Thursday 31 October 2013

Different Planets

There's this one :

"Jane Doe" and her G/Fs
Then there's the one the Religious Right lives on:


Do you ever feel like you’ve just landed on a different planet? I do when I learn about situations like the following. Several girls at a school in Colorado are finding out just exactly what is involved in transgender rights. An older boy has been entering the girls’ restroom at Florence High School in Florence, Colorado, claiming he’s a female and then he’s apparently been harassing some of the actual, biological girls. But when the girls’ families contacted the school, did this legitimate complaint receive respectful attention from officials? Not exactly. The school is defending this aggressive boy and his rights and the privacy rights of the girls are being waved away as not that important.
This statement was made over a week after the issue was revealed as a hoax - that the "harassment" was just this girl going to school like other girls.

On their planet, the picture above is of an "aggressive older boy harassing some actual biological girls".

Wednesday 30 October 2013

The Gender Similarities Hypothesis

The Gender Similarities Hypothesis Hyde, Janet Shibley American Psychologist, Vol 60(6), Sep 2005

The differences model, which argues that males and females are vastly different psychologically, dominates the popular media. Here, the author advances a very different view, the gender similarities hypothesis, which holds that males and females are similar on most, but not all, psychological variables. Results from a review of 46 meta-analyses support the gender similarities hypothesis. Gender differences can vary substantially in magnitude at different ages and depend on the context in which measurement occurs. Overinflated claims of gender differences carry substantial costs in areas such as the workplace and relationships.
It's a meta-meta analysis - a summary of summaries of experiments - and later work has shown rather more differences than the early metastudies would imply. About the only glaringly obvious ones visible here are those determined not by gender as such, but purely by testosterone levels.

Nonetheless, it supports two contentions that later work has shown to be well evidenced. First, that genuine innate (albeit statistical) differences exist. Second, that men and women are far more similar than different.

Historically, it's been the differences that have been overblown due to ideological belief, with no evidentiary basis. These days, it's the differences that have been minimised or even denied, again due to ideological belief, and against the evidence. Throughout, the statistical nature of the differences, that one can make no claims at all about individuals in any one area, have been completely ignored. Men and women differ from each other. Men differ from other men too, and women from other women. Both men and women as individuals can be more or less stereotypically masculine or feminine in different areas, gender is not a binary but a complex multivariant.

Tuesday 29 October 2013

Open Minded Health

Open Minded Health - Results of Transsexual Brain Studies (as at 2011)

Recommended.

Conclusion
The amount of research that has been completed on the differences between transsexual and cissexual brains is small, but suggestive. Some areas of the brain appear to be sexually dimorphic irrespective of genetics or hormones (e.g., BSTc), whereas others appear to be more dependent upon sex hormones (e.g., brain volume). From the results of these studies, one may infer that pre-transition transsexual women’s brains are feminine in the BSTc and INAH3, partially feminine in their white matter tracts, and masculine in total brain and hypothalamic volume. Data in transsexual men is rarer because these studies are conducted in the western world, where transsexual women outnumber transsexual men (Gooren, 2006). However, studies of transsexual men appear to imply that the reverse is true for them.
These studies have numerous limitations. First, they have yet to be replicated. Replication is needed to ensure reliability and generalizability of these results. Second, these studies (especially those involving deceased brains) have small numbers of subjects, especially for the transsexual subjects. Studies involving brains from the Netherlands Brain Bank typically had fewer than 10 transsexual brains to study, and the latter two (Kruijver et al, Chung et al) only had a single transsexual male brain. Although fewer numbers of subjects are generally more acceptable in biological research than in psychological research, it is still a potential source of error.
Potentially the most glaring limitation in these studies is their conflation of sexual orientation and gender identity. Berglund et al (2008), for example, only compared heterosexual cissexual women and men with gynephilic/homosexual transsexual women. While they could not include androphilic/heterosexual transsexual women in their study because of rarity, they failed to include homosexual cissexual men and women as comparison groups. This introduces a potentially confounding variable.
Despite these limitations, evidence so far is suggestive of a biological influence in transsexuality. More research is needed to confirm and expand these preliminary findings.
Some of these criticisms have been met - at least partially - since 2011. Others remain. As a summary of the state-of-the-art back then, I could only improve on it marginally.

