Far From the Tree

by Solomon, Andrew

  Also, from Y. Gavriel Ansara and Peter Hegarty, “Cisgenderism in psychology: Pathologising and misgendering children from 1999 to 2008,” Psychology & Sexuality 2 (2011): “We assessed whether recent psychological literature on children reflects or contrasts with the zeitgeist of American Psychological Association’s recent non-discrimination statement on ‘transgender’; and ‘gender variant’ individuals. Article records (N = 94) on childhood ‘gender identity’ and ‘expression’ published between 1999 and 2008 inclusive were evaluated for two kinds of cisgenderism, the ideology that invalidates or pathologises self-designated genders that contrast with external designations. Misgendering language contradicts children’s own gender assignations and was less frequent than pathologising language which constructs children’s own gender assignations and expression as disordered. Articles on children’s gender identity/expression are increasingly impactful within psychology. Cisgenderism is neither increasing nor decreasing overall. Mental health professionals are more cisgenderist than other authors. Articles by members of an ‘invisible college’ structured around the most prolific author in this area are more cisgenderist and impactful than other articles. We suggest how authors and editors can implement American Psychological Association policy and change scientific discourse about children’s genders.”

  For journalistic coverage of the subject, see Stephanie Wilkinson, “Drop the Barbie! If you bend gender far enough, does it break?,” Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers (Fall 2001).

  1535 Organizational websites: NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality), http://www.narth.com/; Catholic Education Resource Center, http://www.catholiceducation.org/. Works published and promoted by CERC and NARTH principals that cite to Zucker’s work include Richard Fitzgibbons Jr. and Joseph Nicolosi, “When boys won’t be boys: Childhood gender identity disorder,” Lay Witness (June 2001); Joseph Nicolosi and Linda Ames Nicolosi, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality (2002); and A. Dean Byrd and the NARTH Scientific Advisory Committee, “Gender identity disorders in childhood and adolescence: A critical inquiry and review of the Kenneth Zucker research” (March 2007). Proponents of reparative therapy also include orthodox Jews, e.g., Susan L. Rosenbluth, “Help for Jewish homosexuals that is consistent with Torah principles,” Jewish Voice & Opinion 13, no. 4 (December 1999).

  1536 The mother’s description of her experience implementing reparative therapy comes from Alix Spiegel’s NPR report “Two families grapple with sons’ gender preferences: Psychologists take radically different approaches in therapy,” All Things Considered, May 7, 2008.

  1537 For the follow-up study of patients at Zucker’s clinic, see Kelley D. Drummond et al., “A follow-up study of girls with gender identity disorder,” Developmental Psychology 44, no. 1 (January 2008).

  1538 The mother who doubted that her adult daughter would outlive her is profiled in Hanna Rosin, “A boy’s life,” Atlantic Monthly, November 2008. Rosin reports Zucker’s comparison of “young children who believe they are meant to live as the other sex to people who want to amputate healthy limbs, or who believe they are cats, or those with something called ethnic-identity disorder. ‘If a five-year-old black kid came into the clinic and said he wanted to be white, would we endorse that?’ he told me. ‘I don’t think so. What we would want to do is say, “What’s going on with this kid that’s making him feel that it would be better to be white?”’”

  1539 Zucker’s characterization of transgender children as rigid and joyless is quoted in Stephanie Wilkinson, “Drop the Barbie! If you bend gender far enough, does it break?,” Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers (Fall 2001).

  1540 Zucker’s characterization of belief in the immutability of gender dysphoria as “simple-minded biological reductionism” occurs on page 267 of Susan J. Bradley and Kenneth J. Zucker, “Children with gender nonconformity: Drs. Bradley and Zucker reply,” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 42, no. 3 (March 2003); and as “liberal essentialism” in Alix Spiegel’s May 7, 2008, NPR report, “Q&A: Therapists on gender identity issues in kids.”

  1541 Susan Coates’s observations about creativity and anxiety in gender-dysphoric youth come from my interview with her in 2008 and subsequent communications.

  1542 This passage is based on my interview with Dolores Martinez and Tyler Holmes in 2009 and subsequent communications. All names in this passage are pseudonyms.

