Alice Domurat Dreger

 
 

Paul Vasey and I were privileged to guest edit this volume of Perspectives in Biology and Medicine (Autumn 2007, vol. 50, no. 4). You can read the full abstracts and access the articles through Project Muse or you can buy a copy of the whole issue from the publisher. Here are some lines from the papers' conclusions:


In light of the information on fa'afafine presented here, we conclude that the diagnostic category of [Gender Identity Disorder in Childhood] should not occur in its current form in future editions of the DSM, because there is no sound evidence that cross-gender behaviors or identities, per se, cause distress.

-- Paul L. Vasey and Nancy Bartlett, "What Can the Samoan "Fa'afafine" Teach Us about the Western Concept of Gender Identity Disorder in Childhood?"


Therefore, the [Standards of Care of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, formally HBIGDA] mental health evaluation requirement should be eliminated unless and until it is demonstrated that adult gender variant prospective patients are, as a category, significantly incapable of making autonomous choices in their own best interests.

-- Jacob C. Hale, "Ethical Problems with the Mental Health Evaluation Standards of Care for Adult Gender Variant Prospective Patients"


...[T]hinking about autogynephilia as a purely erotic phenomenon is not the most helpful approach for clinicians [....] Thinking about nonhomosexual or autogynephilic MtF transsexuals as men who "love women and want to become what they love" offers a more accurate and more richly informative model for clinicians.

-- Anne A. Lawrence, "Becoming What We Love: Autogynephilic Transsexualism Conceptualized as an Expression of Romantic Love"


It is unfortunate that the public face of MtF transsexualism is so different from reality. [...] Those who value scientific truth and the well-being of transsexuals are advised to do better.

-- Michael J. Bailey and Kiira Triea, "What Many Transgender Activists Don't Want You to Know, and Why You Should Know It Anyway"


While the term intersex can still be a useful political expression for adults, using divergence of sex development in the medical sphere would allow physicians to see intersex issues in all their complexity, and that is in everyone's best interest.

-- Elizabeth Reis, "Divergence or Disorder?  The Politics of Naming Intersex"


Both [castrated prostate cancer patients and MtF transsexuals] are trying to fit into a strict gender binary. To the extent that both are agonadal and non-reproductive, from a strictly biological perspective, any goals they may have to be heteronormative females and males cannot be fully realized. In contrast, the self-identified voluntary eunuchs provide a good example of the capacity for individuals to live in a gender space outside the social norm of the male/female binary.

-- Richard J. Wassersug and Thomas W. Johnson, “Modern-Day Eunuchs: Motivations for and Consequences of Contemporary Castration”




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Special section on sex, gender, and sexuality diversity in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

All material copyright Alice Domurat Dreger, 1996-2008.