Identical Twins, sorta, one is transsexual

Printer-friendly version

Author: 

Taxonomy upgrade extras: 

http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2011/12/11/led-child-who-simply...

This is a good article on a family in Maine that are dealing with a transgender kid who is part of a set of identical twins. One is a son, the other a daughter, but biologically/genetically should be about the same.

It would be interesting to see the results of a genetic study and fMRI scan on the two of them. I think it is studies of identical twoins that would be most useful to learn about the sources of being TS, eh?

Comments

if your confused

both were born male as identical male twins. One is transitioning .

What a world we live in :(

In a way I am jealous of her certainty and youth of her transition. Goddess Bless!

But I do not envy the travails she has gone through.

I was raised in the 60s so good luck with me having any form of support and had to suppress my peculiarities best I could.

My main problem is the same as hers, that of finding a new life partner who won't run away.

It can make one cry at times. I empathize with you Nicole Honey.

She is brave to be open with her transition at this time.

Kim

Life imitates art

erin's picture

I think we have a story on BC with a similar plot. Even if we don't, we certainly could have had one; this is the sort of story that appears here as fiction.

Good luck, Nicole.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

One of the best Articles I've seen.

The article was one of the best I've read, but their interviews
were even more moving.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJQmdw-JCu8&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJQmdw-JCu8&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sXid19HrwY&feature=relmfu

I'm can't tell you how wonderful it is to know that slowly,
painfully slowly, the medical and support community will some
day be free to help all children, with medical concerns, and
with the basic human and social right for dignity.

"The grandfather complained to the Orono School Committee,
with the Christian Civic League of Maine backing him."

I hope that some day, we will be able to truly rise up from
the darkness, and combat the most vile of all diseases: ignorance,
intolerance, and bigotry. We'll probably need to start with
education, and then move on the the archaic dogmas that seat
themselves most deeply, and in their most perverse form, in the
weakest and least generous of minds where it fits so well to
justify the sicknesses that are already there.

It makes you feel badly, that our court system must struggle
hopelessly to aspire to simple justice. It's easy to forget, that
among the unknowing there is a belief that in our courtrooms we
have a judge to see to it that justice and rationality will prevail,
not knowing that they must construe according to the law, and all
too often misconstrue according to the disease. The system, which
is undoubtedly one of the best in the world, is only geared toward
resolution. That's a far cry from justice.

I won't live to see it, but some day, perhaps, we will find a way
to understand that a Christmas tree in a town square is not more
offensive, and does no more harm that a sign at a gas station that
tells you what it is. That the ethical code of Jude o Christian
theology need not be a danger if it is merely inscribed and transcribed
to the marble of a courthouse, and, and that it's only real danger lies
in when it is used by those with the disease. And, some day, little
girls will be able to go to the bathroom where they are most comfortable,
and the society won't care; because, when the lone bigot raises the
voice to protest, even if he steeps in his sad adherence to the all
justifying belief, there will be too few like him to care.

Some day. I won't see it, but then again... I never dreamed that I'd
see a day dawn, where some few children, born with this horrible doubt,
would be able to share in a thing that all people long for: Loving
hope.

Sarah Lynn

Christians...

Just because some close-minded bigots identify themselves as Christians doesn't mean all Christians are close-minded bigots.

This was an important lesson for me. I grew up with a huge disdain of organized religion, both my own, and others. This last decade began particularly badly, with some of the loudest, most bigoted people getting into positions where they could affect public policy and have a forum to proselytize their bigotry to the public. Then... a miracle happened. I found a small denomination, one I had heard of and always sort of respected, despite my disdain of organized religion, and I read their positions on same-sex marriage and commitment ceremonies. Ten years before it was legal in New York, they were treating ALL marriages as equal, marriage license or not.

The ethics and principles of it just made me cry. Still does. And, I went and visited, and sat in on their very simple worship ceremony, everyone sitting in silence, together, reaching out in spirit for revelation, guidance, or just communication with the divine. It was awesome! And people spoke to me afterwards, and wondered what brought me there, and welcomed me, and explained their core beliefs. And, I just knew.

So, today, as a member of our local Quaker meeting, I count myself a Christian, the kind that believes in and works for the equality of all people, the need for common community, peace, and personal integrity, being true to yourself and honest with others. I have been well and truly welcomed as an equal, trusted with important responsibilities, respected for who and what I am, and am proud to support them with committee work, donations, and whatever else it takes.

My advice for everyone who is fed up with those vicious, pompous fakers who call themselves Christian and behave as anything but, is find the real kind, join and support them. There are several welcoming, loving denominations who accept us as we are. Unitarian Universalists, Metropolitan Community Churches, and many, but not all meetings of the liberal wing of the Quakers (also known as "Quietist" and "Hicksite," and locatable on fgcquaker.org). If anyone knows any others, post them here!

