Dreamer Easy

The Zargoids report on human sexual diversity.

( For those without Gallifrey Base accounts... )

Today's SMH tries hard to make an exciting issue out of a Family Court order that a seventeen year old transgender boy have his breasts removed now, rather than waiting until he's eighteen. This is just the next step of the boy's treatment, which has been proceeding since he was thirteen; the only reason a court order was required was that he's still a minor. "Transgender boy's successful therapy continues" wouldn't be much of a headline, of course; "Court supports girl's wish to be a boy" is more catchy (and The Age has gone for broke with "Court lets girl, 17, remove breasts"). But to beef up the article a bit, we have some Controversy:

But the ethicist Nick Tonti-Filippini said mainstream medicine did not recognise hormone treatments and surgery as treatment for gender dysphoria. He said it was a psychiatric disorder qualifying under US guidelines as a psychosis because "it's a belief out of accordance with reality".

"What you are trying to do is make a biological reality correspond to that false belief."

Uh...

OK. For a start, the American Psychiatric Association states that "appropriately evaluated individuals benefit from gender transition treatments", citing numerous studies. You can't get much more "mainstream" than that.

As for "psychosis": I assume Tonti-Filippini is referring to the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the standard handbook which names and defines different psychological conditions. The entire entry on gender identity disorders is reproduced online here. Although the terms "psychosis" or "psychotic" are found throughout the manual, they're conspicuous by their absence from the entry on GID. So I'm stumped. Is Tonti-Filippini is referring to an outdated edition of the DSM? To some other set of mainstream diagnostic guidelines? Or, just possibly, to guidelines used by therapists who try to counsel transgender children and adolescents into becoming cisgender?

The Age also quotes Tonti-Filippini:

"But medical ethicist Nick Tonti-Filippini warns there can be grave outcomes for people such as Alex. 'People who have sex changes have just on 20 times the suicide rate of the rest of the population. They are a major risk. They also have very high rates of unemployment.'"

Yeah, can't think why that might be, mate.

I overheard part of a conversation at the con - forgive me, whoever was participating, as I've entirely forgotten! - affirming that although the Doctor could obviously be played by a Black actor, he could never be played by an actress, as this would make no scientific sense. The more I think about this simple remark, the deeper it gets.

Until quite recently, race was considered to be a real, natural category - something obvious and commonsense, decreed by biology or God. For decades, science's self-correcting mechanism has been chipping away at this illusion. We now understand that, biologically, there's no such thing as race - which means it's a cultural idea, something we invented and imposed. The evidence of our own eyes, which once seemed to confirm the illusion, now challenges it, as we encounter more and more people of mixed race. Sadly, the scientific evidence doesn't mean an end to racism, any more than scientific evidence means an end to Creationism; but we can hope to see this imaginary system of categories gradually blur away to nothing.

Physical sex, bodily gender, are another matter. Nature seems to confirm the obvious, solid categories of male and female with every birth: there are plenty of children of mixed race, but there are no children of mixed sex.

Except, obviously, that there are: millions of them. Transgender people, intersex people, people with any of a great many genetic syndromes which complicate our common sense, either/or picture of gender (and who may suffer very much as a result of our insistence on it). This powerfully challenges the idea that, while race is not a natural category, sex is, and it therefore wouldn't make sense for the Doctor to change sexes.

Despite this complexity, though, it's not usual for humans to change sex without medical assistance. (It's not impossible: there's a family in the Dominican Republic where some of the girls become boys at puberty.) Outside the human race, though, there are species across the animal kingdom who naturally change sex - to have as many offspring as possible, or to keep their social hierarchies organised. Some fish do it, some sea cucumbers do it, shrimp, sea snails, bristle worms, frogs... some species change sex just once, some can switch back and forth as necessary.

These natural sex changes are a matter of rebuilding the body, something which is difficult for adult human beings to do without help - but clearly trivial for Time Lords, who do precisely that at every regeneration. (Hmm, I wonder if this is why men and women on Gallifrey wear the same clothes?)

In fine: whatever objections one might have to casting an actress as the Doctor, science doesn't really lend them any support. Without making any judgements on anyone, I think those objections have more to do with our ideas about sex and gender than the concrete, fleshly reality of sex and gender: and I think those ideas are worth examining.

Debunking The Sarah Palin Rape Kit "Debunkers" (ta, stephen_dedman!)

Chuppah chaps seal union in same-sex first

Court Rules That Anti-Trans Discrimination Is Sex Discrimination: "...Diane Schroer, a highly qualified special forces veteran who was offered a position at the Library of Congress as a terrorism research analyst. The Library withdrew the job offer when Schroer informed them that she was in the process of changing sex." (Bigotry wastes resources. The worst example I ever heard was a lost child being left to die in the Australian bush because his father wouldn't let a blacktracker onto the property.)

Judge rules Florida gay adoption ban unconstitutional. (Bigotry. Wastes. Resources.)

Eating disorders on the rise in Australian boys: "Australia's obesity epidemic is being blamed for a sharp rise in the number of boys and men developing anorexia as more teens get bullied for being overweight and become confused about healthy food guidelines."

If you'd like to take action against the recent law about passports for transitioning transgender people, there's an online petition.

You could also write the Minister for Foreign Affairs a couple of firm but polite lines:

The Hon Alexander Downer MP
Shop 6B, Mt Barker Central Shopping Centre
20 Druids Avenue
MT BARKER SA 5251
Phone: 08 8398 5566
Fax: 08 8398 5577
Email: minister.downer@dfat.gov.au