Posted on 02/18/2005 3:09:21 PM PST by srm913
It's the first question new parents hear: girl or boy? But hundreds of babies are born each year where the gender isn't clear. Prompt surgery to assign one was once the norm.
But gender depends on more than anatomy or hormones. It also seems to stem from the very earliest brain development, researchers said Friday in urging doctors to hold off on the knife until children can determine their own sex.
"To discover who or what a child is ... you have to ask them," Dr. William Reiner of the Oklahoma University Health Science Center told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"There is no one biological parameter that clearly defines sex," added Dr. Eric Vilain of the University of California, Los Angeles, whose research suggests gender is genetically hard-wired into the brain before birth — regardless of which genitalia develop.
The issue is "intersex," the name for numerous conditions that result in roughly one in 4,000 babies born with both male and female traits.
One of the more common is congenital adrenal hyperplasia. In such cases, genetic girls with XX chromosomes are exposed in the womb to such high levels of androgen — the hormone that triggers male development — that they appear male externally even if they have female reproductive organs. A different condition leaves genetic males less responsive to androgen during development, so they're born without a penis.
The parents must pick a gender somehow, to know what to call their child and because gender is required on a birth certificate. So specialists check non-obvious factors such as which sex chromosomes the child has and levels of sex hormones in the blood.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
"I don't think you understand. There is, of course, a mental component to gender. When a baby is born without clearly defined genitalia, the Dr's usually decide to make the baby be female. Some of these children grow up and insist they feel like men"
Is a penis or vagina a solid precursor to sexual identity? There's huge difference between each appendage and personality, D.
If comparison to pics in books, makes Docs more secure in their so-called pronouncements of sexuality, then
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I've got family and extended family chock-full-o'-medical types, and have never heard this scenario, D. Scores of Docs & Nurses; never a whisper. I'm calling them as I write this reply, for clarification...
From this:
Golly gee whiz. Neither me (1949) or my sister (1951) had to ask Mom or dad who or what we were.
WTH's wrong with todays kids/punks/lowlifes? WTF?
This was/is ***normal***; where the hell are you at, s? Ummmm, sorry to hear that.
You've never heard of it before, therefore, it does not exist. I've often heard that the smartest people are those who have learned enough to see that there is much they do not know.
Is this what's bothering you, s?
"WTH's wrong with todays kids/punks/lowlifes? WTF?"
Davids story is a bit different as he was born a boy but the doctor botched his circumcision.
The doctors then persuaded his parents to let them operate again and that if they just raised him as a girl then he would become a girl. Dr. Money was the therapist in the case and you learn some of the really criminal things he did in order to make this poor kid fit into his idea that gender could be assigned.
"You've never heard of it before, therefore, it does not exist."
Typical liberal-demokkkRAT belief; you're outed, D.
"I've often heard that the smartest people are those who have learned enough to see that there is much they do not know."
What did I just say in a previous post?
"...never heard this scenario, D. Scores of Docs & Nurses; never a whisper. I'm calling them as I write this reply, for clarification..."
Our conversation is over. Buh-bye.
David Reimer, the subject of the book "As Nature Made Him", committed suicide last May:
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/WinnipegSun/News/2004/05/10/453481.html
"Law and Order:SVU" had an episode a few weeks ago about a similar situation.
Here's more information about genetic disorders of sex differentiation from Johns Hopkins Childrens' Center:
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/pediatricendocrinology/intersex/index.html
I pretty much agree that surgical solutions are not great ways to address things, but if ever a good candidate for cosmetic surgery existed this may be it...
It's scarey to me that so few people even know girls are XX and boys are XY. Is the MSM having an effect on peoples ability to reason or what?
What was normal? Knowing your sex from birth? It still is.
Back then, it was abnormal to be physically deformed.
Today, it's abnormal to be physically deformed.
The rate of physical deformity is the same in the fifties as it is now. So what's changed?
where the hell are you at, s?
Texas.
Ummmm, sorry to hear that.
Okay.
Of course, and I apologize for my rudeness.
Are you saying that those of us who fail to mention chromosomes don't know about them?
It's not that simple. What about someone who's XXXY? Do you know what sex someone like that will identify with?
YOu weren't rude. I don't believe I made myself clear. It happens a lot with me.
=0)
Yes. I don't see what "today's punks" have to do with a medical condition that is hardly new.
Some chromosomal arrrangements are indeterminate. Like XXXY for example. Also, the effect of hormones released during pregnancy also determine sexual identity.
They certainly did NOT have to do that.
The homosexuals at CBS are working overtime to try and save the homoagenda.
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That was the decision that the doctors and the parents made. I didn't condone the decision, but I did take care of that baby, and it was a horrible process for him to go through. There was a lot of pain involved and the Neonatologist didn't believe that infants could feel pain, so she wouldn't even ordered Tylenol. It took a nurses revolt to change that. It was also 1991, so maybe things have progressed since then.
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