Posted on 09/26/2015 12:01:32 PM PDT by Zakeet
How does that apply to a couple of silicone bags and a surgeon to cut up a face?
Seems to me to be a mental disorder and one that about 50% of the time has them trying to kill themselves.
“How does that apply to a couple of silicone bags and a surgeon to cut up a face?”
That all depends upon how much of the motivation is caused by natural versus unnatural intersex conditions. Note how many 46 XX karyotype females seek breast augmentations and facial plastic surgery.
“Seems to me to be a mental disorder and one that about 50% of the time has them trying to kill themselves.”
Discussions of what is and is not a “mental disorder” is often described by natural scientists as more of a social science and/or a subjective art and not an actual natural science adequately governed by the scientific method. So, discussions of what is and is not a mental disorder tend to degenerate into a squabble over what is and is not a reliable science. This is also why the healthcare fied is sometimes described a the “medical arts and science” and not just as ‘medical science.”
In regards to the high rate of suicides reported for the Transgendered (TG) community, there are a variety of natural and unnatural causes. Natural causes include a higher rate than normal for physical illness and/or mental depression in some forms of intersex conditions and not in others. Unnatural causes of suicide causing higher rates of suicide in the TG community are as varied as those causes in the general population; however, social condemnation and punishment is a major cause of stress and depression leading to suicide. In many ancient cultures, children with noticeable physical and mental defects such as a club foot, cleft palate, abnormal number of fingers or toes, or intersex physical and mental characteristics were put to death, whereas other cultures tolerated or celebrated them. Social discrimination against any group on the basis of differences in medical fitness and sexuality always tends to increase the incidence of stress, mental depression, and suicide. Consequently, condemning a group for being more prone to suicide because they are being persecuted for their differences tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy for rather obvious reasons. Suicide then becomes the means to escape the continual persecution and stress for some individuals.
Is it a mental disorder? One of the first things to be taught in an undergraduate or graduate class in human psychology is that all humans exhibit behavior that is classified as neuroses and/or psychoses. The question of whether or not an individual’s behavior constitutes a mental disorder is very highly subjective, except in certain more extreme and obvious cases. This is why some notorious experiments in which students and others who enjoyed normal mental health were incarcerated into mental institutions and held against their will with false diagnoses of mental illness by psychiatric professional who very obviously could not tell the difference between the mentally ill and the mentally healthy.
I have a late 19th Century medical book used for training physicians and surgeons which would leave you appalled with what they did and did not classify as physical and mental disorders. A look at the history of the American Psychological Association’s DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual) used to arbitrarily rule what behaviors are and are not to be regarded as mental diseases would probably shock you. Today’s authors of the DSM are arguing and threatening to classify political conservatives like those posting on FreeRepublic as exhibiting a mental disease. So, given that kind of history, you can guess how reliable and unreliable their findings may be for any group of humans they may sanction. Consequently, anyone needs to be careful when trying to sling around accusations of who and what is alleged to be mentally ill, because doing so is very much a subjective act of wielding a two edged sword that can cut both ways.
Whatever...can’t argue with trolls and libs they are ALWAYS RIGHT. ( in their own made up minds).
“Whatever...can’t argue with trolls and libs they are ALWAYS RIGHT. ( in their own made up minds).”
Then don’t behave like “trolls and libs” who think “they are ALWAYS RIGHT. ( in their own made up minds).” Instead, speak the Truth and do not bear false witness about matters you cannot know. If you want to speak with criticisms of Jenner’s personal conduct, there are numerous ways you may do so in truthful and constructive ways that do not disgrace yourself nor bring disrepute to other conservatives.
“Do the athletes get to choose whether to compete as male or female??”
The Wikipedia article about the SRY gene and its paragraph about the “Use in Olympic screening” may also further answer your question.
Testis determining factor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testis_determining_factor
I would say it is a form of mental illness or chemical imbalance.
I also wonder why we give so much attention to this one half of one percent of the population?
Thank you so kindly for your thoughtful answers.
Thanks for your post. I’m trying to figure something out and getting lost in the weeds I think. If you have time...
What I get from the Olympic info is they are trying to determine/find:
-— Women who have an unfair advantage due to hormones or whatever that are, in effect, PEDs.
But they, if I understand correctly, are still able to distinguish women vs. men. They’re looking for women who have an obvious and major hormonal advantage.
Here’s what I’d be interested in knowing: based on chromosomes alone, can you define male vs. female?
I don’t know, but I’m supposing that “mostly female’ = female; “mostly male” = male.
