About a girl.

Hi all,
We will be talking about gender tomorrow, and in honor of that, I am submitting a post by my cousin.  She is transgender/transsexual, and I asked if she would mind writing a post about her experiences.  She didn't (mind that is), and it's lovely and informative and honest, and she also is willing to answer questions if you have any.  In any case, rather than speaking for her, here's her post.

Hi, 

I'm a 25-year-old trans girl. I've been asked to offer my perspective on being trans, so, uh....here goes? [I guess I should preface this by saying that this is just my own perspective, I certainly don't speak for all trans women or anything like that, and (as far as I can tell) there's a lot of variation in transpeople's experience, so...mine is not representative of everyone's. Moreover, I can't speak for trans men, seeing as how I'm not one.]

Apologies in advance, this is kinda long and may sound a little rambly. I wasn't quite sure how to go about this at first, so...

Growing up was kind of odd and uncomfortable. As a young child, though I couldn't really identify particular things as 'oh hey signs that I'm trans' (after all, I had no idea that this sort of condition existed when I was little, and I didn't quite know what to make of my feelings at the time...though on an aside, it's worth noting that there are people who have an unshakeably certain sense of "I am [other gender]" from early early childhood), there were a bunch of times when I would look at what I guess one would call normal female socialization among girls my age - regular girls doing regular girl stuff, interacting in single-gender groups of friends (and in a way that differed from male group interaction), et cetera - and think, "I *should* be with the other girls." Of course, being male-bodied and reeeally given to worrying about this stuff, I figured...number one, they'll just see a guy and be all "augh get out," and number two, the male socialization I received told me that boys simply *shouldn't* try to be 'one of the girls'/do girl things/etc., and that doing so makes you a target for harassment. Not saying this was the sole cause, but this sort of stuff had a hand in making me pretty introverted and depressed as a young kid, to the point that I ended up on Zoloft by middle school.

When I was in my teens, the discomfort got worse, yay puberty! All the changes I went through - deeper voice, hair all over, other things that may or may not be TMI - just struck me as *wrong* and pretty depressing and I couldn't help but compare myself to the normal girls at school, feel really despondent/envious, and think, "that's how I -should- be, what the hell's wrong with me?" Really, I can't think of any time when it felt normal or right or whatever to look at myself based on male standards of 'normal' or 'healthy/good-looking'/what-have-you as opposed to female ones. My dysphoria and sense of "I am not a guy/not like guys, I should look like normal girls look," along with my existing sensitivity over weight/appearance, eventually brought on a nasty battle with anorexia/bulimia while I was in undergrad, as well. I'm still not *entirely* over that and have some pretty severe body image issues.

What made my adolescence even worse was, I was expected to be *happy* (or at least content) with being a guy, looking like a guy, et cetera, simply by virtue of having guyparts. Everything I knew told me that if I said *anything* about how I felt, I'd be ostracized/ridiculed as gay or weird or something. So I kept quiet about my feelings - the closest I got to doing anything was intermittently acting girly (sometimes exaggeratedly so) when with female friends in hopes of being perceived as "not a guy/one of the girls." 

So that's high school. In college, my gender dysphoria felt like it was at a low ebb for a little while, though it was supplanted somewhat by other problems for a little while. I ended up going through some pretty severe experiences with anorexia/bulimia (my gender dysphoria wasn't the sole cause of this, though it really affected my conception of "how I *should* look"), more depression followed, and consequently had to withdraw for a semester. I switched schools after my second year, finally said to myself "hey, I really *am* trans" sometime in my third year. Of course, saying it to myself and actively pursuing transition are two very different things, and I didn't start taking substantial steps until my second year of law school - my desire to right my body was inhibited by fear of discrimination (there have been more citywide trans-inclusive antidiscrimination ordinances passed in recent years, but it's still legal to discriminate in hiring, housing, public accommodations, and the like in most places, and even now it's iffy whether a trans-inclusive ENDA will be passed anytime soon), ostracism/harassment/outright violence, estrangement from friends and family, et cetera. 

Worries aside, thanks to a really supportive boyfriend and some other friends (trans and cisgender alike) who showed me that no, honesty about my tran *wouldn't* necessarily make me lose everyone I cared about, I worked up the courage to start transition last Fall, and I'm much much better for it (especially since starting hormones last December). I've come out of my shell (for lack of a better term), I feel genuinely *happy* (seriously, I was a pretty dour and despondent kid/adolescent/undergrad most of the time, so to find myself smiling and laughing and suchlike so much more nowadays is an almost unsettlingly big change, haha), and I just feel a lot more comfortable with myself on the whole. Moreover, I feel like I can just be myself gender identity-wise and otherwise, and that's a *huge* weight off my shoulders, not having to worry about 'giving myself away' or anything. 

