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What it means to be transgender: Answers to 5 key questions
This article was published today in the Raleigh News Observer, which was previously written and published by a reporter with the Charlotte Observer
Q: Is being transgender a choice?
A. “Research continues to show that it’s not as simple as ‘I’m a female/I’m a male,’ ” said J. Wesley Thompson, a physician assistant, medical director of Ballantyne Family Medicine and member of the Charlotte Transgender Healthcare Group.
Q: Is being transgender a mental illness?
A: No. In 2013, the term “gender identity disorder” was eliminated from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The term was replaced by “gender dysphoria,” which focuses attention on those who feel distressed by their gender identity.
Q: Are people female or male at birth?
A: Not always. Duke’s Adkins is one of 20 pediatric endocrinologists who wrote a letter to McCrory objecting to HB2, in part because “there are babies born in whom chromosomes suggesting one sex do not match the appearance of the genitalia.”
Q: How does gender develop?
A: “All human embryos are equipped with the starter kits for both male and female sexual anatomy,” according to a BloombergView article by Faye Flam. “Every part on the male body has an analogous part on the female body.”
Typically, females have two X chromosomes, and males have one X and one Y. “But these are just the starting switches for a complicated process in which genes on various chromosomes become activated and trigger precisely timed releases of hormones,” Flam wrote.
Q: What does research show?
A: Male and female brains are slightly different in structure. In 2013, Spanish researchers examined MRI scans of the brains of 42 transgender men and women. Even before treatment with hormones, the scans showed that specific structures in their brains were more similar to those in the gender they identified with than of those in the gender they were born with.
<snip>
Nutt, who summarized the research in her book, noted that female and male brains are not that different overall.
“What gets lost is that society favors conformity, and nature favors diversity,” she said in a phone interview. “What scientists have been able to discover is that gender identity and sexual anatomy is a spectrum. … We can no longer think of transgender people as being some kind of aberration. … We need to think of them as variations.”
A. “Research continues to show that it’s not as simple as ‘I’m a female/I’m a male,’ ” said J. Wesley Thompson, a physician assistant, medical director of Ballantyne Family Medicine and member of the Charlotte Transgender Healthcare Group.
Q: Is being transgender a mental illness?
A: No. In 2013, the term “gender identity disorder” was eliminated from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The term was replaced by “gender dysphoria,” which focuses attention on those who feel distressed by their gender identity.
Q: Are people female or male at birth?
A: Not always. Duke’s Adkins is one of 20 pediatric endocrinologists who wrote a letter to McCrory objecting to HB2, in part because “there are babies born in whom chromosomes suggesting one sex do not match the appearance of the genitalia.”
Q: How does gender develop?
A: “All human embryos are equipped with the starter kits for both male and female sexual anatomy,” according to a BloombergView article by Faye Flam. “Every part on the male body has an analogous part on the female body.”
Typically, females have two X chromosomes, and males have one X and one Y. “But these are just the starting switches for a complicated process in which genes on various chromosomes become activated and trigger precisely timed releases of hormones,” Flam wrote.
Q: What does research show?
A: Male and female brains are slightly different in structure. In 2013, Spanish researchers examined MRI scans of the brains of 42 transgender men and women. Even before treatment with hormones, the scans showed that specific structures in their brains were more similar to those in the gender they identified with than of those in the gender they were born with.
<snip>
Nutt, who summarized the research in her book, noted that female and male brains are not that different overall.
“What gets lost is that society favors conformity, and nature favors diversity,” she said in a phone interview. “What scientists have been able to discover is that gender identity and sexual anatomy is a spectrum. … We can no longer think of transgender people as being some kind of aberration. … We need to think of them as variations.”
For the full article and more elaboration on each question: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/technology/article76580862.html
It's crystal clear that the people in back of HB 2 are ill-informed and ignorant and determined to justify their bigotry based on age old fears rather than open their little minds to
the possibility that the Bible they wave around in defense of their actions was written by people who didn't know the science that we know now. I can't tell you how many people I've seen
making comments to articles about HB 2 using the defense "You're either male or female and God doesn't make mistakes."
Ignorance is a tough nut to crack, especially with those who fear their whole world will crumble if they accept the fact that the Bible isn't "literally true". It's these people who are behind
HB 2 and have been put in positions of power to create such irrational, hateful legislation.
