Featured on Friday Five Today - Gender Identity
March 14, 2008 by Randy
Filed under Activism, Christianity, Church, Culture War, Current Affairs, Education, Ex-Gay, Exodus, Homosexuality, Men, People, Sexuality, Women, Worldview, Youngin's, family, marriage
Friday Five: Randy Thomas
by Devon Williams, associate editor’Gender identity is very important to God.’Parents of children who struggle with gender confusion are being encouraged to raise their kids according to the gender they want to be.
Nationally, organizations are adopting gender-neutral restrooms.
And in California, students now can “choose their own gender” when deciding whether to use the boys’ or girls’ restroom and locker room.
According to the American Psychological Association, “transgender” is a term used to describe people whose self-perception differs from their biological gender. This condition is commonly referred to as gender identity disorder.
Randy Thomas is executive vice president of Exodus International, the largest worldwide Christian outreach to those affected by homosexuality. He spoke with CitizenLink about transgenderism and his own journey out of homosexuality…
Click here to read the entire interview.
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What’s interesting is that this interview got quite a bit of buzz around the sphere but no on commented on it here. Not whining at all but I find it interesting nonetheless.
There are two papers on the subject:
Zhou J.-N, Hofman M.A, Gooren L.J, Swaab D.F (1997)
A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Transsexuality.
Kruijver F.P.M, Zhou J.-N, Pool C.W., Swaab D.F. (2000)
Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus
Male and Female brains differ, both on the coarse scale (BSTc layer of the hypothalamus) and fine scale (number of neurons - brain cells - in each structure). Autopsies on transsexual women, that is, women with mostly male bodies, have shown they have female pattern brains.
Note that gay men have male pattern brains though.
From ArzteZeitung this year, detailing studies using fMRT - “brain scans” of living people:
“Radiologists can now confirm what transsexuals report - that they feel “trapped in the wrong body” - on the basis of the activation of the brain when presented with erotic stimuli. There is obviously a biological correlation with the subjective feelings.”
Note that “Transgendered” does not equal “Transsexual”. Transsexual is a subset of Intersexed, and both are subsets of “Transgendered”. Most TG people have no medical issues, ie. do not have Gender Identity Disorder. Gender Identity Disorder is a consequence of severe Gender Dysphoria. Most IS people don’t have GID, but some 10% do, far higher than in the general population (about 0.3%).
There exist Intersex conditions such as 17BHDD and 5ARD where the patient changes apparent sex naturally - and about a third of those have GID afterwards, a third have GID before, and the other third just take the change in their stride; they’re not strongly gendered either way.
As the result of transition (Sex Change), about a third of TS people are gay (and used to appear straight), a third are straight (and used to appear gay), and a third change their orientation from straight to straight (no, not a misprint - when they look like women, they are attracted to men, and when the look like men they are attracted to women).
All of this is fairly well documented on the Internet, and has been for some time.