Monday, August 01, 2011

Seattle Schools Deal Directly With Gender Identity

Good story in the Seattle Times -- see what you think about this one.
Every few weeks, Aidan Key might get a call: a little boy in school is dressing as a girl — in frilly tops or pink skirts. A girl in first-grade will be returning from a holiday break as a boy.

Public- and private-school administrators and the parents of these kids want guidance navigating such sensitive terrain; they want to help children become comfortable calling a classmate by a new name, or know how and when to refer to another student as he or she.

There was a time when these calls were almost exclusively about middle- and high-school kids. But increasingly they involve children as young as kindergartners — 5- and 6-year-olds who don't believe their bodies match who they feel they are inside.

Key turns to a simple — but familiar — narrative: "When I was your age," he tells them, "I was a girl.

"Everybody saw me as a girl and I looked like a girl. But inside that's not how I felt. I felt I was a boy, so when I got older I worked with a doctor. We call that being transgender." Kids challenge gender identity earlier — and get support

Doesn't that seem easy enough? I don't know why some people have to make such a big awkward deal out of things. The adult gives the kid an explanation that makes perfectly good sense. It's simple to understand, and it's true.
Lisa Love, health-education specialist with Seattle Public Schools, said the district is seeing more children in elementary schools struggling with gender identity.

And over the last decade or so, the parents of a growing number of these kids have sought guidance from Seattle Children's hospital, the associate director of psychiatry there said.

Experts say young children have always had these feelings, but only in recent years as society has become more accepting of gender differences have they felt more free to express them.

Have you ever seen a little kid that speaks two or three different languages? They aren't confused by it, this grandma calls the toy one thing and the other grandma calls it something else, there is no need to decide that the toy really is one thing or the other. In the same way, a little boy who likes to paint his toenails is nothing more or less than a boy who likes to paint his toenails, the other kids don't have to diagnose him or wonder about him. It's only the grownups who see any problem with it, who think boys really should be one way and girls another.

I liked this example. The article describes Aidan Key as "a practical resource on gender issues for teachers, doctors and administrators and for families trying to understand what their children are going through."
How kids react to Key's visits depends on their age. While those in higher grades tend to be more guarded with their views surrounding gender, kindergartners tend to be open and uninhibited.

The discussions revolve around gender roles and how the rules are not always hard and fast.

"What is something that only boys do?" Key would ask the kindergartners.

Two boys responded: "Play soccer." "Blow things up."

Then a girl spoke up: "I like to blow things up."

Is that a cool girl, or what?

This article is rather long but is full of good stories and information. Sounds like the Seattle schools are taking a proactive approach to gender identity and sexual orientation issues among students, promoting understanding actively, directly, and thoroughly.

The story here is that families are recognizing children's discomfort with their gender identity at earlier and earlier ages. That is probably because of increased awareness about gender topics and not because of something different about kids today. Parents are paying attention, and instead of trying to force their children to fit strictly dichotomized gender roles they are learning to accept the surprise of a kid who bridges the binary, without being sure how to handle it. A child who identifies with the opposite gender may maintain that experience for a lifetime, and another may grow out of it.

A mom with a son who likes trucks and roughhousing and one who likes to wear dresses:
Her outlook changed in a moment two years ago when she took her two boys shopping for Halloween costumes. Her older son selected a Ninja outfit, while Dyson made a beeline for the girl's section to search for a princess dress.

When she objected, his increasingly loud protestations drew attention, until her older son, tugging at her arm, admonished: "Mom, why don't you just let him be happy?"

Good question.

Go read the whole article, it's a good one.

38 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"WASHINGTON -- Health insurance plans must cover birth control as preventive care for women, with no copays, the Obama administration said Monday in a decision with far-reaching implications for social mores.

The requirement is part of a broad expansion of coverage for women's preventive care under President Barack Obama's health care law. Also to be covered without copays are breast pumps for nursing mothers, an annual "well-woman" physical, screening for the virus that causes cervical cancer and for diabetes during pregnancy, counseling on domestic violence, and other services.

"These historic guidelines are based on science and existing (medical) literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius."

sure, Kathleen, it's all just science

why even vote?

let's just let the scientists tell us what to do

August 01, 2011 3:40 PM  
Anonymous chutzpah said...

Managing income property is the bane of many a landlord's existence. But Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has locked in a tenant, on the cottage next to his waterfront home, that likely won't be bouncing checks or moving out any time soon: The U.S. Secret Service detail that's hired to protect him.

To recap: Our tax dollars not only pay for the vice president's protection, they are also feathering his pocket with a steady rent check. Yes, it's legal. We leave it to the public to decide whether it's right for the vice president to have snagged this tenant in Greenville, Del., where the rental vacancy rate for 2010 was a whooping 33.6 percent, according to Melissa Kresin, a survey spokesperson at the U.S. Census Bureau. The national vacancy rate is 9.2 percent.

Biden has collected more than $13,000 from the agency charged with protecting him in his waterfront home in a Wilmington suburb.

Under federal purchasing documents that the newspaper ferreted out, Biden -- listed as a "vendor" -- stands to gain up to $66,000 by the time the government contract expires in the fall of 2013.

Taxpayer watchdog groups and others are already jumping on the "what was he thinking?" bandwagon.

Said Leslie Paige, spokeswoman for the Citizens Against Government Waste, "He should be afforded every single protection available to him and his family, as should every vice president and president. But ... you'd think the vice president, who shepherded the deficit committee, would think twice about charging the Secret Service rent. I don't get it."