  1543 Amy Bloom discusses the contribution of parents to cross-gender identification on page 38 of Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude (2002).

  1544 Heino Meyer-Bahlburg contends that GID cannot be categorized “on a purely scientific basis” on page 461 of his article “From mental disorder to iatrogenic hypogonadism: Dilemmas in conceptualizing gender identity variants as psychiatric conditions,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 39, no. 2 (April 2010). In full: “I conclude that—as also evident in other DSM categories—the decision on the categorization of GIVs cannot be achieved on a purely scientific basis, and that a consensus for a pragmatic compromise needs to be arrived at that accommodates both scientific considerations and the service needs of persons with GIVs.”

  1545 All quotations from Edgardo Menvielle come from my interview with him in 2009 unless otherwise specified.

  1546 The finding of a 1 percent rate of post-transition dissatisfaction is reported on page 211 of Mildred L. Brown and Chloe Ann Rounsley, True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism (1996).

  1547 Danielle Berry expresses her regret about her “jump off the precipice” in Lynn Conway, “A warning for those considering MtF sex reassignment surgery (SRS)” (2005, revised 2007), at http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Warning.html.

  1548 The quotation from Sam Hashimi comes from Helen Weathers, “A British tycoon and father of two has been a man and a wom http://www.uvm.edu/~tic an . . . and a man again . . . and knows which sex he’d rather be,” Daily Mail Online, January 4, 2009.

  1549 All quotations and anecdotes from Kim Pearson come from my interviews with her between 2007 and 2012.

  1550 This passage is based on my interviews with Scott Earle, Lynn Luginbuhl, Morris Earle, and Charlie Earle in 2007 and 2008. Though Lynn and Morris were happy to be quoted by name, Scott asked me to use a pseudonym, which I have done; Charlie’s name is also a pseudonym.

  1551 The Translating Identity Conference has become an annual event, and UVM has since established official campus policies for gender-variant, transgender, and transsexual students.

  1552 For more on gayness among trans people, see Autumn Sandeen, who said on KRXQ on June 11, 2009, that “fifty-three percent of transgender women identify as lesbian or bisexual, and ten to thirty percent of transmen are gay.” For their book in development, Understanding Transgender Lives, Brett Genny Beemyn and Sue Rankin at http://www.umass.edu/stonewall/uploads/listWidget/9002/Understanding%20Transgender%20Lives.pdf describe a survey in which “one third of respondents (32%, n = 1,120) reported that their sexual orientation is bisexual, and 30% (n = 1,029) identified as heterosexual. Sixteen percent (n = 567) identified ‘Other,’ which include but are not limited to ‘a mix of asexual, gay, and heterosexual,’ ‘ambivalent,’ ‘attracted to genderqueer people,’ ‘autobisexual,’ ‘bisexual when dressed in female clothes otherwise heterosexual,’ ‘pansexual,’ ‘queer,’ and ‘transgender lesbian.’ Twelve percent identified as lesbian, four percent identified as gay, and five percent identified as asexual. One percent of respondents (n = 26) did not respond to the question.”

  See also Mallon and DeCrescenzo (2006), who say, “Transgender youths may identify their sexual orientation or to whom they are romantically and sexually attracted as gay, lesbian, bisexual, questioning, straight, or by some other label; one’s sexual orientation is different from, and not determined by, one’s gender identity. Transgender youths are highly diverse in terms of sexual orientation as well as in terms of gender, race, age, religion, disa
bility, nationality, language, and class background.”

  Brill and Pepper, 1553–6, have written, “Transgender or cross-gender individuals may additionally identify as straight, homosexual, bisexual, or asexual.”

  1554 Each of these organizations has a website: TransYouth Family Allies (TYFA) at http://www.imatyfa.org; Gender Spectrum at http://www.genderspectrum.org; Mermaids (UK) at http://www.mermaidsuk.org.uk; PFLAG Transgender Network at http://www.pflag.org; TransFamily of Cleveland at http://www.transfamily.org; TransActive at http://www.transactiveonline.org; Genderfork at http://genderfork.com; National Center for Transgender Equality at http://transequality.org; Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) at http://www.transgenderlegal.org; and the Transkids Purple Rainbow Foundation at http://www.transkidspurplerainbow.org.

