Thursday, May 17, 2007

Gender Identity in Newsweek

Newsweek has a really good article this week, looking at gender identity and people whose gender does not match their physical bodies: transgender people. This situation is not very common, but it's not so rare that you will never encounter it.

The new MCPS curriculum has some small amount of discussion of the topic, and the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum go positively rabid about it -- it is inconceivable to them that anyone would ever have any real reason to want to change their public identity from male to female or vice versa. They like to talk about sex reassignment surgery as "mutilation," and treat the dilemma of transgender people as if it were some kind of fashion decision, like getting a tattoo or something.

Anyway, Newsweek starts with an anecdote that I'll skip over.
To most of us, gender comes as naturally as breathing. We have no quarrel with the "M" or the "F" on our birth certificates. And, crash diets aside, we've made peace with how we want the world to see us—pants or skirt, boa or blazer, spiky heels or sneakers. But to those who consider themselves transgender, there's a disconnect between the sex they were assigned at birth and the way they see or express themselves. Though their numbers are relatively few—the most generous estimate from the National Center for Transgender Equality is between 750,000 and 3 million Americans (fewer than 1 percent)—many of them are taking their intimate struggles public for the first time. In April, L.A. Times sportswriter Mike Penner announced in his column that when he returned from vacation, he would do so as a woman, Christine Daniels. Nine states plus Washington, D.C., have enacted antidiscrimination laws that protect transgender people—and an additional three states have legislation pending, according to the Human Rights Campaign. And this month the U.S. House of Representatives passed a hate-crimes prevention bill that included "gender identity." Today's transgender Americans go far beyond the old stereotypes (think "Rocky Horror Picture Show"). They are soccer moms, ministers, teachers, politicians, even young children. Their push for tolerance and acceptance is reshaping businesses, sports, schools and families. It's also raising new questions about just what makes us male or female. (Rethinking) Gender

OK, I like the philosophical and scientific questions -- what makes us male or female kinds of questions. Obviously there is some plumbing involved, but man, there's a lot more than that. I remember in grade school learning that boys carry their books under their arms, and girls hold them against their chest with both arms. If you were a boy and you held your books like a girl there'd be hell to pay. You know what I'm talking about. Growing up is largely an education in how your sex is supposed to behave. The entire world of pronouns is dichotomized, so you have to refer to someone as "he" or "she," there's no finagle-factor in the language for the ambiguous or confusing cases.

But the scientific stuff, the philosophical stuff, when you get down to it, that's not what this is about. When you get down to it, there's a person, and they feel a certain way. Why do they feel that way? I don't know, ask a scientist, ask a philosopher, all you can say is that they do feel that they are not what they appear to be. Most of us, not a problem. But some people have the persistent, lifetime feeling that a terrible mistake is being made.
What is gender anyway? It is certainly more than the physical details of what's between our legs. History and science suggest that gender is more subtle and more complicated than anatomy. (It's separate from sexual orientation, too, which determines which sex we're attracted to.) Gender helps us organize the world into two boxes, his and hers, and gives us a way of quickly sizing up every person we see on the street. "Gender is a way of making the world secure," says feminist scholar Judith Butler, a rhetoric professor at University of California, Berkeley. Though some scholars like Butler consider gender largely a social construct, others increasingly see it as a complex interplay of biology, genes, hormones and culture.

Luckily, we are concerned here with a couple of classes that will be taught in 8th and 10th grades. We won't have to sort all of this out, though these are terrific questions.

What we want to do in middle school and high school is to show that there are transgender people, and though they may be statistically rare they are just people. The Portia vignette -- the one thing the CRC hates more than anything in the new curriculum -- successfully brings to life a transgender character so students can empathize with her for a minute. That's really all the school needs to do, let students imagine what this is like. For most students this will be a kind of curiosity or novelty, but some will recognize themselves in the vignette; just think what that would be like, to discover that you were not entirely alone with your secret. I don't see the downside of that.

Well, this article is quite long and very readable. There are a number of complicated issues -- qualifications for Olympic athletes, for instance, reconciliation with religion, hiring-and-firing decisions, other things. I won't quote any more -- I recommend you click on the link and read this whole article.

21 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum go positively rabid about it"

Could you, like, give us positively an example of what you're talking about? Some real rabidity.

May 17, 2007 11:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"What we want to do in middle school and high school is to show that there are transgender people, and though they may be statistically rare they are just people."

This is a rhetorical device used often by you but do you have any examples where CRC members, or anyone else for that matter, has said that transgender people aren't people?

"The Portia vignette -- the one thing the CRC hates more than anything in the new curriculum --"

Oh, I don't know about that. It's more that it's one of the wackier examples that they think the general public will find objectionable.