August 01, 2011 3:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is the future.
Sounds great.
Long-term follow-up of transsexual persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery: cohort study in Sweden.
Dhejne C, Lichtenstein P, Boman M, Johansson AL, Långström N, Landén M.
Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Division of Psychiatry, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
CONCLUSIONS: Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population.
What are potential side effects of hormone treatment in transsexuals?
Side effects in FTMs treated with testosterone may include:
 infertility
 acne
 increased emotional sensitivity and/or instability
 increases in sexual desire
 shift of lipid profiles to male patterns which increase cholesterol and the risk of cardiovascular disease
 the potential to develop benign and malignant liver tumors and liver dysfunction
Side effects in MTFs treated with estrogens may include:
 increased propensity to blood clotting (venous thrombosis with a risk of fatal pulmonary embolism)
 development of benign pituitary tumors
 infertility
 weight gain
 increased emotional sensitivity and/or instability
 liver disease

August 01, 2011 9:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"When she objected, his increasingly loud protestations drew attention, until her older son, tugging at her arm, admonished: "Mom, why don't you just let him be happy?""

sounds like a spoiled brat looking for attention

how about if the kid wanted to go naked to school?

should they be allowed to do it if they protest loud enough?

is there no justification for standards of dress? parental guidance? sanity?

what color is the sky in the alternate universe of TTF?

August 01, 2011 9:26 PM  
Blogger Orin Ryssman said...

I found the following in the article most revealing,

Lisa Love, health-education specialist with Seattle Public Schools, said the district is seeing more children in elementary schools struggling with gender identity.

And over the last decade or so, the parents of a growing number of these kids have sought guidance from Seattle Children's hospital, the associate director of psychiatry there said.

Experts say young children have always had these feelings, but only in recent years as society has become more accepting of gender differences have they felt more free to express them.


What "experts"??? Oh, you mean Aidan Key?

Aidan Key, who lives with his wife in Bellingham, is not a therapist, nor does he hold a degree in psychology or psychiatry.

Oh snap.

I am thankful my two daughters were not subjected to such nonsense...goodness, the public schools have enough on their plates without having to cater to a very few confused children.

August 01, 2011 11:58 PM  
Blogger Orin Ryssman said...

Anonymous writes,

How about if the kid wanted to go naked to school?

should they be allowed to do it if they protest loud enough?

is there no justification for standards of dress? parental guidance? sanity?

what color is the sky in the alternate universe of TTF?


Good questions all, though I suspect you will not get much that even remotely resembles sensible thinking on this subject.

August 02, 2011 12:06 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow Jim.
So this article is problematic.

It implies that "liking" typically boy things makes you a boy. It doesn't. It just doesn't. What sort of a message do you send if you try to tell every tomboy out there they might be male (really truly inside, you never know...) because they enjoy what are typically "male activities"

You can encourage kids to do what they want to do without telling them they might possibly be the opposite sex because of it. And you shouldn't tell them that because they enjoy classically boy things they are they male ! what a confusing message to send to all the female engineers/architects and doctors of the world !

How darn insulting to the female gender can you get ?

If you like building things, being outdoors and playing secret explorers club in the top of a treehouse where you must stay in the treehouse during a lightning storm to join, well then you really must be a guy.

My middle BEAUTIFUL and smart daughter, who is just like me in the tomboy aspect, would never question her gender identity. Of course she is in a catholic school where they would never TEACH her to question it. She just likes hanging out with the guys better than the girls because she likes video games and sports and skateboarding and math better than english.

that doesn't make her a male !!!!

How DARE you tell the women of the world they can't do what they like doing or they MUST REALLY BE MEN.

What a complete male chauvinist pig you truly are.

August 02, 2011 12:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

this is really the problem with the whole transgender crap

it's actually based on sexism and gender stereotypes

on other notable part of the post:

"in recent years as society has become more accepting of gender differences have they felt more free to express them"

kids at that age really aren't in touch with changes in society at large

what society are we talking about anyway?

their focus is the home (parents) and the playground (friends)

neither of those groups have largely changed their views

by "society", I suspect the article is referring to the public school apparatus, which sees itself as the most important societal force

August 02, 2011 5:17 AM  
Anonymous from the liberal base to Barry said...

"Ed Rendell, do you have plans for 2012? Hillary Clinton? If you, the former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, or you, the secretary of state, are free next year and wouldn't mind, would you please launch a primary challenge against President Obama?

This request stems not from anger at Obama's penchant for blithely negotiating away certain Medicare benefits or the need to modestly raise tax revenues -- things that Democrats want, and if the polls are correct, so do most Americans. It was about not negotiating at all while appearing to negotiate on a matter that should be non-negotiable: the full faith and credit of the United States.

In the last half-century, Congress has raised the debt ceiling 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democrats. The votes were cast without drama because the idea of this country defaulting on its debts was unthinkable. This last-minute deal notwithstanding, the dangerous precedent whereby America's promise to pay what it owes can be brought into political play has been set. Meanwhile, the spectacle of government dysfunction has already hastened our decline as a world power.

Make no mistake: The tea party Republicans have engaged in economic terrorism against the United States -- threatening to blow up the economy if they don't get what they want.

Americans are not supposed to negotiate with terrorists, but that's what Obama has been doing. Obama should have grabbed the bully pulpit early on, bellowing that everything can be discussed but America's honor, which requires making good on its debt obligations. Lines about "we're all at fault" and "Republicans should compromise" are beyond pathetic on a subject that should be beyond discussion.

Obama's passivity made it hard for responsible Republicans to control their destructive children.