I guess the only thing I have left to say is that, although transition isn't a cure-all - if you had issues before starting E or T, taking hormones or whatever isn't going to fix them right off the bat - it has the potential to *really* help people like myself, both in the immediate physical sense and in the longer-term happiness/motivation sense. 

Sorry, this is probably all over the place. :x I'm better at answering questions (seriously, I'm fairly well-read on this sort of thing) than I am at coming up with stuff from scratch, so....if any of you have any questions, please feel free to post them in the comments for this entry and I'll try to respond ASAP.

(Also, short lexicon (as far as I know, please bear in mind I'm *not* an expert, I just read a lot of stuff on the internet) for the uninitiated:

As far as the distinction between sex and gender goes, 

"sex is between the legs (physical/external), gender is between the ears (neurological/internal)."

MtF - male-to-female 

FtM - female-to-male 

Cisgender - where your internal gender identity matches your body/natal sex.

Transgender - umbrella category encompassing all "gender-variant individuals"

Transsexuals - subcategory of transgender people, individuals whose gender identity does not match their natal (birth) sex and who either plan to pursue sex reassignment surgery or who have already received this treatment.

Intersex - people born with both male and female sexual characteristics, or those with "intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish male from female," according to Wikipedia. Some intersexed individuals' experiences mirror those of transpeople to an extent; in some cases (or so I've read), an intersexed child will receive corrective surgery to make their 'atypical features' match their presumed sex, and in the event (however unlikely) that the doctor gets it wrong, well. 

Anyways, thanks for your time, everyone!

How to be nice.

As we approach Thanksgiving, I wanted to mention that, as it turns out, happiness may be contagious, and being grateful isn't just good for the soul, it's good for the body as well.  And apparently one of the things we should be very grateful for is the action of a small peptide hormone known as oxytocin.

Above all, be thankful for your brain’s supply of oxytocin, the small, celebrated peptide hormone that, by the looks of it, helps lubricate our every prosocial exchange, the thousands of acts of kindness, kind-of kindness and not-as-nakedly-venal-as-I-could-have-been kindness that make human society possible. Scientists have long known that the hormone plays essential physiological roles during birth and lactation, and animal studies have shown that oxytocin can influence behavior too, prompting voles to cuddle up with their mates, for example, or to clean and comfort their pups. Now a raft of new research in humans suggests that oxytocin underlies the twin emotional pillars of civilized life, our capacity to feel empathy and trust.

We talked a little bit about oxytocin in class on Thursday, and I said I would link to a recent article on it. It's a good read - I recommend it.  The article focuses on some new findings about oxytocin, suggesting that it's involved in a lot about what makes society function relatively smoothly, from the ways in which we trust strangers within the context of scripted social interactions to how good we are at inferring people's emotional states using only their eyes as our guide.

While genetic data suggests that there are stable individual differences between people, there are also laboratory studies in which subjects are given oxytocin artificially.  These subjects then show differences in their behavioral and emotional responses to others.

In the Nature Study, 58 healthy male students were given a single nasal squirt of either oxytocin or a placebo solution and, 50 minutes later, were instructed to start playing rounds of the Trust Game with each other, using monetary units they could either invest or withhold. The researchers found that the oxytocin-enhanced subjects were significantly more likely than the placebo players to trust their financial partners: whereas 45 percent of the oxytocin group agreed to invest the maximum amount of money possible, just 21 percent of the control group proved so amenable.

As you all are undoubtedly aware of, tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  While certainly a welcome holiday, it is often fraught with tension and difficulty for many.  As laid out in this recent article, Thanksgiving, as well as a time for thanks, can be a time for tension.

As families gather around the country this week to celebrate Thanksgiving, many of them are bracing for the intense emotions of the holiday meal. The combination of food and family often brings out longstanding tensions, criticism and battles for control. Simple issues like cooking with butter or asking for seconds are fraught with family conflict and commentary.

Last year, my mother in law came over for Thanksgiving, and, of all things, the mashed potatoes were a source of controversy.  It took more patience than I had to handle that. She's coming over again this year, and comments have already been relayed to me about mashed potatoes, although she's said nothing to me directly about it.  In thinking about these articles together, one thought struck my mind.

I need some of that nasal spray.

So how do you really feel about race?

So we talked a bit about race and stereotypes recently in class.  I mentioned that we all know what the stereotypes are, but we differ on how much we endorse them.  In other words, the content of all our stereotypes is very similar, but our endorsement of their accuracy varies wildly.

But, even if we disagree with a particular stereotype, can it still affect us? Research shows that it might.  There are what are called implicit stereotypes that operate outside of conscious awareness, but can still affect us.  A particularly clever methodology has been developed by Greenwald to test out our implicit biases - the underlying beliefs and associations that we might have and not even be aware of.  This methodology was originally developed to examine implicit attitudes directed towards African-Americans, but has since been extended to a wide variety of areas in which people standardly discriminate against each other.

