As a parent of a "trans" teen, I ask you: In what other medical area would it be possible for the patient (an adolescent, no less!!) to not only self-diagnose but also prescribe treatment, including drugs and surgery that are potentially irreversible and for which the long-term effects have not been studied? The social media-fueled trans contagion among adolescents, particularly girls - further exacerbated by activists (no matter how well-intentioned their support for trans people) - has gotten out of control. Especially among the white upper-middle class youth and their enabling schools, psychologists and psychiatrists. True gender dysphoria is one thing. This craze is another thing entirely. YES, teens need to be screened thoroughly, if not to say aggressively, NOT just affirmed.
If you can't, as a doctor, answer how many children will later want to detransition ("it's thought to be rare" is shoddy data), and there is no formal system for tracking this data, you're running an uncontrolled experiment.
Simply stated, it should be against the law to let any person under 18 years of age have gender reassignment treatments of any kind. As a gay boy, most of my friends in school were “sissies” or “tom boys” and were very seriously into hacking the opposite gender, as expressed by all sorts of behavior that in this climate would likely be called “gender fluidity.” Not a single one if asked today would say they wanted a sex change. It’s bizarre and unthinkable to take developing adolescent minds and imaginations so seriously as to prescribe such treatments.
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Operating on minor children should get a surgeon (and parents) thrown in jail.
The same with giving kids drugs to mess with puberty, especially without parents' permission.
This shouldn't be controversial.
to see biology as a function of power and not science
Critical sex theory.
Is there anything that critical theory doesn't want to destroy and eff up?
You can support trans rights and oppose all of this
No you can't. To accept the premise of transgenderism, to accept the falsehood -- the lie -- that there is a separation of sex and gender, or that a person who is objectively male can be female, is to empower all of the agenda.
For the activists, it is about power. For medicine it is about money. Glad to see some sense breaking through. Honestly, I think this full fledged embrace of pretending that biological sex doesn’t exist and can be changed at whim without biological consequences (I.e. severe adverse and long term effects like cancer) not to mention psychological harm, is one of the reasons people don’t trust medical expertise regarding things like COVID.
as a doctor, answer how many children will later want to detransition ("it's thought to be rare" is shoddy data), and there is no formal system for tracking this data
In fact, in some places it is arguably illegal under "anti-conversion therapy" laws.
I’m really sick and tired of this transgender insanity. These people have got to be told in no uncertain terms, that sorry, no matter how much you think you belong to the opposite sex, you do not! There are only two genders. Get some psychiatric help before you do something drastic and then realize that you made a mistake.
I don’t understand when a man becomes a “woman”, why does that new “woman” then choose another woman as a mate? Was he transformed into a lesbian? If you believe you are really a woman, wouldn’t you want a male as a partner. Someone please explain this to me. I’m a little older than the rest of you.
Let's not overlook also that there is a connection between this mal-behavior and the related behavior of having women/girls hate and destroy their unique capacity which separates them from men, carrying and having children.
Munchausen by Proxy.
It seems to me a part of a trend to carve out special (privileged) rules for particular demographics -- or maybe "voting blocs". It's not enough to outlaw and prosecute an assault or a murder, we must make laws that identify the motives of the perpetrator and decide whether to prosecute a hate crime. It's not enough to protect children from "bullying" we must make laws and prosecute those who disrespect their sexual confusions. Or even dietary preferences -- remember the news about bulimia and anorexia just a few years back?
Recall the Slenderman case? Here's one link:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/teen-involved-slender-man-stabbing-released-mental-health/story?id=78611974
These two kids got into the murder mode based on some on-line fictional character. They weren't simultaneously bombarded by adult society going on about how wonderful it was to murder friends for Slenderman's sake.
Put the enormous interest in the subject, and the enormous approval from the louder aspects of society, and the ferocious condemnation of those who would disapprove, on top of what the kids find on line for themselves.....
It is presently against the law in the U.S. to perform female genital mutilation on a female under the age of 18. Not all that long ago, there was much public controversy about circumcising male newborns.
