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GAK!

DR.SPACK!

rings almost like DR.SPOCK - only instead of mindbending children - he's genderbending them.

oh what a wicked web...

YAY! Scienticians have just discovered Another sexual perversion that can create a special caste under the law. Maybe they can teach this one in school as well!

The 41-year-old recognized and accepted his inclination when he was just 12 years old. It was then that he fell head over heels "into an emotionally and physically very complex and deep relationship, which lasted for years." His partner back then was a Hammond organ -- he has now been in a steady relationship with a steam locomotive for several years.

Eh, so what V the K, I've known plenty of women who have physical relationships with inanimate objects. In fact NOW is full of them

There is no such thing as a "sex change". Like you said, V.H., it is just mutilation. Any one out there know of any so-called "transsexual" men who have menstrual cycles or get pregnant?

For those of you that love to make assumptions about Transgenderism, but would rather roll around in their phobia's instead of doing actual research on the topic prior to engaging in an (alledged) intelligent discussion, let me explain.
Transgenderism, in some form or other, has been shown to be a condition that occurs in nature in all the animal kingdom. It has been (repeatably) shown to occur from biological reasons. It is a condition where the brain is "hardwired" to behave in a manner that is not consistant with the body's birth gender. To not pursue transition, is to commit to a life of severe depression, and for many, suicide.
As to the claim of mutilation of the body, there are many cases of intersexed people. People that have physical characteristics (sexual organs) of more than one sex. Would it be mutilation to correct that birth defect? Who are you to decide what is right for that person? Just because that person doesn't fit into your "normal" world, doesn't mean that he or she shouldn't be allowed to live without your phobic, biggotted judgement.
People that have to live with this condition, need to undergo more than a year of living in their new role, and psychological evaluation that is intended to eliminate any possible alternate diagnosis.
I applaud Children's Hospital Boston for providing a service that will allow those afflicted children the opportunity to live a life as a whole, well developed person, without depression, aand suicidal thoughts. BRAVO!

Conflating 'intersex persons' (or hermaphrodites in the common tongue) with 'transgenderism', or the desire to be the opposite sex, is very bad rhetoric. One is a genuine physical issue. The other is a mental problem. The question stands: how many of those people who had their sexual organs sliced and diced so they could pretend to be the opposite sex are actually capable of being that sex? How many 'women' who used to be men can bear children? I'm not talking about people who have what are now called 'ambiguous genitalia' but people who are genetically and physicall easy to define as either a man or a woman.

I am not "Conflating" intersex people with people with Gender Identity Disorder (even though there is a current accepted scientific theory that GID is a form of the intersexed condition). I am making a comparison. For those individuals that try to express their views by using obtuse assumptions that have nothing to do with conventional wisdom (I.E. scientifically based theories), I would like to know, is a woman that has had a historectomy no longer a woman (by your "definition")? After all, she can't bear children. How about the many women that can't conceive? I would hate to tell them they are not women. The Transgendered condition has been shown (I am not claiming proof here, more studies need to be done)to occur invitro at a time when the fetus has no developed sexual characteristics. A hormonal bath is introduced to the fetus at that time that determines gender. If that bath occurs late (which in my case has been substantiated by an expert MD on the subject), then no amount of therepy, or homones will change the way the brain is "hard wired". It has been PROVEN that men and women do have differring brain structures. It has been shown that transgender people's brains are typically identical to that of the gender they feel they are.
If you (heaven forbid) where to have an accident where by your genitalia was removed, would that change the gender that you identify yourself as? I assume not. For a Trans person, that identity is key. They identify as the opposite of their birth gender because of purely biological reasons. Just because "you" say this is "mutilation" or "slicing and dicing" does not make it so. People that have gender reassignment surgery report an overall sense of satisfaction at having had the surgery at a rate of higher than 93%. All that surgery does is put ones body in congruence with their brain, since 100 years of research has shown that there is no current way of changing the hard wiring of the brain.
I mentioned in my first post that failure to transition leads to severe, life long depression, and suicidal thoughts. In fact the Trans community suffers from the highest (by far) suicide rate of any minority. Is that your wish for these children afflicted with this? Early intervention at the time of puberty (for those that have had extensive therapy confirming GID) prevents these children from "looking like a man in womens clothes" when they grow up. As far as your being able to easily identify someone as a man or a woman. I have seen mannish looking genetic women, and feminine genetic males. Who are you to define for them what they are? What about people with unusual DNA? XXY for example? What about the people that have been shown to have genetic abnormalities other than that? As a Trans woman myself, I know I will never conceive, I know I was not born a genetic female, and I don"t "pretend" that I was. I just want to live, in peace, within my own body. If I never have an intimate relationship again in my lifetime, I still would gladly go through transition. There is nothing you can say or do that will give me a man's brain. I am not a threat to anyone's way of life. I do not recruit people to be transgender. If you wish to preserve your phobia's and bigotry toward a group of people with a biological condition, perhaps you could at least find out something about the condition prior to spouting your bigoted retoric.