I think this is research that provides a good model of what research should be; about important things, methodologically sound, based on prior knowledge, and ultimately, creative in its development and execution.  What Greenwald's test does is use our reaction time as a measure of what things tend to go together with what other things in our brains.  In other words, how quickly we can perform certain tasks is a clue about the structure of our concepts.

What happens is you are asked to make a decision about a series of pictures.  A photo of a face pops up - if the photo is of the face of an African American you are asked to indicate this by pressing the "e" button, and if it's the face of a European, you are to press the "i" button.  After this training session, the faces are replaced with words.  If a "good" word (e.g. love, glorious) pops up you press the "e", and if a "bad" word (e.g. war, hate) pops up you are to press the "i" button.  Then, after this second training session, you are asked to do both tasks at once.  Either a word or a face will pop up, and you have to categorize them correctly. This process is repeated, although the pairs are varied (i.e. first you might be asked to categorize (AA/good, EA/bad), then (AA/bad, EA/good)).

The critical dependent variables are your reaction times and mistakes.  If you can respond more quickly when the "good" words and European American faces are paired, then this suggests that you have an automatic association of European American and good.  In other words, you are quicker to respond to that particular pairing because it fits with your own unconscious attitudes.  The task and your beliefs match. On the other hand, if they don't, your performance will be slower.  So, we can get a sense of how strong your biases are by how much you are sped up or slowed down in your responses.  Analogously, your mistakes will tend to be in one direction.  If you make very few categorization mistakes for the (EA/good, AA/bad) trials, but many mistakes for the (AA/good, EA/bad) trials, then that suggests that the second pairing is harder for you because it doesn't match your internal associations.

As it turns out, most everyone, even people who are low in prejudice, tend to have biases.  In fact, when the IAT was first developed, many people became upset at discovering that they had been harboring less-than-nice beliefs (that's in fact, now in part of the consent form so that people aren't surprised to find out unsavory truths about themselves).  While some people argue about what these findings might mean, Greenwald and his associates make the argument that without due diligence on our part, implicit biases can indeed color our actions and impact explicit, conscious behavior.

Try the IAT for yourself.  

H1N1 vaccine links

Hi all,
I've gotten quite a few questions about the H1N1 vaccine, so here are a few links to help out.  First off, the CDC's statement on the failure of multiple studies to find a linkage between autism and vaccines.  Please note that journal articles are cited below which support the CDC's position.  In other words, there is hard data to back them up.  Overall, vaccines are not linked with the risk of autism, although there may be small subgroups which may be affected differently.  Second, a very nice recap of commonly asked questions about the H1N1 vaccines with short, informative answers.  And, a reminder of why we have vaccines.  They serve a purpose.

I hope that's helpful to those of you with questions!

The lessons in a mirror

We talked about the development of self-recognition abilities in class Tuesday.  As I mentioned, apes, dolphins and maybe even pigs have self-recognition abilities.  Self-recognition is generally tested with the rouge test, in which a spot of rouge is placed on a child's nose. When looking in a mirror, children who have attained self-recognition will reach towards their nose, indicating they understand the image in the mirror is their own.  This generally happens at about a year and a half of age, and is considered to be a significant achievement.

So why is this considered important?  Well, self-recognition is viewed as a marker of the development of the self, and the development of the self is a fundamental skill that underlies many abilities.  Among the most important of these are abilities related to social competence.  But why should understanding that you are a person separate from other people have an impact on social competence?

Well, humans are complicated creatures, and much of our understanding of social interactions involves figuring out what is going on in people's mind's on the basis of clues they give us or things that we might observe them do or say.  And to do this effectively, we need to be able to model what's going on in their minds.  For example, before we can understand how to cooperate with another person, we need to be able to figure out what it is that they want us to do.  Before we compete with someone, it helps us to know what they know, or how far they will go to win, or to pick up on cues of their weaknesses.  If the understanding of the distinction between your mind and the mind of others is missing, this makes social interactions a cacophony of confusion.

As with many of our most sophisticated skills, it turns out that we do this so naturally and easily we don't even realize we are continually doing it.  In fact, it comes so easily that much of the work on the modeling of others' minds (known as "theory of mind") emerged from research on people with autism.  In autism, this understanding of the split between yours and others' minds appears to be lacking, making social interactions confusing and nonsensical.  Note that in this clip , the boy doesn't seem to be able to understand that a person might not know the location of a hidden coin.  "I know where it is," he thinks, "so clearly, they must as well."

Self-recognition isn't the same thing as theory of mind certainly.  But it's a clue that things are going in the right direction, and an easy way to assess the development of the self.

It's a good thing I took statistics...

Or I might not know how to interpret this:

By the way, while most parents believe that candy and chocolate cause hyperactivity in children, research suggests this is, surprisingly, not the case.  Generally, the excitement of a holiday or special event is seen as being the contributing factor to bouncing off the walls after eating a bucket of candy.

Plus, candy makes anyone happy in my book.