Friday 25 October 2013

Two for the Reference Library

Good practice guidelines for the assessment and treatment of adults with gender dysphoria 2013-1-25 Royal College of Psychiatrists (PDF)
The following organisations have endorsed the report:
  • British Association of Urological Surgeons 
  • British Psychological Society
  • Gender Identity Research and Education Society
  • Gender Trust
  • Press for Change
  • Royal College of General Practitioners
  • Royal College of Nursing
  • Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
  • Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health*
  • Royal College of Physicians
  • Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists
  • Royal College of Surgeons
  • UK Council for Psychotherapy
Factors that help to support successful outcomes are a consistent gender identity and psychological stability before and after surgery, adequate psychological preparation and transition at an early age (De Cuypere et al, 2006), including properly informed consent about benefits, risks and outcomes. A survey in the UK showed a high level of satisfaction (98%) following genital surgery (Schonfield, 2008). Two studies on outcomes in women and men showed that they function well on a physical, emotional, psychological and social level (Weyers et al, 2009; Wierckx et al, 2011). Overall, there are a number of studies that report extremely high transgender patient satisfaction with genital reconstructive surgery.
The next one... is bad. The report itself is very good, but looking at the events that caused it to be written... it's hard not to weep uncontrollably.

Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia - Parliamentary report and recommendations (PDF).
Mr Ansara explained that concern or trauma resulting from early medical
experiences can have broader consequences:
What you see is that a lot of intersex people do not seek medical care even
when emergency treatment is needed, because they are so afraid of further
medical abuse. For myself, I had some medical treatments done to me
nonconsensually that I, frankly, never talk about because it just is not safe,
and there are many people who will avoid medical treatment on that basis.

Reading the raw testimony is heartbreaking. OK, I had nonconsensual surgery at age 20 - "just taking out the gallbladder" - leaving me with a livid scar from bikini line to breastbone, one that's caused shocked looks from medics since then. I don't even know what was taken out, the pathology reports on the "anomalous tissue" were... mislaid. As was the standard practice of the time.
Meh. I would have consented if asked, based on what we knew then.

I did not suffer medical abuse by any reasonable definition of the term. Many, many others have. And do. This report might just put a stop to that, if the recommendations are implemented.

Thursday 24 October 2013

Bearing False Witness - The Spectral Evidence of Violation and Rape



Let's take a moment to discern the Spirits.... Now the public schoolchildren are being told by a demonic spirit "You must open up your daughters' privacy to our perversion". And this demonic spirit inside of this boy is now violating, and for all intents and purposes, he's raping - at least visually - these teenage girls.

"Spectral evidence" is the only evidence they have, of course. Only they can see the true danger.
Everyone else in the town sees a girl using a restroom and engaging in girltalk, as she's done for the past two years.. A girl who happens to be Trans.

Oh yes - send money. The PJI needs it to alert the rest of the nation to this imminent threat by demonic forces that only they can discern.

Monday 21 October 2013

Bearing False Witness - Part 3

Audio recordings of testimony by parents of students at Florence High School, Colorado, is now available online. Some are very, very angry.






Please read the testimony of businesses, students, parents.... it's at http://www.transadvocate.com/family-of-colorado-trans-kid-targeted-by-harassment-hoax-speaks-up.htm

It's not only Moms in Colorado who are very, very angry. There's at least one in Canberra, Australia who is now best described as "incandescent" now we're sure of the facts.



I'll do everything I can to hasten that day. Today sounds good. And I'll be after far more of their anatomy than that.

Sunday 20 October 2013

Bearing False Witness - Continued

"Progressive" sites are starting to ask questions.

How Eager Is Conservative Media To Demonize Transgender Youth?
Anti-LGBT Group Admits It Invented Story About Transgender Student Harassing Classmates
Fox News airs false transphobic report
False Reports of Trans Bathroom Harassment Circulate
Right-Wing Group: Presence of Trans Student in Girls' Restroom Is 'Harassment'

"Reactionary" sites are doubling down. I'm not saying they're encouraging  a lynching.. no, belay that, I am saying that. Too much evidence to say otherwise.

