Wednesday, May 6, 2009

The role of nature/nurture in reinforcing gender?


Please read Max Beck's "My Life as an Intersexual" for homework tonight. 
In your comments, I would like you focus on our continuing nature/nurture debate in realation to gender identity. Please tie Max's story into what you saw today in "Sex Unknown".

27 comments:

  1. Just like the movie, "Sex Unknown", this person's (Judy/Max) family did not know if s/he was male or female. The parents decided to raise her/him as a girl. In the end, she transitioned into being a boy named Max.
    From what I learned in the movie today, it comes hard on the kids when they learn that they were raised differently from who they really are. As an example, the girl Brenda, who was originally born as one of two male twins, was raised as a girl, but after a lot of teasing, became a boy again. I don't know, but it seems unfair that the parents can change the gender of the kid without the kid knowing, until they are teenagers/young adults. Why didn't they raise Brenda as a boy, since that was how she was born, even if there was a freak accident made by the doctors? It seems embarrassing that you are raised as a girl/boy during childhood, and then later in life, your parents say "Oh, by the way, you are actually a boy/girl. We just raised you as a girl/boy" because "of some freak accident caused by the doctor" (movie used as an example) or because "we didn't know if you were a boy or a girl" . That would be hard on the kid. I think that was the biggest reason why Brenda wanted to be a boy again, because she was a boy by birth.

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  2. In reading Max Beck's "My Life as an Intersexual" and the story in "Sex Unknown", it seems to me that no matter how hard you nurture a person to become a girl, if this person feels like a boy inside, or even doesn't feel like a girl, no amount of perfect gender-centered upbringing will alter his mind. It seems to me like your nature will always be your nature. In "My Life as an Intersexual" it was obvious how uncomfortable Max/Judy was. This person grew up so confused, between androgynous genitals, being attracted to women, and dealing with scar tissue, they tried to commit suicide. I can't imagine how lost s/he must have felt. All social constraints trying to convince him/her that s/he had to be a female or a male and that there were no other options. It was also depicted in his anger and mental issues. Ultimately, I don't believe upbringing can change how one feels inside.

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  3. I agree with Sammy, I think that it doesn't matter how much parents try and nurture their child one way or another or try and create a boy or girl environment for that kid; it is still going to have set in it's mind wether it wants to be a boy or a girl. In "My Life as an Intersexual" and "Sex Unknown" as well as Ma Vie En Rose and the NOVA movie we watched in class today, are all examples of situations in which the parents tried to force their kid to be one gender or another, but it did not work. One of the scientists in the NOVA movie found a slight difference in the male and female brains-that is still going to exist in one's brain no matter the environment in which they live.

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  4. I agree with the previous comments. A person will eventually know what gender they want to be no matter how they are raised. They won’t, however, be able to formulate this opinion until they have been experienced some of life. It seems to be a very difficult decision for the parents to make at birth as to what gender they will raise their child. In both the stories we have heard about, the parents chose incorrectly. I don’t think there is a right or wrong as to how people should respond to intersex children. Some may want to just stick to a specific gender, while others might want to remain labeled as intersex.

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  5. I would definitely agree with Sammy and Adrienne. Parents have a great influence on their kids through the environment they create in raising them, but ultimately it is up to the child to decide which gender they identify with. Both Max and the boy in "Sex Unknown" were heavily influenced by their parents to be the opposite gender than they actually chose to identify with. Bruce/Brenda was raised as a girl starting around two years old, but never had many girl friends. She would always want to do things that are typically what boys do, such as play with cars. Max was always raised as a girl after doctors could not identify his gender. Max's parents raised him as a girl, but he never felt comfortable as a girl and decided to be a girl. Like everyone has said, it is also unimaginable for me comprehend what these children have to go through because they do not identify with one gender or the other like social "rules" say they should.

