Of everything we learned about his week, in the text book, artical and podcast, I think that learning about gender is the most interesting. I love learning about the dynamics of gender and what goes into gender identity and sexual identity.
Unfortunately, our book hardly glazes, if at all, Gender Dysphoria (gender identity disorder). Growing up I have known a few people with Gender Dysphoria, and I have always suspected that somthing biological must be the cause.There are several theories about what may cause Gender Dysphoria, with most researchers learning towards something chromosomal or something during prenatal development (sort of like the CAH babies we read about in the What's the Difference Between Boys and Girls article.
Another interesting quality of gender and sexual identity is how it seems to me much more of a spectrum than we had once thought. One cannot put any person into a "catagory" of gender or sexual identity. People identify all over the spectrum and each individual is unique in that way.
I have never known anybody personally, but I have been exposed to a few people with gender identity disorder at work. We use to have a guy come into the E.R. on a weekly basis that would mutilate his genitals. He wanted to cut them off, but he never got the courage. He would stick straight pins through his testicles, dress in feminine clothing and come to the E.R. to have the straight pins removed. People with gender identity disorder may act and present themselves as members of the opposite sex and may express a desire to alter their bodies. The disorder affects an individual's self-image, and can impact a person's behavior, and dress. So much so that a lot of them have surgery to make them the gender they want to be.
ReplyDeleteI've never known anybody personally either, but that's really interesting and I wish our book would've gone into more detail about it as well. And what erin said about the man coming into the ER on a weekly basis after mutilating his genitals, I wonder if that sort of extreme behavior is something that a lot of people with the disorder experience? Maybe not as extreme, but to some extent. Food for thought i guess
ReplyDeleteGender Identity Disorder is something that is very interesting to me as well. I have know quite a few people that were originally one gender and have since transitioned into another. I have never experienced or heard of anything as extreme as the man in the ER. It makes me wonder what else was that man could have been afflicted with, whether that be a psychological disorder or something along the same lines. There are always extremes to disorders or lifestyle choices, but for me the outcome I have always seen has been positive. The two people I know the best that have transitioned are exactly the same people, just living as the gender they know to be the correct one.
ReplyDelete