A comment at WND - longer than most, but otherwise typical to mild
Science (truth) is being removed from America to create dumb kids/slaves of sexual desires by sexualizing children through Marxist "Sex Ed"----through forcing Vice on our children--forcing them to think sodomizing other is "Good" and a "Right" when it is a vile, dysfunctional Vice. Totally insane and removes Reason and Natural Laws/Christian Ethics (foundation of our Constitutional Rights).
Homosexuality and sexual confusion is caused by Childhood Trauma---and they are trying to normalize child abuse and corrupt and warp Reason and Truth of ALL normal students. They are destroying (erasing) Christian Ethics replacing them with Satanic/pagan religions where sodomy is used in Rites of Worship of Ba'al. All muslim nations prefer boys for sex and segregate/hate women. The schools hate these normal "girls". We are trying to normalize muslim ethics because we have them running the White House and our military and now Boy Scouts---to normalize pagan/sodomy and force Pride in anal sex and perversions (hate for women).
Sexualizing children corrupts normal sexual identity formation which requires innocence in Latency. it is like sexual rape of a child---only Sex Ed is rape of their minds/worldview which destroys all normal perceptions of the body with evil concepts where the body is used in dysfunctional, Vile ways. Dehumanization.
They are forcing "Sex Ed" (developed by Cultural Marxists (Lukacs)) which normalizes perversions and sexual acts in children. It corrupts children like in the vulgar Weimar Republic.
The insane boy is being used to force "Vice is Good" on others to destroy "normal" and "moral in our children. He is a traumatized kid--probably sexually molested like most homosexuals and Chastity Bono--raped as a girl. Trying to make mental illness normal is psychosexual politics of the Leftist to destroy autonomy and civil society---to collapse culture. Igniting sexual passions in children is what Sex Ed is designed to do before they have the ability to use Reason to control base instincts---which takes maturity.
Sex Ed is to flip "Good and Evil"--make muslim ethics of sodomy normal---like all our media/books/schools are designed to do---reduce man to rutting animals so that Billy Ayers/Al Gores and zero Marxists can make the masses into slaves and kill off all the useless eaters through their death panels in obamacare as they party and have their orgies like Sugar Keynes had at Harvard.
More succinct comments, including the usual threats of violence. Mostly it's just talk, Mostly. :


Some news outlets are reporting it straight,, even if they don't always get the details right. Most aren't touching the story.

Another southern Colo. transgender student denied access to girls’ restroom
More than 950 students go to Florence High School. Like any high school, there’s no shortage of gossip.
“The whole school is talking about it,” said Florence High School senior Kayli Conway.
It being a male student who claims he’s transgender and wants to use the girls’ restroom.
“They’re kind of making it a bigger deal than it should be,” said Conway.
Conway says the gossip began at the start of the school year.
“I know that they’re trying to tell her that she can’t use the females restroom and I think that’s kind of wrong because she’s trying to be a girl,” she said
...
This isn’t the first time a southern Colorado school has been at odds with a transgender student’s request to use a girl’s restroom. In a case that gained national attention, Eagleside Elementary School in Fountain refused to let 6-year-old Coy Mathis use the girl’s restroom.
Mathis’ parents took the issue to the Colorado Civil Rights Division, which ruled that any effort by Eagleside staff to bar Mathis’ access to restrooms had to be classified as discrimination.
Actually, she hasn't been denied access. That's the point, and the PJI doesn't like that. Hence the PJI made stuff up - though they've since retracted. Sorta.
“First of all, it’s our position that a teenage boy’s presence into the bathroom for teenage girls is inherently harassing,” said Matthew McReynolds, staff attorney at the Pacific Justice Institute, who is representing the families of the girls involved. “It’s inherently violative of their privacy rights. It’s also intimidating when you have a boy like this, who is not a freshman, going in there with younger freshman girls. They feel violated. They feel intimidated, and that’s been expressed to us.”
The girls further allege the boy has made sexually harassing comments in that setting.
“Details continue to emerge on this in terms of what what kind of comments may have been made. We’ve heard some reports that he’s commented on what girls are wearing or their figure while in the bathroom. If you can imagine that scenario from the reference and framework of a teenage girl, I think that’s pretty harassing,” said McReynolds, who reiterated that a boy simply being in the girls’ restroom is ample harassment in itself
So now they're alleging that a Trans girl used the girls' restroom. I think that's probably true.
And while there, behaved like any other girl. Maybe even remarked on hairstyle, asked for tips on makeup, complimented others on accessorising. As has been known to happen even with "girls" in their 50's.

