National Geographic's Post National Geographic 3,482,647 followers 5y Report this post Many of us learned in high school biology that sex chromosomes determine a baby's sexbut XX and XY don't always tell the whole story. As Inge Hansen, PsyD, points out, transgender and non-binary individuals face legal discrimination, such as bathroom bills, and they experience much higher rates of sexual assault, violence, and murder than their cisgender peers. These individuals often also have to deal with family and peer rejection, employment discrimination, and lack of access to appropriate medical care. To begin, select your destination below and click Go. Old cells hang around as we age, doing damage to the body. Can we bring a species back from the brink?, Video Story, Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, Copyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. The Endocrine Society recommends blockers for adolescents diagnosed with gender dysphoria. https://lnkd.in/e9jFfTpu, Researchers have finally figured out what triggers hot flashespaving the way for the first new class of treatments since 1941. Looking back makes me very sad for these kids but nobody knew. 1 OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 48 RETHINKING GENDER Can science help us navigate the shifting land-scape of gender identity? Inge Hansen, PsyD, offers up this explanation: Many young children experiment with gender, but only a few become transgender adolescents or adults. In Samoa, best friends 12-year-old Sandy (at left) and 10-year-old Mandy (in white T-shirt) do an impromptu dance with their friends and cousins. Throughout history, countless myths and scientific theories have tried to explain the universe's origins. One other point about gender identity became clear when I met Vaseys longtime partner, Alatina Ioelu, a faafafine Vasey met 13 summers ago. Agender people do not identify with any gender, or they do not identify with the concept of gender at all. Born this way? Now everyone calls him by male pronouns. How science is helping us understand gender Freed from the binary of boy and girl, gender identity is a shifting landscape. National Geographic is the world's premium destination for science, exploration, and adventure. But people todayespecially young peopleare questioning not just the gender they were assigned at birth but also the gender binary itself. You will champion security due diligence efforts, plan security integrations, and collaborate with cloud and engineering . You are nothing more than 'biology deniers', Well done and timely! In other words, they chose to tell their daughter a lie about being at risk for cancer rather than the truth about being intersexwith reproductive anatomy and genetics that didnt fit the strict definitions of female and male. GIS connects data to a map, integrating location data (where things are) with all types of descriptive information (what things are like there). Baby boomers all remember "tomboys" and sissies." March 1, 2003. In an article titled "Rethinking Gender," Robin Marantz Henig cites evolving gender norms as a justification for the . When Ioelu first drove up to my hotel, my understanding of what it means to be faafafine started to unravel. A primary reason to still have a diagnostic category in the DSM-5 is that it allows for insurance coverage for individuals seeking support around their transition process, including letters of support required for medical transition. She goes on to explain that, There is no psychological issue inherent to transgender or non-binary identities; however, many individuals struggle with depression, anxiety, suicidality and other emotional challenges due to rejection from their families and community. That means a life filled with day-to-day technological advancesand a new way of thinking about school, work, and retirement. Ioelu was much more masculine than the other faafafine Id met. A second possibility is the kin selection hypothesisthe idea that the time and money that same-sex-attracted males devote to nurturing their nieces and nephews make it more likely that the nieces and nephews will pass some of their DNA down to the next generation. As a conservation biologist, Bhalla uses scientific research and community outreach to promote coexistence between people and lions who share habitats. A journey of identity: Stanford Childrens gender clinic helps families navigate (Stanford Medicine, Erin Digitale, May 2017) "Robert Michael Murray is one of the best digital strategists I have ever encountered. Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic SocietyCopyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. But when the identity struggle includes the search for a different gender identity, the struggle takes on a different level of complication. Preliminary research does suggest that transgender kids with supportive parents and a caring community will grow up with much better mental health. Can we bring a species back from the brink?, Video Story, Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, Copyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. Along the northern border is Canada and the southern border is Mexico. As their 15th birthday approached, they were giving themselves another year to figure it all out. Heres the technology that helped scientists find itand what it may have been used for. Jonathan, eight, has identified as both a boy and a girl at the same time since age two and a half. They identify as faafafine, a gender other than boy or girl. It would mean becoming physically male too, which would involve taking testosterone. Sasha Shen Johfre is a doctoral student in sociology at Stanford University. Still, one finding in transgender research has been robust: a connection between gender nonconformity and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). 