Gay or Transgender

[TheBattler]

Hi all,

I saw a TV show last Sunday night that was basically about 'how do you tell if your child is gay'. The transcript can be found at.

http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/sixtyminutes/stories/2006_09_03/story_1760.asp

Of interest is that they feature a small boy who is TG/TS rather then gay.

ADAM: This is one of my dolls, Bratz Baby. This is made by the company that made this and this.

LESLEY STAHL: I hate to interrupt you, but I just noticed you have nail polish on with stars.

ADAM: And diamonds.

LESLEY STAHL: I have to ask you a question, did you go to school like that today?

ADAM: Mm-hmm. I just showed them my nails and they were like, "Why did you do that?"

LESLEY STAHL: Adam's behaviour is called childhood gender non-conformity, meaning a child whose interests and behaviours are more typical of the opposite sex. Research shows that kids with extreme gender non-conformity usually grow up to be gay. Danielle is Adam and Jared's mum. How early on did you notice this difference?

DANIELLE: About 18 months. He was really into asking for a Barbie. He wanted a Barbie.

LESLEY STAHL: At 18 months? And what about Jared, what was he asking for?

DANIELLE: Firetrucks.

LESLEY STAHL: Not that much has changed. Jared's favourite game now is Battlefield II: Special Forces. What is your favourite game?

ADAM: It's called Neopets: The Darkest Faerie.

LESLEY STAHL: If you were going to tell a stranger what you were like, what would you say?

JARED: I'm a kid who likes GI Joes and games and TV.

ADAM: I would say like a girl.

LESLEY STAHL: You would say "I'm like a girl," that's what you would say?

To me Adam seams as transgender. I wish they had distinguished him from being gay.

Alice

[Melissa]

Here's some more interesting quotes from the article:

PROFESSOR MICHAEL BAILEY: And it suggests that whatever causes a man to be gay doesn't make him feminine in every respect. There must be different parts of the brain that can be feminised independently from each other.

PROFESSOR MICHAEL BAILEY: That's environment, but that's not the only environment. There's also the environment that happens to us while we're in the womb and scientists are realising that environment is much more important than we ever thought it was.

PROFESSOR MICHAEL BAILEY: The more older brothers a man has, the greater the likelihood that that man will be gay.

LESLEY STAHL: Is that true?

PROFESSOR MICHAEL BAILEY: That is absolutely true.

LESLEY STAHL: For every older brother a man has, his chances of being gay increase by one-third. Older sisters make no difference and there's no corresponding effect for lesbians. A first-born son has about a two percent chance of being gay and the numbers rise from there. The theory is it happens in the womb.

DR MARC BREEDLOVE: Somehow, the mother's body is remembering how many boys she's carried before. The favourite hypothesis is that the mother may be making antibodies when she sees a boy the first time, and then affects subsequent boys when she carries them in utero.

LESLEY STAHL: You mean like she's carrying a foreign substance.

DR MARC BREEDLOVE: If you think about it, a woman who is carrying a son for the first time — she is carrying a foreign substance. There are some proteins encoded on his Y chromosome that her body has never seen before and that her immune system would be expected to regard as invaders.

And the clencher that really makes Adam seem TS is:

ADAM: I was supposed to be a girl in my mum's stomach but my mum wished for all boys so I turned into a boy.

Melissa

[Mario]

Alice,
    Yes, you are right. It just goes to show that they don't get it. He is not gay.

                                      Marco

[Rana]

Hi Alice
Sadly I missed that show, did no realise until it was too late  - could have done with a good laugh.  Was one of the "tests" drawing with a lavender crayon a sure "indicator" of gayness?

I watched the trailer for the show, and it did occur to me that it was scripted & sensationalised, pretty much like a Jerry Springer show (what an ambassador for American culture lol,  were so funny to watch- but no way could the individuals featured be real people).

I think that the show was one of those silly "beat ups" that  60 minutes is so good at - forget news consider it comedy (even though it is mocking TS people)

Rana

[Kate]

I watched the trailer for the show, and it did occur to me that it was scripted & sensationalised...

Yea, it ran here in the States a few months ago. There was a thread on it, but I can't seem to find it anymore.

Many people (me included) wrote Sixty Minutes to point out that Bailey isn't exactly highly respected in his field. The producers responded:

"We were aware of the controversy surrounding Michael Bailey's book, and we looked into all the allegations before we decided to interview him for the story," she said. "We didn't feel there was anything that disqualified him from being interviewed. And in fact, his work is highly regarded by all of the researches in the field who we spoke with, and we felt that he was a very worthy person to discuss these issues."