And yet? A licensed medical doctor in this country is permitted to alter the sex gene-related attributes of minors? Some with the enthusiastic support of their parents, but some without even parental permission?
What. Utter. Craziness. Is. This?
Going back to my 'Denial of Death' argument about Biden...
Pushing back on this extreme transgender agenda would be a perfect 'Sista Soldier Moment' for Biden to move to the center. It would tend to foster a broader, more independent sense of "culturally-based self esteem."
But that ship has probably sailed. The small boost from such a tangential issue, at this point in Biden's tailspin, would yield few results and the enmity of much of his dwindling base.
- the NYT and their progressive hivemind ninny audience are loathe to admit that screwing around with children's hormones and performing life-altering surgery at pre- pubescent ages .... might be a horrible mistake?
pffft.
for which the long-term effects have not been studied?
Actually the long-term effects HAVE been studied.. The Long-term effects include: Sterilization
Bender said... a connection between this mal-behavior and the related behavior of having women/girls hate and destroy their unique capacity which separates them from men, carrying and having children.
And, THAT, is The Point. Take all the freaks (tom boys, sissies, etc); and STERILIZE Them
This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll.... This is: Genocide
The Democrats have discovered the true “third rail of politics,” screwing with people’s children, and they are shocked
Thinking more about how we got here in medicine. It is one of the consequences of the corporatization of medicine. Part of the sweeping healthcare reform from the Obama years was to set up a payment system that made it almost impossible for individual practices to survive. Their goal was to have fewer large entities that were easier to control than many small independent entities. Seek Emmanuel was on record saying this. The vast majority of physicians are now employed. Enter woke capitalism. So much easier for the board of a healthcare entity to sign on to the woke agenda and seem virtuous. So now, physicians who know this hormonal and surgical manipulation is medically and psychologically harmful are afraid to speak out. They feel forced to go along to get along. Probably would not have happened if we were still largely independent practices. Also, the big health systems then set up clinics to profit from the fad.
I ask you: In what other medical area would it be possible for the patient (an adolescent, no less!!) to not only self-diagnose but also prescribe treatment, including drugs and surgery that are potentially irreversible and for which the long-term effects have not been studied?
Abortion.
In California, you need parental permission to use a tanning bed until you're 18, but you can kill your unborn baby at any age without even telling your parents.
I've been thinking about trannies a lot, thanks to Amy Schneider, the current long-running "Jeopardy" champ. I was okay with her being a tranny, mainly because I'm a live-and-let-live kind of (straight) guy, but lately she has started to creep me out. At first it was the five o'clock shadow, but lately I've noticed something disturbing in her eyes. I can't specify what, but there's something not right there. Don't get me wrong: he/she/it can wear the clothing/makeup/jewelry of whatever sex she wants, and I will "defend to the death" his/her/its right to do so. But does Amy have a schlong or not?
And even worse, Amy has indicated she is the most screwed-up low-life pervert of all: a "liberal." Amy says she would never vote for a Republican (even, presumably, the most libertarian) because Republican victories "will make life harder for her." How? Is there some movement afoot in the GOP to outlaw cross-dressing?
I saw a documentary in 2014 that the NYT (!) posted online. It looked at the history of Multiple Personality Disorder and noted two things. First, the reported cases of the disorder increased dramatically after the showing of the TV movie Sybil in 1976. Prior to that, the number of cases in clinical literature were very, very rare—fewer than 100. After that movie, cases skyrocketed.
Second, it showed that “Sybil” was the result of manipulation, while under hypnosis, by the patient’s psychiatrist. The patient was mentally ill, but her behavior became worse under the psychiatrist’s care. The book that followed sold a lot of copies, and it and the movie led to other mentally ill people, under the “guidance” of therapists, becoming worse and also being convinced that their many disturbed personalities were the result of ritual abuse and other atrocities.