The GOP extremists would ask Obama for his firstborn, and he'd say, "OK." So they think, why not ask for his second-born, to which he responds, "Let's talk."

House Speaker Boehner couldn't go back to his caucus members and tell them: "We fought like tigers with an intransigent White House. We did well, considering what we were up against." But he couldn't say that because they were up against Jell-O.

Obama can take credit for some major achievements. But Obama's successes are undermined by his inability to vigorously sell them, even to a receptive mainstream.

Recall the summer of idiocy, when Obama sat mute amid moronic charges that Democrats were establishing "death panels." A Democratic president with his party holding majorities in both houses of Congress could have quickly whipped health care reform into law. But Obama let it fester for month after month of phony negotiations.

Democrats would do themselves a huge favor if they had a living, breathing leader as their presidential candidate in 2012. Won't someone step up?"

August 02, 2011 5:30 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Remember a few weeks ago when President Obama reportedly said to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor: "Eric, don't call my bluff"? Lots of commentators said that this was a "tell"--that by referring to "my bluff," Obama was admitting he was bluffing.

Actually, his play was even worse than that. A bluff is a pretense. The bluffer knows he has a weak hand but bets as if he has a strong one in order to induce his opponents to fold. Obama had a weak hand but thought he had a strong one. His next words to Cantor, according to Politico, were a vow to "take his case 'to the American people.' " He actually believed--for all we know, he still believes--all that World's Greatest Orator nonsense.


Obama's hand wasn't even this good.
Thus he ended up maximizing his losses. Last weekend congressional leaders appeared to be on the verge of striking a deal, but Obama scuttled their efforts and commandeered the airwaves for a prime-time address. As we predicted, the American people were unmoved.

Obama had looked at his cards and seen that he was holding a 2, a 3, a 4 and a 5. He was sure he had an ace to complete the straight, but in reality he was looking in the mirror. By the time he realized how weak his hand was, there was no time left to improve it or to bluff. Faced with an imminent liquidity crisis--which would have been a political disaster for him as well as an economic one for the country--he was forced to agree to a deal more or less along Republican lines.

From the standpoint of a small-government conservative, the agreement is far from perfect, but it's probably the best possible outcome as long as a left-wing Democrat is in the White House and his party has a Senate majority. One measure of that is the rage it has provoked on the liberal left."

August 02, 2011 5:39 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As many critics have pointed out, this man-made crisis was entirely avoidable. The Democrats could have raised the ceiling last December. They chose not to, handing a sword to their adversaries. Senate majority leader Harry Reid wanted to force the incoming Republicans to accept some responsibility for the increase. We’ve seen how that worked out. And if President Obama genuinely believed that the Republicans would cooperate because it was the right and responsible thing to do, then naïveté was the least of his mistakes. (A moment of introspection about his own 2006 vote against increasing the debt ceiling should have sufficed to disabuse him of that notion.)

But there are two other less-discussed forks in the road, the first of which occurred just two weeks ago. If news accounts are accurate, the Obama/Boehner talks broke down when the president proposed increasing the revenue component of the grand bargain from $800 billion to $1.2 trillion. Given what he ultimately accepted, $800 billion looks pretty good. To be sure, we’d have to know more than we do about the other components of the proposed deal, especially the changes in entitlement programs, to reach a solid all-things-considered judgment. And it’s not at all clear that Boehner’s fellow Republicans in the House would have gone along with him on such a bargain, either. But it has been widely reported that the White House shifted its stance only after the Gang of Six made its framework public. If the bipartisan G6 was proposing $1.2 trillion in revenue increases, how could the White House accept less? At the time, that must have seemed like a slam-dunk argument. But it was too clever by half, and the White House ended up throwing away a chance to promote the president’s “balanced” approach to deficit reduction … and, by the way, to drive a wedge into the massed ranks of the opposition.

The most important road not taken, however, occurred many months ago, in December of last year, when the president chose to keep his distance from the recommendations of his own fiscal commission. Suppose he had endorsed its broad approach while making it clear that he disagreed about a number of specifics. Suppose further that he had reinforced that message by featuring it in his 2011 State of the Union address and by using it as the framework for his 2012 budget proposal. If he had done so, he would have had a full six months to build support for his “everything on the table” approach and to rally the American people who, as countless surveys have shown, strongly prefer it to the Republicans’ spending cuts-only strategy.

It is said the president did not want to step forward until after the Republicans had offered their own budget framework. If Representative Paul Ryan remained true to his principles, he would propose huge cuts in popular programs such as Medicare, generating a public backlash, after which the president could return to the fray in a much stronger position. Well, the president certainly smoked Ryan & Co. out. But what did he gain? As of now, I can’t think of anything. Sure, public approval of the Republican Party is way down. But so are his own numbers. And if the debt ceiling deal reflects a weakened Republican Party, one shudders to think of what a stronger one would have done.

Obama began the year determined to talk about selective public investments as the key to “winning the future.” He ended up focused exclusively on the Tea Party’s preferred agenda.

August 02, 2011 5:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having “acted like terrorists” in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit.

Biden was agreeing with a line of argument made by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) at a two-hour, closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting.

“We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”

Biden, driven by his Democratic allies’ misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: “They have acted like terrorists.”

The vice president’s hot rhetoric about tea party Republicans underscored the tense moment on Capitol Hill as four party leaders in both chambers work to round up the needed votes in an abbreviated time frame. The bill would raise the debt limit by as much as $2.4 trillion through the end of next year and reduce the deficit by an equal amount over the next decade.

