Albeit transgender is not remotely restricted to “always felt this way”. Some of us are solidly in the “it’s all an experiment by choice” camp.
PS You are writing things making me wish I could give more than one <3. 
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You lost me at blurring sex categories with gender categories here. “Female” and “male” are sex descriptors, not gender descriptors (e.g., “feminine,” “masculine,” “woman,” “boy,” etc.). Try again, I think you may have interesting things to contribute.
Also medicine does not assign either gender or transgender. Individuals assign gender to others and to themselves, and pretty much an individual is the only legitimate authority on their own gender identity, and even transgender identity (note that “transgender” and various medicalized labels for it require the individual’s self-identification as such… pretty much unlike any other condition in the ICD or DSM).
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ArchStanton is also assuming that emotions and values are somehow magically excluded from the human social endeavor called science, which is, more or less, counter to the evidence of what human congnition is. 
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I was addressing the idea that most of the people under discussion are still transitioning to male or female, not some third of fourth gender.
But this is a very complicated issue. My wife steered me towards some of the literature, and it seems like there is a lot of room for research and consensus. Certainly the causes of GD seem to still be under debate. And the idea of GD as a normal human gender expression on a spectrum, not being truly a disorder, yet requiring sophisticated and extensive medical intervention is a complicated ethical issue, which I am glad I do not have to sort out.
I was referring to the percentage of people born without ambiguous intersex conditions, where the sex cannot be readily determined by the delivering physician. I was trying to address the issue of noting sex on the birth certificate.
That is certainly an issue. I admit that this is an subject I am trying to learn about. Certainly a component of transition sometimes involves surgical intervention, which relates strongly to sex characteristics, as do hormone treatments. If sex and gender are unrelated, there ought to be a less confusing lexicon for us to share. or for me to learn. Which I will certainly try to do.
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My misunderstanding!
Some trans folks do medicalized transitions (albeit, that’s also hairy in language: estrogen and testosterone are produced by all human beings, and used by the body for many purposes not related to dimorphic sex :).
Some trans folks do social transitions (e.g., shifts in names, pronouns, presentations, use of space).
Some trans folks do not transition, and are strictly invisible as transgender. The “assigned at birth” language around gender is important because it speaks to the insistent lifelong policing of social roles based on whether one has a vagina or not. Without veering too far down into the lovely realm of trans-feminism, let me just propose the question: what would be wrong with a society that only gendered those who explicitly claimed a gender identity?
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I think the real ‘disease’ here is asinus retardatiosis.
The questions brought up by this “paper” aren’t reasonable and there’s a lot to unpack on why.
First off, Littman is a part of a small transphobic cabal in academia that are specifically looking to delegitimize trans people, deny we exist, and to prevent us from being ourselves (by forcing us to live our lives as our birth assignments). Littman and other transphobic academics are trying to muddy the discourse and add all sorts of shitty questions into the mix. These questions are meant to cast doubts or feed into cis myths about trans people.
Now, I really want more research for trans care. I don’t like that we have tons of contradictory guidance, we have to rely on anecdotes, our drugs are used off-label, etc. I want good science rigor in trans care. This garbage is not that. Never talking to a single trans person? Asking only on sites that are specifically transphobic? No controls? This isn’t science, this is using academia to oppress.
The goal of this study, from the way I see it, is to feed into the myth that trans people are just performers. That we are just living our lives in “drag”. ROGD is an attempt to keep this myth going, allowing for rampant transphobia and violence against us.
I’m not upset with researching trans issues. I’m upset with the way people, especially cis people, try to research our issues. The questions Littman raise aren’t looking to further knowledge of our experience, they are there to delegitimize it.
I’m failing to parse what on earth you’re meaning here. Why would trans folk’s care prevent cis folk from getting any care? I don’t understand what you’re getting at.
A lot of trans people don’t think of themselves as going from “male to female” or vice versa, and we’re typically not trying to go for some sort of “reassignment” whatever you think that might be. I know for me it’s bringing my body to be inline with who I am. And I’m not someone who’s known they were trans from an early age.
Also, please don’t say shit like “transgenderism”. Being trans is not an “ism”, it’s not a belief system. Transgender is just a description of a person. If you’re cis (aka not trans) does this mean you belong to a class of “cisism”? No, I didn’t think so.
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While Littman is a complete jackass, let’s not use ableist slurs to insult them. There’s a lot of other ways we can do that. 
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Except that it does do real damage to trans children. Which is why it’s transphobic. Maybe it’s time to rethink those practices, for the health of trans children, instead of assuming that sexual characteristics equate to gender, which is what happens now. No one is saying stop checking on babies and noting their outward physical characteristics, people who are trans are saying that their gender identity doesn’t fit into these boxes that society has decided we all must fit into, and that maybe we need to come at this construct of gender in a different way. They’re arguing that we need our society to be more inclusive and understanding, and not treat people who don’t fit in our boxes like garbage.
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Thanks for the information. I will note that the original comment noted as transphobic was “sex noted at birth”, not “gender assigned”. I think that is an important distinction.
I got reprimanded a little for conflating gender and sex. But the notation of sex in babies is not really about gender roles. It is a physical observation, which in almost almost all cases is unambiguous.