What is the taxonomy based solely on chromosomes? (Simply if you can.)
thanks
“What I get from the Olympic info is they are trying to determine/find:
-— Women who have an unfair advantage due to hormones or whatever that are, in effect, PEDs.”
The Olympics started out by trying to make sure Male-To-Female (MTF) crossdressers and transsexuals would be unable to compete unfairly against women in the women’s sports with the inherent muscular advantages provided by masculine muscular tissues and other male characteristics. Masculine muscle cells are structured differently and function differently than feminine muscle tissue. Unfortunately for the Olympian administrators and competitors, the existence of human intersex conditions resulted in so many false positive testing results and medical examinations, the Olympics finally had to acknowledge some of the competitors are truly not differentiated enough as just a female or male sex for any given rule to be applicable to all such competitors. Now the Olympics is trying to address their problem with fairness by focusing on the specific characteristics which can provide unfair advantages, such as the levels of testosterone hormones, masculine musculature, and so forth. So, rather than simply say “women” in such conversations, it may be more accurate to say “ostensible women” to account for the intersex examples who are in reality a blend of the male sex and the female sex described as an intersex condition.
“But they, if I understand correctly, are still able to distinguish women vs. men.”
No, that is incorrect; because they cannot in reality distinguish or know a particular person is a man or a woman when the person’s biological characteristics makes them an actual blend of man and woman. Instead, the Olympics relies upon the competitor to declare their sex and provide certain evidence in some instances to support that declaration of sex and gender sufficient to meet whatever arbitrary Olympics guidelines are in effect at the time.
“They’re looking for women who have an obvious and major hormonal advantage.”
This is where the usage of the term “women” may be understood as an implied usage of “ostensible women” for the competitive purposes of the Olympics.
“Here’s what I’d be interested in knowing: based on chromosomes alone, can you define male vs. female?”
No, you cannot. There are a number of biological conditions which override the sex chromosomes to determine the sex characteristics. There are many thousands of people who appear to be women and lived their lives believing themselves to be females from birth, who have male sex chromosomes that were not activated to produce the male phenotype. Conversely, there are many thousands of men who are unaware of their female sex chromosomes. Determination of a person’s absolute and overall sex classification requires all of their sexual characteristics; sex chromosome, somatic chromosomes, hormonal sex, sex phenotype, and much more.
“I don’t know, but I’m supposing that “mostly female’ = female; “mostly male” = male.”
The past practice in the medical community has been to arbitrarily assign the sex and gender of a child at birth and perform radical surgeries on the genitalia to “normalize” the genitalia to fit that arbitrary assignment without consideration of any other biological, medical, or personal considerations. The competitors in the Olympics who have been the subject of these medical interventions at birth may appear to be more of one sex than the opposite sex while in reality may have been the opposite with the incorrect appearance.
“What is the taxonomy based solely on chromosomes? (Simply if you can.)”
Because chromosomal sex is only a subpart of the biological process by which a person’s female sex, male sex, or intersex condition is developed, no classification “solely” on the chromosomes is possible without resorting to dictating an assignment by arbitrary means.
To illustrate some of the differences and problems associated with efforts to adopt a universal and/or comprehensive definition for the sexes, see some of the following information.
For a comparison of the various and often conflicting dictionary definitions, see:
Sex. the free Dictionary by Farlex
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Biological+sex
For a somewhat humorous look at the problems associated with defining sex classifications, see:
Bilaterally Gynandromorphic Chickens, and Why I’m Not “Scientifically” Male by Natalie — December 14, 2011
http://skepchick.org/2011/12/bilaterally-gynandromorphic-chickens-and-why-im-not-scientifically-male/
Also see the FAQ for the The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) and their articles describing the problems of defining the classifications for sex.
There are many thousands of ..
Out of how many? Could you venture a specific, or educated guess, as to the percentage of people whose gender could not be determined based on chromosomes alone? What is the scope here, are the exceptions very rare, rare or common?
“Out of how many? Could you venture a specific, or educated guess, as to the percentage of people whose gender could not be determined based on chromosomes alone? What is the scope here, are the exceptions very rare, rare or common?”
See that previous ISNA link and add the following link:
How common is intersex?
http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency
When looking at those statistics remember the United States now has a population of more than 300 million people, so a rate of 1 in 1,000,000 people would equal 300 people; 1 in 100,000 people would equal 3,000 people; 1 in 10,000 people would equal 30,000 people; 1 in 1,000 people would equal 300,000 people, and 1 in 100 people would equal 3,000,000 people.
Note where the statistics state:
“Total number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female = one in 100 births.”
