You're Teaching My Child What? (36 page)

25
This was a heinous crime, and the murderers deserved their sentences (death and life imprisonment). However, it's highly unlikely Teena was targeted solely because of failure to conform to a female gender stereotype—emotional, delicate, domestic, etc. Teena had a history of unlawful behavior and had associated with her murderers, violent ex-convicts, for some time. The two individuals murdered with her also knew the killers. In short, there's much more to the story of Brandon Teena than gender issues, which
gURL.com
should not leave out.

26
Each person normally has one pair of sex chromosomes in each cell. The Y chromosome is present in males, who have one X and one Y chromosome, while females have two X chromosomes.

27
Helen Skaletsky et al, “The male-specific region of the human Y chromosome is a mosaic of discrete sequence classes,”
Nature
423, no 6942 (2003): 825–38.

28
Larry Cahill, “Why Sex Matters for Neuroscience,”
Nature Reviews Neuroscience
7 (June 2006): 477–84.

29
Jill B. Becker et al, eds.,
Sex Differences in the Brain: From Genes to Behavior
(Oxford University Press, 2006), xviii; see also Daniel D. Federman, “The Biology of Human Sex Differences,” The
New England Journal of Medicine
354 (2006): 1507–14.

30
Clearly this is a complex subject; childhood experiences may be important too, depending on the individual. Still, it is accurate to conclude that there
are
typical boy and girl behaviors, due primarily to differences in how the embryonic brain develops and secondarily to psychosocial factors. The fact that there are many exceptions among individuals does not contradict the finding that, as a group and across cultures, certain behaviors are expressed more frequently. (see Richard C Friedman and Jennifer I Downey (2008) Sexual Differentiation of Behavior: The Foundation of a Developmental Model of Psychosexuality,
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
56).

31
Other genes influence the process as well.

32
Louann Brizendine,
The Female Brain
(New York: Random House, 2006), 5.

33
Differences in fetal hormone levels can sometimes be discerned as early as day 16 post-fertilization.

34
Richard C. Friedman and Jennifer I. Downey, “Sexual Differentiation of Behavior: The Foundation of a Developmental Model of Psychosexuality,” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 56 (2008): 147.

35
Jennifer Connellan, Simon Baron-Cohen, Sally Wheelwright, Anna Batki, and Jag Ahluwalia, “Sex differences in human neonatal social perception,”
Infant Behavior and Development
23 (2000): 113–18.

36
Svetlana Lutchmaya and Simon Baron-Cohen, “Human Sex Differences in social and non-social looking preferences, at 12 months of age,”
Infant Behavior and Development
25 (2002): 319–25.

37
Svetlana Lutchmaya, Simon Baron-Cohen, and Peter Raggatt, (2002) “Foetal testosterone and eye contact in 12-month-old human infants,”
Infant Behavior & Development
25 (2000): 327–35.

38
“When my granddaughter was born, I noticed her little knit cap and blanket was pink and blue. Another victory.”

39
“FYI: Gender at
gURL.com
,”
http://www.gURL.com/findout/guides/articles/0,,702673-5,00.html
.

40
Megumi Iijima, Osamu Arisaka, Fumie Minamoto, and Yasumasa Arai, “Sex Differences in Children's Free Dr.awings: A Study on Girls with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia,”
Hormones and Behavior
40 (2001): 99–104.

41
David Reimer on The Diane Rehm Show, February 22, 2000;
http://www.wamu.org/programs/Dr./00/02/22.php
.

42
Jill B. Becker et al, eds.,
Sex Differences in the Brain: From Genes to Behavior
(Oxford University Press, 2008).

43
D. N. Ruble, C. L. Martin, and S. A. Berenbaum, “Gender Development,” in N. Eisenberg, ed.,
Handbook of Child Psychology 3: social, emotional, and personality development
, 6th edition, 858–32 (New York: Wiley, 2006).

44
Lisa A. Serbin, et al, “Gender Stereotyping in Infancy: Visual preferences for and knowledge of gender-sterotyped toys in the second year,”
International Journal of Behavioral Development
, 25, no.1 (2001), 7–15.

