From: Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Wed Jul 29 1998 - 05:41:51 MDT
At 08:14 AM 7/28/98 -0700, Kathryn wrote:
>It is worth noting that the research by Money extensively cited at the
>beginning of the article involved the first known instance of male
>reassignment to female after a circumcision accident, and much of the
>medical literature written on this person claiming success has since
>been negated by the patient's own decision to return to male status.
The definition of `success' is somewhat labile here. Consider the outcome:
=========================================
During childhood, the patient recalled that she
self-identified as a "tomboy" and enjoyed stereotypically masculine toys
and games; however, the
patient also recalled that her favorite playmates were usually girls and
that her best friend was always
a girl.
When seen at age 16, the patient had been admitted to the hospital for
vaginoplasty. At that time,
she wished to proceed with the further repair of her genitalia to make them
suitable for sexual
intercourse with males. At age 26, the patient returned to the hospital for
further vaginoplasty.
Regarding the patient's sexual orientation, she was attracted predominantly
to women in fantasy, but
had had sexual experiences with both women and men. At the time of the
second surgery, she was in
a relationship with a man and wished to be able to have intercourse. The
patient's self-described
sexual identity was "bisexual." After surgery at age 26 years, the patient
developed a rectovaginal
fistula. Within a few months of the surgery, the patient and her male
partner separated for reasons
other than the patient's physical problems. The patient subsequently began
living with a new partner,
a woman, in a lesbian relationship.
=================================
Obviously, a person in a female-looking body who chooses to be a lesbian
has arrived at a satisfactory accommodation to gender reassignment. But
given the basic issue at stake here, I'd have thought that persistent
primary sexual attraction to women is the key finding. It looks to me as
if uterine Y-chromonsome governance of brain differentiation has indeed
marked this person as `male', for the broad purposes of the discussion.
Thanks for an incredibly interesting reference, Kathryn.
Damien Broderick
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