2.3k. This is in line with guidelines set by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH)., Tandy Aye, MD, at Stanfords Gender Clinic, similarly states that we ask the child and the family to talk with a therapist and help the child identify and know what it means to transition. Amy Valentine, a clinical social worker at the same clinic, adds that clinicians can assess kids that feel like theyre born into the wrong body and from a very young age really persist with that through the years.. Most organizations, such as GLAAD, view sexual orientation as distinctly separate from gender identity, and yet many media sources (notably, the widely read cover story from Time, Beyond He and She) call gender identity a combination of how one sees themselves as a man or woman and who they are drawn to physically and romantically., The types of gender identities in our population at its current time are undoubtedly much broader and more diverse than most people realize, although the younger generation seems to be more aware of it. national geographic how science is helping us understand gender This variety of identities is something that people are seeing reflected in the culture at large. How science is helping us understand gender. First, the aforementioned societal and cultural factors exert a huge and complex influence. By Monica Boyd, Elizabeth Grieco. Lee, Jennifer, and Frank Bean. This story has been republished on October 22, 2018 in light of the. The article "How Science Is Helping us Understand Gender" by Robin Marantz Henig focuses on the confusion and the difficulty of people not knowing their own gender and the pain that surrounding people can afflict onto them because they are different or choose to be a gender they were not born to be. How Science is Helping us Understand Gender By Robin Marantz Henig. The caption reads "Special Issue Gender Revolution," followed by Avery's quote, "The best thing about being a girl is, now I don't have to pretend to be a boy." Or, because of her XY chromosomesnot to mention the testes in her abdomenis she really male? Here, again, a few different definitions now circulate. Gender Spectrum states: Gender identity is our internal experience and naming of our gender. A Cisgender person has a gender identity consistent with the sex they were assigned at birth. There is a direct positive correlation between family support and positive psychological outcomes for transgender and non-binary individuals.. Young people who may not feel precisely like a boy or a girl might opt to refer to themselves with a gender-neutral pronoun like they., The 'extreme cruelty' around the global trade in frog legs, What does cancer smell like? The January 2017 issue of National Geographic is dedicated to exploring what it calls the "Gender Revolution"a post-Sexual Revolution movement that seeks to deconstruct traditional understandings about human embodiment, male-female sexual dimorphism, and gender. Eric Vilain, a geneticist and pediatrician who directs the UCLA Center for Gender-Based Biology, says that children express many desires and fantasies in passing. The baby looks female, with a clitoris and vagina, and in most cases will grow up feeling herself to be a girl. But these preferences are gender expression, not gender identity. But, in the United States, access to capital for individuals and business owners is uneven based on race. In some cultures the rite of passage is clear. By the 17th century, the term began to refer to physical (phenotypical) traits . Trisha Tuiloma, who is 42, uses the money she earns as Vaseys research assistant to pay for food, schooling, treats, even electricity for eight nieces and nephews. Such people are battling both ableism and transphobia, she told me over soft drinks at a bar in midtown Manhattan. Introduction Achieving the American dreamthe opportunity to succeed, to provide food and shelter for family members, education for children, hope for a better life, and freedom of opportunity requires capital. Emily Brooks, 27, has autism and labels herself nonbinary, though she has kept her birth name. Young people trying to pinpoint their own place on the spectrum often choose a pronoun theyd like others to use when referring to them. 2004 A National Geographic team has made the first ascent of the remote Mount Michael, looking for a lava lake in the volcanos crater. Gradually it dawned on me, as the three of us chatted through dinner, that Ioelus identity as a faafafine shows how deeply bound in culture gender itself is. In some cases, a child is born with a mix between female and male genitalia; they are sometimes termed intersex, and the parents may decide which gender to assign to the child. A mans world? And, conversely, children and adolescents at gender clinics are six