I'll repeat this guy's words again:
"This is exactly the kind of horror story we have been warning would accompany the push for radical transgender rights in schools, and it is the type of situation that LGBT activits (sic) have been insisting would not happen.”
Um.

OK, an eccentric (to put it mildly) political group doing a "beat up", just like they did when they said that teaching that the Earth orbits the Sun was "creating a hostile environment for those of faith".

But then it gets nasty.

From Transadvocate (a site I sometimes contribute to - I'm not an "objective third party" here)
Both PJI and Brennan seem content to pretend that this is about something other than the life of a transgender child. ADULTS have made reprehensible claims about this kid – directly inciting violent intent – without evidence to back it up. After their smear campaign lead to public calls to hunt, beat and kill the trans youth, Brennan released the kid’s name.
Brennan became somewhat infamous after she outed a trans teen to his parents and school, attempted to intervene in the medical care of a transgender person she didn’t like and attempted to have the United Nations strip protections from the global trans community.
Radical Feminist Lesbian Lawyer Cathy Brennan is now acting as a member of the "Pacific Justice Institute's Ladies' Auxiliary", hosting fund-raising letters for them, and now even conveying this Trans girl's personal details to those who want to kill her.


And of course making personal attacks - including giving false information to their employers - on those she opposes. Like Cristan. Like me. Like pretty much every person, Trans, Intersex, Ally of fellow Feminist she finds herself in disagreement with. This goes well beyond Internet trolling, well beyond even the dirtiest politics. It goes into dangerous sociopathy and physical violence.

This time, and not for the first time, her victim-du-jour is a teenage girl.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

Bearing False Witness - a Chronology

Here's the story - a hoax, a malicious libel, deliberately designed to persecute one particular child.
A male student at Florence High School who claims to be a transgender has been harrassing girls in the bathroom......
No interviews. No sources, other than the Pacific Justice Institute. The same group that has lodged formal objections to teaching in science class that the Earth orbits the Sun as that contradicts Scripture, thereby "creating a hostile environment for those of faith".
create a hostile learning environment for those of faith. - See more at: http://www.pacificjustice.org/1/post/2013/09/atheistic-elementary-school-instruction-challenged.html#sthash.Wz1xhNEL.dpuf

The same group that objected to students being taught in biology class that Clownfish change sex, as that "goes against the family values of the majority".

 "Drumming Up Business" - when ambulance-chasing lawyers can't find crash victims, what are they to do? Maybe a little insurance fraud, "manufacturing" fake accidents. 


Earlier this year, PJI led the opposition in California to AB 1266, the most sweeping legislation yet to assert transgender rights in schools.  That law, which is set to take effect January 1, 2014, is currently being targeted by a citizen referendum drive.
 
1. Original story on CBN:
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2013/October/No-Recourse-for-Girls-Harassed-by-Transgender-Student/

2. Picked up by The Examiner
www.examiner.com/article/what-a-shocker-transgender-male-harassing-girls-high-school-bathroom

3. And CharismaNews
http://news.charismanews.com/us/41346-transgender-boy-harassing-girls-in-the-bathroom-gets-no-punishment

4. The DesertReview adds new allegations of "sexually harassing comments"
http://www.thedesertreview.com/nightmare-teen-boy-harasses-girls-in-their-bathroom-colo-school-tells-girls-they-have-no-rights

5. Picked up by the UK Daily Mail, a national newspaper
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2457952/Girls-harassed-school-bathroom-transgender-student-told-rights-trump-privacy.html

6. Thence Fox News
http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/10/14/girls-harassed-school-bathroom-transgender-student-told-his-rights-trump-their-privacy#
 
The Pacific Justice Institute makes a press release, again alleging "sexually harassing comments".
sexually harassing comments
sexually harassing comments
http://www.pacificjustice.org/1/post/2013/10/nightmare-teen-boy-harasses-girls-in-their-bathroom-colo-school-tells-girls-they-have-no-rights.html

But.. then it all starts to fall apart. The real story starts to come out.