  1555 This passage is based on my interview with Kim, John, and Shawn Pearson in 2007 and subsequent communications.

  1556 This passage is based on my interview with Shannon and Keely Garcia in 2009 and subsequent communications.

  1557 According to a 2011 survey sponsored by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, “Fifty-seven percent (57%) faced some rejection by their family and 43% were accepted”; see page 101 of Jaime M. Grant et al., Injustice at Every Turn (2011).

  1558 Cris Beam’s description of the mother’s wish that her transgender child would die of AIDS occurs on page 36 of Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgendered Teenagers (2007).

  1559 The excerpt from the outraged mother’s letter to her transgender child is taken from pages 175–76 of Mildred L. Brown and Chloe Ann Rounsley, True Selves (1996).

  1560 The transphobic drive-time shock-jock harangue and its aftermath was chronicled in the Sacramento Bee; see Carlos Alcalá, “Radio segment on transgender kids raises hackles,” 21Q: A Bee Entertainment Blog, June 2, 2009; Carlos Alcalá, “Under fire, radio host says transgender comments were ‘a joke,’” Sacramento Bee, June 4, 2009 (source of quotations from the show); Matthew Keys, “Local radio show takes heat, loses advertisers over transgender comments,” Sacramento Press, June 5, 2009; Bill Lindelof, “Transgender controversy,” Sacramento Bee, June 9, 2009; Carlos Alcalá, “On-air controversy: Radio show back today with transgender advocates,” Sacramento Bee, June 11, 2009; and Bill Lindelof, “Broadcasters apologize on air for transgender remarks,” Sacramento Bee, June 12, 2009.

  1561 This passage is based on my interview with Hailey Krueger and Jane Ritter in 2009. All names in this passage are pseudonyms.

  1562 Metropolitan Community Church website: http://mccchurch.org/.

  1563 See the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force study Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (2011); and for similar findings among youth, Michael Bochenek and A. Widney Brown’s report for Human Rights Watch, Hatred in the Hallways: Violence and Discrimination against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students in U.S. Schools (2001).

  1564 Statistics on homelessness and prostitution among transgender youth come from Nicholas Ray’s 2007 report to the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, “Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth: An epidemic of homelessness”; and David Kihara, “Giuliani’s suppressed report on homeless youth,” Village Voice, August 24, 1999.

  1565 The quotation from the transgender sex worker (“I like the attention; it makes me feel loved”) comes from Corey Kilgannon, “After working the streets, bunk beds and a Mass,” New York Times, May 2, 2007.

  1566 This passage is based on my interview with Albert Cannon, Roxanne Green, and Dante Haynes in 2009.

  1567 Teish Green’s murder and Dwight DeLee’s trial were thoroughly chronicled by the Syracuse Post-Standard; for an index of all coverage, search http://www.syracuse.com for Moses Cannon. Articles consulted for this passage include Matt Michael, “Syracuse man was killed for being gay, police say,” Syracuse Post-Standard, November 16, 2008; Jim O’Hara, “Syracuse man indicted on hate-crime murder charge,” Syracuse Post-Standard, April 3, 2009; and Jim O’Hara, “Dwight DeLee gets the maximum in transgender slaying,” Syracuse Post-Standard, August 18, 2009.

  1568 The quotation from Michael Silverman about Dwight DeLee’s trial comes from my interview with him in 2009.

  1569 Statistics on murders of transgender people come from Gwendolyn Ann Smith’s informational website, Remembering Our Dead, http://www.gender.org/remember. For discussion of proposals to extend hate-crime protection to transgender people, see David Stout, “House votes to expand hate-crime protection,” New York Times, May 4, 2007. See also http://www.transgenderdor.org/.

  1570 Carsten Balzer refers to the international incidence of murder of transgender people, and the frequent murder of minors, on pages 156–57 of his report “Preliminary results of Trans Murder Monitoring Project,” Liminalis 3 (July 2009); on page 157, Balzer cites Thomas Hammarberg’s account of the Portuguese incident in “Discrimination against transgender persons must no longer be tolerated,” Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, 2009.