to 15 times more likely than other young people to have ASD. Now he relishes skateboarding shirtless in his Michigan neighborhood. Trinity is the first minor in Delaware to be covered for this treatment by Medicaid. How do you grow up healthy in an era of body shaming and anonymous bullying on social media? As stated by Gender Spectrum, a featured resource on the website of the Stanford Childrens Health Gender Clinic, a sex binary fails to capture even the biological aspect of gender.. The more traditional definition of gender is akin to how the American Psychological Association defines it: Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women. This definition, noticeably, leaves out biology. Young people such as Macks daughter, or Charlie Spiegel of California, or E of New York City, must make biological decisions that will affect their health and happiness for the next 50 years. Even though the proto-gonads become testes and the fetus produces androgens, male genitals dont develop. Gender is an amalgamation of several elements: chromosomes (those Xs and Ys), anatomy (internal sex organs and external genitals), hormones (relative levels of testosterone and estrogen), psychology (self-defined gender identity), and culture (socially defined gender behaviors). However, increasingly, medical professionals and scientists are defining gender in a subtly different way, which incorporates biology. Many of us learned in high school biology that sex chromosomes determine a babys sexbut XX and XY dont always tell the whole story. Not according to biology or history. Macks child was identified at birth as a boy but by age three was already insisting he was a girl. Raju, S., ed. According to the National Geographic article, "How Science is Helping Us Understand Gender," gender is made up of which of the following: Gender identity, biological sex, and sexual orientation Vaughan indicated that she used a snowball sampling method to find her informants. https://lnkd.in/eACGFQ5B, The major rains in California have sparked an epic, once-in-a-blue-moon mushroom season, giving mushroom hunters across the state a chance to pursue their passion in their own backyards. A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. Unauthorized use is prohibited. These studies have several problems. Here are just a few of the steps we can all take to progress toward better understanding and support of gender non-conforming individuals: This report would not have been possible without the assistance of Inge Hansen, PsyD, Tandy Aye, MD, the Gender Clinic at Stanford Childrens Health, Weiland Health Initiative, Vaden Health Center and the following publications: Transgender: Caring for kids making the transition (Stanford Medicine, Erin Digitale, Spring 2017)

In Samoa, best friends 12-year-old Sandy (at left) and 10-year-old Mandy (in white T-shirt) do an impromptu dance with their friends and cousins. This edited book provides an overview of gender studies within geography by several feminist geographers. They identify as faafafine, a gender other than boy or girl. %PDF-1.6 % Oti, nine, was assigned male at birth but never felt that way. 414. His choice in clothing doesnt change his gender identity; it simply means that he prefers (at least some of the time) to wear clothing that society typically associates with girls., One final distinction to make is the difference between gender and sexual orientation, which are often incorrectly thought to be the same thing. hbbd``b`n d S $i@Bp1% "@`fqD So, a child who was assigned male on their birth certificate and who identifies as a girl is transgender (sometimes this term is shortened to trans). I met a dozen or so faafafine last summer, when I traveled to Samoa at the invitation of psychology professor Paul Vasey, who believes the Samoan faafafine are among the most well-accepted third gender on Earth. He is one of a small group of children born in the Dominican Republic with an enzyme deficiency. The gene might be missing or dysfunctional, leading to an XY embryo that fails to develop male anatomy and is identified at birth as a girl. https://lnkd.in/ed857m4i, For children in wealthier nations, 80 will be the new 60. Studies show that transgender and gender non-conforming individuals suffer significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, harmful behaviors and suicide as compared to cisgenders. Freed from the binary of boy and girl, gender identity is a shifting landscape. She would probably use both male and female bathrooms depending on what situation feels safest, Jane informed the coach, and will need to tell you when she is going to the restroom and what gender she plans on using. I asked Jane, the night we met, where shed place her daughter on the gender spectrum. However, while gender may begin with the assignment of sex, it doesnt end there. Heres why each season begins twice. 