Girls to Guys -- It's on the Rise

At his brother's wedding, the photographer put Marcus Rene Van with the men in the family and his sister screamed, "That's my sister."

Technically -- and biologically -- she's right. But two years ago, the 25-year-old spoken word artist with a tiny goatee swapped genders and went from she to he.

Van is one of a rising number of young women who are opting to live their lives as men -- a trend on the rise in San Francisco's lesbian community.

Business is booming for doctors specializing in chest surgery, clinics that provide hormone treatment and psychologists who offer gender therapy, with one popular surgeon completing twice as many surgeries as he did five years ago.

When Van -- who lives as a man without the help of hormones or surgery -- made the switch, it wasn't a popular thing to do. Now, he said, he's just another trans man living in The City.

Access to transsexual procedures is helping many be true to their chosen gender. But is easy access to hormones and the deluge of information about transsexuality helping those in need, or is it just plain hip right now to be a boy?

"I think (some young) people are going to end up regretting what they have done," Van said of those who might be too quick to take hormones without considering the effects. "If you take hormones for a couple of years, there is no turning back."

Dimensions, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender youth clinic in the Castro-Mission Health Center, is where many trans men have been coming since the doors opened three and a half years ago.

The clinic offers hormone treatment and has at least 25 female to male (FTM) transsexual clients who are on testosterone, according to clinic coordinator Laurie Lenrow.

Before a patient is permitted to take the hormones, they (or their guardians, if they are underage) are required to sign a consent form that outlines the permanent damage testosterone can do. Hair loss, beard and mustache growth, deepening of the voice, increased body hair and enlargement of the clitoris are irreversible, and the risk of cancer and diabetes is increased.

The clinicians here, like many who work with the transsexual community, do not closely adhere to what they consider conservative international standards of care for transsexuals, the Harry Benjamin Standard. The guidelines suggest three months of psychiatric treatment for those wanting to take hormones.

But patients at Dimensions do not have to undergo therapy and most are able to start hormone treatment within five weeks of their initial visit, following lab tests and a staff review of the individual case.

Lenrow compares taking testosterone to birth control pills, and points out there are many who don't take hormones or get operations. Besides, she said, most of their clients have been considering transition since they were teenagers and are usually "well-prepared" to make the decision.

Barely old enough to buy a drink, Chris Tavelli, 21, got chest surgery to remove his breasts in March and began taking testosterone in May.

He said he has known that his gender was wrong for as long as he remembers, but still admits that he made his decision at a young age, even though his family wanted him to wait.

"Anything is possible, but I highly doubt I will ever regret it," he said. "You don't get to this decision on the whim. I'm just not a girl."

Still, many in the lesbian community are struggling to understand why so many young women want to change genders. While some view it as betrayal, others are just confused.

Bonnie Barrett, 33, graphic designer, is one of the confused. Barrett has been mistaken for a boy all her life.

"I'm not that old-fashioned," she said. "But (taking hormones) is a radical decision that I think is taken very lightly. What's wrong with just going to gym? What's wrong with just being butch?"

Why not just be a butch lesbian is a question that Van and Tavelli have all been asked a million times.

A graceful metal robot with big red lips and voluminous breasts greets Michael Brownstein's clientele in his Potrero Hill loft medical office.

The gray-haired plastic surgeon has been doing sexual reassignment surgery in The City for more than 20 years. He has done hundreds of mastectomies and metoidioplasties -- the transformation of external female genitals into male (see inset) -- and business is booming.

Brownstein is doing twice as many surgeries as he did five years ago for clients who are mainly women in their 20s and 30s and want a mastectomy, or top surgery -- the more common of the two procedures that he does.

But he maintains that having surgery -- or even changing genders -- is not a fad.

"It's not a trendy thing," he said. "It's not like a rave party. This is a real condition."

Brownstein said the reason for the increase in procedures is that there is more acceptance of transsexuals, and more access to information via the Internet.

As chairman of the ethics committee for the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, he makes certain that his clients are ready to make the decision for surgery. But Brownstein doesn't require a letter from a therapist in every case, as is required in the guidelines.

"Someone who is 40 and has lived as a male for 20 years successfully, I wouldn't have much reservation," he said. "But a 22-year-old doesn't have that same degree of experience."