Democrats had no shortage of colorful phrases in wake of the deal.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) called it a “Satan sandwich,” and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said: “the Tea Partiers and the GOP have made their slash and burn lunacy clear, and while I do not love this compromise, my vote is a hose to stop the burning. The arsonists must be stopped.

August 02, 2011 5:56 AM  
Anonymous Russian PM thanks God for Tea Party win said...

LAKE SELIGER, Russia, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Monday of living beyond its means "like a parasite" on the global economy and said dollar dominance was a threat to the financial markets.

"They are living beyond their means and shifting a part of the weight of their problems to the world economy," Putin told a Kremlin youth group while touring its summer camp north of Moscow.

"They are living like parasites off the global economy and their monopoly of the dollar."

US President Barack Obama announced a last-ditch deal to cut about $2.4 trillion from the U.S. deficit over a decade, avoid a crushing debt default and stave off the risk that the nation's AAA credit rating would be downgraded.

The deal initially soothed anxieties and led Russian stocks to jump to three-month highs, but jitters remained over the possibility of a credit downgrade.

"Thank god," Putin said, "that they had enough common sense and responsibility to make a balanced decision."

August 02, 2011 7:22 AM  
Anonymous it's Aug 2- chuckle time said...

Dispirited liberals fumed Monday over the deal to raise the debt ceiling that would cut deeply across the government, include no new tax revenue from wealthy Americans and would not provide any additional stimulus for a lagging economy.

Most of all, they lamented President Obama’s failure to anticipate and overcome the leverage exerted by House Republicans who threatened to force a national default.

“It’s a surrender to Republican extortion,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who voted against the deal. “It’s one thing to say we want this, we don’t want that as part of negotiations. It’s another to say we will destroy the country and the economy if you don’t do what we want.”

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) said he, too, was voting no because of the “dangerous precedent” by Republican demands. But most offensive, he said, were the cuts unmatched by any new revenue. “My constituents are suffering; they’ve lost their jobs and their homes, and now to cut the very programs that could have provided them with support while the rich are given a pass — it’s ridiculous.”

The ire burned hottest online, where liberal groups such as MoveOn.org mobilized opposition and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) tweeted that the deal was “a sugar-coated Satan sandwich. If you lift the bun, you will not like what you see.”

The White House dispatched Vice President Biden to lobby congressional liberals, and by day’s end some were reluctantly coming round. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led the way, saying that she would support the deal despite it being a Satan sandwich “with some Satan fries on the side.”

Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said he would support the deal only to prevent the “arson” that Republicans were engaging in with the credit limit. “These are lunatic demands, and I need to compromise because that’s an act of sanity,” he said.

Off the Hill, liberals searched for silver linings but came up with little more than the consolation that some of the particulars were not as damaging as they could have been.

August 02, 2011 8:18 AM  
Anonymous off the reality grid said...

Democratic lawmakers are openly questioning whether they can trust President Barack Obama to cut future deals with Republicans, while disappointment among party activists is raising doubts about their investment in his 2012 re-election campaign.

“Come on, got any other jokes?” cracked Representative Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, when asked if Obama bargained hard in negotiations with congressional Republicans.

After Obama backed off his demand for new revenue in the deal that passed the House last night to raise the debt ceiling and cut the deficit, several lawmakers said they don’t know whether he can be counted on to stand firm on raising taxes on the wealthy and protecting programs such as Medicare.

“There was caving this time,” Representative Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, said. “Why don’t you think there would be caving next time?”

Republican lawmakers yesterday generally applauded House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, for negotiating the best deal they could.

The Obama administration, Engel said, takes congressional Democrats for granted. “I think they figure that House Democrats are in the minority, so we’re just around from the ride,” he said.

The loss of confidence in Obama by Democrats in Congress comes after the president backed off a series of demands during negotiations, clearing the way for a vote to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.

At various points, the president insisted that raising the debt ceiling and cutting the deficit not be linked and that new revenue must be a part of a deal -- both positions he abandoned when Republicans refused to comply. Obama also surprised his allies when he put Social Security and Medicare temporarily on the table.

August 02, 2011 10:03 AM  
Anonymous off the reality grid said...

The timing of the party dissention is important because it may diminish the president’s leverage as Congress begins negotiating cuts in entitlements and changes in the tax code.

In addition, a fractured or less enthusiastic base may weaken Obama politically in what is likely to be a tough 2012 re-election campaign amid U.S. unemployment rate that the administration and most private economists project will be above 8 percent.

Complaints about the debt agreement among Democratic Party activists comes on top of frustration over the health-care law that they criticized for not going far enough and Obama’s willingness to extend Bush-era tax cuts last year.

“Our members worked very hard to elect the president,” said Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn.org, an advocacy group that claims 5 million members. “Many of them are disappointed.”

That should translate to a reduced intensity of support for Obama in 2012, Ruben said. “People may just not be inspired to hit the streets,” he said. “There is a bit of a credibility problem.”

Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., an Illinois Democrat who has a close relationship with Obama, said the president made “a profound mistake” in signaling to Republicans that programs for the elderly and the poor are on the table for cutting.

“It’s clear to us we’re going to have to go to the mat for those people -- as we have been doing -- by ourselves and not necessarily with the support of the administration,” he said, referring to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security recipients.

Obama’s 2008 campaign was fueled by his promise for dramatic change in Washington, as well as the sense of history associated with the possibility of electing the nation’s first black president. Even without disappointing his most ardent supporters, recreating that energy -- to mobilize volunteers and push voters to the polls -- was going to be a challenge for the incumbent.

