Thought for the Day
Sep. 23rd, 2005 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bcholmesIn 1995, the Clarke Institute undertook a study of physical attractiveness in girls diagnosed with [Gender Identity Disorder]. [...]Little vignettes were included in the study, the most disturbing of which concerned a four-year-old girl who entered a preschool and was thought to be a boy. "Her [white] teacher was convinced, based on her appearance, that her parents had erred in identifying her on the school registration form as a girl. Because this girl came from a non-Western [East Indian] culture, her teacher was unable to determine her actual sex based on her given name. She was unable to ask the girl about her sex because she did not speak English. The teacher reported that she took this little girl to the washroom and pulled down her blue jeans 'to check'" The researcher stated, "The sequence of events led to the clinical referral." Make no mistake about it: The researchers were not reporting this anecdote in order to expose a neurotically sex-typed teacher who could not endure spending one day in the preschool room with a child whose sex was not clear. The child was the identified patient, not the teacher.
-- Phyllis Burke, Gender Shock: Exploding the Myths of Male and Female
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-23 12:51 pm (UTC)unrelated to this post -- an invitation
Date: 2005-09-23 01:02 pm (UTC)If you want in (and you can always opt out), just reply here and I'll make it so. Check out my User Info for details.
It should be up and running in about a week.
P.S. This is an form message I generated to save my fingers some walking. Don't take it personally. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-23 03:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-23 03:37 pm (UTC)Oh my fricking god.
*sigh*
I wish I had the guts to raise Baby X. Meanwhile, I dress Henry in pink and leave his hair long (such an old-fashioned boy) and smile when people think he's a girl. Who the hell cares, when they're 2? Or 3, or 4, or 6, or...?
But so many do care. Ye fucking gods.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-23 05:17 pm (UTC)Someone named Terry came into the hospital complaining of abdominal pains, and the nurse at reception wasn't sure if Terry was male or female but was too flustered to ask. Terry's doctors were also not sure, and asked. Terry said 'female', and the doctors continued to operate under the assumption that she was MTF.
They did a brief pelvic exam, and she looked female down there too, but apparently had an enlarged clitoris. So the doctors are still thinking MTF (and still not asking).
They had no idea what could be causing her pain, so they sent her in for x-rays. And she had all the original internal girl parts, and was pregnant. Fortunately the x-rays didn't hurt the fetus, and she had a healthy baby after the appropriate number of remaining months.
But it was rather appalling that everyone in the hospital was so freaking embarrassed to ask such basic medical questions like 'are you male or female' and if there was still any doubt, 'are you transsexual'. The doctors were cowed by social taboos to the point where they came very close to endangering their patient with good intentions.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-23 05:55 pm (UTC)*shakes a bit of brain food into the tank*
*watches brain happily swim to the top*
...but...
Date: 2005-09-23 11:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-25 09:05 pm (UTC)