Alternating gender incongruity: A new neuropsychiatric syndrome providing insigh

[Padma]

http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877%2812%2900062-X/abstract

Between the two extreme ends of human sexuality – male and female – lie a poorly understood and poorly studied spectrum of ambiguously defined sexual identities that are very much a part of the human condition but defy rigid classification. "Bigender" is a recently formed sub-category of ->-bleeped-<-, describing individuals who experience a blending or alternation of gender states. While recognized nominally by the APA, no scientific work to our knowledge has addressed this fascinating condition, or proposed any physiological basis for it. In addition, the alternation aspect has not been proposed as a nosological entity distinct from blending.

We present descriptive data suggesting that many bigender individuals experience an involuntary switching of gender states without any amnesia for either state. In addition, similar to transsexual individuals, the majority of bigender individuals experience phantom breasts or genitalia corresponding to the non-biologic gender when they are in a trans-gender state. Finally, our survey found decreased lateralization of handedness in the bigender community. These observations suggest a biologic basis of bigenderism and lead us to propose a novel gender condition, "alternating gender incongruity" (AGI).


***

There's more to read, if you have the dosh to buy the article (I don't) - this is just the abstract. The paragraph breaks are mine, by the way.

I'm posting this here because there's very little researched or written in the academic community about bigender.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Alternating gender incongruity: A new neuropsychiatric syndrome providing insight into the dynamic plasticity of brain-sex


Medical Hypotheses, Volume 78, Issue 5 , Pages 626-631, May 2012  |  Laura K. Caseemail, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran

Center for Brain and Cognition, University of California, McGill Hall, 9500 Gilman Dr. M/C 0109, La Jolla, San Diego, CA 92093, United States

Received 12 October 2011; accepted 25 January 2012. published online 24 February 2012.

Retrieved from the Internet on August 9, 2012 by SJ


http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877%2812%2900062-X/abstract


Between the two extreme ends of human sexuality – male and female – lie a poorly understood and poorly studied spectrum of ambiguously defined sexual identities that are very much a part of the human condition but defy rigid classification. "Bigender" is a recently formed sub-category of ->-bleeped-<-, describing individuals who experience a blending or alternation of gender states. While recognized nominally by the APA, no scientific work to our knowledge has addressed this fascinating condition, or proposed any physiological basis for it.

In addition, the alternation aspect has not been proposed as a nosological entity distinct from blending. We present descriptive data suggesting that many bigender individuals experience an involuntary switching of gender states without any amnesia for either state. In addition, similar to transsexual individuals, the majority of bigender individuals experience phantom breasts or genitalia corresponding to the non-biologic gender when they are in a trans-gender state. Finally, our survey found decreased lateralization of handedness in the bigender community.

[Edge]

Thank you.

[Padma]

Someone posted it over on bigender.net - I'm just spreading the joy .

As I said there, it's good to see this presented just as a list of hypotheses they'd like to research more - rather than a load of "clinical certainties".

[Catherine Sarah]

Thank you Padma.

I'm always interested in how this amazing organ, called the brain, works. It's a truly fascinating device when you see it's complexities.

Huggs
Catherine

[lilacwoman]

I dislike anything that panders to the bipolar crap.
long ago it was found that everyone is subject to up days and down days that probly depend on the relative bubble of prosperity/hostility/labour/security that ever person lives in.
Even Jesus Christ has his down days but I doubt if he was bipolar.

[Padma]

I dislike anything that panders to the bipolar crap.
long ago it was found that everyone is subject to up days and down days that probly depend on the relative bubble of prosperity/hostility/labour/security that ever person lives in.
Even Jesus Christ has his down days but I doubt if he was bipolar.

Now I'm confused - what has "bipolar" got to do with this, at all?

[UCBerkeleyPostop]

Now I'm confused - what has "bipolar" got to do with this, at all?

The study mentions that hemispheric switching is typical in bi-polar. This, is a obviously a very preliminary finding that will take decades to confirm. What we knew about gender and the brain in the late 20th century will be considered the Dark Ages fifty years from now.

[Padma]

So it did - I missed that on my first reading.

[UCBerkeleyPostop]

I read studies like this all day and most of the time one has to read three or four times to comprehend the meaning. I tried to find a mainstream press interpretation of the study...nytimes or some credible source. What I found was a tabloid hatchet job that made my blood boil!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2132793/Our-gender-shifts-hour-claims-group-suffer-phantom-genitalia.html

If you want to really get mad, read the comments!

[UCBerkeleyPostop]

If I am going to maintain my sanity, I am going to have to IGNORE these tabloids!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2185510/Newspaper-columnist-provokes-worldwide-outrage-saying-Olympic-Games-destroying-female-figure.html?ICO=most_read_module

[Padma]

Best to avoid Mail-bonding .

[UCBerkeleyPostop]

Best to avoid Mail-bonding .

LOL great pun!

[Joelene9]

 
  Yes.  Enough with the bipolar crap.  Having phantom parts of the opposite sex and wishing for them are not the same.  These female athletes are no different than the ones in the past from the late 60's when the women's movement started to involve sports.  There are the female bodybuilders who I do think are grotesque, as well as the male ones. 
  It is some in the press who want to feel so bleeping important to mention these attributes in these times to sell ad space.  That was taboo in the past.  None of the reporters in 1986 at the European Championships commented live or in print of their moniker of "Hormone Heidi" (Heidi Krieger) an East German female shotputter with some male features who won the gold medal.  This didn't come out until after the Berlin wall fell and the investigation of the East German athletics team started.   Heidi is now Andreas Kreiger.  He blames the taking of the anabolic steroids opened up the already underlying gender doubts he had. 
  Joelene
                                                     

[Padma]

A heads-up if anyone downloads this paper - Laura the author is aware that there are potential issues with use of terminology - specifically, that within her particular discipline, they historically use the word "sexuality" to include aspects of sex in its older clinical sense of male-female "what sex are you?" kind of thing.

So you will see reference to "gender identity" as a facet of sexuality in this paper, but it doesn't mean what it would normally mean when people write about sexuality - they are not saying gender and sexuality (in its more common usage) are the same thing. She's already had feedback about this and will be clarifying usage in future papers.

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

Interesting concept.  I often thought that my people had it right along.  Some people are two-spirited.

[Padma]

From what I've read, people who were accepted as two-spirited by First Nation cultures were still expected to choose a "gender" and live it. I've not come across any references to bigenderism or androgyny being straightforwardly accepted - still, acknowledgment of two-spiritedness was a major cultural step-up from the condemnatory European approach.

[Joelene9]

From what I've read, people who were accepted as two-spirited by First Nation cultures were still expected to choose a "gender" and live it. I've not come across any references to bigenderism or androgyny being straightforwardly accepted - still, acknowledgment of two-spiritedness was a major cultural step-up from the condemnatory European approach.

Yes, this was accepted by most of the North American tribes.  Tribes in the southern Canada provinces and northern US states, the tribal name for "shaman" was also a term for female.  If a man becomes a shaman for the tribe, he is considered female and was treated as such.  A tribal shaman follows the concept of a Mother Earth.  She would have to know the seasons, herbal remedies, tribal lore and geneology, and pass on the Mother Earth lore to the new generation as if it was a birth in a manner as given by a woman. 
  Joelene