“After two and half years of the presidency, the glow that many of them felt the night of the Iowa caucuses or the night of his general election has certainly faded,” said Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist who advised Senator John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.

Doug Schoen, a former strategist for President Bill Clinton, said Obama is losing the confidence of supporters because he isn’t governing with a clear philosophy.

“It’s less about losing a loving feeling than seeing a person who is veering from issue to issue, cause to cause, more out of politics than on principle,” he said.

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters yesterday that Obama’s standing wasn’t diminished in the debt debate.

“I think the president showed enormous leadership through this process,” he said.

August 02, 2011 10:03 AM  
Anonymous last dance for Mary Jane said...

that Jay Carney

the dude is definitely one toke over the line!!

August 02, 2011 10:14 AM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

Anon pasted:

“CONCLUSIONS: Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population.”

This is hardly new news, especially considering the animosity transsexuals are treated with in most societies. Certain groups, very often identified by particular religious beliefs, go out of their way to marginalize transsexuals on a regular basis. You can find “Christian” literature all over the web expounding in great detail how transsexuals are out to “destroy gender” and “defy God’s will.” Not to mention, go after our children in the restrooms and waggle wiggly bits in the wrong locker room. Then of course there are all the websites claiming that most MTFs are prostitutes, even though that is simply not the case.

If any other group of people were constantly treated the same way as transsexuals, you can be sure their suicidal behavior and psychiatric morbidity would higher than the general population as well. The problem is not so much with the transsexuals, but society at large, which goes out of its way to denigrate, marginalize, and even assault transsexuals. Some of my trans friends have been assaulted multiple times; sometimes by their own relatives. So far, I’ve only had to deal with harassment, but given the probabilities, I suspect it is only a matter of time before I am assaulted.

August 02, 2011 10:58 AM  
Anonymous svelte_brunette said...

A far more useful way to look at the surgery is to compare rates of suicide before and after surgery.
From the abstract of: The transsexualism syndrome: clinical aspects and therapeutic prospects
(Gallarda T, Amado I, Coussinoux S, Poirier MF, Cordier B, Olié JP.)
In the absence of biological marker, the syndrome of transsexualism can be defined only with clinical criteria. The main differential diagnosis are sexual ambiguities and psychotic disorders. For the specialists, satisfying the patient’s demand of a surgical and social reassignment still remains the only way to improve their clinical condition and avoid the onset of many dramatic complications. Without any treatment, the evolution of the trouble is chronic, without remission. Longitudinal studies of transsexual patients with a five year follow-up demonstrated subjective improvement in two thirds of the patients and don't find either higher rates of suicides nor psychotic decompensations after surgery and hormonotherapy.

The modern western medical community has been treating transsexuals essentially the same way for 60 years, and that methodology was codified in the 1970’s as the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care. Although better access to information has helped provide some of the public with more accurate information about transsexuals and the appropriate treatment regimen, one has to suspect that clinicians, after seeing case after case of adult transsexuals reporting symptoms since their earliest memories of childhood, started looking at children presenting with these symptoms more carefully. The success rate of the treatment regimen over the past 6 decades has also meant more clinicians recognize its utility for patients of all ages.

Feel free to say that I’m “psycho” or “insane” or some kind of “psycho-sexual deviant” if you like. However, if you provide no evidence to back you up, you’re just name calling. That’s something I’ve had to deal with regularly since the fourth grade, when my classmates decided I wasn’t “boy” enough. Interestingly, my experience has shown that the psychological make-up of the typical name caller has not advanced significantly since the fourth grade.

Have a nice day,

Cynthia

August 02, 2011 10:59 AM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

Theresa, I have to wonder if you read the same article as I did. Nowhere in this article does it say or imply "that "liking" typically boy things makes you a boy" or that anyone should "tell every tomboy out there they might be male" or "tell them that because they enjoy classically boy things they are they male." These are lies you've made up about this article, plain and simple.

Your entire comment says a lot about you and your irrational fears. Nothing in this article mentions anything about telling kids what gender they are or should become, in fact the contrary is true. This whole article is about listening to what kids are telling us about what gender they are.

And this doozy, Theresa, come off it:

"What a complete male chauvinist pig you truly are."

Are you talking about Jim? Perhaps you missed Jim's response to this segment of the article:

""What is something that only boys do?" Key would ask the kindergartners.

Two boys responded: "Play soccer." "Blow things up."

Then a girl spoke up: "I like to blow things up.""


Jim response was: "Is that a cool girl, or what?"

He didn't say she was a male or should become one, he didn't even call her a tomboy. He called her a "cool girl" for heavens sake.

How many false accusations can you manufacture. Theresa? You give women's honesty a bad name IMHO.

And Orin, your hypocrisy is astounding. You don't like the fact that Aiden doesn't have a bunch of degrees from some ivy league universities? You don't like the fact that Aiden teaches teachers and school administrators about things he has learned from his own life experiences, things there is scant scientific research about? How very elitist of you!

August 02, 2011 11:22 AM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

Oh brother Anon. You are a serial lying plagiarizer. Here come the facts, again.

The following are the omissions from the first of your string of cuts and pastes, the one you published at 5:30 AM today:

The tea party Republicans have engaged in economic terrorism against the United States -- threatening to blow up the economy if they don't get what they want.

Was followed by this sentence in the Rassmussen opinion piece you falsified:

And like the al-Qaida bombers, what they want is delusional: the dream of restoring some fantasy caliphate in which no one pays taxes, while the country is magically protected from foreign attack and the elderly get government-paid hip replacements.