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  6. There are several interesting parallels between "Sex: Unknown" and "My Life as an Intersexual". First of all, I find it distressing that both of the stories consistently portray patients who are kept in the dark by their parents and doctors about the truths behind their biology and their treatments. It seems that the way that the patients are treated as a sort of experimental test subject consistently proves to be damaging to the patients' sense of self. Furthermore both Brenda (of "Sex: Unknown") and Max (of "My Life as and Intersexual") suffered identity troubles as children and consciously felt distanced from the rest. And despite their different biological sexes, both rebelled against being raised as female and dressed and acted as males.

    This makes me think back to the topic of neurology as displayed in "Sex: Unknown". I speculate that biology conflicting with nurture is what caused both Max and Brenda to so heavily question their true gender and ultimately rebel. Brenda was born male and was biologically male. Max was born intersexual, but must have developed with testosterone in the womb because he was born with some male anatomy. In both of these cases, I suspect that despite the different situations, both Brenda and Max have brains that developed "male", with the developed region that's typical for men. If this is true, this would be the topmost factor that's responsible for the stark similarities between these two stories.

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  7. In both situation I have a hard time understanding how people could have thought nurture could overpower nature. As we say int he "Sex: unknow" if a child is born as a boy or as a intersex and is more masculine, it is difficult to change the brain. The researchers found that part of the brain that is different in males and females, so it doesn't make sense that nurture would change how a child identifies. In the case with Brenda she rebeled because she didn't feel as she fit in with the female idenity. And Max went though multiple idenities trying to figure out who he was. I don't really understand how doctors can come to the conlusion what sex they are going to make a child when they do not know what gender they are going to idenify with.

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  8. Since I wasn’t in class today I didn’t see the movie but after reading Max’s story, it just goes to say that upbringing, or the way one is nurtured, cannot exactly determine how one feels mentally. I definitely think that upbringing can have a huge effect given that the majority of people feel like they mentally connect to their biological sex, however for intersexuals this can be a completely different case. They can be brought up one way, but the fact that they are intersexual makes the ultimate feeling of what their gender is much more complicated. That said, I feel that those who are not intersexuals and simply are born one way and feel a different way have a much more mental way of looking at themselves on way or another, as opposed to a physical way like the intersexuals…if that makes any sense.

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  9. I also was not in class, but I agree with what has been said that although nurture is very influential, nature is also strong. It is impossible to tell how much the environment altered someone's nature, if at all, but the article about Max/Judy shows that there is definitely something inside the brain that can not be altered. We also don't know how Max/Judy would have turned out if s/he had been raised as a boy. I think that a lot of her confusion and fluidity between sexes stems from his/her body having both parts and his/her inability to fit into a group of males or females. As s/he said, s/he felt like his/her mind was separated from his/her body, but the body is a significant part of someone and missing this piece, s/he could not feel whole or like any of his/her peers.

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  10. I can definitely see the similarities between Max and David, seeing that both start out with absolutely destroyed genitalia, making it impossible for them to go on (biologically) as the sex that their body labels them as. Like the previous comments, it appears that nurture will not have too much on an influence on such a person that faces this issue. Both Max and David's parents attempt to incorporate feminine characteristics and aspects into their lives starting at an early age, and both of them result as "tomboys." Continuing on into high school and college, both of them are convinced that they are freaks and have no place among their classmates, and it is not until life after school that they realize that there's no way they can be female. Both end up back as what they biologically started out as, because the hormones in their body obviously could not change to correspond with what their parents attempted to raise them as; females. In both of their cases, it definitely appears as though nature thwarts nurture.

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  11. The combination of this story, the movie, and the various other cases out there seem like they should be enough to proove that gender is mantal, in a way. They shouldn't have had to go through all those experiments in the movie to proove that raising a kid as one gender doesn't mean they think they are, especially in the case of kids whose parents hadn't even thought about the issue of gender, and had raised their child normally, and the kid still turns out to cinsider themself the opposite gender.
    These stories have posed an interesting question, though: Even if we start believing that gender is mantal, n the case of intersexuals, how can we tell which gender they really are? What should be done if the parents insist that the child has to be either one or the other? Ideally, I think the parents should be more understanding, and save the operation for after they can see what tendancies the kid has, at least. They should also at least tell the kid about their past, so they have a chance at better understanding themself, and the posibility of actually being a different gender.

