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It's important to recognise that sex and gender must be treated differently

By Karen Gurney - posted Tuesday, 4 May 2004


Professor Milton Diamond has probably studied the tenuous dichotomy between sex and gender more than any other medical researcher. In his paper, Sex and Gender – Same or Different?, he wrote:

Unlike the majority of transsexuals that "feel they were born that way" many of those identifying themselves as transgendered or gender-bending or gender-blending persons are attracted to the concept of a constructed gender and see themselves and their lives as evidence of it. Eschewing any strict male-female dichotomy, transgendered persons instead reach for a wide range of admixtures of male and female restructured anatomies and manifest masculine and feminine life-styles. For those most unique in their display, to reflect the socially bizarre nature of their expression, the term "gender fucking" is used by outspoken transgenderists themselves and others as well. The term is not seen as pejorative but apt.

Transsexuals, who I believe are intersexed, have the body and genitals of one sex and the brain of the other making reconciliation of their sexual and gender identities problematic. They solve their problems of reconciling, their disparate sexual identity and gender identity, by saying, in essence, "Don't change my mind; change my body."

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Thus, transsexualism is just another of the biological variations that occur in human sexual formation; it is about being a particular sex, not doing it. It is also about recognising gender norms, not challenging them. And Alex is consequently a boy, not a girl, albeit one with a grossly atypical phenotype, so courtesy dictates that masculine pronouns be used to refer to him. Transsexualism also has nothing to do with sexual orientation. In fact, we are predominantly heterosexual, but are also gay, lesbian, bisexual and asexual in numbers fairly representative of the wider community.

Alex was plainly exhibiting classical symptoms of severe adolescent transsexualism and was at a very severe risk of taking his own life because of the huge distress of living with a body oppositely-sexed to his brain. The rejection of people experiencing transsexualism, by their family, friends, employers and a largely ignorant wider society leads to them experiencing the highest levels of depression, suicidal ideation, discrimination and harassment of any of the minorities with sex or gender development contrary to heteronormative expectations. That was certainly the outcome of the report, Enough is Enough… (pdf, 302 KB) commissioned by the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby Group and it has been reinforced by many others.

As the former Family Court Justice, the Hon Travis Lindenmayer, explained in a very enlightened article in The Herald Sun, the court examined both the medical evidence of those professionals who were treating Alex, and the opinions of other experts who were called to comment on their assessment and the prognosis. The unanimous consensus was that the treatment regimen was correct in the circumstances.

It also needs to be pointed out, because David missed it, that Alex is not having sex-altering hormone treatment at 13 years of age. He has simply been placed on the oral contraceptive pill until he is at least 16 years. Many Australian mothers have done the same with their teenage daughters. At 16 years, if the assessments remain unchanged, then, and only then, can Alex commence on still largely reversible hormone treatment until surgery is accessible at 18 years when he is legally an adult.

It seems to me that David’s criticism of the treatment authorised for Alex’s transsexualism is more likely to arise from his personal need to be gay and proud rather than an insightful interpretation of the expert knowledge. Leading domestic and international medical experts all agreed there was only one solution yet David would have the outcome dictated by gender-political considerations. That David endorses the views of Sheila Jeffreys, an ultra-essentialist feminist who deems chromosomes more powerful than the brain in determining the sex of intersexed men and women, but holds it paramount in informing her own experience of gender, says it all.

In Hon Lindenmayer’s words:

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If Alex had been refused treatment and committed suicide, there would still be questions and criticisms, just very different ones. And death is absolutely irreversible.

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About the Author

Karen Gurney is a chemist and biologist as well as a legal advocate for people with transsexualism. She is also Co-convenor of the Australian WOMAN Network.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Karen Gurney
Related Links
Australian WOMAN Network
International Journal of Transgenderism
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