In that same bit of intellectual theft, you next omitted:

"That the Republican leadership couldn't control a small group of ignoramuses in its ranks has brought disgrace on their party."

And a bit later, after the actual author gave Obama credit for "his auto industry bailout," you omitted:

" The financial industry reforms will begin to force at least some discipline on Wall Street. And the health care law will ensure coverage for all Americans while reducing deficits in the long-term. "

And another part you skipped was this:

"Republicans are ultimately going to take the rap over this debt-ceiling outrage. The full faith and credit of the United States is not a matter over which reasonable people may disagree, and the larger public knows that in its heart."

I won't bother checking the rest of your stolen remarks posted at 5:39AM, 5:51AM, 5:56AM, 7:22AM, 8:18AM and 10:03AM twice today. Telling partial truths and lies is a chronic problem for you.

How interesting the only comment you composed yourself so far today is about illicit drug use. So why don't you tell us how you feel about legalizing pot and taxing it to help balance the budget or do you have other reasons for mentioning both "crystal meth" and "toking" in the past week?

August 02, 2011 2:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"I won't bother checking the rest of your stolen remarks posted at 5:39AM, 5:51AM, 5:56AM, 7:22AM, 8:18AM and 10:03AM twice today."

stolen? they were in quotations. and those who wrote them would love to them go viral.

sorry, not theft.

"Telling partial truths and lies is a chronic problem for you."

you always pull out this line when the truth starts to get inconvenient for liberals.

as we've discussed before, this blog limits characters in its comments so I edit it down to the points I feel are significant.

why would I post your arguments for you?

"How interesting the only comment you composed yourself so far today is about illicit drug use."

that is fascinating. my other personality seems to be trying to relate to all the old hippies who comment here.

"So why don't you tell us how you feel about legalizing pot and taxing it to help balance the budget"

I'm in favor of legalizing drug use but I don't think it would balance the budget

"or do you have other reasons for mentioning both "crystal meth" and "toking" in the past week?"

guess I've been watching too many Breaking Bad episodes

August 02, 2011 6:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

they were a couple of things in the story that might make liberals feel a little better but not much

anyway, I left that stuff out because I found it stoooopid

fetch, Bea!

"PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans' political ideology at the midyear point of 2011 looks similar to 2009 and 2010, with 41% self-identifying as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 21% as liberal.

If this pattern continues, 2011 will be the third straight year that conservatives significantly outnumber moderates -- the next largest ideological bloc. Liberalism has been holding steady for the past six years, averaging either 21% or 22%.

The percentage of moderates has fallen to the mid-30s from the low 40s, while the combined percentage either liberal or conservative is now 62%, up from 53%.

The 2011 half-year results are based on more than 10,000 U.S. national adults interviewed across 10 Gallup and USA Today/Gallup surveys conducted from January through June.

A much higher proportion of Republicans call themselves "very conservative" or "conservative" (71%) than Democrats call themselves "very liberal" or "liberal" (38%). Democrats are as likely to call themselves moderates as liberals.

Additionally conservative Republicans are a bit more likely to call themselves very conservative than liberal Democrats are to identify as very liberal. As a result, hard right Republicans outnumber hard left Democrats by more than 2 to 1, 21% vs. 9%."

August 02, 2011 7:50 PM  
Anonymous ruff-ruff said...

didn't delete any parts from this

sorry, Bea, nothing to fetch

"Since the 2010 election, President Obama has thrice tussled with Republicans in Congress and thrice he has lost, each time worse than before.

There was the lame-duck deal on extending current tax rates in December in which Obama traded away a core campaign promise for a short-term extension of long-term unemployment benefits.

Then there was the battle over the continuing resolution that is currently funding the government. While Obama stalled for a better deal, Republicans whacked $6 billion in short-term cuts to spending and then a longer, but hazier deal on future outlays. There, Obama avoided a government shutdown and got nothing much but the chance to kick the can on the final round of cuts.

Now, Obama is walking away with, yes, the largest increase in the federal borrowing limit in history (not a wholly attractive thing, politically) and another government shutdown avoided, but nothing else. Republicans, meanwhile, got caps on spending now, a vote on a balanced budget amendment and a cuts commission to find more savings still.

The Senate will, barring a last-minute crack up, pass the plan early this afternoon. While this government shutdown deadline was fungible -- owing to the fact that it was literally about being out of money, not reaching the end of a spending bill – today was the day set by the administration as “Armageddon,” also known as a partial government shutdown.

In each confrontation, Obama has proven less able to combat Republicans. This may have something to do with the fact that the administration really does seem to believe, as Vice President Joe Biden said, that conservative Republicans really are terrorists with nuclear weapons.

What politician wouldn’t like for his opponents to believe that? It’s like the 1979 Steelers. They won all their games when the teams were still in the locker room.

Liberals are beginning to suspect that Republicans have been bluffing all along. The New York Times today trumpets that Tea Partiers in Congress were divided and seem to be actual lawmakers with competing interests and ideas. This is part of what Jonah Goldberg has dubbed the “conservatives in the mist” phenomenon, when establishment media outlets examine the strange ways of right America and find them nearly human. But it is also part of a larger message to the White House: stop backing down.

But the math for the administration is still pretty gloomy, whether there are competing strains of libertarian conservatism or not.

Speaker John Boehner needed 53 Democrats to pass the debt-ceiling deal he hammered out with Obama and Senate Democrats, but he got 95.

Though no one would have liked testing this proposition, it looks like Boehner might have gotten the 216 votes he needed with just Republicans and moderate Democrats.