45
Anne Campbell, Louisa Shirley, Charles Heywood , and Charles Cook, “Infants' visual preference for sex-congruent babies, children, toys and activities: A longitudinal study,”
British Journal of Developmental Psychology
18 (2000): 494.

46
Lisa A. Serbin, et al, “Gender Stereotyping in Infancy: Visual preferences for and knowledge of gender-sterotyped toys in the second year.”

47
Anne Campbell, et al, “Infants' visual preference for sex-congruent babies, children, toys and activities: A longitudinal study”; Lisa A. Serbin, et al, “Gender Stereotyping in Infancy: Visual preferences for and knowledge of gender-sterotyped toys in the second year.”

48
S.A. Berenbaum and M. Hines, “Early androgens are related to childhood sex-typed toy preferences,”
Psychological Science 3
(1992): 203–06; M. Hines and F.R. Kaufman, “Androgen and the development of human sex-typical
behavior: rough-and tumble play and sex of preferred playmates in children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH),”
Child Development
65 (1994): 1042–53.

49
Gerianne M. Alexander and Melissa Hines, “Sex differences in response to children's toys in nonhuman primates (Cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus),”
Evolution and Human Behavior
23 (2002): 467–79; Janice M. Hassett, Erin R. Siebert, and Kim Wallen, “Sexually Differentiated Toy Preferences in Rhesus Monkeys,”
Hormones and Behavior
46 (2004): 91 (abstract only).

50
Ewen Callaway, “Male monkeys prefer boys' toys,” April 4, 2008,
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13596-male-monkeys-prefer-boys-toys.html
.

51
“I think I might be transgender, now what do I do?” Found on
www.AdvocatesforYouth.org
; see also Jessie Gilliam, “I'm coming out... I want the world to know... (Or do I?)”
Transitions
14, no. 4 (June 2002), available online at:
http://www.lgbthealth.net/downloads/research/AdvocatesforYouth.pdf
.

52
“Ask the Experts,”
www.teenwire.com/ask/2005/as-20050623p1056-gender.php?print=yes
.

53
Jesse Ellison, “BIID: Why Sufferers Amputate Their Own Limbs,” Newsweek Health, May 28, 2008,
http://www.newsweek.com/id/138932
.

54
David Brang, Paul McGeoch, Vilayanur Ramachandran, “Apotemnophilia: a neurological disorder,”
NeuroReport
19, no.13 (August 2008).

55
“Genderpalooza! A Sex & Gender Primer,”
http://www.scarleteen.com/article/body/genderpalooza_a_sex_gender_primer
.

56
Harold I. Kaplan, Alfred M. Freedman, and Benjamin J. Sadock
, Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry Vol. 2
, 3rd edition (Williams and Wilkins, 1980), 1697; Mollie S. Smart and Russell C. Smart,
Children: Development and Relationships
, 4th edition (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1982), 280–81; see also Diane M. Ruble, Carol Lynn Martin, and Sheri A. Berenbaun, “Gender Development,” in Vol. 3 of Nancy Eisenberg, ed.,
Handbook of Child Psychology
, 6th Edition, (John Wiley, 2006), 861–62; Ross Vasta, Marshall H. Haith, and Scott A. Miller,
Child Psychology: The Modern Science
, 2nd edition (John Wiley, 1992), 561.

57
A diagnosis that is being challenged by gender activists in the mental health profession.

58
“Your understanding of who you are [regarding gender identity] may change over the course of your lifetime.”
http://www.siecus.org/_data/global/images/TalkAboutSex.pdf
.

59
“Many of us question our gender at various points in our lives,” says Planned Parenthood's site for teens. “And our gender identity may shift and evolve over time.”
http://www.teenwire.com/infocus/2007/if-20070717p495-trans.php
.

60
“Advocates for Youth,”
www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/safespace/faq.htm
.

61
“LGBTQ 101,”
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/teen-talk/lesbian-gay-bisexual-trans/questioning/lgbtq-101-25421.htm
.

62
It's important to note that in many instances “atypical gender expression” includes tomboys and sensitive males as well as individuals who insist they were born in the wrong body. The MCPS refused to change their curriculum to explain that being a tomboy or a sensitive male does not mean you are transgender.

63
“From Sexuality and Society”—Powerpoint of sex educator Judy Chaission.