Audio of interview with school superintendent.
https://soundcloud.com/cristan-williams/fact-checking-trans-student 

Account apparently from a student at the school - and consistent with the Superintendent's testimony on the record.
http://news.charismanews.com/us/41346-transgender-boy-harassing-girls-in-the-bathroom-gets-no-punishment#comment-1079140658


Analysis and summary
http://www.transadvocate.com/trans-student-attacking-girls-in-restroom-or-you-know-not.htm/comment-page-1

Curtsey and thanks to Christan Williams - who did the fact checking that neither the Christian Broadcasting Network, the Daily Mail, nor Fox News bothered with.

UPDATE:
You'll find a copy of the PJL's letter at
http://www.bizpacreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/PJI_letter_to_FHS_10-1.10.13.pdf

You'll search in vain for specifics though. Who supposedly is making the complaint. What the "harassment" consisted of. It's just a claim that a trans child attending school constitutes an invasion of privacy, and a violation of freedom of speech. Like teaching that the Earth orbits the Sun.

The PJL's letterhead states the chairman of their advisory board is one Edwin Meese Esq. - a name readers might be familiar with.

UPDATE
http://www.examiner.com/article/what-a-shocker-transgender-male-harassing-girls-high-school-bathroom#comment-1083103849

ColoradoKix

I am a girl at the school and a friend of the girl in question. I have to say that she is awesome!
There are a few problems that the principal isn't mentioning. I think they always like to cover things up?
She has been both physically and verbally threatened by some of the boys. They can be pretty scary. And the girls can say some hateful things. But it's much less than half.
More than anything she just wishes everyone would quit talking about her.

UPDATE:
The Daily Mail story has now been consigned to the bit bucket. Story, what story?
CharismaNews on the other hand is busy scrubbing all links to evidence that the story is bogus, in response to this request:

Andrew

Moderator, remove these links to this trash propaganda, there's no sense in having a Christian magazine giving free advertising to junk science and advocacy for perversion. These people have no sense of shame at all.
2:13 p.m., Tuesday Oct. 15
 Partial transcript of testimony by the school superintendent:
"VENDETTI: "Nothing has actually been verified with us. This is one parent basically bringing their viewpoint about this situation to the media because they weren't getting the responses that they hoped they would get from the district, from parents of students at the high school, or from the board and myself. So I think it's just an attempt to elevate the situation to a point where maybe some more attention can be drawn to that in the hope of having a different outcome. But to our knowledge and based on our investigation, none of those things have actually happened. We do have a transgender student at the high school and she has been using the women's restroom. There has not been a situation."

UPDATE - a comment by the Examiner article's author, posted on the CBN website:
Having the proper "Christian" attitude needs to be revisited by CBN and all of those claiming to be a child of God. Even "Saul" thought he was doing God's work when he persecuted Christians, had them arrested, thrown into prison, and even approved of the killing of Christians. 
Does CBN want to have the same reputation as Westboro Baptist Church? Unfortunately too much Pharisee has been the make-up of many Christians concerning subjects as homosexuality and transgenders. This story picked up by CBN was a disservice to the cause of Christ, a slam against transgenders in general, and a grossly exaggerated innuendo that impacted a transgender teen at Florence High School in Colorado.
I am the Christian perspectives writer for San Jose that picked up the story from CBN whom I was over confident that the story was true, because after all, it was CBN. I set aside fact checking because I put too much emphasis that CBN would have credibility. I was dead wrong, and so was CBN. I posted a retraction but the damage was already done as the story has taken on a life of its own and according to one commentator that took me to task in the comments section, international. 
CBN needs to print a retraction of its transgender story. It is not worth it to continue legitimacy to a lie that could do harm to an innocent teen whose only guilt is being born. Both CBN and myself were deceived and the next task is to confess, ask for forgiveness, and seek redemption as 1 John 1:9 declares. God hates it when false testimony is given and according to Proverbs 6:16-18 we better clean up our acts.

UPDATE - http://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/news/education/ci_24317516/transgender-case-under-investigation
Florence-Penrose School District Superintendent Rhonda Vendetti said the district was advised by lawyers not to comment about the specifics of the case because it is under investigation by law enforcement. However, she did release a comment Tuesday to the Daily Record.
"We are committed to providing a fair and equal education to all students at Florence High School," she said.