That means that the handful of votes from liberals like Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, R-Texas, were symbolic, not crucial for delivering Boehner his victory.

This means that Boehner, rather than being broken by the challenge for the right, has been strengthened by the process. As Republicans head into the fourth and fifth confrontations with Obama – the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30 and then the December deadline for the super committee that will be created by the debt ceiling deal – the House GOP is looking a lot more united than Democrats.

August 02, 2011 9:59 PM  
Anonymous ruff-ruff said...

That’s why weakness is such an insidious thing for presidents. The perception of weakness leads to disloyalty as members of the chief executive’s party start looking to save their own skin in the coming elections. That disloyalty, in turn, leads to more weakness and, well, you know the rest.

Obama’s best way to get re-elected is to get everybody again believing that his re-election is inevitable. With Democrats seeing him getting rolled by Boehner and lugging a 40 percent job approval rating and presiding over a crumbling economy, he looks like he will stay on his losing streak. He’s got to get his mojo back.

That’s why he’ll be back in Chicago on Wednesday for a “birthday party” that is actually a massive fundraiser for his struggling campaign. The visuals will not be good – the president jumping out of the smoking wreckage of Washington – for a huge, partisan cash grab, but it is unavoidable. If Obama cannot continue to rack up huge fundraising numbers, the current perceptions of weakness will only deepen.

Right now, money is about all he has going for him."

August 02, 2011 9:59 PM  
Anonymous one toke over the line said...

"D.C. police are investigating whether two recent attacks on transgender people within a block of each other in Northeast Washington were motivated by hate, police said Tuesday.

The attacks — the first of which was fatal — are not yet classified as hate crimes, but police said they are trying to determine whether the sexual identities of the victims played a role."

the police, who have quite enough to do, will waste a bunch of time trying to figure out the emotional motivation for a couple of assaults?

couldn't we just say these were crimes that need to be solved and prevented and drop the drain on resources to appease the gay community in D.C., a community that sustains the worst AIDS infection rate in the world, outside of the Dark Continent?

the epitaph for the Obama administration continues

today, from George Will:

"For weeks, you could not fling a brick in Washington without hitting someone with a debt-reduction plan — unless you hit Obama, whose plan, which he intimated was terrifically brave, was never put on paper. In a prime-time spill of his usual applesauce about millionaires, billionaires and oil companies, he said, yet again, that justice demanded a “balanced” solution — one involving new revenue. His whistle into the wind came after Washington’s most consequential Democrat, Harry Reid, proposed a revenue-free solution.

By affirming liberalism’s lodestar — the principle that government’s grasp on national resources must constantly increase — Obama made himself a spectator in a Washington more conservative than it was during the Reagan presidency. By accepting, as he had no choice but to do, Congress’s resolution of the crisis, Obama annoyed liberals. They indict him for apostasy from their one-word catechism, “More!” But egged on by them, he talked himself into a corner. Having said that failure to raise the ceiling would mean apocalypse, he could hardly say failure to raise revenue would be worse.

As with his dozens of exhortations during the health-care debate, and his campaigning for candidates in 2009 and 2010, his debt-ceiling rhetoric was impotent. Still, the debt debate was instructive about recent history, the openness of America’s political process, and the nature of the American regime.

Regarding recent history: Panic-mongers warned, “Raise the ceiling lest the stock market experience a TARP convulsion.” Yes, the market declined almost 778 points when the House rejected the Troubled Assets Relief Program. But who remembered that after TARP was quickly enacted, in the next five months the market lost an additional 3,800 points?

Regarding the political process: There are limits to what can be accomplished by those controlling only half of Congress, but the Tea Party has demonstrated that the limits are elastic under the pressure of disciplined and durable passion. As Tom Brokaw said in Washington on “Meet the Press” last Sunday, the debt-ceiling drama ended as it did because the Tea Party got angry, got organized and got here.

Regarding the federal regime: Before this debate, who knew that the government sends more than 100 million checks or electronic transfers a month to employees, vendors and — much the largest group — entitlement beneficiaries, including 21 million households receiving food stamps?"

August 03, 2011 6:24 AM  
Anonymous is this the best we can do? said...

sorry, libs

George isn't finished:

"During various liberal ascendancies, the federal spider has woven a web of dependencies. The political purpose has been to produce growing constituencies of voters disposed to vote Democratic. This disposition, a.k.a. the entitlement mentality, is triggered by making the constituencies constantly apprehensive about the security of their status as wards of government.

Obama’s presidency may last 17 or 65 more months, but it has been irreversibly neutered by two historic blunders made at its outset. It defined itself by health-care reform most Americans did not desire, rather than by economic recovery. And it allowed, even encouraged, self-indulgent liberal majorities in Congress to create a stimulus that confirmed conservatism’s portrayal of liberalism as an undisciplined agglomeration of parochial appetites. This sterile stimulus discredited stimulus as a policy.

Obama’s 2012 problem is that he dare not run as a liberal but cannot run from his liberalism. The left’s narrative for 2012 is that by not offering another stimulus, Washington is being dangerously frugal. This, even though his stimulus — including cash for clunkers, cash for caulkers, dollars for dishwashers (yes, there actually were money showers for home improvements and greener appliances), etc. — led downhill.

The economy’s calamitous 0.8 percent growth in the first half of this year indicates that the already appalling deficit projections for coming years are much too optimistic. The debt increases caused by anemic growth and job creation may dwarf whatever debt reduction results from the process initiated by the debt-ceiling agreement. This may portend a vicious downward spiral as increased borrowing and the burden of debt service further suffocate America’s dynamism.