"successfully brings to life a transgender character so students can empathize with her for a minute. That's really all the school needs to do, let students imagine what this is like."

This is where the curriculum really goes off course. It would be fine if they just explained that there is a rare phenomena where some people say they want to change their gender and mental health researchers don't know what causes this disorder. The curriculum, however, doesn't even correctly identify it as a disorder, though the APA does. Funny how the APA's word is sacred when it confirms the gay agenda and irrelevant when it doesn't.

It's not the school's job to tell students, or anyone else for that matter, who to empathize with. Most parents don't want their kids imagining what it's like to want to be another gender.

May 17, 2007 11:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Funny how that works in opposition for the CRC supporters. They love the APA for keeping transgender in the DSM and hate the APA for removing homosexuality from it.

May 17, 2007 12:32 PM  
Blogger Robert said...

Jim said,

"If you were a boy and you held your books like a girl there'd be hell to pay."

I remember this. When I was in the fifth grade I carried my books like a girl, and got hit for it by other students. I asked my friend Mike to teach me how to act like a boy, and he did. When I was still in reparative therapy, and an elementary school teacher, I thought one of my tasks in this world was to teach masculine habits to boys who didn't have them.

rrjr

May 17, 2007 12:47 PM  
Blogger Robert said...

"The curriculum, however, doesn't even correctly identify it as a disorder, though the APA does."

You make the same egregious error that CRC and PFOX do (repeatedly). The APA includes gender dysphoria in the DSM so that it can be identified and treated, not because they individuals who have discordance between their physical and internal genders. Gender Identity disorder can be treated, and one of the recognized treatments is gender-reassignment surgery. I do not believe that it is a recognized treatment to undergo therapy to change one's gender identity. You are welcome to research the topic and demonstrate that such therapy is a reputable mental health treatment, but assuming that transgender people are necessarily mentally ill is a fallacious conclusion from the DSM.

Robert

May 17, 2007 12:54 PM  
Anonymous ellaffsalot said...

One of the CRC members on the Committee pointedly referred to a prominent transgendered citizen as "he", although that person lives as a woman. I wasn't sure if that reference was a slip of the tongue, so I inquired privately but got no response. I must say, I find that conduct to be gratuitously hurtful and hideously uncivil. That may not pass for rabidity in your book, but I sure hope it ain't contageous.

May 17, 2007 2:25 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

Ellaffsalot, on that subject I will say it can get complicated. Sometimes you're talking fast and not listening to yourself and the wrong pronoun slips out. I think a simply apology should cover the faux pas. I know the incident you are talking about, and I distinctly thought that was an intentional insult. I also responded to the person, as well as to the committee chair, noting that that behavior would not be allowed to pass again.

JimK

May 17, 2007 2:29 PM  
Blogger Dana Beyer, M.D. said...

OK, once more. What was once called transsexualism and is now listed in the DSM, written in 1993, as Gender Identity Disorder (though it clearly is not that), is becoming known as a DSD or VSD (Disorder/Variation of Sexual Development). The scientific advances are clearly outpacing the nomenclature, with many new findings since the last DSM edition.

The main points are that very few psychiatrists any longer consider this a mental illness, virtually all prescribe medical, surgical and social transition to the appropriate gender as treatment, and trans persons are as normal and well-adjusted as any other citizen.

Our problems are related to socially and culturally induced stress, and dissolve away when our family, friends and neighbors obtain some udnerstanding of our condition.

While the individual members from the right on the CAC have been invariably polite to me personally, their public comments have also invariably been uninformed and often rude and crude. Whether it's been Ben or Ruth or Peter, Steina or Retta, the ignorance and fear has been appalling, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

May 17, 2007 3:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"While the individual members from the right on the CAC have been invariably polite to me personally, their public comments have also invariably been uninformed and often rude and crude."

What do you think is the explanation for that, Dana?

May 17, 2007 4:30 PM  
Blogger Dana Beyer, M.D. said...

My sense is that it comes down to the need for group approval. I have no reason to doubt the humanity of any of the CRC folks, or that they are, fundamentally, decent people. I would even give them the benefit of the doubt and accept that they are based on their personal interactions with me.

However, their loyalty to their ideology requires them to mouth the bigoted and hurtful words that they utter in public. For them not to so would threaten them with removal from the group, which would be very frightening.

This is true of all groups, btw, not just right-wing groups. When a family member, one of a circle of friends, a co-worker, whatever, takes a position on a serious issue at odds with the overwhelming majority of the group, that person risks excommunication, and that threat is often sufficient to keep people in line.

Look at how Michelle just loves her gay nephew, but hates gays as a group. Or Dick Cheney for that matter. It's fear of the unknown when ensconsed within the group that demands fealty, even though in your personal life you often know much better.

