(1) gender dysphoria (imposed) and (2) transgender identity in the very young

When David Reimer shot and killed himself at age 38, it was the spectacularly tragic end of a well-meant but infamous experiment in the “plasticity” of gender identity in the young. (Purists may note that the mortal consequences for David and his entire family were not directly visited on the hubristic actor in this case, Dr. John Money, erstwhile champion of infant sex assignment through surgery and socialization.) As John Colapinto points out in his reflections on David’s death published on Slate (June 3, 2004, 3:58 PM ET), there were certainly other contributing factors in the Reimer family history, but the mere facts of the experiment were such as might have driven anyone to despair.

My recent acquaintance with the Reimer case was occasioned by Graeme’s posts at DeweyWriter.com, including information on a BBC documentary on the experiment and its aftermath, and transcribing a fascinating (in context) article on transgender identity in children – some as young as 18 months – published in a very mainstream Australian parenting magazine. Thanks to Graeme for his alerts and his labor.

There’s some redundancy in the links posted here, but also some interesting variations in the facts of David Reimer’s life. The first link, to Wikipedia, ends with a brief discussion of the clinical and social impact of the Reimer/Money affair; the BBC page links further to a transcript of the documentary.

photo of David Reimer by Reuters

20 years after Chernobyl, Welsh lambs still screened before slaughter, still turn up “dirty”

On April 25, 1986, the world’s worst nuclear power accident occurred at Chernobyl in the former USSR….

Before Emlyn Roberts, a North Wales sheep farmer, can take any of his lambs to market, he has to call in the government inspectors with their Geiger counters. They scan the animals for signs of radiation because the land they graze is still contaminated from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which occurred 20 years ago this month. If the radiation levels are too high, the lambs cannot be sold for meat until they have spent time on other land.

As the twentieth anniversary approaches and the nuclear power debate resurges, Catriona Davies reports in The Age, April 2, 2006.

“Youth in the Crosshairs: the Third Wave of Ex-Gay Activism” targets children as young as 5 years old

Whether through ex-gay teen programs or traveling ex-gay conferences like Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out ex-gay programs are recommending that parents commit their children to treatment of “prehomosexuality” even if it is against their children’s wishes. Heterosexual youth are also being recruited in schools and churches to spread the message that homosexuality is a treatable mental illness.“One of the most disturbing accounts in this report is a case involving a 5-year-old boy who was subjected to conversion therapy to address ‘prehomosexuality.’ The case involves a psychologist who claims that his theories and treatments are scientific,” said study co-author Jason Cianciotto, the [National Gay and Lesbian Task Force] Policy Institute’s research director. “To the contrary, conversion therapy is opposed by nearly every medical and mental health professional association, including the American Academy of Pediatrics….Tragically, ex-gay and evangelical Christian right leaders are using bogus theories and discredited research to frighten parents into doing something more likely to harm than help their children.”

The Policy Institute’s full report (78 pages not including the back matter and including a nine-page “executive summary”) is downloadable as a PDF. The same page also offers an mp3 version. For a shorter summary, see the Institute’s press release, quoted above (emphasis added).

drugging kids for hyperactivity skyrockets in the US, is on the rise elsewhere

Nearly 4 million Americans, most of them children and young adults, are being prescribed amphetamine-like stimulants to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Up to a million more may be taking the drugs illegally.Now, amid reports of rare but serious side effects, leading researchers and doctors are calling for a review of the way ADHD is dealt with. Many prescriptions are being written by family doctors with little expertise in diagnosing ADHD, raising doubts about how many people on these stimulants really need them. Just as worrying, large numbers of children who do have ADHD are going undiagnosed.

Both trends could lead to problems with drug dependency, argue specialists in addiction.

This report by Peter Aldous continues at NewScientist.com: “Prescribing of Hyperactivity Drugs Is Out of Control” (31 March 2006)

Cecilia Fire Thunder, Pine Ridge Oglala President, vows to resist South Dakota abortion ban

The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.”To me, it is now a question of sovereignty,” she said to me last week. “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.”