2. They are co-authors of the book The Teaching Transgender Toolkit. In the 2015 Stanford Campus Climate Survey, 1.5% of students who responded (140 of 9,067) identified themselves as, instead of a woman or a man, one of the listed gender-diverse types (female to male transgender or trans man, male to female transgender or trans woman, genderqueer/gender-nonconforming, I prefer another term, and/or selected multiple identities). For one thing she was still using her birth name and still preferred being referred to as she. And while other trans kids often talk about how theyve always known they were born in the wrong body, she said, I just think I need to make alterations in the body I have, to make it feel like the body I need it to be. By which she meant a body that doesnt menstruate and has no breasts, with more defined facial contours and a ginger beard. Does that make E a trans guy? Read the historic January 2017 Special Issue of National Geographic magazine on the shifting landscape of gender and download our discussion guide for . The cover features Avery Jackson, a nine-year-old transgender girl, dressed in pink, staring proudly into the camera. In another study scientists from Spain conducted brain scans on transgender men and found that their white matter was neither typically male nor typically female, but somewhere in between. Days after these photos were taken, two gangs doused everyone there and all their belongings with gasoline and set them on fire. 231 NO. I guess people would call me gender-questioning, E said the second time we met, in June. national geographic how science is helping us understand gender. But as more children say theyre nonbinaryor, as Malpas prefers, gender expansiveparents face new challenges. Intersex Society of North America Was having an intersex trait that horrible? wrote Davis, now a sociologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis. I am trying to advocate for a wide variety of gender expressions, he wrote in a late-night email provoked by our phone conversation, which can go from boys or men having long hair, loving dance and opera, wearing dresses if they want to, loving men, none of which is making them girlsor from girls shaving their heads, being pierced, wearing pants, loving physics, loving women, none of which is making them boys. . Being part of the gender binary simplifies the either-or of daily life: clothes shopping, sports teams, passports, the way a bartender asks for your order. When Imperato-McGinley first went to the Dominican Republic, she told me, newly sprouted males were suspect and had to prove themselves more emphatically than other boys did, with impromptu rituals involving blades, before they were accepted as real men. Home / / national geographic how science is helping us understand gender. Many of us learned in high school biology that sex chromosomes determine a babys sex, full stop: XX means its a girl; XY means its a boy. All rights reserved. #GenderRevolution National Geographic on LinkedIn . Mental health professionals would point out that thousands of us will, at one point or more in our lives, struggle to find our identity: indeed, this search for identity is at the crux of many a couch session between a therapist and a patient seeking psychological counseling for a host of mental issues, including depression and anxiety. The base salary for this position ranges between $138,000 - $180,000. Embryos with this condition, Imperato-McGinley revealed, lack the enzyme that converts testosterone to DHT, so they are born with genitals that appear female. And you cant assume that a place thats going to be respectful of one identity will be respectful of the other.. Some think of themselves as typical girls; others sense that something is different, though theyre not sure what. For Princesses, the Question Remains: Whos the Fairest? The roughly 5,000-year-old human remains were found in graves from the Yamnaya culture, and the discovery may partially explain their rapid expansion throughout Europe. Stanford Health Opens Clinic for Transgender Children (NBC Bay Area, Ryann Vargas, Oct. 2016) Jossie lives in a village about an hour from the capital, Apia. At birth, we tend to use the terms sex and gender interchangeably because a newborns sex is assigned as either male or female, based on their genitals. national geographic how science is helping us understand gender. Select Accept to consent or Reject to decline non-essential cookies for this use. 60 views, 0 likes, 0 loves, 0 comments, 1 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Adam Mustafa: Can #Science help us understand gender? When she learned to speak, she didnt say, I feel like a girl, but rather I, Carlos, 12, holds a photo of himself as a girl. I told my child over and over again that he could continue to be a boy and play with all the Barbies he wanted and wear whatever he liked: dresses, skirts, all the sparkles money could buy, Mack said in her podcast, How to Be a Girl. Theres something to be said for the binary. Sexual differentiation of the genitals takes place in the first two months of pregnancy, wrote Dick Swaab, a researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam, and sexual differentiation of the brain starts during the second half of pregnancy. Genitals and brains are thus subjected to different environments of hormones, nutrients, medication, and other chemical substances, several weeks apart in the womb, that affect sexual differentiation. Posted on . You fight back. Interestingly, definitions vary, and seem to be evolving. These conversations have led to better head counts of transgender Americans, with a doubling, in just a decade, of adults officially tallied as transgender in national surveys; an increase in the number