The divide shouldn't be between Christians and secularists. There is a Christian tradition of equality and acceptance that still lives on in some minor denominations. Join them, swell their ranks, and enjoy the benefits of meeting some nice, supportive and loving people worthy of sharing a spiritual journey with. There's nothing wrong with being a secularist, of course. It's certainly superior to being a hateful, judgmental, small-minded hypocrite.

I certainly enjoyed being able to write my legislators and identify myself as a member of my denomination, and complain how state law was infringing OUR right to practice our religion, by telling us which marriages the state was prepared to recognize and which it wasn't. And, whadaya know... Not very long after, New York legislators passed marriage equality! I had nothing to do with it, I'm quite certain, but as they say of chicken soup, "At least it couldn't hurt!"

___________________
If a picture is worth 1000 words, this is at least part of my story.

Thank you for at least trying to reign me in, Pippa.

I know it is uncharacteristic for me to seem so closed off in view, but I
promise you I'm not. I only referred to Christians where appropriate,
because that was the group directly involved. No, my personal view is more
widely cast, and it easily encompass they whole of any and all religious
sect you'd care to name. And, the only reason I'm at all circumspect in
phrasing my responses, are both that I'm too polite to offend anyone without
a good reason, and the fact that I genuinely do fine most people quite good
and likable, without regard to faiths they may or may not adhere to.

And, that's why I responded to this in private! LOL.

Sarah lynn

Ooopsie

I owe you an apology. I was going off on a rant on one of my pet peeves, which happens to overlap a bit with your own annoyance. I wasn't directly responding to what you said.

I came off kind of strong, didn't I? Let me qualify and retract some of that.

Firstly, my admonishment to people to find and join a Christian denomination which bucks the recent right-wing trend, that was only intended as a suggestion to disappointed Christians who have walked away from whatever they grew up in, and who feel a small hole in their hearts missing it. To anyone who read that as urging a conversion to Christianity, it wasn't! If you are Jewish, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, or any other religion, or if you are comfortable in your purely secular humanist philosophy, I trust you to find your own solutions, and I am sure you have much to share with the rest of us. And, I'll happily take a kind atheist as a friend over a self-absorbed pious person any day of the week! Whatever makes a person a good person, is good.

Secondly, Sarah Lynn, thank you for your wonderful sense of humor and for putting up with me. I suspect the two are related, but I love you for each separately.

And there is no apology needed between us, Pippa.

I respect and admire your opinions. Not only that, you should know that there
are a bunch of people I've been conversing with over what, Seven Years? Not
only do I respect your view, but I often find myself reading here, to see the
opinions of my friends, and I more often than not modify my know-it-all positions
based on the wisdom, knowledge, and experience of my friends. I rely on your
maturity, so you keep the apology for when you really need it, and I'll trump
that with a thank you.

I'll add this. I never delve into these issues, because they are so emotional
with just a little divisiveness mixed in, as well as being push-buttons for so
many of our friends who've lead anything but pain free lives; and, it just isn't
worth the risk usually. No one here is in any danger of losing my friendship or
respect over any one philosophical issue. I like people who think differently
than me. I don't roll over very easy, but I do love to listen.

My problem with this issue is, that so many people (not just one peoples.), jump
in with the same view: that people are nice, and if your are nice the specifics
of faith are irrelevant. That's good as far as it goes, and I agree.

I just feel that there is a basic flaw, not in the reasoning like that above
which people use to explain their position, but in recognizing that the basic
flaw lies in people and religions both. Cutting to the chase: You can't apply your
personal standards to dictate other peoples behavior. Unless you have a good
idea, and then you write it up and send it to your congressman.

My worst experience with an evangelical christian came in high school. I was roped into
doing the Evolution debate thing. I refused. My argument was the same one the Stephen
J. Gould used, even though I'd never heard of him at that point. I told them that if
I'll only live a hundred years or less, I can't justify wasting a single minute on
explaining something that's self evident. It's not an issue of Belief, it's a fact,
and if you can't understand it, my explanations may educate, but they really can't improve
IQ, or repair the philosophical damage of a half century or more of indoctrination.

Of course, I was just roped in, just the same.

I spent the first half hour trying to explain that although I considered myself an
atheist, this had nothing to do with my talk that day. Evolution is observable physical
fact. Science is a method of determining the truth/value of theories, and collecting
facts. If god is everywhere, the scientific method, nor rational thought, have any way
of addressing that existence or influence.