America may be one-third of the way through a lost decade — or worse, toward a lost national identity. So, Republicans have their 2012 theme: “Is this the best we can do?”"

August 03, 2011 6:26 AM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

Here you go Anon. Go read about your soulmate, another serial cut and paster of unattributed quotes from right wing websites. Maybe you can go help him out against the recall election that's coming to boot him from office.

The disturbing copy-and-paste habits of Russell Pearce

"He is the first Arizona legislator ever to face a recall election. Calls for his ouster have come from both sides of the aisle, and a fellow Republican, Jerry Lewis, has already launched his campaign to oppose Pearce in the November vote."

Both of you apparently feel too "entitled" to give credit to the authors of the writing you steal and post without attribution.

So tell us, Anon, how many of your cuts and pastes here have gone viral to date? I haven't found a single one.

August 03, 2011 8:31 AM  
Anonymous Aunt Bea said...

"George isn't finished"

Wow Anon, that's impressive!

You've learned that even when "this blog limits characters in its comments", you can post the entirety of the article you're stealing in two or more comments!

You better watch out! You might even figure out you can make room for enough characters to paste the URL into your comment!!

August 03, 2011 8:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Here you go Anon."

there up go again, Bea

starting another comment sure to make a fool of you

"Go read about your soulmate, another serial cut and paster of unattributed quotes from right wing websites."

don't usually follow links posted on blogs but I did this morning and don't know your point

I post quotes with quotation marks, I am anonymous so I'm not taking credit for them, and my views, unlike TTF's, are in the mainstream and from mainstream sources

"Maybe you can go help him out against the recall election that's coming to boot him from office."

don't know much about it but from a brief scan of the atricle you linked, it sounds like the recall is based on his views not the fact that he used the internet to express them

"Both of you apparently feel too "entitled" to give credit to the authors of the writing you steal and post without attribution."

the people who write opinion columns actually would like their views quoted and disseminated as widely as possible

it's true that most of them would like to be attributed every time but, as a practical matter, they'd still rather be quoted then not, even if they aren't mentioned, because the more widespread their view becomes, the more they look like they have their finger on the pulse of public opinion

if you have any evidence that's not true, let me know

"So tell us, Anon, how many of your cuts and pastes here have gone viral to date? I haven't found a single one."

never say any have

I just said the writers of these pieces wouldn't mind at all if I came down with a case of what they've got

August 03, 2011 8:55 AM  
Anonymous nah gahna happen said...

"Wow Anon, that's impressive!"

another day, another item crossed off the bucket list

finally, I've impressed anon-B

"You've learned that even when "this blog limits characters in its comments", you can post the entirety of the article you're stealing in two or more comments!"

if I think it's worth it

this column actually had comments didn't want the liberal fringe readers here to miss out on

I probably shouldn't have attributed it though since you apparently didn't fetch and discover that I omitted George's first paragraph as unnecessary to my goal of discouraging the liberal effort

George is a personal acquaintance though so I like to promote his writings

"You better watch out!"

why? Christmas is months away

"You might even figure out you can make room for enough characters to paste the URL into your comment!!"

in the words of Dana Carvey, nah gahna happen

I find links on blogs annoying and want to do to others as I'd have done to me

August 03, 2011 9:04 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Jim, how about deleting bad anonymous' off topic cut and pastes? This has become more his blog than yours, if you take it back I'd enjoy coming back here as a regular commenter

August 03, 2011 6:59 PM  
Anonymous brave canadian said...

that's a good idea

Priya would brave enough to comment if she could be assured everyone would agree with her

August 03, 2011 7:40 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

Anon, Priya Lynn has a good point. This was a really pretty interesting article, and you could have taken certain statements from it to support your position. Instead you have been posted a bunch of junk here that has nothing to do with the subject. I understand that you're campaigning day and night for the GOP, but this article is actually not about that, it's about how a school district deals with gender identity issues. In fact, this is not a political blog, we comment sometimes on what our elected leaders and candidate say and do, but we're not here to support any political party.

I have been preoccupied lately but will start watching and will not hesitate to delete your crap when you sling it around like you have been.

JimK

August 03, 2011 7:58 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Thanks Jim.

: )

August 03, 2011 8:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"This was a really pretty interesting article, and you could have taken certain statements from it to support your position. Instead you have been posted a bunch of junk here that has nothing to do with the subject."

Jim, I don't know how interesting this article was but it was a good one from the anti-TTF perspective. It was an epitome of the folly of ascribing to and indulging gender confusion in young children.

Six of the first eight comments pertained to the article and basically exhausted its idiocy.

After that, the posts about the hottest topic of the day could be ignored by those in denial but you might remember that during the 2008 Presidential campaign, Priya, among others regularly used this blog to attack Republicans candidates and advocate for Barack Obama.

They may have buyer's remorse, not wanting to hear the results of their poor choice of cause champion, and Priya's comments were especially amusing since she is not a U.S. citizen and claims she did not think we are a world leader, making one wonder why she cared.

August 04, 2011 8:05 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bad anonymous, I'm more than happy to avoid off-topic comments as long as Jim prevents you from using this as your own personal political blog.

August 04, 2011 4:35 PM  
Anonymous addressing the nasty one said...

nasty priya:

my sense is that you have avoided all comments because you were frightened to shown to be stupid

is that wrong?

why would you be so concerned about the comments of a blog thousands of miles away in another nation?

just curious...

August 04, 2011 5:15 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home