of people who are gender nonconforming, a broad category that didnt even have a name a generation ago; a rise in the number of elementary schoolage children questioning what gender they are; and a growing awareness of the extremely high risk for all of these people to be bullied, to be sexually assaulted, or to attempt suicide. When DHT is present, the embryonic structure called a tubercle grows into a penis; when its absent, the tubercle becomes a clitoris. Gendered Geographies: Space and Place in the South Asia. Demography examines the size, structure, and movements of populations over space and time. But they havent found comparable evidence among paternal grandmothersor among the aunts of faafafine, which would come closest to definitive proof. As adults they remain anatomically male with feminine appearance and mannerisms. According to John Strang, a pediatric neuropsychologist with the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders and the Gender and Sexuality Development Program at Childrens National Health System in Washington, D.C., children and adolescents on the autism spectrum are seven times more likely than other young people to be gender nonconforming. Share your own pronouns and ask people for theirs (its easy to put your pronouns in your email signature). It sounds like a thing. But the questioning couldnt go on forever, she knew, and she was already leaning toward trans guy. E had moved a few steps closer to that by September, asking people, including me, to use the pronoun they when referring to them. As adults they remain anatomically male with feminine appearance and mannerisms. Can science help us navigate? Understanding the Changing Planet outlines eleven strategic directions to focus research and leverage new technologies to harness the potential that the geographical sciences offer. When asked, additionally, about their sexual orientation, 12% identified as LGBQQA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, questioning, asexual) or something else, versus 88% who identified as straight/heterosexual. Another intersex trait occurs in an isolated region of the Dominican Republic; it is sometimes referred to disparagingly as guevedocepenis at 12. It was first formally studied in the 1970s by Julianne Imperato-McGinley, an endocrinologist from the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, who had heard about a cohort of these children in the village of Las Salinas. Ability to train security/audit concepts. This position requires a high level of technical . Yep, that sounds like me, Charlie thought as he read it. How do children, teens, even young adults really know that their true identity is different than the sex they were assigned at birth? But LGBT people still face significant barriers to participation in the scientific enterprise. This provides a foundation for mapping and analysis that is used in science and almost every industry. The . Yet these decisions run headlong into the maelstrom of fluctuating gender norms. The new year once started in Marchhere's why, Jimmy Carter on the greatest challenges of the 21st century, This ancient Greek warship ruled the Mediterranean, How cosmic rays helped find a tunnel in Egypt's Great Pyramid, Who first rode horses? Vasey and his colleagues have found that the mothers and maternal grandmothers of faafafine do have more babies than the mothers and grandmothers of straight Samoan men. In addition to base salary, Zwift is proud to offer a . Commissioning and Operations Manager at SolarSteam Inc. #NatGeoExplorers are working around the world to save threatened wildlife, protect ecosystems, and educate and encourage people to co-exist more peacefully with local animal populations. How did this mountain lion reach an uninhabited island? What if saying I wish I were a girl is a feeling just as fleeting as wishing to be an astronaut, a monkey, a bird? national geographic how science is helping us understand gender. Faafafine children generally take on girls roles in play and family. What did it mean for someone who reads as a man to belong to a third gender that implies heightened femininity? . And most know that North Carolina legislators passed a bill, only recently repealed, which banned transgender people from using bathrooms designated for a sex they were not assigned at birth. These persistent pools of liquid lava may help scientists better understand how to read volcano signals and patterns. Journeys in Film created a guide that can help parents and educators better understand and discuss . How did this mountain lion reach an uninhabited island? Globally, there are reports of 200+% increases in utilization of gender clinics and similar resources for transition., Medical staff at Stanford Childrens Health Gender Clinic, which opened in the summer of 2016 and is one of only about 30 such clinics in the nation, generally concur that an increasing number of children are coming into the clinic questioning what gender they are and how they should proceed to identify their true gender and embrace it fully. These animals can sniff it out. And in his formal research Vasey has found that faafafine are more likely to offer money, time, and emotional support to their siblings childrenespecially to their sisters youngest daughtersthan are straight Samoan men or Samoan women.