I got through about two questions, which were the usual creationist questions. It was
South Carolina after all, and the fundamentalist sort of had Catholics and Atheists together
outnumbered by about a million to one.

I explained why there was no missing link, and that every fossil, every piece of chemical
and physical data, were a link. No organism is finished until it's dead, and every living
species we've ever seen, which retains the ability to procreate, can contribute to that species
genetics. Irreducible complexity: the eye. I explained pigments in the skin, and how they
can detect light, then direction, and how advantages are accrued; and then I showed that there
were intermediate eyes, and awesome eyes in 'lower' creatures--

You get the point. I enjoy explaining things, and took it all with a smile, and tried my
utter damnedest to explain it all. You see, I was only about fifteen, and I never learned
my hardest lesson until I was nearly forty; namely, that it does not matter how well I can
couch my arguments, nor what evidence I can give; it does not matter how well I reason, or
how hard I struggle to tailor my answers to reach a person; there are people out there who
are incapable or unwilling to understand what I see as axiomatic, and I have not power to
effect them, or affect a change in their understanding. It's not based on logic.

Duh! (I kid you not. I used to go home and cry, because I though I was too stoopid to
splain it well ehough.)

Anyway, this women in the front row began tossing out questions The wife of a minister,
she was agitated well before she even spoke. It began to escalate on her part, so I just
walked to the front of the small stage, and sat down facing her. I smiled, I hoped with
some warmth, until she stopped. I asked her why she felt so angry. I don't remember her
answer exactly, any more why I can remember why she was ever invited, but suffice it to say
that I am evil incarnate... apparently.

An English Teacher tried to calm her down, but no avail. She was there to save the student
body from me, and could not be diverted from her holy cause.

And then I asked her "Are you one of the folks who believe in god?" She turned red, and
began to calm down enough to affirm that. Rudely. I then asked of she what kind of god,
and was it the one in J/C theology, who was a really nice guy... apart from some earlier
unpleasantness. It took her a while but she finally said something that amounted to an
'of course.'

Having gained her attention finally, I explained that it didn't seem profitable to explain
science or facts to her, so I'd just explain a little about her religion, because although I
could never justify or rationalize any of those teachings, I had in fact, read much more widely
on the subject than most people. I explained that if you have faith, a wonderful thing by any
measure, you can simply try to accept two things. The writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, and
St. Thomas More had dealt with these issues better than ever I could. If you want to believe
that god created all, then that's just fine. There is no conflict. You believe in something
above and beyond what I was discussing. The fact that I could not take that last step is
irrelevant, because if, as she believed, god created man in his own image (and Woman of a an
extra big toe...perhaps.), it was in our mind that we are like him. We are like him in our
reason, to serve him with free will, and wisdom. That means that you can believe that god
made the world, but you had better realize, that it was left up to us to discover hows and
why's of how it all came together. Thus, once you discover say - gravity, faith doesn't
abrogate the need to believe it. As a Natural Philosopher, I was only acting on the same
obligation: To seek the truth, as far as my mind would take me.

She was so angry, she called me a name. Later she said she got angry because I wouldn't stop
smiling, and again, I was in a hopeless argument I never wanted.

I told her that, I might not believe in what she did, but that I knew that I was pretty sure
that the anger and hatred she vented, weren't part of any christian god I'd read about. That was
her, because of her inability to accept that if I were in any way right, it didn't make her wrong.
Because she did not understand either her Faith, or the Science I was lecturing on, she could only
feel it a a challenge, which was why she wanted to fight, and not listen. Lastly, I asked that
even though she could not come along with myself and some of the others, could she please just be
polite enough to listen quietly? As I often did when my friends would invite me to attend services
with them?

It worked so well, that they wanted to suspend me. I wound up in a whole other battle in the
office, and then dealing with the issue of why they had even invited someone like that to a
talk/presentation that they had demanded I give. I never raised my voice. I never broke my smile,
and I never uttered a rude word. I did have to do a detention for telling the vice principal, just
between friends, that he was a fucking idiot for pushing the thing in the first place, and a double
fucking idiot to force me into that position, and completely fucking insane to think that if they
tried to punish me for the opinions of some religious wacko, the encounter having been taped, that
they would still be employed when it was over.

I did the detention helping out around the school, and invited the VP and Principal down to grab
a burger with me, because I stayed till very late helping them inventory some books.

***

And, isn't it the same issue. You can politely ignore, or remain silent, but you can't tell people
that it's their flaw that they try to substitute religion and dogma for all the little things that
they aren't smart enough to figure out for themselves. People even go so far as to believe, that
you are suppose to be respectful of their religion, no matter how silly it is, or how foolishly it
may be applied, and completely forget that it's the people you are suppose to be respectful of.