In other words, hysteria caused by the behavioral sciences often causes this kind of dangerous spiking in previously rare phenomena. Therapists can be helpful, but so many are not. I am convinced that this increase in gender dysphoria diagnoses, and the kinds of choices people and society are making flowing out of them, is similar and will, someday, be treated with skepticism.
I hope we will see a demand for stricter peer review of papers asserting these kinds of problems, and a much stricter policing of therapists and more demanding guidelines for licensing. But it won't happen until this growing phenomenon is shouted down.
Waiting for the really unusual thing to happen: all of us finding out that transsexual identity is actually a very boring topic ...
If a previous generation of girls had been allowed to have surgery because they were unhappy with their bodies, we would have had skinny girls getting gastric bypass surgery in an attempt to be even thinner.
There is no discussion about there transgendered. There is only lecture, because those opposed are cretins, or even, horror, Trump supporters.
Someone at BHTV said they "Couldn't figure Andrew Sullivan out". It seems his random departures from the "Party line" are confusing to other Leftists. Yakking about Trigs Baby is OK, but deviating from Leftist thought on Trans is troubling.
Its amazing the hold the MSM still has on American Society. They can make ANY issue the topic of conversation. They can take the weird and perverse and make in normal, and vice-versa. I find it incredible that everyone is worked about Transgernders. How many people want to become members of the opposite sex? 1 in a thousand?
And, THAT, is The Point. Take all the freaks (tom boys, sissies, etc); and STERILIZE Them
I was thinking about killing babies.
I work with at-risk youth. Have been working with youth for over 20 years. I am amazed at the number of young girls that deny being girls, but in another sense I am not. In looking back at all generations, the at-risk youth have always clung to some sort of radical chic to cling to as a way to establish an identity. Only this time they are supported and enabled, to disastrous affect by the left. Is this the first time the elite institutions championed youth angst? Regardless, in this case it isn't trans that the left champions. Sullivan is right. This is an attack on half of America, the tearing down of the traditional family system. The traditional family is threat to the left, and it must be destroyed.
If a previous generation of girls had been allowed to have surgery because they were unhappy with their bodies
Again, we HAVE had a couple of generations of girls allowed to have surgery because they were unhappy with their bodies. It's called abortion.
As the Pendulum Swings
I find it incredible that everyone is worked about Transgernders
If you will recall, this all EXPLODED practically the day after the Supreme Court bought into the idea of "same-sex marriage."
The progressive patriarchy pushing the contraceptive/abortion culture HAVE taught girls/women to hate their bodies. All the more so they can be objectified.
It was never about sex or gender. It was never even about rights.
It was about power. Untrammeled, absolute, ruthless power.
as a doctor, answer how many children will later want to detransition ("it's thought to be rare" is shoddy data), and there is no formal system for tracking this data
The Johns Hopkins clinic, which was the first in the US to do this treatment, closed because of the number of patients who returned wanting to be reversed back to the original gender.
A little history: In the early 1960s, Johns Hopkins was in the forefront of gender-identity science, and its Baltimore hospital was the site of the nation's first gender-affirmation surgery (then "change of sex operation") in 1966. Hopkins halted surgeries in 1979 while Paul McHugh was the chief of psychiatry. McHugh believed that by conducting surgeries "Hopkins was fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness," concurring with the findings of a study by Jon Meyer, who ran the hospital's Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit. Meyer hypothesized that sex change surgery conveys "no objective advantage in terms of social rehabilitation." Both McHugh and Meyer remain associated with Hopkins, although McHugh's tenure as head of psychiatry ended in 2001.
No mention of why they closed it or the patients returning.
Interesting and telling ad in the Sullivan piece:
Drudge readers: Get 20% off
They are having to advertise and pimp for the Drudge Report now, to encourage people to go there? This seems to confirm that business has plummeted at Drudge since he sold the site (never officially confirmed) and they went left.
So in their quest for superiority and virtue these people have allied themselves with psychopaths and sociopaths. Who'd a thunk it?
rocean said:
I find it incredible that everyone is worked about Transgernders. How many people want to become members of the opposite sex? 1 in a thousand?