  1571 Contemporary news reports on murders of transgender people: Krissy Bates: Abby Simons, “‘The killing of one of our own,’” Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 22, 2011; and Abby Simons, “Man guilty of murdering transgender victim,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, November 24, 2011. Tyra Trent: Jessica Anderson, “Vigil remembers transgender murder victim,” Sun, March 5, 2011. Marcal Camero Tye: Jeannie Nuiss, “FBI may investigate dragging death as hate crime,” Commercial Appeal, March 20, 2011. Nate Nate: Dale Lezon, “HPD releases suspect sketch in cross-dresser’s killing,” Houston Chronicle, June 14, 2011. Lashai Mclean: Pat Collins, “Transgender person slain in northeast,” NBC Washington, July 21, 2011. Camila Guzman: Steven Thrasher, “vigil,” Village Voice, August 12, 2011. Gaurav Gopalan: Trey Graham, “The final days of Gaurav Gopalan,” Washington City Paper, September 21, 2011. Shelley Hilliard: Gina Damron, “Mom waits for answers in transgender teen’s death,” Detroit Free Press, November 12, 2011.

  1572 This passage is based on my interview with Anne O’Hara, Marshall Camacho, Glenn Stevens, and Kerry Adahy in 2009. All names in this passage are pseudonyms.

  1573 The quotation from Judith Butler (“One might wonder what use ‘opening up the possibilities’ finally is . . .”) occurs on page viii of the revised edition of her book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1999).

  1574 This passage is based on my interview with Bridget and Matt McCourt in 2009. All names in this passage are pseudonyms.

  1575 This passage is based on my interview with Nicole, Ben, and Anneke Osman in 2009.

  1576 This passage is based on my interview with Vicky Pearsall in 2007 and subsequent communications. All names in this passage are pseudonyms.

  1577 Emmy Werner’s comment about children who are gender-flexible comes from an interview with Robin Hughes on the episode “Resilience” of the Australian radio show Open Mind, broadcast April 29, 1996.

  1578 The quotations from Renée Richards disapproving of gender fluidity come from Debra Rosenberg, “Rethinking gender,” Newsweek, May 21, 2007; and Maureen Dowd, “Between torment and happiness,” New York Times, April 26, 2011.

  1579 Justin Vivian Bond’s remark about “nurturing your nature” comes from Mike Albo, “The official Justin Bond,” Out, April 11, 2011.

  1580 This passage is based on my interview with Eli, Joanna, and Kate Rood in 2007 and subsequent communications, as well as Eli’s blog at http://translocative.blogspot.com/.

  1581 The quotation from Kate Rood (“Eli is soon to be rendered infertile . . .”) comes from her article “The sea horse: Our family mascot,” New York Times, November 2, 2008.

  1582 The closing quotation from Eli Rood comes from his essay “Not quite a beginning,” Eli’s Coming, February 3, 2006, http://translocative.blogspot.com/2006/02/not-quite-beginning.html.

  1583 See David Smith, “Gender row athlete C
aster Semenya wanted to boycott medal ceremony,” Guardian, August 21, 2009.

  1584 IOC Medical Commission chairman Arne Ljungqvist admitted, “There is no scientifically sound lab-based technique that can differentiate between man and woman,” in Debra Rosenberg, “Rethinking gender,” Newsweek, May 21, 2007.

  1585 Caster Semenya declared, “I accept myself,” in the cover story of a September 2009 issue of the South African magazine YOU, as reported in the Independent Online, September 8, 2009.

  1586 This passage is based on my interview with Shannon Minter in 2009.

  1587 The full text of the decision in the case, In re the marriage of Michael J. Kantaras v. Linda Kantaras (Case 98-5375CA, Circuit Court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit in and for Pasco County, Florida, February 2003), is available online at http://www.transgenderlaw.org/cases/kantarasopinion.pdf; the quotation from the judge (“Transsexualism is a massively complex and difficult problem deserving of the highest respect and sympathy . . .”) occurs on page 774.

  1588 Genesis 5:2: “Male and female he created them.”

  1589 This passage is based on my interviews with Carol McKerrow, Don Harriot, Kim Reed, and other members of their families in 2009 and subsequent interviews and communications, as well as Kim’s film Prodigal Sons (2009) and Kim and Carol’s appearance on Oprah in 2010.