Quote From: tina_socal You are treating REAL PEOPLE as simply something to be studied and theorized about, and place more importance on theory and proving/disproving it than you do the real goal of medicine and the science surrounding it, which is to help people and alleviate their suffering.
Your professed concern that a child going through a "phase" would somehow be injured by having his gender ID issues treated as being possibly
not a phase is illogical, and a red herring....basic triage concepts demand that any condition that even potentially threatens the physical or mental well being of a patient be assessed by eliminating the most potentially damaging possibilities
first.
You go to the ER with shooting pains in your left arm and they immediately give you aspirin and check to see if you are having a heart attack, they don't say, "Oh, it's probably just going to go away" and wait until it doesn't to check for a heart attack- even though in many many cases it
does just go away.
Anyway, there is absolutely a method for determining whether a child's gender variance is simply a phase or something more profound- it's called gender counseling and observation over time with those observations compared to known data. There is case history after case history that can be used for comparison, going back for decades.
The problem is that you and others refuse to acknowledge the usefullness and validity of the life experiences and feelings of transsexuals that have been clinically documented over years and years of research and counseling...you don't want to just be an impartial observer, you feel it is in your purview to make the final decision whether the experiences and feelings expressed by long term transsexuals in a clinical setting are "real" and scientifically valid or not.
Medical history is rife with people honestly reporting the symptoms of serious conditions and being ignored or dismissed as mentally ill kooks all based on the prevailing "wisdom" that was simply ignorant and had no means to make a diagnosis based on strictly biological factors.
And the biggest problem with your whole argument stems from this-
a child denied the ability to explore will equally be distressed as achild who is denied by Biological means rather than just EnvironmentalInfluence.First of all, you are dead wrong- non-transsexual children denied the right to "explore" gender roles and expression do not kill themselves rather than live with the choice forced on them, transsexual kids very often DO.
Secondly, a child who is being denied the ability to explore and express his gender identity free from overbearing familial and societal influence is being denied the very thing that if left alone and objectively observed would eventually determine whether his cross gender expression was simply an experimentation phase, or a manifestation of a more serious issue like GID or an undiagnosed IS condition that wasn't going to go away.
Using your logic, one could also say that a child denied the ability to breathe by choking on poison gas will be equally as distressed as a child who is denied the ability to breathe by a biological illness rather than just environmental influence...either way, while you sit there and discuss academic positions and theoretical issues, the kid suffocates and dies unless someone does something to actually help him.
To take the analogy further, denying a child the ability to freely and honestly express his true gender feelings free from fear and shame is the equivalent of a kid who is waving his arms and rolling on the floor because he is asphyxiating being told to sit still and stop squirming.
Science is a process of discovery that increases our body of knowledge.
Procedure of Science
1) The scientific method is a systematic approach to answering questions.
A scientist must observe an item and create a hypothesis through empirical observation: empirical means to deprive experience and to derive experience without reliance of a theory.
The Hypothesis is then tested to create a theory: a theory is a well supported explanation of a natural circumstance of nature.
According to science, a theory should encompass these 4 basic standards.
1) Scientific explanation must be tentative. (New technology can allow scientists to find new information that will adapt or prove the theory false.)
2) The explanation must be testable
3) The tests must be repeatable
4) A Valid hypothesis must offer a well-defined natural cause/trigger mechanism
If you mean inventors use the knowledge gained by science to better lives, I agree.
Psychology encompasses biology of the brain, the process of thought, memory, intelligence, and so on in several branches of Psychology such as Bio-Psych and Evolutionary-Psych.
The paradox of psychology if the estimate truly is that people dominantly use emotional thoughts "irrational thought;" how exactly does one create rational deduction and inductions on an dominantly irrational process. And, quoting a professor, "psychologists typically have an inferiority complex because science typically does not consider psychology a true science. If you intend to entire psychology, I reccommend Bio-Psychology because it is accepted as a science [hence the biological attachment.
Dr. Phil tackles the sensitive topic of children who identify more with the opposite sex. What do you do if your son wants to wear dresses and play with dolls? Or if your daughter tells you she wants to be a boy? Should parents chock it up to being a phase that their children will grow out of, or should they intervene right away? Meet Melissa and Tim, whose 8-year-old son declared himself to be a girl when he was just 3 years old. Now, they allow their child to live as a girl and wonder if and when they should begin hormone therapy. Then, when Mary’s son was 8, he told her he felt like a girl, and Mary allowed him to experiment with dressing as a female. Now a teenager, her son is more comfortable living as a male -- but Mary wonders if she caused his confusion. Joining the discussion are experts with differing points of view: Dr. Dan Siegel, professor and clinical psychiatrist at UCLA School of Medicine, and Glenn Stanton, author and research fellow with the organization Focus on the Family. Is gender identity something we’re born with, or is it influenced by parents and environment? Don’t miss this heated discussion, then talk about the show here..