***********
Unless you've been in a medically-induced coma, there's no excuse for not knowing that those tiny numbers of FUBAR people are out there directly destroying the lives and futures of hundreds of thousands of normal people. And demanding that millions of others foster and encourage their mental illnesses.
And they're just getting started.
Are there any statistics on the racial breakdown of girls who want a sex change. Is it mainly middle class white girls or is it evenly spread amongst races (and also class). The impression I get (based on extremely incomplete data) is that it is mostly middle class white girls.
Paul McKaskle said...
Are there any statistics on the racial breakdown of girls who want a sex change. Is it mainly middle class white girls or is it evenly spread amongst races (and also class). The impression I get (based on extremely incomplete data) is that it is mostly middle class white girls.
I'd like to see statistics on how many are Lesbian vs how many are kinda-sorta Lesbian. Based on my experience with a family member's situation, I'm inclined to believe that Lesbians don't do much transitioning.
De-Transitioning? I think it is most often described as suicide. The gays I know describe trans as seriously disturbed.
We're all going to pay for this. For the rest of our lives, and the lives of the poor creatures who undergo this profound and pointless mutilation.
IMHO it's exactly the kind of issue that attracts the Progs. They get enormous leverage from it as they pry apart the foundational blocks of our culture.
BUMBLE BEE said...
De-Transitioning? I think it is most often described as suicide
yep! suicide rates for De-Transitioned gender dysphoric people are VERY HIGH
oh, suicide rates for Transitioned gender dysphoric people are VERY HIGH
and, suicide rates for Non-Transitioned gender dysphoric people are VERY HIGH
It's ALMOST, As IF; gender dysphoric people are mentally Ill, and need Help
Real help, not just making insurance money off of them
Maybe (just maybe), they need someone to tell them: You're a sick freak... Deal with it
I would recommend: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52076947-irreversible-damage
Very well written and informative
It’s a much broader movement to dismantle the sex binary, to see biology as a function of power and not science, and thereby to deconstruct the family and even a fixed category such as homosexuality.
The spirit of Trofim Lysenko is still alive and well on the Left.
Man is the measure of all things and Nature must bend to his will!
I suspect the NYT sees that transgender advocacy is not helping Democrats, and this is their attempt to rein things in.
With the NYT, it is usually easier to reverse-engineer their thinking to understand what is going on. Their thought process is:
(1) Which narrative helps the left?
(2) Include any assertions (whether true or false) that support that narrative,
(3) Exclude any assertions that do not.
Parsing the NYT's logic is usually a waste of time because logic isn't what's driving the story. The desired result is driving the story.
Unfortunate that not a single comment expresses sympathy for or understanding of the Trans position. Won't get either from me. I find it entirely baffling, and it seems harmful. But I do like to scroll comments to learn things.
No you can't. To accept the premise of transgenderism, to accept the falsehood -- the lie -- that there is a separation of sex and gender, or that a person who is objectively male can be female, is to empower all of the agenda.
So hermaphroditism is possible physically but not in the brain tissues that hormones are known to act on? You can't take that position without declaring that men and women are psychologically identical as well.
Blogger Readering said...
Unfortunate that not a single comment expresses sympathy for or understanding of the Trans position.
I think we do but view it as mental illness. The really scary thing that worries parents is the faddish nature of it among teenage white middle class girls.
I spent some time working as a medical students with chronic schizophrenic men. I had great sympathy for them if you want to read my book. They were still sick.
Maria’s comment 👍🏽
The really scary thing that worries parents is the faddish nature of it among teenage white middle class girls.
They could always be more like working class black girls who know how to be assertive without a penis!
But wanting to be manly instead is much easier, especially when they're told by your favorite politicians that strength and capital accumulation are the only paths to respect.
J Melcher said...
