Sports reporter to undergo sex change

RE: story placement ...
Many years ago, the Times also ran in Sports a first-person saga from Mark Heisler, who had serious psychological issues stemming from drugs his dad, a pharmacist, gave him when he was a child.

 

One more point:

Some insurances do cover some portions of sex-change surgery.

Businesses can add riders to cover a million different things to be covered by their insurance company. It just costs them extra money. Sex-change surgeries sometimes -- my guess would be very rarely -- are added as covered items.

 

I went to the card store and just didn't find a Hallmark offfering for this set of circumstances.

"Congratulations on your new ... sex."

 

Find a card with kitties. It fits any occasion.

 

An acquaintance of mine had this surgery a few years ago. His wife is still living with him, as she always planned to from the time he announced his decision.

 

I heard that JRC, oddly enough, pays for certain sex-change surgeries.



sowwy

 

anyone have a pic to jolt my memory of who mike/new christine is? he covered the nfl at one time, so i must know the face, but can't place him.... ???

 

Has anyone else wondered if Mike was a member here? Perhaps if this thread can sustain some semblance of professional and respectful discourse, Christine might one day post here about some of these issues. Of course, it's possible the column is the first and last word she'll want to share publicly about this.

 

Re: Couples staying together

I don't think that's too uncommon -- especially in long-term marriages and when the people involved are older.

Again, I'm no expert but I've seen a few stories where that was the case (a Dateline story for one). Books also have been written on the topic. Obviously, it's very complicated.

 

Especially this one.

I see you're getting a new...

 

I'm no sports journalist - though I was a major contributor to a blog with a larger circulation than most newspapers, mentioned on CNN, NBC, archived in the Congressional database etc.

But I am Transsexual. Or I have Congenital Neurological Intersex. Or Harry Benjamin's Syndrome. Whatever you care to call it, simplistically it's mainly boy-shaped brain in mainly girl-shaped body, or mainly girl-shaped brain in mainly boy-shaped body. I say "mainly" because a large minority of us have other Intersex conditions too, like 47xxy (kleinfelter) chromosomes instead of 46xx (female) or 46xy (male). Or something even weirder.

There's more of us than you think. Prof Lynn Conway has shown from surgical records that 1 in 2500 females in the USA have had genital reconstruction from a masculinised base. The difference is that it used to be kept a deep dark secret. Anyone in the public eye - a Sports Journalist or City Manager for example - would resign, disappear, and her talents be wasted as she got a job as a waitress somewhere. If she was lucky, many ended up on the streets.

More of us are deciding to go public. We don't want to, but some of us have built lives and careers we value, despite the little problem we've been aware of since age 6 or so.

Think about it fellas. Imagine if you had exactly the same personality at 6 as you did in actuality, but were "Daddy's Little Girl" , and told to play with dolls not catcher's mits. Suppose you at age 15 were a 34C cup, yet knowing that you were a Boy, darnit! Maybe you'd do the best you could in the role Life had placed you in, a boy pretending to be a girl simply because he looked like one. Oh yes, and your only chance of having a son is to get involved with another guy....

Maybe you'd just eat your gun. Perhaps 30% of us do. Many others dive into a bottle, maybe pills, maybe booze. Think about it guys. Instead of a Manhood you have monthly bleeding, and it feels all wrong, perverse, and awful.

These days there's information on the Internet about it, and many youngsters transition starting in their teens or early 20's. But back in the 50's, 60's and 70's, telling anyone would get you hooked up to mains voltage until your brains were scrambled. It never cured anyone, but the patients were more compliant.

OK, so say you're one of the few who make it to age 40 and still haven't cracked. Well, there's a problem: a female-pattern brain subject to typically male hormone levels doesn't work too well. It gets worse with age. Sooner or later, there's a 3-way choice: permanent institutionalisation as your mind disintegrates, suicide (still a popular choice), or transition.

Think of the effect on your partner - because odds are you got married in a futile attempt to cure yourself. Or maybe you just fell in love with a person who fell in love with you. Your partner could have the one they love a drooling zombie, or 6 feet under, or changing apparent sex. Not exactly terrific choices, are they? But they're the only ones there are.

Transition for women - that is, those who start out with masculinised bodies - costs upwards of $100,000. None of it covered by insurance, as almost all policies have specific exclusions for the only treatment that has been shown to work in 97% of cases. You know what electrolysis is? A normal beard has 40,000 face hairs. Permanent removal requires an electric probe to be inserted, and an electric current applied that burns the follicle and turns part of the tissue to boiling caustic lye. It's like a bee sting. Now imagine it 40,000 times. At 50c a sting, so it costs $20,000.

Before hormone treatment can be authorised, a psych must observe the patient for at least 3 months, often longer. After that, hormones can be administered that cause immediate relief of the worst of the psychological symptoms - they stop the mind dying - and also start causing body changes. After a year, perhaps two of hormones, and usually $40,000-$50,000 or so of facial surgery, the patient can restart her life in the social role she was born for, without too much risk of violence. She will "pass", not stand out, and probably not get beaten to a pulp for just walking down the street. TS people only have 17 times the normal rate as homicide victims, so it's not *that* bad. 3 times the rate of young black urban males, that's all.

After at least a year, often longer, of demonstrating the ability to lead a successful life in the target gender - and that means holding down a job, tricky if you look like a "man in a dress" - then after not one, but two separate specialist psychs have signed off that you are sane, merely transsexal - then you can have surgery. There's a number of techniques, but contrary to popular belief, little is wasted. Mostly it's just re-shaped, inverted not amputated. It's re;atively cheap - $20,000-$30,000

What this woman had done has taken far more courage than any of you realise. But it's the courage of desperation, it's do or die.

You know, 2 years ago, I'd never heard of "transition"? Then I reached the end of my rope, and now look at me. According to my Birth Certificate, the person shown in my Icon is a 49 year old man. But I'm one of those who were Intersexed in other ways too, I got a boost from that.

Yes, I know I need an editor. Feel free to ask questions though.

Zoe

 

There's a part of me that wants to say JDV got a sex-change operation, but I'll thank you for the story instead.