The 26-year-old with a sweet round face and tattoos running up his arm is going to therapy to figure out if hormones are the right treatment for him.

A few months ago, Richard decided to switch genders and went from she to he. Inside, Richard is all man.

"I'm a boy and I always have been," he said behind black-rimmed glasses and a ski cap pulled around his face. "I just don't have the biological equipment."

Richard has made the choice to go by "he" in a workplace that is accepting of his new gender, even though he was blessed otherwise.

Pronouns are important at Good Vibrations, where Richard works as a warehouse clerk. Sometimes it's the only word that gives away a person's gender in the sex toy distribution company where up to 15 percent of the employees are transsexuals -- the majority of whom are female to males transsexuals in their 20s and 30s.

But while Richard contemplates taking hormones, chest surgery is something he plans to do as soon as he can save the money.

"I want to keep my body intact," he said. "But there are things I can't do. I can't wear a tank top, I can't walk into a men's locker room."

But taking testosterone would change some of that. It would stop his periods, put more hair on his face, move fat off his hips and into his abdomen. It would make his bones bigger, his voice lower. With so many friends taking hormones, it's something Van has been contemplating.

Huh? It is impossible for an unmarried person to commit adultery.

In its fullest sense, the commandment is against sex with anyone but your spouse. If you are not yet married the commandment requires that you wait until you are married to have sex. And, as G-d has made it clear that all marriages are heterosexual, it condemns homosexual activity.

Shalom.

Since we know that most people are not schizophrenic, we can call schizophrenia a mental illness.

So it's really just one configuration of the mind, the dominant one, exerting itself over other mental states in an attempt to continue it's dominance? Attempting to change schizophrenics is a survival mechanism for non-schizophrenic minds.

So it's really just one configuration of the mind, the dominant one, exerting itself over other mental states in an attempt to continue it's dominance? Attempting to change schizophrenics is a survival mechanism for non-schizophrenic minds.

You presume the mind evolved. I know it was created. As such, the reason one mental state is dominant is because the Creator meant it that way.

But, even in a darwinian paradigm, the dominant mental state is obviously the best one having been selected into dominance. Therefore, for the good of humanity, we would consider deviations diseases to be cured.

Shalom.

That sounds too much like it-depends-what-the-meaning-of-"is"-is, unless you can show that the original Hebrew word has a broader meaning than the English word "adultery".

Actually, I might be able to do that, but I can do better. The Bible must be read in toto so that the context of its parts can be understood. Even reading the Old Testament without reading the New Testament will cause you to misunderstand some of what is written. All of the Bible is commentary on the rest.

In this case, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount makes it very clear that the commandments (not just the 10, but all 613) speak to heart issues, not just physical ones. The heart issue behind the commandment against adultery is the issue of misusing sex. The rest of the sexual commandments, specifically those that condemnt pre-marital and homosexual sex, are commentary on this one.

Shalom.

Gender has nothing to do with how you feel about it, it just is, same as race. I can wake up tomorrow and decide to call myself black, but im white and the only person that will recognize me as black is myself. If you have a penis, you are a male and if you have a vagina, you are a female. Do you not realize how absurd you sound to most people, when you try to challenge this??

So anyone with a psychological degree who has actually done any research and claims that there might be something to this "gender identity disorder" issue and that some people who are born biologically as one gender genuinely relate as persons of the opposite biological gender doesn't know what they are talking about because you've already made up your mind?

That still leaves open the problem of the man whose gender was altered following a botched circumcision who never fit in as a "girl" and only in his adult life discovered why: he was born male.

You would think that if gender was determined solely by body parts he never would have noticed and he would still be a she.

>Once again, what does this have to do with XX males or XY females? I'm not talking about people who identify as the opposite gender, I'm talking about people whose unaltered genitals don't match their chromosomes.

A person with XX chromosomes is female--no matter what she "looks" like.

And a person with XY chromosomes, is a male, no matter what he "looks" like.

So a person born with female parts but still having an XY chromosome pair is still a male, even if "he" has lived as a woman all "his" life, has never felt incredibly uncomfortable with "his" gender as a female and doesn't even know about the chromosome mismatch? After living and being a woman all "his" life should "he" have gender reassignment surgery and undergo the psychologically traumatic experience of becoming a man after living as a woman just because "his" crhomosomes didn't match up to "his" equipment?