In other words, that statistical source indicates there is an estimated 3 million people in the United States “whose bodies differ from standard male or female” at birth. To put that in perspective, on average taking a population of 3 million people and dividing by the 3,144 counties and county equivalents in the United States gives you an average 954 such persons per county. In a small city with a population of 10,000 people, there may be 100 such persons. In a town of only 1,000 people, you may find an average of 10 such people.
“Could you venture a specific, or educated guess, as to the percentage of people whose gender could not be determined based on chromosomes alone?”
No, but the above statistics appear to imply the number must be significant even among the rarified group of Olympic athletes, or perhaps over-represented among Olympic athletes due to some inherent advantages?
I would *guess* you're looking at a small subset of women with strong male hormonal advantages. Don't know how to compute the percentages based on a highly selected subset like this.
>>"Total number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female "
And I don't know how to quantify - or qualify "bodies [that] differ from standard male or female".
I think my body might differ from the standard. :) Norm, mean? Based on.. ?
I think you know what I'm getting at or trying to find out: Can we say that 99.99% of the time male/female is obvious? 99%? 98%
I think we always should understand and allow for variances, and I appreciate the education I've gotten here, but are we dealing here with a *statistically* insignificant population?
With respect to the Olympics and international sports, perhaps this small sample of available articles will help make the exercise of calculating estimates a moot effort. See for examples:
A Brief history of Intersex Athletes in Sport
http://www.letsrun.com/news/2014/09/brief-history-intersex-athletes-sport/
Intersex athletes: Do we need a gender police in professional sports?
Maren Behrensen
[....]
“At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta—the last Summer Olympic Games at which GVT was mandatory for every female athlete—eight out of 3387 female athletes tested SRY-positive (vulgo: they “failed” the sex test). Seven of these eight had androgen insensitivity; the eighth athlete “was a gonadectomized women who probably had 5?-redcutase deficiency.”[26] This eighth athlete might have been the Brazilian judoka Edinanci Silva, the only intersex athlete known to have undergone surgery in order to become eligible for women’s competitions. All eight athletes were subsequently cleared to compete.”
http://www.iwm.at/publications/5-junior-visiting-fellows-conferences/vol-xxix/maren-behrensen-2/
Transsexual and Intersex Athletes
Erin Buzuvis
Western New England University School of Law
http://digitalcommons.law.wne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1257&context=facschol
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
Journal List
J R Soc Med
v.101(8); 2008 Aug 1
PMC2500237
J R Soc Med. 2008 Aug 1; 101(8): 395–399.
doi: 10.1258/jrsm.2008.080086
PMCID: PMC2500237
Intersex and the Olympic Games
Robert Ritchie,1 John Reynard,1,2 and Tom Lewis,3
Introduction
The assignment of sex at birth determines the manner in which a child is raised. It determines their appearance and governs their development.1 Sexual ambiguity – intersex – may result in a broad spectrum of physical problems. Certain anomalies may be detectable only by the astute clinician and would otherwise go unnoticed, whereas more profound anomalies may result in considerable developmental and psychological difficulties for both the child and his or her parents and family. Sex determination in individuals with sexual ambiguity has created difficulties in the arena of international sports for many years. While Hitler’s Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 generated much controversy around the issue of racial and religious discrimination, it also brought the complexities of gender verification to the forefront of competitive sport for the first time.
In this paper we review the historical impact of intersex in the area of international sports and discuss current thinking with regard to determination of sex in sports men and women.
[....]
Conclusion
DSDs are a hugely complex group of conditions. These abnormalities challenge both our scientific and social understanding of what ‘sex’ and ‘sexual differentiation’ are. The management of DSDs is challenging; the traditional approach bases sex assignment around future reproductive potential, future sexual potential and the cosmetic appearance of the external genitalia.16 Recent neuroscience research suggests that sexual dimorphism of the brain may occur prenatally, implying that gender-typical behaviour may be determined prior to sex assignment at birth....”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2500237/
Also note there were 8 women from among the 3,523 women athletes at the Atlanta Olympics whose test results identified them as being intersex athletes. This calculates out to be at least 2 in 1,000 women athletes were detected as intersex Olympic athletes. It would reasonable to assume there should have been an undetermined number of additional intersexed Olympic athletes whose intersex conditions were not subject to the tests administered at those Olympics in Atlanta.
“I think my body might differ from the standard. :) Norm, mean? Based on.. ?”
The context is likely to be somewhat comparable to that list of intersex conditions and/or the intersex conditions listed elsewhere in the ISNA FAQ. It would not be the morphological differences unrelated to the subject of intersex conditions.
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