64
Samuel Lurie, “Overview of Transgender Issues for College Health Centers,”
Action: The Official Newsletter of the American College Health Organization
45, no.4 (2006): 1.

65
Fred A. Bernstein, “On Campus, Rethinking Biology 101,”
New York Times
, March 7, 2004.

66
Regret after sex reassignment surgery has been documented; see Stig-Eric Olsson and Anders Moller, “Regret after Sex Reassignment Surgery in a Male to Female Transsexual: A Long Term Follow-Up,”
Archives of Sexual Behavior
35, no. 4 (2006): 501–06.

67
“I hate being a girl: is that wrong?”
http://www.scarleteen.com/article/advice/i_hate_being_a_girl_is_that_wrong
.

68
American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc,
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual—Text Revision
(DSM-IV-TR™, 2000).

69
One notes how often the term “transgender folks” is used to get us to believe these are people just like you and I—they just want to be castrated, that's all.

70
“The prevalence of gender dysphoria among patients aged over 15 years was calculated as 8.18 per 100 000, with an approximate sex ratio of 4:1 in favour of male-to-female patients,” Wilson P., Sharp C., and Carr S., “The prevalence of gender dysphoria in Scotland: a primary care study
,” British Journal of General Practice
49, no.449 (December 1999): 991–92; “There are no recent epidemiological studies to provide data on prevalence of Gender Identity Disorder. Data from smaller countries in Europe with access to total population statistics and referrals suggest that roughly 1 per 30,000 adult males and 1 per 100,000 adult females seek sex-reassignment surgery.”
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
, 4th edition (American Psychiatric Publishing); “Gender confusion... affects about 1:20,000 males and 1:50,000 females,” Bonnie R. Strickland, exec ed.,
Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology
, 2nd edition, (Gale Group, 2001). Even more liberal estimates fail to support Heather's claim: in a study of non-referred children ages 12–13, 2.7 percent of girls and 0 percent of boys wished to be the opposite sex; this included transient events, therefore not truly representing gender dysphoria. From Melvin Lewis, ed.,
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
(Williams & Wilkens, 1991), 605. While there are limitations to all the data, I cannot find any study supporting the notion that gender dysphoria is “especially common” at any age.

71
“Genderpalooza! A Sex & Gender Primer,”
http://www.scarleteen.com/article/body/genderpalooza_a_sex_gender_primer
.

72
SIECUS, “Talk About Sex,”
http://www.siecus.org/_data/global/images/TalkAboutSex.pdf
, 24.

73
Kay Clark, “Transgender: Understanding Gender Differences”,
ETR Associates
, 2005.

74
Consider themselves beyond or between genders.

75
“Advocates for Youth,”
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/safespace/faq.htm
.

76
“FYI: Gender at
gURL.com
,”
http://www.gURL.com/findout/guides/articles/0,,702673-6,00.html
.

77
“My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely,”
http://www.scarleteen.com/node/502
; here, Heather calls the book “awesome”; “Start Your Sexuality Canon,”
http://www.scarleteen.com/article/read/start_your_sexuality_canon
; and “I hate being a girl: is that wrong?”
http://www.scarleteen.com/article/advice/i_hate_being_a_girl_is_that_wrong
.

78
Kate Bornstein,
My Gender Workbook
, 7.

79
Susan Brindle, “Gender Outlaw: An interview with Kate Borstein,”
EnlightenNext
magazine,
http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j16/kate.asp
.

80
Terry Vanderheyden “Harvard Applicants May Now Declare Third ‘Gender, ' ”
LifeSiteNews.com
, July 26, 2006.

81
Joanne Creighton, president of Smith College: “Our policy is to admit women and to support them in their intellectual and personal development. We expect that students will explore a wide range of issues of identity.” (Allison Metz, “Do transgender students adhere to the mission of a women's college?” May 3, 2007,
www.themhnews.com
).

82
Fred A. Bernstein, “On Campus, Rethinking Biology 101,”
New York Times
, March 7, 2004.

83
Also at Emerson College, University of Michigan , University of Vermont, and Washington University.

84
“UCLGBTIA: Transgender Health,”
http://www.uclgbtia.org/transhealth.html
.