We see the result pretty clearly, in people being thrown out of changing rooms, or little girls
being tortured at school. It's ignorance on the part of stupid people, being justified by... religion,
and it's considered rude to point out the fallacy in the religion because: It's not just that the
people are ignorant and bigoted. We all are. It's that this is what these religions were designed
to do. It's what they are for. It's my way, or the highway... to hell in this instance.

The Qu'ran says to trick the infidel. Attack him, Trick him, like to him, lie in wait and kill him.
The old testament advocates genocide, infanticide, fratricide, and matricide. Because... that's what
it was for. The Arabic and Middle-easterners, before Muhammad (Allah's blessings and praise be upon
him.), were theists with multiple idols and religions, but followed a code, My Brother and I against my
cousin, My cousin and I against the stranger. Of course. If you live on rock and sand, and you may need
to steal a goat now and then, and because you are in the middle of no where, and it's your cousin who has
the goat... That's what it's for. Survival. Religion is tailor made for that express purpose. Treat
everyone well, If they are like us. If not, you can steal their goat!

But you can't say that. If someone does not agree, then you can't tell them to go and read the book
again. You can't say that's twisted, because it's wrong to show disrespect for dogma. You can't even
say, that it's okay to worship the dandelion that blooms in spring, as long as your nice about it, because
The Dandelion is a meaningless irrelevancy, and it's the niceness that counts. That's offensive. Just
slightly more so than people who hurt other people because their Dandelion is better, and all others get
the eternal herbicide of damnation.

Apparently, it's like making fun of people who are less fortunate than... We are.

Or, you can do what I did for two years, when people would ask: "Well, where did your Big Bang come from?"
"Bob."
"Who the hell is, Bob?"
"He created the big bang. I found a scroll."
"So! He's your god? Bob!?!?!"
"Nope. He did it by mistake. He was just an average guy with shit luck. Probably never knew what
hit him. "
"Shit luck?"
"That's right. Shit happens..."

I did get College credit on a paper I wrote to explain how the big bang(s) do happen, but that didn't occur
till the Eleventh grade, when I was sixteen. The above was only the preface. If you're interested, then ask.
I can do that in two paragraphs, and it's still good science. The origins of the universe: I understand that.

Love you guys, really,
Sarah Lynn

It is like a fairy tale come

It is like a fairy tale come to life. Parents who are understanding and supportive, a twin that is protective, and a person who is willing to speak out. she must be amazing as she got one of the people who helped get the bill out to the floor change their minds and be against the bill. I think she is going to be a very positive example for others to follow.

Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.

Jill Micayla
Be kinder than necessary,Because everyone you meet
Is fighting some kind of battle.

Front page

Kalkin62's picture

The article actually got the front page of the Boston Globe today.

It's an impressive amount of positive exposure for gender identity issues.

You're Not Allowed

joannebarbarella's picture

To covet your neighbour's ass! Some dope will say that means homosexuality is forbidden by God.

Democracy is supposed to be not only about the will of the majority but also about protection of minorities. It amazes me how much of a politician's time is spent on things that don't hurt the majority and affect tiny sections of the people.

Here we had one boy complain about a child using the "wrong" toilet, when it didn't even affect him. He certainly wasn't going to use the girls' lavatory, so HE was never going to see the person he was complaining about "in flagrante delicto" and the next thing all the persecution crowd are out with metaphorical torches and pitchforks.

Get it together, people. We're talking about one-tenth of a percent of the population here (at most). Most of the community will never knowingly see a transsexual (OK, us here excepted), so what's the big deal?

The same with same-sex marriage. Probably at most 1% will marry someone of the same physical gender as themselves. Why is it such a big deal?

If you are in a heterosexual relationship, how does it hurt you that someone else wants to do the same thing a little differently?

Unfortunately I doubt that we will ever get totally rational about what are peripheral issues. If only we put as much blood, sweat and tears into solving the world's real problems, like poverty, over-population and climate change,

Joanne

Umm....

Kalkin62's picture

The story is about a transgendered child who's actually receiving substantial family support. A child who is actually receiving proper medical help at a time during her life when that help can make the most difference to her. She's being treated in a program specifically designed to deal with children who have gender identity issues.

Yes, she has experienced some discrimination as well. That's very unfortunate, but is that a surprise? You're certainly correct that people waste a lot of time hating, fearing and speaking out against issues that don't concern them and won't actually effect them, but I really don't think that was the point or focus of the article.

The article is sympathetic and positive in tone (overall), and it got the front page of the physical version of the local Boston paper (above the "fold" no less, it wasn't the biggest story on the front page, but it was the top story).