Girls to Guys -- It's on the Rise

San Francisco Examiner ^ | 12/19/01 | Tanya Pampalone

[medlarebil]

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."

Easy access

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.

Making history

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.

But he doesn't think he'll have any regrets.

"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.

"It didn't fit," Van said simply. "I wanted to be myself, and myself is male."

Under the knife

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."

Getting equipped

Riley Richard is considering his options.

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.

Van doesn't plan to have surgery, top or otherwise.

"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.

"I think about it every day," he said.

E-mail Tanya Pampalone at tpampalone@sfexaminer.com

[tellertime]

You simply have a gross case of "human-a-phobia". I'll bet you are so entrenched in your beliefs that you would do yourself in if you were asked, ordered or requested to wear a womans shoe.Your foot is probably so large the request is ridiculous. Or anything else. It is also a "fabric-a-phobia" in your case. I wonder what you would have done in the 15th Century when men wore very fancy feminine-like, frilled baroque atire that was all the rage for males in the high courts in those days. If you had the ability to return in time I wonder how you'd handle that situation. Probably the same thing you'd do now....attempt to cut them to ribbons. I'll bet you were very diificult back in your grammar school days while growing up. And bet you had a bad day when asked to be in a drama play being asked to perform a part you highly disapproved of. Even go to war over. You need to travel and see other people, places and things.

[Dimensio]

"And I'm still waiting for you to present credentials that show you understand the issue better than mental health professionals who actually do research."


Common Sense is the only "credential" one needs on this issue.

"Common Sense" told Aristotle that objects fall at a rate relative to their mass. Common sense often sucks when compared to actual research.

[EODGUY]

If I may humbly recommend another "musical gem of our time" to the list of BRAAD party songs....How about, "Redneck, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer".

And there are those who say our generation has no poets!

[Age of Reason]

What you don't seem to understand is that DNA is the blue print, but hormones are the building blocks. Now, in sometimes the hormones produced in the womb ignores either XX or XY and creates the child into the opposite gender.

I understand that perfectly well (though I doubt that a child of the truly opposite gender is created).

But if sex is determined by hormonal exposure in the womb, then to change an adult's sex, let medicine first transform the patient into a fetus again and return him to life in a womb, that the patient may properly develop in the manipulated hormone bath; because it would not be exposure to hormones but exposure to hormones at certain stages of fetal development that would, according to your example, determine sex.

If that is (as yet) medically impossible, then is it (as yet) medically impossible to change a person's sex.

Actually yes. But it is rare. Most of the time the man is sterile.

You mean someone who hasn't a Y chormosome in her body, has them in her sperm? How is that so? Something can't be right here--those can't be "real" Y chromosomes--sounds more like damage to the X chromosome is costing that X one leg--if so, what (if any) kind of male child might that produce?

You have a very shallow opinion of what it is to be a man.

I find judging a person's sex by the shape of the body to be a superficial opinion of what it is to be a man.

I view the body as a kind of life-support system for its underlying genetic structure.

Now that is a very arrogant statement. Your ego is beginning to show.

It wouldn't be the first time the medical establishment was wrong, and it wouldn't be the first time a layman set their thinking straight.

And if there is one thing doctors are dopes about, it is sex and everything else outside of their medical specialty--and experience shows we can't even trust their opinion with that, even.

[ProudAmericanConservative]

"When it comes to human identity and personality, there is a lot of grey area. In the end, it is the mind that defines the body, not the body that defines the mind. You lack this realization. Also, in your ignorance, your may not realize some interesting medical facts about criminals. For example, most serial killers have genius IQs." As to the first part of your post, It really is black and white. A human who has a penis, no matter how much they identify with females, live their lives as females or wish to be female, is a MALE unless surgically altered. The mind has nothing to do with sexual organs, and has little more to do with sexual identity. As for the second half of your post, I fail to see the relevancy of your comment. Yes, many serial killers are highly intelligent, but what has this got to do with what we are discussing here?? Im sorry but there is no grey matter here, a human with a penis is male, and a human with a vagina is female. We will have to agree to disagree in this matter.

[ProudAmericanConservative]

"In the case of the man whose gender was switched shortly after birth, "he" was born with a penis, but it was removed when "he" was turned into a female by his doctor and then "he" was raised as a girl by his parents. Was "he" a "he" or a "she"? "He" sure thought that "he" was a "he" as "he" grew up even though "he" didn't have a penis (but "he" was born with one), but since you seem to be the expert on gender identity, what was "he"?" "he" is a she, since she has no penis and has female sexual organs. If one undergoes a sex change then one is the opposite sex that they were born. As far as credentials in mental health, I possess none. But lets not forget the mental health profession has given us: regressive and repressed memory, phony claims of sexual abuse, the "Black Rage" defense and ADD and ADHD. Im not so sure alot of those mental health "professionals" know much more about mental health than I as a layperson do.