For more, see the indybay.org report by Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji), 3/20/2006 � 2006 Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc

positive body image makes young men riskier, young women safer in their sexual behavior

Young men who feel good about their looks are more likely than their peers with a less positive body image to engage in risky sexual behavior, a new study of college students shows.The men who were most satisfied with their appearance, and the most appearance-oriented — meaning they were highly invested in their looks and considered appearance to be important — were also the most likely to have sex without condoms and to have sex with multiple partners….Among young women, in contrast, those with a more positive body image were less likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, [Dr. Eva S. Lefkowitz of Pennsylvania State University in University Park and colleagues] found.
….
While sexually active students reported less dissatisfaction with their looks and a more positive body image on average, “it’s important to point out that we don’t know which comes first,” Lefkowitz said. People who feel better about their looks may be more likely to have sex, or being sexually active may confer a better body image, she explained.

For more, see the Reuters report as published in The Sydney Morning Herald, March 28, 2006.

Field Notes From a Catastrophe: foreign robins and floating roads

Mariana Gosnell reviews Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes From a Catastrophe in The New York Times, “In Epoch of Man, Earth Takes a Beating” (Books of The Times), March 16, 2006

[Ms. Kolbert] visits the Netherlands, where rising sea levels caused by global warming are expected to swallow up large parts of the country. In areas where there are already periodic floods, a construction firm has started building amphibious homes (they resemble toasters, Ms. Kolbert says) as well as “buoyant roads.” Another field trip took her to Washington, where she was treated to double-speak by an under secretary charged with explaining the administration’s position on climate change. “Astonishingly,” she comments in a rare show of heat, “standing in the way” of progress seems to be President Bush’s goal. Not only did he reject the Kyoto Protocol, she notes, with its mandatory curbs on emissions, almost killing the treaty in the process, but he also continues to block meaningful follow-up changes to it.

Yes, you’ve probably heard or sensed much of this before, but the devil is in those telling details – the Dutch engineering for a flooded future, the Inuit seeing birds for which their language has no name…

surgical intervention for intractable depression

There are some fascinating and apparently promising results from applying a brain surgery technique established as a treatment for Parkinson’s to people who suffer from severe depression that has not responded to other treatments. As reported by David Dobbs in “A Depression Switch?” (The New York Times Magazine, April 2, 2006):

The operation borrowed a procedure called deep brain stimulation, or D.B.S., which is used to treat Parkinson’s. It involves planting electrodes in a region near the center of the brain called Area 25 and sending in a steady stream of low voltage from a pacemaker in the chest.

Dobbs goes on to quote patient Deanna Cole-Benjamin and Dr. Helen Mayberg, the neurologist who devised the procedure, from a conversation they had during the surgery (the skull of the patient is bolted to a frame, but the patient remains conscious):

“So we turn it on,” Mayberg told me later, “and all of a sudden she says to me, ‘It’s very strange,’ she says, ‘I know you’ve been with me in the operating room this whole time. I know you care about me. But it’s not that. I don’t know what you just did. But I’m looking at you, and it’s like I just feel suddenly more connected to you.’ “

Mayberg, stunned, signaled with her hand to the others, out of Deanna’s view, to turn the stimulator off.

“And they turn it off,” Mayberg said, “and she goes: ‘God, it’s just so odd. You just went away again. I guess it wasn’t really anything.’

“It was subtle like a brick,” Mayberg told me. “There’s no reason for her to say that. Zero. And all through those tapes I have of her, every time she’s in the clinic beforehand, she always talks about this disconnect, this closeness and sense of affiliation she misses, that was so agonizingly painful for her to lose. And there it was. It was back in an instant.”

Deanna later described it in similar terms. “It was literally like a switch being turned on that had been held down for years,” she said. “All of a sudden they hit the spot, and I feel so calm and so peaceful. It was overwhelming to be able to process emotion on somebody’s face. I’d been numb to that for so long.”