On the subject of mentally ill men who think they're women

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Sometimes, a pre-op transsexual woman (pre-op = has not had sex reassignment surgery, but wants it), frustrated with her state, will attempt suicide, requiring placement in a psychiatric facility. Psychiatric facilities divide men and women, either by having separate wards for them or by having separate semi-private room placements. For this poll, let us look at the situation of separate wards for men and women; generally a transsexual person will be given their own private room. Let us assume this pre-op transsexual woman has been living full-time as a woman and is currently on hormone replacement therapy. Where should we place her?

One should be treated as ones preferred/desired gender nowadays in the UK this is so.

Gender is between the ears not between the legs!

My local psych hospital does not have separate wards for men and women. They do not have private rooms, either, or co-ed rooms.

This is the way that I also see it.

Huh. The psych ward at the hospital in my city doesn't have separate rooms for gender or private rooms. I know the UK has much better medical care than Canada, which is only slightly less horrible than the US. Also they don't separate patients in rooms based on the severity of their mental illness. Years ago I once had to share a room with a woman who kept trying to strangle herself by wrapping a short towel around her neck.

And my city is not even a real city, but more of a large hick town with a couple of city-type characteristics. I'm not sure if they would be tolerant of someone openly transgender. It's surprising enough that we even have a pride parade once a year. There must be at least 50 churches in this city!

She should be placed in the women's ward. She's living like a woman, she IS a woman in all ways except for the weiner. She's no threat to the women and in fact it would probably help her be more receptive to therapy and treatment to be treated with the respect she deserves as the person who she is.

The poll would be better if you left out the "because" part of the options. There are reasons other than the ones you've given to choose the various options.

Also, there's no such thing as men "living full-time as women." Womanhood is not a lifestyle.

What the heck do they have then? One giant one-room warehouse?

That's ridiculous. Gender is in one's DNA. Period.

Actually, there are several dimensions to considering a person's sex/gender:

1. DNA
2. Type of gonads present, if they are (if not, then neuter)
3. Primary sexual characteristics; may be mixed
4. Secondary sexual characteristics present, if they are (if not, then neuter); may be mixed
5. Dominant sex hormone regime, androgens is male, estrogens/progestogens is female, and otherwise is neuter
6. Sex/gender identity
7. Sex/gender role

A pre-op transsexual woman is like this:

1. male
2. male, unless orchiectomy has been performed, then neuter
3. male
4. male if not on hormones, mixed moving to female if on hormones
5. male if not on hormones and no orchiectomy, and neuter if not on hormones but had orchiectomy, and female if on hormones
6. female
7. male if not transitioned, female otherwise

A post-op transsexual woman graduates to:

1. male
2. neuter
3. close to female
4. largely female, but may still have some male characteristics like facial hair
5. neuter if not on hormones, female if on hormones
6. female
7. female

A woman with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome who still has her testes is like this:

1. male
2. male
3. close to female
4. female
5. a bit complicated: androgens are produced (male), but since they are not used by the body they are switched to estrogens (female)
6. female (almost 100%)
7. female

Last edited by beneficii on 05 Apr 2014, 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No there aren't. Sex is defined as the reproductive role one is equipped to play. Either one can sire children, one can bear children, or neither. As for "gender," I won't comment on that because everyone has their own definition nowadays, so it's impossible to know what anyone is referring to.

Some of these other things correlate with sex, but none of them determine one's sex.

Nope. It can get complicated; here's a source that discusses it:

http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/artic ... ction.html

(scroll down to point 2 on sexual development)

Littler or none of that has any bearing on sex. Behavior is not sex. Hormones are not sex. Thoughts are not sex. Socialization is not sex. Do people go out and observe the behavior of horses, pigs, or cows to determine their sex? Do they try to figure out what their dogs, cats, fish, and hampsters are thinking, whether monkeys display homosexual behavior, or what sorts of hormones elephants and tigers were exposed to? No, because an animal's sex is its reproductive function, and that's all.

So how do we determine the sex of sterile people? Do we classify them as neuter?

If they can't reproduce, there is nothing to determine. Sex is a scientific classification system. I can't think of a scientific reason to reproductively classify those who cannot reproduce, except to say that they cannot reproduce. It would be like classifying flight patterns of flightless birds.

But let me ask you something that I don't understand: If sex is made up of those things you listed, what exactly is it? What is the meaning or significance of it, being made up of so many wildly diverse components? What definition could you give it? And in the end, how would one determine which sex someone was? For example, if I had a list like you did:

1. male
2. male
3. female,
etc., for the different aspects, how would I put it all together?

I was just saying that for some people, they have unusual bodies and minds, so to speak, that differ from the 2 reproductive sexes. It's a way of laying it all out there and seeing which of 2 reproductive sexes is this feature more like? Of course, with the current binary classification of sticking someone as either male or female, what do you do with the sterile people?

A transwoman should not have to be forced to live with regular men if she does not want to. She would probably feel alienated and possibly have concerns about her safety with regards to other people living there who may be hostile to her because of her gender identity.

Maybe she should either have a separate set aside living area, or be allowed to live in a women's ward if she thinks the women will treat her okay.