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I look forward to the day when modern medicine can grow gonads and genitalia from undifferentiated cells and give transsexuals standard physiology.
In theory, it should be possible. For a MTF, you take a progenitor cell, duplicate the X and remove the Y, and coerce the cell colony to develop into the proper tissues on a scaffolding of some sort. For a FTM, you'd do the same sort of thing, except that one X would have to be removed and an extraneous Y would have to be brought in.
but details aside, yeah it should be possible, eventually. Just have to figure out the right cues to add and the whole scaffolding issue. I'm sure someone's working on that aspect of development and I know the scaffolding problem is being addressed for other tissues.
In the case of homosexuality it's a purely academic topic of course since being gay requires no treatment. However for transgendered folks pinning down a cause, or being able to predict it with some degree of accuracy, would contribute to getting affected children the treatment they need as soon as possible.
They've made functional (if rather misshapen) kidneys from adult mouse tissue. I'd say that some transsexuals will be getting genuine junk by 2075 at the latest, probably more like 2050.
It is wonderful to hear of a father who comes to accept that he "didn't lose a son" because he "never really had two sons".
Sounds like Nicole is well on her way of leading a life of advocacy and trying to make things better for others. She's already done quite a bit for just being 14, imagine how much more she might accomplish as she moves on to her late-teens & early twenties.
Also, it is great that she is getting the chance to meet older transpeople who are in long-term relationships - a chance to see that love is a very real possibility for her, in spite of her fear that it might not.
This story was really touching, though,
Though my last embryology class was a long time ago, I do remember that small differences in the chemical environment of an embryo can lead to much more amplified changes in development, particularly in the early stages. Identical twins are very, very similar, but differences do occur, and it could be that at a critical point in development, the fetus that was to become Nicole reacted to the inmediate chemical environment in a way that set her on her path.
Still, I hope she and her brother are willing to let doctors examine them. Identical twins are incredibly valuable for medical research, and perhaps they could help the transgendered kids of the future.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJQmdw-JC…
If you're going to do the story right, Boston Globe, do it right. Nicole is and has always been a girl. Doing research for the story, you should have come across a little thing called "correct gender pronouns."
I think this important story written in accessible and comprehensive form being published is way more important than getting the "correct gender pronouns".
Not to mention that from the parents/society perspective "he" was not confirming, only after she went to the tg positive doctor "he" became "she" for everyone else but herself too
I have nothing against trans people. I have nothing against kids wearing opposite-gendered clothing and calling themselves whatever they want.
I DO have something against children making gigantic, life changing decisions about their bodies.
If we say that a kid cannot consent to sex because they can't comprehend the consequences, why the hell can we say a kid can consent to gigantic hormone treatments that block puberty and rewire their entire bodies???
It's perverse and exploitative!
Not to mention, a lot of kids go through phases of wanting to be all sorts of things.... I personally went through a couple year phase of wanting to be a boy because I thought Calvin and Hobbes was really cool and I didn't want to be a "slimy girl". Can you imagine what would have happened to me if my parents had taken me seriously? I would have messed myself up for life because I was just being a kid!
If people want to get gender reassignment surgery, they can wait until they're old enough to fully comprehend the consequences. A kid isn't mentally capable of doing that.
A gigantic, life changing decision about their bodies would be to have gender reassingment surgery. A small, pretty insignificant change - or lack of change, to be more accurate - would be to use puberty blockers to prevent body from developing sex-typical characteristics.
We say a kid cannot consent to sex because they can't comprehend the consequences, and we say that if a qualified therapist has had meetings with the kids (a requirement), they may go on suppressors. After suppressors, if they decide to go further, they can do hormonal injections that rewire their body. The suppressors do not rewire anything.
And since a lot of kids go through phases, that is exactly why suppressors are reversible - and many who have had them have decided not to transition and have been perfectly fine, no life changing decisions made. Really, read the article.
I don't think you can compare your Calvin and Hobbes fandom as being at ALL comparable to the things that parents see in their transgender children. Not at all.
If people want gender reassingment surgery, they HAVE TO wait until they are 18. EVERYWHERE. Please, inform yourself.
@5 I agree
@9 I think it's a really different context - the "birth defect" her mother is talking about is the fact that she was born into a boy's body (like, the penis would be the birth defect). The fact that she's a girl isn't what she's calling a defect (which is what most people mean when they say it - the body is correct and the brain isn't), it's her incorrect body that her mom is calling a defect.
It's interesting that parents are often more confused about their transgendered children (even as adults) than their trans children are. And they claim that transpeople are the ones who are confused. Bah, they're the ones who are so certain!
Not being genetically identical is the norm for identical twins. They are simply more genetically identical than any two people who aren't twins (at least until cloning humans is possible).
They also don't have identical prenatal environments. It's similar, of course, but not identical. And depending on the specifics of the prenatal setup, they may be competing for resources and get different amounts of them.
So, basically, this means that it'd make it easier to track down factors that might be relevant, since fewer vary. But it doesn't rule out genetically based causes. Or environmentally triggered genetically based causes.