When sex-change is a mistake: Some transsexuals suffer bitter regrets

[Inchante]

No I have never given an infraction to anybody before, I deem his posts offensive therefor I have blocked them, I am entitled to do so. Other people are of the same opinion as I am, I'm not going to discuss it further. Ok.com

Has anyone said you were not entitled to do so? Is there a reason you are being defensive? I'm sorry if my question offended you, it was not intended to do so.

[mrk2010]

No offence taken, I just don't want to read his posts. It's not the content that annoys me its just the fact I think he's trying to cause trouble, to me I come on gayspeak to give and receive advice not to read a load of right wing content.

[Inchante]

Now to get back on task

Transsexual differences caught on brain scan

12:16 26 January 2011 by Jessica Hamzelou
For similar stories, visit the The Human Brain and Love and Sex Topic Guides
Differences in the brain's white matter that clash with a person's genetic sex may hold the key to identifying transsexual people before puberty. Doctors could use this information to make a case for delaying puberty to improve the success of a sex change later.

Medics are keen to find concrete physical evidence to help those children who feel they are trapped in the body of the opposite sex. One key brain region involved is the BSTc, an area of grey matter. But the region is too small to scan in a living person so differences have only been picked up at post-mortem.

Antonio Guillamon's team at the National University of Distance Education in Madrid, Spain, think they have found a better way to spot a transsexual brain. In a study due to be published next month, the team ran MRI scans on the brains of 18 female-to-male transsexual people who'd had no treatment and compared them with those of 24 males and 19 females.

They found significant differences between male and female brains in four regions of white matter – and the female-to-male transsexual people had white matter in these regions that resembled a male brain (Journal of Psychiatric Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.05.006). "It's the first time it has been shown that the brains of female-to-male transsexual people are masculinised," Guillamon says.

In a separate study, the team used the same technique to compare white matter in 18 male-to-female transsexual people with that in 19 males and 19 females. Surprisingly, in each transsexual person's brain the structure of the white matter in the four regions was halfway between that of the males and females (Journal of Psychiatric Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.11.007). "Their brains are not completely masculinised and not completely feminised, but they still feel female," says Guillamon.

Guillamon isn't sure whether the four regions are at all associated with notions of gender, but Ivanka Savic-Berglund at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, thinks they might be. One of the four regions – the superior longitudinal fascicle – is particularly interesting, she says. "It connects the parietal lobe [involved in sensory processing] and frontal lobe [involved in planning movement] and may have implications in body perception."

A 2010 study of 121 transgender people found that 38 per cent realised they had gender variance by age 5. White matter differences could provide independent confirmation that such children might benefit from treatment to delay puberty.

A study by Sean Deoni's team at King's College London suggests it may soon be possible to look for these differences in such children. Deoni's team adapted an MRI scanner to be as quiet as possible so it could be used to monitor the development of white matter in sleeping infants. Using new image analysis software they could track when and where myelin – the neuron covering that makes white matter white – was laid down (Journal of Neuroscience, vol 31, p 784). Although the sample was too small to identify any gender differences in development, Deoni expects to see differences developing in the brain "by 2 or 3 years of age".

Guillamon thinks such scans may not help in all cases. "Research has shown that white matter matures during the first 20 to 30 years of life," he says. "People may experience early or late onset of transsexuality and we don't know what causes this difference."

[East]

Though, honestly, your response leaves me wondering if you are more upset because I am critical of those behaviors (including my own) or because I encouraged him to stay when it seems like the swarm of comments were designed to alienate Holland to the point of leaving.

Honestly I do not care if the man leaves or stays...I do not read him unless someone else quotes him. I have no patience or interest at all in engaging a passive aggressive person. I see no use in it.

We are all different though so if you or anyone else finds the man engaging by all means continue to engage him.

I have had alot of experience with passive aggressive people and I understand exactly what I am dealing with. Life is waaaaaay too short for me to have my energy and passion misdirected and wasted.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

5% end up suffering due to limits on health care pre-op therapy.

95% end up happy and well adjusted.

Ulnar nerve transposition is only 78% effective, that means 22% end up suffering for life.

Treatment of pancreatis is between 70 and 80 % effective - depending on how soon you get in the operating room.

Life saving organ transplants. less than 30% of liver transplants actually take permanently. 58% end up dying anyway.

So a 95% success rate for any medical procedure for the happiness of the patient is great - really great.

[dfiant]

that's an interesting perspective Elfis, thank you.

[HollandofFrance]

watching some show on PBS on a transsexualism "i am not les" i think

http://kcts9.org/im-not-les

For almost 70 years, Sherri hid herself from the world. Everyone knew her as Les, a welder, a husband and a father. She was a biological male, but her physical gender didn’t match the way she felt about who she was.

Like many people in this country living with Gender Identity disorder, she was ostracized, harassed, and abused throughout her life. In fact, ninety percent of people expressing a transgendered identity report being harassed and discriminated against at school and at work. The unemployment rate for transgendered people is double that of the general population. More than 40 percent of transgendered people attempt suicide at least once.

“I’m not Les” is the deeply personal account of one woman’s journey to create an identity and find her place in the world. Follow Sherri, from childhood to womanhood, as she struggles to fit in, to find love, and to accept herself.

[HollandofFrance]

she said she didnt see herself as homosexual but just wanted a straight man-she dated a man but when he found out he dumped her-this person seemed nice i guess-there was an organ player Carlos or wendy carlos who did this too

she didnt tell the date she was a transexual -shouldnt she?

the cynical side of me almost thinks the thing is they like or want rejection because they have a fear of rejection but maybe thats going too far

but people can play all sorts of mind games with themselves

isnt honesty good? she should tell men shes transsexual i think

[DOMITIAN]

I understand that human sexuality comes in many forms and I believe in maximum tolerance of sexual behavior, but I simply cannot accept that someone would deliberately mutilate their own genitales. It is clear that way too many male born transgender people are making seriously dangerous desicisions that result in permanent physical damage to themselves.

It is easy enough for a woman to aquire a masuline body simply by taking enough testosterone, but the surgical removal of the male genitilia by male-to-female transitions is an act of violence directed against one own body, and . . . IT IS NOT HEALTHY!

Too few "Transgender" males realise that violent removal of their genitilia almost always results in the elimination of ALL sexual feeling and sexual drive; so what is the point ? ?

Do male-to-female Transgender people just want to wear womens cloths and cook and clean for their husbands ? ? ?

I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND THIS SELF DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR. . . . . SORRY!

[OrphanPip]

One could easily make the argument from health against homosexuality. It comes associated with empirically demonstrated increased risks of STIs and other health complications from anal sex (for those who chose to participate in it).

What about smoking or drinking alcohol, do you not accept the right of people to partake in those unhealthy acts?

Moreover, when we consider a more holistic approach to welfare, one that incorporates things like quality of life, we might find that for transgender people that "violent" surgery has immense benefits for their well being. Thus, it would be wrong to consider this self-destructive behavior.