[Paul C. Jesup]

You mean someone who hasn't a Y chormosome in her body, has them in her sperm? How is that so? Something can't be right here--those can't be "real" Y chromosomes--sounds more like damage to the X chromosome is costing that X one leg--if so, what (if any) kind of male child might that produce?

Actually a couple of months ago, I heard on Fox News, that a bio-medical group found while studing the genetic make-up of the X and Y chomosomes that the X chomosome has more to do with the actual instructions on sperm production than the Y chomosome. The formula was normally that 70% of the instructions on sperm production came from the X chomosome and 30% of the instructions on sperm production came from the Y chomosome.

The way they found this out was by studing men (with Y chomosomes) who were sterile. They found that most men may inherit their sterility from their mothers.

You might want to reseach this yourself. You might find this subject very interesting.

[Paul C. Jesup]

You're talking about on the phyical level.

I'm talking about on the mental level.

[ProudAmericanConservative]

OK, but because one MENTALLY considers themselves to be female, unless they got the equipment it doesnt mean much more than spit in a bucket.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

We'll see how many of these women want to be men during the next wartime draft. The proof is in the putting, girls.

[Paul C. Jesup]

You missed the point of this entire thread.

[Age of Reason]

The X chromosome probably has a lot more to do about everything, and it might be that Y chromosome's most important influence is what it doesn't do.

Nonetheless, I still maintain that having the Y chromosome is what makes a man a man.

Anything else is either a woman or a mixup.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Before I reply anymore to your statements I need to ask you some questions.

How do you personally define the human mind?

How do you personally define the human body (including DNA, RNA and hormones)?

And how do you view the relationship betweem the human mind and the human body?

And which do you consider more important in relationship to the human soul? The human mind? Or the human body?

Also, please state the reasons for your answers.

[glory]

You know I have a relative who underwent this. Strangely enough he did not go to a she until he went to a liberal university, became a feminist, and a peta type vegetarian. And before you assume this is a distant relative, (s)he is not, I grew up with this person and played with them. Oddly enough the he gone she is now a lesbian to. IMO, knowing this person, people start with a mental illness(which I think is fair to say since his siblings have exhibited in other ways..all have had at least one divorce, spousal abuse both mentally and physically, and infidelity, alcohol abuse), not necessarily the desire to become another sex or even be homosexual, and when they get in very liberal universities in thier very delicate emotional state it's pretty easy to convince these people that what they've really been missing all thier lives is a surgery, hormones, or thier same sex. How else do you explain how so many of these grown children seem to come to these conclusions once they get university age and oddly enough after living in some of the most liberal cities on earth. I really feel sad for these folks, instead of getting the help they need spiritually and mentally, they are disfiguring themselves.

glory

[glory]

I've never thought that I'm wiser than your god, that would require me to first believe in it. Even if I did believe in your god, I would have a hard time comparing myself to it since whenever I build or create something, I'm taken to task on every flaw.

So, if you don't believe in Him, why did you make your initial comment laying blame at His feet? Since you layed blame with no provocation, it seems more as if you dislike the Christian God rather than disbelieve in Him.

glory

[Age of Reason]

What's a soul?

If you can define it so I understand what you're talking about, I'll try to determine where it fits in.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Soul=consciousness, awareness, identity, personality, the part of you that is still aware after you have died.

Now answer my questions.

[Cold Heat]

Sorry I'm late answering your post. By browser crashed!

You simply have a gross case of "human-a-phobia". I'll bet you are so entrenched in your beliefs that you would do yourself in if you were asked, ordered or requested to wear a womans shoe.Your foot is probably so large the request is ridiculous. Or anything else. It is also a "fabric-a-phobia" in your case. I wonder what you would have done in the 15th Century when men wore very fancy feminine-like, frilled baroque atire that was all the rage for males in the high courts in those days. If you had the ability to return in time I wonder how you'd handle that situation. Probably the same thing you'd do now....attempt to cut them to ribbons. I'll bet you were very diificult back in your grammar school days while growing up. And bet you had a bad day when asked to be in a drama play being asked to perform a part you highly disapproved of. Even go to war over. You need to travel and see other people, places and things.

Thanks for the compliments. SGT. Wirestripper