I would bet the social psychologists can explain this more effectively than I can :-)

May 17, 2007 4:47 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

You're tryin' to start somethin', Dana!

Here's a description of a piece of classic social-psychological research, in which you will recognize this tendency:

In 1930 Richard LaPiere studied racial prejudice by traveling around the United States with a Chinese couple. Over the course of two years, they visited a total of 251 hotels, restaurants, and other business establishments, encountering racial discrimination just once. Six months after visiting, LaPiere sent a questionnaire asking each proprietor whether Chinese individuals would be allowed as guests. Of the 128 responses he received, 118 said they would not, 9 gave conditional responses, and 1 said yes; prejudiced attitudes seldom translated into overt discrimination (LaPiere, 1934).

The beliefs people say they have often don't hold up face-to-face.

JimK

May 17, 2007 5:05 PM  
Blogger Randi Schimnosky said...

The profound arrogance of the CRC astounds me. Who the hell do they think they are to be telling anyone what to do with their bodies?!

Anonymous said "It's not the school's job to tell students, or anyone else for that matter, who to empathize with.".

Well you're completely wrong there. Its critical to the success of civilization and every human endeavor that we know how to emphathize with everyone who isn't hurting people. School isn't just about the 3 Rs, its about teaching kids how to cooperate and get along in society - empathy is inseperable from that.

May 17, 2007 6:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The profound arrogance of the CRC astounds me. Who the hell do they think they are to be telling anyone what to do with their bodies?!"

When have they ever done that?

May 17, 2007 7:27 PM  
Blogger Dana Beyer, M.D. said...

Thanks, Jim, Is there any name for this phenomenon?

May 17, 2007 8:58 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

Dana, there's a big body of research into the link between attitude and behavior, between what people say they'll do and what they do. Interestingly there is often very little correspondence between what people say they believe and how they act. This is an interesting problem for psychologists -- why would somebody say one thing and do another?

A central theme of social psychology (my field) is prejudice and discrimination. These are really important and complicated problems, and researchers have been studying it for decades, since the Authoritarian Personality studies after WWII to ... the authoritarian personality studies today. We see it here: Michelle Turner's gay cousin is one perfect example -- the one gay person she knows is OK, the rest of them are conspiring to recruit our children and take over the world. How does a person justify that to themselves? --It is not a simple thing to explain.

This one is an old, old study, but the results are clear, and it's cited pretty often.

JimK

May 17, 2007 9:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"This is an interesting problem for psychologists -- why would somebody say one thing and do another?"

When did they ever do that?

The thing is you read your worst fears into what they say.

Did you ever consider that they mean it when they say, Love the sinner, hate the sin? It's really a more plausible explanation than what you've been suggesting.

May 17, 2007 9:36 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

It's time for your meds, Anon.

JimK

May 17, 2007 10:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, OK. But what thing are they saying and then doing differently?

May 17, 2007 11:10 PM  
Blogger Dana Beyer, M.D. said...

Anon,

Since when is lying a family value? And what is it exactly that you do not understand?

Everything, and I mean everything, the CRC and PFOX have ever said publicly at the BoE and the CAC has been deliberate lies or misrepresentations. You can go to any right-wing website and cut and paste to your heart's delight, because I'm certainly not going to do it for you.

I, for one, am sick of public lying -- brazen, shameless lying. You want to do so here, be my guest, but it is unacceptable in a public forum.

May 18, 2007 8:37 AM  
Blogger Randi Schimnosky said...

Anonymous asked "When have they ever done that?"

When the subject of transexuals comes up they have repeatedly and arrogantly made statements to the effect that "we should be treating their mental illness, not indulging them by mutilating their bodies." What outrageous arrogance, who gave them dominion over people like me?! No one, that's who - they're just profoundly selfish, they think they have a right to control others to suit their trivial whims.

May 18, 2007 1:47 PM  
Blogger Randi Schimnosky said...

Anonymous asked "Did you ever consider that they mean it when they say, Love the sinner, hate the sin?".

That's the most absurd lie. Being LGBT or transexual is at the core of a person's being, it is intregal to the person just like being heterosexual is. When you hate an inextricable core of a person you hate the person. That nonsense statement is the same as saying "I don't hate black people, I hate their pigmentation."

According to that lie Christians purportedly love murders and mass killers like Hitler. That's absurd on the face of it. Love means you genuinely get extreme pleasure out of being around somone and look forward to their presence. No Christian genuinely feels that way about murderers or people Hitler. They've bastardized the meaning of love, equating to tolerate, dominate and control. Spare me your christian "love", I'm not interested in the slightest.

May 18, 2007 1:55 PM  

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