Supposing GID detection was available for the newly born, could they be given an MRI at that age if the parents consented? And would SRS be wise at that age if indeed a transsexual person, to avoid having them experience gender dysphoria later in life?|||You're on the right track, but there are quite a few obstacles to what you're proposing.
1) The infant brain is not yet fully developed, and although gender is set pre-nataly, and there are physical indicators in areas of the brain that might give us clues as to the brain gender (like the number of neurons in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, the density of the corpus callosum, the ratio of gray matter/white matter) these areas may not yet be differentiated enough to conclusively prove gender.
2) Functional MRI can give indication as to brain activity based on certain stimuli, but what sort of test would be considered conclusive proof of a person's mental gender? Until a person understands the concept of gender, and can express themselves , the word gender really doesn't mean anything.
3) Even if a brain/body incongruity exists, that is no guarantee that the individual will WANT their body corrected. Although rare, there are people born with Transsexualism who prefer to keep their bodies unchanged. Likewise, there are people born believing they suffer from Transsexualism who go on to have the condition corrected, and then find themselves psychologically incapable of abandoning the identity of "transsexual." This tragic event generally only happens when a male Transitions to female by mistake, so doctors have to be VERY careful about who they perform surgery on.
4) Any sort of surgery on immature organs is ill-advised as long as the organs are still developing, so even if they did perform genital surgery, chances are it would need to be operated on again.
5) Assuming a diagnosis is made early in the child's life (which is not all that difficult if everyone is sensitive enough) nothing needs to be done other than allowing the child to live socially as the gender they feel themselves to be. Before puberty, boys and girls can usually pass as either gender simply through dress, hair length, etc. Once puberty arrives, the ideal process would be to administer cross-hormone treatment, but until our medical and legislative communities become a little more enlightened, we have to settle for hormone blockers until the child is 16.
What is more likely is that at some point the exact process that sets brain gender will be discovered, and a method of continuous monitoring of ALL events in a pregnancy will be devised to ensure that everything happens when it supposed to, and how it's supposed to.
The growing of organs in a lab is another possible solution, but that's still science fiction - sort of like the made up condition called "Harry Benjamin Syndrome" (actually that's more of an insane fantasy than a syndrome, which is why no reputable medical association recognizes it.)|||If brain scans can be done on babies (if it's safe) then yes, it should be done. But say if a baby's test results say she/he is a transsexual, it would be wise for the doctors to inform the parent(s), and tell them that they need to look for certain characteristics in the child's likings and habits. The doctor should also give them a quick crash course on transsexualism, and teach them things like "if you try to discourage 'son' from doing more feminine things then you'll most likely end up sending the 'him' down a hostile hole of depression and self-hate, for 'his' very core being would be discouraged to be itself", something like that. This could mean that trans children will no long be set a future of being confused, wondering why everything inside of them just doesn't go together, why they want to be a girl, and despise the idea of being male, or why they want to be a boy, but despise the idea of being female. But of course, as many of the people answering this question have already picked out, the baby shouldn't immediately have SRS. There's the possibility the baby male will like being a boy.
PS I don't know why some idiots deny the recent discoveries in science that state transsexualism is NOT a choice. Wait, yes I do, because they're idiots, that's why. Like one troll in particular who answered your question. What L-O-S-E-R-S!!|||I am not sure how well that would go over because the baby isn't consenting to a life altering and not simply a life saving surgery. The important thing to remember is that not all people who have GID and see themselves as transgender want to have SRS. Many transgendered people will completely transition, living their lives as their intended gender, but never get the final surgery.
If you are truly worried about gender dysphoria, I don't think SRS would work in every case.
In all honesty, if we are able to somehow detect if a new born has GID, I think we would wait until the child expressed his own desires a little later in life.|||I would think the risk of making a mistake would be prohibitively high - doctors can't always get it right for intersexed people and many of those end up feeling at odds with the gender assigned to them arbitrarily at birth.
However I do think it would be a good idea if at least hormone treatment could be available for children in pre-puberty. A lot of future problems could be resolved by subjecting adolescents to the right hormones at this stage of life.|||The only way to know if a person was born with transsexualism is for that person to express what gender they identify as, hence the term Gender Identity Disorder (GID). So there can be no test to determine GID for an infant.
The reason treatment is withheld until the onset of puberty is because many children are actually gender variant, and that usually will go away once the child hits puberty. Once puberty has started and the child develops a dysphoria then a diagnosis of GID can be made and GnRH inhibitors can be started. Even though some children do develop a dysphoria long before the onset of puberty, treatment is always withheld until they have started puberty.|||as far as i know the only physical manifestation of harry benjamin syndrome %26lt;transsexualism%26gt; is that the whole body is in-congruent with the brain's gender identity. thus...an mri would be useless as a diagnostic tool.
keep thinking....we need people like you on the stick.
much love and hope. pj|||Surgery on a baby is always a significant risk, and there remains the risk of a wrong gender assignment. I think awareness and early diagnosis is a good thing. There may be a point in the future when treatment could begin prior to reaching puberty, allowing the child to grow up in the appropriate gender
One interesting future treatment possibility would be using stem cells and gene replacement (replace XY with XX, or XX with XY) in conjunction with organ cloning to develop a complete reproductive system that would be genetically identical to the transgender individual, except for the XY / XX chromosome in the cloned organs
It would also be interesting if total gene replacement could be perfected, and I think it's likely that will happen someday. It wouldn't change the physical form of the individual, only the DNA. One advantage of that would be the total elimination of any genetic marker that could be used to deny our gender.|||Doubtful any such test will ever exist. The human mind is just too complex and the crux of your idea is that there is ONE identifiable cause for transsexualism. We already know that is not the case, there appears to be multiple causes. You have to wait for the child to self identify and then start treatment. In order for this to happen though the general public must be educated a LOT more. Eventually the goal is that treatment for transsexualism will be as accepted as treatment for any other birth condition.|||Well that ain't happening no time soon...
But I believe that in the future SRS and HRT will be a thing of the past. We will be able to develope our own organs. Like those lab rats....
If my great great great great great great great great great granddaughter is transsexual then she won't have to put up with this... It will be diagnosable in early childhood and they will be treated. Treatment will last no more than a year and by the end any trace of them ever being a male might as well have been imaginary....
But they aren't going to waste their time trying to diagnose this at birth....
Unless they find a distinct physical cause, but I think it goes further than that.|||Huh? I like you but the SRS stuff loses me. All babies are beautiful just the way they are.DID%26lt; GED%26lt; FBI( or NBA aside.|||That won't ever happen because it is a choice to be transsexual.
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