In view of one student's claim that the trans student has been a victim of cyberstalking -
"As a Christian girl who attends FHS, I'd just like to say that I've never been harassed by this individual not have I ever seen him harass anyone else. He's actually shy and a nice person. Do I think he should be able to use the girls bathroom? I'm torn. He either uses our bathroom and makes MAYBE 30% of the girls uncomfortable, or he uses the boy's restroom and gets beat up. I don't feel uncomfortable by him. Also, there are a lot of holes in this story. No parents initially complained. There was a mass Facebook message that included 150+ students and parents, outing him publicly. It was such a big deal, all electronic devises were confiscated if seen that day. THEN it was a problem and parents complained. This boy wasn't treated fairly. As a Christian, I had to put the truth out there. He didn't hurt or harass anyone."
And another student's claim of the trans girl being a victim of physical violence -
I am a girl at the school and a friend of the girl in question. I have to say that she is awesome!
There are a few problems that the principal isn't mentioning. I think they always like to cover things up?
She has been both physically and verbally threatened by some of the boys. They can be pretty scary. And the girls can say some hateful things. But it's much less than half.
More than anything she just wishes everyone would quit talking about her.
Police involvement is appropriate.

UPDATE Christan Williams is still on the case....
http://www.transadvocate.com/anti-gay-activist-group-admits-trans-school-harassment-is-fake.htm

Today, PJI issued a statement to the TransAdvocate via their apparent mouthpiece, a TERF activist. While the statement still offered no evidence to support the claim that this trans kid is a predator, they finally revealed the nature of the supposed “harassment” endured by the cisgender school kids.
In a statement delivered to the TransAdvocate by attorney Cathy Brennan, the PJI claims that a trans person in the restroom is “inherently intimidating and harassing.” Brennan, vocal critic of  trans equality measures, became somewhat infamous after she outed a trans teen to his parents and school, and recently attempted to intervene in the medical care of a transgender person.
After days of sidestepping any explicit statements about the exact nature of the supposed “harassment,” PJI now asserts that the mere presence of a trans person constitutes harassment and intimidation to cisgender people.

UPDATE:
The PJI has now admitted in a press release that the only "harassment" was the Trans girl using the girls restroom.

They have said in the past that they are trying to corroborate unspecified rumours of actual harassment. The latest press release suggests they've now dropped that and are hurriedly backing down from it. An independent investigation by the police into the truth of those allegations is now underway, something they apparently didn't want.
"The central issue in this case—a high school’s decision to give a biological teenage boy full access to teenage girls’ bathrooms is both disturbing and not seriously disputed". - See more at: http://www.pacificjustice.org/1/post/2013/10/update-colo-school-story-sparks-backlash-by-lgbt-activists.html#sthash.v9DQZeVx.dpuf
Contrast this with their original claim that not only did she use the restroom, but engaged in unspecified sexual harassment rather than just using it:
"This is exactly the kind of horror story we have been warning would accompany the push for radical transgender rights in schools, and it is the type of situation that LGBT activits (sic) have been insisting would not happen.”
UPDATE : KOAA 5 Colorado Springs has a report dated 2 weeks ago (Oct 3):



UPDATE After due consideration, playing my own "Devil's Advocate" here:
There's still much we don't know.
 Is the student Transsexual (as I've assumed) or Transgender/Gender Fluid? Or even Intersex?
What age are they? They've been going to the school for some years, so over 12, but that's about all we do know.
Have they been transitioning under the standards of care (again, an assumption on my part that could be wrong)?
The police are involved now - investigating the allegations about what this student has done, or investigating the threats alleged to have been made against them as well? What about the alleged FB message blast?
We have comments on websites, allegedly from other students. But are they genuine?
Yes, we've shown the PJL's letters "gilded the lilly" at the very least, or were a pack of lies at most - but I know I should be careful not to substitute my own assumptions as fact too. Otherwise how do I differ from the PJL?

Thursday 10 October 2013

Male brain vs female brain: How do they differ?