Reassignment and Transgenderism were not meant to be offensive terms. I was using the only terms I was familiar with. If someone does go for surgery to bring their body inline to who they are, are they not seeking to have explicitly male or female physical characteristics? That was the question I was asking when I asked if it was not still part of a binary system. And it was more of a question than a statement. Nobody is going into surgery to get a cloaca, unless I am misinformed.
As far as the “ism”, I will use whatever language that is least likely to offend, as long as I know what it is. But an ism is not just a belief system. Hyperthyroidism is not the belief that one should produce excess thyroxine. But that brings another sincere question- do you see GD as a physical condition, mental condition, or something else? I ask that only in the sense that people are seeking medical intervention to correct it. "Correct’ seems like the wrong word here as well. But we are sometimes talking about complicated surgery.
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We don’t assume gender at birth? Are people who turn out to fit into male and female categories well in the future hurt by a little gender ambiguity? Do you think if children are not given trucks and dolls as soon as possible are hurt more than children who don’t fit into those neat boxes? Because people who fit into the gender binary pretty well can still become pretty hurt from the necessity to fit into particular boxes. Men can end up hiding their emotions until it all come spilling out into a violent rage on their wives or children. Women suppress their feelings and don’t stand up for themselves.
I bet they do. Maybe ask someone of them.
So why immediately put them into the male or female box from day one?
Sure, and getting into
Isn’t doing that. Pathologizing what looks to be very natural human variation on gender identity (which seems to be what some of this work does) isn’t doing that…
True. That’s where the social construct comes in, right?
Indeed. lack of emotion can’t be assumed.
I think that’s great. I hope you listen to some of the trans folks here talking about their experiences, because that matters as much as more general research does.
But I think what happens is that sex and gender are conflated, and that is what causes the problems (and not just for non-gender conforming folks, I think, either, though they bear the emotional and often physical brunt of that pain). It’s a larger societal and systemic question, rather than just an individual question of how babies are assigned genders at birth.
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Can you expand on that? I have slogged through her published work, and could not see any sign of any sort of bias. We have discussed the poor methodology in the present study, but that does not seem to qualify her for the invective she is receiving. Do you have further information on her?
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It almost sounds like the doctor is selecting the sex of the infant. That is not the case.
Because for almost all people, this is noncontroversial. And it relates to their physical health. The doctor who observes the sex of a healthy infant is not doing so because he or she wants to make the child play with dolls or toy trucks. It is observing a physical characteristic. It is done during a physical examination. They also weigh and measure the infant. And assess mobility, reflexes, coloring, and palate development. And count fingers and toes.
What alternative do you suggest?
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You have a really bad habit of deigning to speak for other people who are not yourself, I’ve noticed.
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I think you’ll find that (at least from what I’ve been told), many trans people do feel this way. It’s not just about the doctor, per se, though, it’s about societal expectations around gender, and how those who “fail” to live up to those expectations are damaged by them. Again, I’m suggesting that’s not just about trans people, either. It does a little harm to us all, I think, to force us to live up to particular expectations around gender. I fail miserable at being a “good” woman, even though I very much identify as one. Despite not myself thinking of myself in terms of non-binary, I most certainly don’t fit neatly into that little box set up for me called “female”.
I’m aware, but they have expectations about gender too, yeah? The doctor is not operating in a vacuum and I’m sure in many cases, just wants what’s best for the child and family.
Change our expectations around gender and sex? Deprogram ourselves in some fundamental way? Come to understand that sex isn’t really about gender and isn’t destiny?
Watch more drag shows? Read more Judith Butler? Hang out more with trans people and treat them and their experiences with dignity and respect? Talk seriously about gender and how the boxes just don’t work for many people?
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Absolutely!
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I used and cited the number 99.982%. That can be defended as “almost all”. But even when a person is born in a healthy unambiguously female body, yet is of male gender, the female observation at birth still applies when assessing growth and health in infancy and childhood.
Agreed. but my question was specific to the “transphobic dogwhistle” of sex observed at birth . If we do not note sex, which could include intersex options, it could impede later evaluations of health. My wife sits for hours every evening reading referrals and lab letters. In many cases, she is just looking at lists of numbers sent to her by some lab or other physician. To determine if those numbers indicate that the patient is healthy, sex, age and even race often have to be considered. I have already used the example of head diameter and overall length when assessing growth in infants. The whole point of doing all this is to look for early indicators of illness or other disorder, with the belief that early detection is often associated with positive treatment outcomes.
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The assumption that trans people are aberrations to that normality instead of just a healthy and normal expression of gender?
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t examine babies and note down their sexual characteristics. I’m saying that gender as a binary excludes an awful lot of human beings and is indeed oppressive for them.
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Please stop digging deeper.
Trans folk aren’t broken/abnormal/ill and it is counterproductive to treat as such. There is no normal in humans - we are a somewhat predictable, but highly ranged set of variables running on weird, imperfect hardware.
Stop pushing people into boxes. Stop pathologizing people who don’t fit into these little constructs.
People are people, treat people with dignity.
You want to help? Start by believing people. Start by advocating for equity. Fight for socialized, individualized health care.
But don’t you EVER fucking treat people as if they’re sick freaks just because we don’t fit a classification system. Classifaction is descriptive, not a mandate.
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