I seem to remember the case you're citing as one where the fellow was a victim of a botched circumcision; the doctors then compounded that error by advising the parents that the kid would have emotional problems over his stunted organ, and so would be better-off as a "girl"--he wasn't: he wasn't made a real girl and he wasn't better-off; because he had the male, Y, chromosome.

So here is a case that supports the notion that gender is a matter of brain chemistry rather than body parts; a man living his whole life as a "girl" but always wanting to be a boy, and yet there is no possibility of a person being born as one gender with brain chemistry oriented toward the other gender?

Sorry, ArGee. I forgot the "/sarcasm" tag.

Sarcasm? How can you be sarcastic about such an important and sensitive topic? Don't you realize how hard it is on little rednecks and bigots when attitudes such as the one you posted are allowed to prevail? Don't you know that the suicide rate among rednecks and bigots is nearly 10 times as high as the rate among the discriminationally-challenged? Imagine all those poor little boy and girl rednecks crying themselves to sleep at night because of a socially imposed shame that forces them to deny who they truly are.

There is no need to discuss the merits of your argument. I've already labelled you a bigophobe. Therefore, nothing you say matters because it is officially hate speech. If I sneeze and you say 'G-d bless you' it would still be hate speech because the unofficial spokesbigot of BRAAD has labelled you.

Shalom.

P.S. Don't apologize. I appreciated the opportunity. I assumed you were playing along, but even if you hadn't been you made a great foil. ;)

Please do. I can just see you with your t-shirt...Proud founding member of BRADD....... Bwhahahaha

Idea time. What could we use to decorate peoples' lawns in place of those pink triangles the GLAAD folks use?

Shalom.

You presume the mind evolved. I know it was created. As such, the reason one mental state is dominant is because the Creator meant it that way.

Then the creator must have meant for a minority of schizophrenics to co-exist with us (for whatever reason). Who are we to alter what the creator has ordained?

But, even in a darwinian paradigm, the dominant mental state is obviously the best one having been selected into dominance. Therefore, for the good of humanity, we would consider deviations diseases to be cured.

That's certainly the argument a member of the dominant class would make. The less dominant class might see itslelf as a newly emerging human better adapted to the world. Needless to say, the dominant class would have a hard time seeing this.

Then the creator must have meant for a minority of schizophrenics to co-exist with us (for whatever reason).

How do you make that logical jump? Mind, I'm not saying it can't be made, I just don't see how you made it.

Shalom.

That's certainly the argument a member of the dominant class would make. The less dominant class might see itslelf as a newly emerging human better adapted to the world. Needless to say, the dominant class would have a hard time seeing this.

If the dominant class manages to keep the new class from continuing, that would mean that the new class wasn't properly adapted to survive. Part of the adaptation requires surviving the existing creatures from which you e(de)volved.

Shalom.

How do you make that logical jump?

I was just following you. If you make the jump that there is a dominant mental state because the Creator intended it to be that way, the other side of that is that the Creator intended the less-dominant mental state to be here too. Indeed, everything that's here is because the creator intended it that way (since nothing evolves).

If the dominant class manages to keep the new class from continuing, that would mean that the new class wasn't properly adapted to survive.

Or just that it did adapt sufficiently to acquire the ability to fend off the dominant class. Since I don't see schizophrenics disappearing, I'm sure it will be a long and unpredictable struggle.

I was just following you. If you make the jump that there is a dominant mental state because the Creator intended it to be that way, the other side of that is that the Creator intended the less-dominant mental state to be here too.

Not so. First, I didn't say G-d intended for there to be a dominant mental state. I said that G-d created the mind. There is a way it is intended to work. But, for it to work as intended, the people involved need to follow the rules of good use. Just like your car will quit working if you put gas where the oil goes and vice-versa. We have messed up the system with our sin. Therefore there are diseases and birth defects and other things that G-d never intended. He is not to blame, we are.

Indeed, everything that's here is because the creator intended it that way (since nothing evolves).

Nobody said nothing evolves. The changes in species over time are documented and without question. However, not every born creature with a difference from its parents is an example of evolution. There are birth defects.

Shalom.

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