Male brain vs female brain: How do they differ? | Science | theguardian.com

My comments:
Important points:
1. Differences are both biological and social (I'd put it as 20% biological, 80% socially constructed myself - but you can't ignore that 20%. It's real.)
2. Differences are statistical. It makes just as little sense to say "we can't employ a woman to do X because women aren't good at it" as to refuse to employ a woman who's 6' 4" tall because "women are too short". Even though most women are shorter than most men.
3. Saying all this is unpopular. Those who are biological essentialists deny the overwhelming effect of socialisation; those who are fanatic feminists deny the small but real statistical biological differences. Both dogmatic and extreme positions are ideological, not fact-based, and both groups will metaphorically or in the case of some of the more extreme religious groups, literally burn you at the stake for saying so. Your words will be twisted and position misrepresented by both parties.
4. Historically, it's the biological essentialist position that has been used to oppress women worldwide, and still is in many places today. So it's the greater evil. But there's a seed of truth in there that shouldn't be ignored, just because it's been grossly exaggerated, small differences magnified, and applied universally rather than statistically.
'
5. However.. it's the fanatic feminist position that has in recent times - the past 40 years - been used as an excuse to persecute and denigrate Trans and Intersex women, and to a lesser extent men. That's not happening in the uncivilised and illiterate NW Frontier, but on the pages of the Observer and Grauniad. People have died as the result. It should cease.
...
Please don't try to force individuals into stereotyped boxes, just because they happen to belong to a certain group with genuine but statistical biologically-based personality traits. Some will fit, others not, and you should neither critique them for "conforming to an oppressive gender binary" on one hand, nor "going against God's Natural Law" on the other.

Hormonal therapy and sex reassignment: a systematic review and metaanalysis of quality of life and psychosocial outcomes

Hormonal therapy and sex reassignment: a systematic review and metaanalysis of quality of life and psychosocial outcomes Murad et al Clinical Endocrinology Volume 72, Issue 2, pages 214–231, February 2010
Summary

Objective  To assess the prognosis of individuals with gender identity disorder (GID) receiving hormonal therapy as a part of sex reassignment in terms of quality of life and other self-reported psychosocial outcomes.

Methods  We searched electronic databases, bibliography of included studies and expert files. All study designs were included with no language restrictions. Reviewers working independently and in pairs selected studies using predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted outcome and quality data. We used a random-effects meta-analysis to pool proportions and estimate the 95% confidence intervals (CIs). We estimated the proportion of between-study heterogeneity not attributable to chance using the I2 statistic.

Results  We identified 28 eligible studies. These studies enrolled 1833 participants with GID (1093 male-to-female, 801 female-to-male) who underwent sex reassignment that included hormonal therapies. All the studies were observational and most lacked controls. Pooling across studies shows that after sex reassignment, 80% of individuals with GID reported significant improvement in gender dysphoria (95% CI = 68–89%; 8 studies; I2 = 82%); 78% reported significant improvement in psychological symptoms (95% CI = 56–94%; 7 studies; I2 = 86%); 80% reported significant improvement in quality of life (95% CI = 72–88%; 16 studies; I2 = 78%); and 72% reported significant improvement in sexual function (95% CI = 60–81%; 15 studies; I2 = 78%).

Conclusions  Very low quality evidence suggests that sex reassignment that includes hormonal interventions in individuals with GID likely improves gender dysphoria, psychological functioning and comorbidities, sexual function and overall quality of life.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

Brain Signature Characterizing the Body-Brain-Mind Axis of Transsexuals

Brain Signature Characterizing the Body-Brain-Mind Axis of Transsexuals Ku H-L, Lin C-S, Chao H-T, Tu P-C, Li C-T, et al. (2013) PLoS ONE 8(7): e70808.

Individuals with gender identity disorder (GID), who are commonly referred to as transsexuals (TXs), are afflicted by negative psychosocial stressors. Central to the psychological complex of TXs is the conviction of belonging to the opposite sex. Neuroanatomical and functional brain imaging studies have demonstrated that the GID is associated with brain alterations. In this study, we found that TXs identify, when viewing male-female couples in erotic or non-erotic (“neutral”) interactions, with the couple member of the desired gender in both situations. By means of functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found that the TXs, as opposed to controls (CONs), displayed an increased functional connectivity between the ventral tegmental area, which is associated with dimorphic genital representation, and anterior cingulate cortex subregions, which play a key role in social exclusion, conflict monitoring and punishment adjustment. The neural connectivity pattern suggests a brain signature of the psychosocial distress for the gender-sex incongruity of TXs.