It seems to me a part of a trend to carve out special (privileged) rules for particular demographics
Bingo. With the exception of defending religious freedom, virtually all other culture war anti-discrimination lawsuits are brought by progressives using lawfare against conservatives for preferring not to associate with people who act on preferences they find objectionable, or even for simply refusing to be coerced and co-opted into publicly supporting those very preferences to which they object. Meanwhile, it's perfectly fine to discriminate against conservatives for nothing other than the opinions they hold or express.
Richard Hanania has some interesting thoughts on this. https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights
Michael K said...
I think we do but view it as mental illness. The really scary thing that worries parents is the faddish nature of it among teenage white middle class girls.
I wonder if it's a mental illness as much as it's sold as a solution to other mental illnesses people may be suffering from.
My stepdaughter went to high school with a young woman who's a self declared "trans man" even though she has no plans for surgery and isn't taking hormones. This same young woman has severe anger issues and a terrible substance abuse problem. They shared an apartment until said young woman got drunk one night and went after my stepdaughter with a baseball bat.
Luckily stepdaughter made it to her bedroom and shoved furniture in front of the door before calling me and Mrs. NorthOfTheOneOhOne. We called the police and arrived at the apartment just about the time they got there. Cops couldn't do anything since stepdaughter wasn't hurt and wouldn't press charges. Needless to say that stepdaughter moved out of that apartment ASAP.
I am curious who *pays* for these surgeries and treatments? If the person is a minor, wouldn't they be on their parent's health insurance as a dependent? The parent would be the primary policy holder. So, the parent gets this bill in the mail for hormone therapy or surgery, which they did not approve - do they have to pay it? Every time I've had surgery (carpal tunnel release + some eye plastic surgery) I have to sign documents stating I understand that I am responsible for any part my insurance won't pay.
Of course, these minors could be paying for this themselves. Where are they getting that kind of money as teenagers? Maybe it is cheaper treatment than I am imagining. I can't imagine the health care industry doing treatments and surgery with slim hope of getting their money for the service.
hpudding said...
So hermaphroditism is possible physically but not in the brain tissues that hormones are known to act on?
You can't take that position without declaring that men and women are psychologically identical as well.
>>>> Hermaphrodites are born with the presence of "both ovarian and testicular tissue."
Trannies are not. Trannies are not hermaphrodites. So you've offered a strawman argument.
Just as nothing is funny anymore, now the edge of the envelope is so far out there. What can a young person do to be outrageous, to rail against the conformity of society, to show his or her specialness? Get a face tattoo? Have deforming treatment to try to become a fake gender?
Back in my day, you could smoke a little pot and if you were a girl, not shave your underarms, or let your hair grow if you were a guy.
I feel so sorry for the future pain and sadness of these misguided youth.
And it’s not good for the culture either.
Is there a right to scam? Are there lefty scams and right scams? Should citizens know, by type anyhow, which scams they are prone to accept and which are obvious errors their lefty friends will fall for? (Why, yes, now that you mention it, there is a right to scam the right, it isn't a scam, it's retribution.)
The end result of normalizing, in lieu of tolerance, the transgender spectrum disorder is to break boys and girls who have already been indoctrinated with the noxious idea (a handmade tale) of: if I was only a boy with a feminine gender, or a girl with a masculine gender. A state and process of progressive confusion and dysfunction. Men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature/nature. The transgender spectrum is narrow, but, for the sake of political congruence ("="), inordinately loud. The club shooting motivated by trans/homo exclusion of an ambiguously trans/homo (or bi) male was an example of its internal, external, and mutual inconsistency. The surgical, medical, and mental corruption of evolving boys and girls in a fragile state is a forward-looking consequence of the movement's ambiguity and structural defects. #HateLovesAbortion
there is a right to scam the right, it isn't a scam, it's retribution
A stand against slavery, a stand against diversity, a stand against the wicked solution. Redistributive and retributive change. All's fair in lust and abortion, I suppose.
I'll go with Steve Sailer on this: "Here’s my public comment: Burn in hell, greedy doctors."
