do start living full time they will have a much easier time fitting in, and face less BS.  And...frankly, causing less turmoil in people's lives makes this a route that psychologists shouldn't just ignore.  Not everyone will even want to take this route, but....

[Grefter]

How many cases do you know that we are talking about here started them when they were in a healthy frame of mind and over the age of 18 though?  I am not saying you should put off the process for a long time, but I am saying doing it at 14 is a bit extreme or doing it at 16 when you have been living transgender 6 years that maybe chilling for 2 or 3 more years is probably the safer option.

And... for doing the hormones first, that is equally fine I am sure, but again you are talking about a case where the person is comfortable, is in control and take the time for it.  When you are mentally well enough that you are in a situation that you can take stock of how things are in your life and approach things from the way that works best, well yeah you are in the perfect position to start hormone therapy, which is pretty much the point. 

[Shale]

Fuck you, North Carolina.

[Luther Lansfeld]

One opponent, H. K. Edgerton, is threatening to file suit against the city to challenge Mr. Bothwell’s swearing in. “My father was a Baptist minister,” Edgerton said. “I’m a Christian man. I have problems with people who don’t believe in God.”

And that means because you don't like atheists that them being in office should be unlawful. Uh... huh.

[NotMiki]

The guy's a Unitarian Universalist, and is actively involved in his church, too (it says so in another article).

This kind of nonsense is why obsolete laws really should be taken off the books.  See Mitt Romney invoking racist marriage laws to disallow gay couples from out of state from getting licenses in MA.  Those laws had not been enforced for the better part of a century at the time he brought them back buy hey, still on the books.

[superaielman]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8416667.stm

The mother claims to know nothing. Uh huh.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Yeah, I read that before going to work today.

[Grefter]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34483145/?GT1=43001

This whole thing is stupid on both sides.

"No one deserves to see it, certainly not a young child," Birnbaum said.

Good gods lady it is just a penis, sure it isn't pretty but I can be dead certain your kid has seen their father's dick most likely as well, it won't destroy their little mind since there is a 50% chance they have their own and have seen that anyway.

[Excal]

Grefter, I would just like to point out that the quote in question is by someone named Marc, and therefore likely male.  This makes it even more amusing, as I now have images of him refusing to look at what he's doing when he washes his dick in the shower.  Though, it could also be representative of the belief in some males that one should never have to look at a dick that is not your own.

Another, alternate interpretation, since I'm having fun now, is that the perpetrator's dick is of such massive proportions that one must be worthy in order to lay eyes upon the divine member.  That he feels it is wrong that the owner of this organ should free it to public viewing when such a creature of legend should be properly rationed only for the please of the worthy, the deserving, the prosecuting elite.

[Grefter]

Man, woman, whatever they are they have a half a ton of sand in their vagina.