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  12. Reading all the stories and watching the movie it seems that biology is definitely overpowering over nurture. All the stories showed kids whose parents were taught to raise their children as the opposite sex failed in all cases. The research on the rats proved that it was genetic, showing the different brain parts between male, female, and transgendered. No matter how much you try and raise kids to be the opposite of what they feel inside, you still wont get anywhere because there are some genes that define us and partly make up our gender identity that cannot be cut out by a scalpel.

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  13. As people have said, both these stories, Max's and the one on "Sex Unknown," show drastic evidence that it isn't nurture, but nature that determines somebody's gender. In both cases, doctors essentially chose a sex for a baby, assuming that it would make no difference because it was nurture that decided gender anyways, and time proved that their decision and assumption were wrong. In addition, in the context of what we have been talking about in class, both of these cases are very interesting. If there really is a biological difference (like they discovered in the brain) that makes a person behave as a male or a female, then doesn't that mean that treatments that try to convince children that they are the gender that they appear to me futile?

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  14. I feel like the fact that the patients in both "Sex: Unknown" and "My life as an Intersexual" weren't told what they were by their parents was wrong. Their parents choose their gender and has both stories have shown, that does not work. You cannot rework a brain so that the child can live successfully in the gender that their parents have choosen. It appears to me that the chemical part of gender is more important than the nurturing that a child gets as a baby. The question that remains is, can someone other than the patient decide what gender they should be? I feel like that the best thing to do in a situation like that of Max's would be to give him/her puberty delaying pills and let him/her make the decision when his/her brain is more fully developed and they have time to think about what the consequences of their decisions are.

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  15. Just like Brenda in the movie, Judy had a similar gender type of "crisis". They both started off as females, yet when they got older they seemed to be confused about their gender identities. They had the characteristics of both females and males and felt isolated from everyone else. Both became lesbians. Bruce, after becoming Brenda, eventually went back to being a male, similar to how Judy eventually decided to become more masculine. Both, once lesbians, found that they felt more secure with themselves and relieved. They felt as if they were searching for something their whole life and had finally found it.

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  16. I think that nature is what makes people truly "know" what gender they are-- even if their physical appearance differs from what they identify with. It makes a lot of sense to me that trying to "nurture" or make people into one gender when they look ambiguous outwardly as a baby is a 50/50 shot. Both David and Max were assigned female identities as small kids, and those identities simply weren't what fit them best. What matters is what they truly identify with, and that inclination towards male in both stories was present from the beginning.

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  17. From the stories we have read and movies we have watched it seems like nature has more power than nurture. In almost all cases if not all cases that we have talked about, when the doctors had to assign a sex to raise their child, the child ended up not wanting to be raised that way in the end. It seems as though, even if the enviroment tries to guide a child one way, there is a definite path the brain already has in mind.

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  18. What I saw in both of these examples was that no matter how hard parents tried to raise their child as a different gender then they were born in, it is not going to work. Both case studies were males or were questioned be male, but were raised as female. Their entire lives they felt out of place with their female body. The second man that I looked at actually lived out as a woman longer than David did. She actually got married, divorced, remarried, and went through rehab many times before she realized that she is not comfortable being a woman. I think that these two men are good examples of how uncomfortable and isolated people with these problems feel growing up. Being between genders causes not only physical problems, but emotional and mental difficulties as well.

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  19. Both Sex Unknown and My Life as an Intersexual show that nurture doesn't necessarily 'win' over nature. Even though Bruce was raised as Brenda for the duration of his childhood, it was obvious that he was uncomfortable being a girl. Max, on the other hand, was raised as a girl, but grew up to be a tomboy, and eventually changed to become a man. Ultimately, it seems that nurture doesn't have as nearly a strong effect as nature.

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  20. I didn't see "Sex Unknown" but I thought Max Beck's story was really interesting. I never really thought about how difficult it can be sometimes to figure out an appropriate "label" for a person. Even though those label's are a socially constructed thing, it must be so difficult to not be able to characterize oneself as one thing or another, but rather as a mix of all these socially constructed categories.

