Comments

While I applaud you for broaching a diminishingly taboo subject, I think it fails in it's attempt to accurately inform. There have in fact been scientifically accredited and repeatable studies that have identified actual brain incongruencies in 100% of the cadavers studied. 100%. These studies have been the foundation for the increasing changes and accommodations in the legal and medical fields, and the cause for public education. Transsexualism is not related to sexual orientation as your article loosely implies. In fact the same ratio of heterosexual to homosexual individuals in the general population, relates to the transsexual population. And similarly, most male to female transsexuals are not "feminine" in physical attributes. Just as many "male to female" transgendered people have physically masculine or physically feminine characteristics as in the general population. A discussion of primary vs secondary transsexuals would be helpful here, as the long term effects of testosterone are far more apparent in secondaries. While I have never heard of the article's claim regarding "growth regulating neurons" I doubt this is creditable. The first actual evidence of a-typical brain regions was the BSTc region of the hypothalamus in 1985, followed by conclusive studies in 1995 and 2000. I have heard of the research on finger length. As I remember, the results were not statistically significant to substantiate any of the hypothesises, or to lend credit to any wives-tales. Listing your sources for including this in your article would be helpful here. Genetic research is promising and warranted. But far too often transsexualism has born the brunt of misleading, incorrect, and even malicious reporting. I believe that because of this history, more effort should be provided to document information and tie claims and speculation to actual studies and verifiable results. In this regard, you did accurately portray the DSM-IV classification, and the effort to characterize the outdated basis for its current state. IMO I would like to see the discussion moved forward to begin the disclosure of how this condition came to be excluded from insurance coverage in the USA, but is now included in the public health care system of both large and small countries around the world. Again the US lags behind while we tell ourselves we are the leader of the world.