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 is it a mental disorder? 
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I have really been thinking about this whole transgender thing. I know that in the movie we watched, they said that it wasn't a mental disorder or personality disorder, but honestly, i feel like it could be. For someone to be born as a girl or a boy is natural and normal. To want to change your sex is not normal to me. I feel like perhaps it could a be a situation of nurture. Perhaps the child was formed into doing "boy" like things or "girl" like things at a young age and this has formed their opinion that they were supposed to be another sex at birth. I guess I really just don't understand, and probably never will. I can accept it, but I dont agree with it at all. I just feel like it's a confusion.

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Courtney N. Cox


Wed Nov 15, 2006 3:48 pm
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I can see both sides of this take. However, there are people who are transgender who would tell you that growing up, if they were a boy they were treated like and expected to to boy things. Likewise for girls. They even felt compelled to behave the gender they were born. In fact they felt a lot of shame and discontent because they could not be happy in the physical sexual determined body they were given. They just did fit. So how do you explain those cases? i think a combination of our society, medical enhancements and other factors all contribute to the changes in a person. Frankly I don't have an answer. I just wanted to say that the raising is not always the factor that enables a change in sex.

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Jennifer Doll Gray


Wed Nov 15, 2006 4:23 pm
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:shock:

I think we have to be very careful here... Some problems arise when we label transexuals and others as 'sexually deviant' from our perspective. The APA (American Psychiatry Association) publishes disorders in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) and those labels have caused misdiagnoses and festered stereotypes. ADA versus ADHA and manic depressive versus depression come to my mind. When a child is labelled ADA or ADHA, many teachers give up on them.

So what happens when a student who is labelled 'sexually deviant' steps into our classrooms? A hypothetical situation will strike a nerve with some people but I think it makes my point: what if the APA began labelling prayer hallucinatory?

I find it very disconcerting that we have repeatedly criticized standardized testing because it rejects a student's unique abilities and shoves them into boxes yet we now consider rejecting the validity of a student's unique gender or sex because they don't fit into the standard gender-sex thing. ... very inconsistent.

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Justin Pittman


Wed Nov 15, 2006 7:12 pm
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Quote:
"I find it very disconcerting that we have repeatedly criticized standardized testing because it rejects a student's unique abilities and shoves them into boxes yet we now consider rejecting the validity of a student's unique gender or sex because they don't fit into the standard gender-sex thing. ... very inconsistent."


I just wanted to reiterate what Justin said for people who just skim these replys. I think you made a GREAT point.

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Lisa Hopkins


Wed Nov 15, 2006 8:30 pm
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Courtney's question made me think of a video i watched in sociology while i was in high school called the Boy Who Was Turned into A Girl. It was about twin boys who were born and while being circumcised one boy's penis was burnt off accidently and could not be repaired. The parents decided to try changing him to a girl and raised him and dressed him as a girl. The child never felt right though. She didn't like playing with girls and knew something was different about her. Her parents were finally forced to tell her what had happened, and after suicide attempts she was eventually turned back into a male and he married and led a normal life for awhile.

I don't kow if anyone else has seen this video, but I think it does a good job of showing that nurture, the way someone is raised and what they are exposed to as a child, isn't the determining factor of what gender they feel like they most identify with. It shows that biological factors have a lot to do with the gender of a person, and it isn't a choice or a mental disorder.

Here's a link to an article related to the same video I was talking about

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/reimer/

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Meghan Gaffney


Wed Nov 15, 2006 9:43 pm
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Regardless of how much things should or shouldn't be the way they are, they are. I think learning disabilities and gender are two totally different things. People are going to have their different views on both and just because someone doesn't like standardized test doesn't make them a hypocrite if they don't morally think it is right to be transgender. I think everyone has their own idea of a perfect world or the way things should be. Some people are pro transgender; some people are totally against it. It is hard to meet halfway on this one, and I don't know how much I think it will ever really change.

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Stephanie Nichole Gardner


Thu Nov 16, 2006 3:33 pm
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