    In terms of the nature v nurture debate, I think this story says a lot. Even though Max was nurtured to be a female, he still felt some sort of innate need to be male. I think it sort of shows that people will be what they feel most comfortable with, often times regardless of how they are raised. We saw the same sort of thing in Ma Vie en Rose.

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  21. Max's story and the story of the man from "Sex Unknown" further prove that it isn't nurture that decides gender identity. Both people were raised as a different gender then they identified with, and transitioned into as an adult. In "Sex Unknown" he was biologically a man, but his parents tried to raise him as a girl, but he never identified as a girl, and treating him like a girl did not turn him into one. Max's story is a little more complicated with gender because he was intersex, he really didn't have a gender when he was born, but he was raised as a girl, and he did not identify as a girl as he grew up. These two people already knew what their gender was, and it had nothing to do with how they were raised.

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  22. Max and Bruce are alike in many ways. They were both born with female and male body parts. There famiy choose to raised their child as a female. Throughout the years their children felt awkard and felt they were a man. In the movie and article nature could not determine gender. Even when the family tried to raise their child a girl their child did not feel comfortable and wanted to be a male. Therefore gender is based on nurture. Gender is biologically based because in their mind they felt contected to one gender than the other.
    CANDiCE

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  23. In my personal opinion nurture could never overpower nature. poeple are made the way they are supposed to be and to try to raise them to be something else is not only wrong but it is selfish of a parent. They may think they are saving their child from being bullied in school and what have you. But those kids will never be truelly happy because they know they are playing a part that they are not supposed to be. This can also lead to crippling depression later in life because the person has to face a identity crisis that they grew up one way but they feel the complete oppisite way. Also kids are supposed to find their identity but if you make it to like thirty and all of sudden you realize your not supposed to be like what you were raised like that can really mess with a persons head

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  24. I agree with Liam to try and force a child to be something its not is wrong. I understand the child is too young to make that decision itself but later on in life they have to deal with the issues there parents and doctors created. If they are raised as the opposite sex then as they get older they'll start to deal with the social issues and being a "tommboy." And the kids always feel like theres something wrong with them or they dont belong but they actually are portraying themselves as something the aren't. Which isnt their fault at all. I like that Max was able to find a companion that supported him and stayed with him even after the surgery. He also talks about being able to associate with all kinds of people: lesbians, tomboys, etc.

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  25. The natural forces that govern life will hold precedence over nurture in any contest. Form instructs function and so when an individual is established as a sex that is the current they fall into forcefully. When someone believes strongly they aught to be of the opposite gender then that is the way they are hard wired, there is no altering that without harm. Evolution has it's part through billions of years of momentum, parents have ten years to impose themselves on their children. Nature chooses individuals for what they are, transexuals included, and nurture does not hold power over the verities that give life structure.

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  26. I unfortunately couldnt take part at the thing you guys did in school because i had APs, but I am just going to comment on what i read. I guess eventually The doctors couldnt really know if max wants to be a girl or a boy. And since he had a y chromosome in some of his cells the assumption of him being a girl is kind of legitimate. As it turned out that he is a boy couldnt anybody know, especially not back then when the knowledge about hermaphrodites etc wasnt as established as today. I dont think that the parents did anything wrong... they could have decided to raise him as a boy, and everything would have been fine(r). It was like a 50/50 chance to choose the right thing, although the y chromosome gave some kind of (false) hint. I guess it was really hard for him to figure it out, but eventually i think it was a lot of bad luck. Im happy that he found out what he is and wants to be, so that it turned out to be alright in the end.

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  27. In relation to gender identity, I believe that nature has a much bigger influence than nurture does. Our gender is part of who we are, not to be defined by society. Trying to choose someone's gender for them, is probably one of the most harmful things you could possibly do to someone. Gender is such a large part of who we are and what is expected of us that it could not possibly be changed merely by the environment we are surrounded with.

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