Readering: “ Unfortunate that not a single comment expresses sympathy for or understanding of the Trans position.” Hey! I said “poor creatures.” Doesn’t that count?
If only Sullivan had warned against altering societal norms concerning the gender binary, sexuality and such because there was no natural stopping point.
Oh right. He was on the other side, and those who did warn were deemed bigots. He needed to assume there was no slope, so he did. Now he realizes it is indeed rather slippery out there.
Imagine if anyone had suggested that everything Sullivan worked for would lead to cutting the breasts off of confused young women, a culture that causes gay youth to believe they probably are gender dysphoric, and destroying women's sports. And yet here we are, and I do not see an apology from him.
I know of a liberal woman whose pre-teen daughter “came out” as a lesbian and then in her early teens as transgender. I can’t help but wonder if her teachers are complicit in the girl making these mentally ill “self-diagnoses”. And her mother has to be part of her mental health issues by encouraging her instead of getting the girl the real help she needs. And, oh yeah, the girl’s brother started thinking maybe he was transgender as well! That whole family needs to see a qualified therapist, stat, before all of them, including the mother, are really screwed up for life.
Readering: “ Unfortunate that not a single comment expresses sympathy for or understanding of the Trans position.”
An entire woke marxist movement is afoot and attempting to deconstruct and destroy biology and "science" and readering identifies the Real Problem: The Althouse Commentariat.
Doesn’t this all end as soon as humanity faces another world war or the Yellowstone super volcano explodes, creating a global famine?
We’re the luckiest humans in history. For 10,000 years, it took 99% of the population to feed 100% of the population. The industrial revolution became possible because agriculture practices finally reduced that to 50% to feed 100%. We’re now down around 3% of population feeds 100%. That leaves most of us so many options on how we want to live our lives that we lose meaning and purpose.
Add in the recent development (last 100 years) that for the first time in human history, we can be stupid for extended periods of time and not die. We’ve become entitled to good outcomes for less than good effort.
Add all this up and we begin to restructure society in ways that eventually may lead to a disaster in a crisis.
Gender roles were critical to human evolution and survival. Men and women cooperated to ensure survival.
We don’t need strict gender roles at this exact moment for survival. But our modern civilization is extremely fragile. I’m glad all sorts of folks get to live their true self. We need to recognize this is a luxury we’re all lucky to have and we won’t likely have it for long.
It is about cultural revolution. It’s a much broader movement to dismantle the sex binary, to see biology as a function of power and not science, and thereby to deconstruct the family and even a fixed category such as homosexuality.
The revolution devours its own. Andy boy, you shoulda seen it coming. A revolution that could overturn millennia-old ideas of marriage isn't going to stop when it comes to a supposedly "fixed category" like homosexuality. Didn't they tell you that sexuality and gender identity are fluid?
Sullivan gambled on marriage taming gays and turning them into good bourgeois couples (I know many already were). Masha Gessen and others gambled on gay marriage subverting the very idea of marriage and heterosexuality and everything else (Russian women go to extremes). She may be pulling ahead and taking the lead.
Some people owe Rick Santorum an apology, though the legal mess is largely downstream of the cultural one.
I'd like to see statistics on how many are Lesbian vs how many are kinda-sorta Lesbian.
It seems like that's a question of self-definition. To commit to being gay or lesbian is to be less likely to want to transition, especially if you think of being lesbian or gay in the way that the previous generation did. If you're more uncertain and don't want to take that step of self-definition, you may take the other step and start thinking of yourself as transgender.
About sympathy and understanding: To have a rational discussion without contempt or hatred or malice or insult would be quite an achievement (if that's what we did). And I suspect many people would be able to respond with sympathy and understanding to someone transgender (especially if the listeners were prepared and in the right frame of mind), but to bring "sympathy and understanding" to the forefront in every conversation seems a little patronizing. I can readily imagine someone transgender not wanting to be regarded as someone afflicted with a condition that requires pity and forbearance. Sooner or later, every social movement reaches a point where it no longer wants to be thought of as unfortunate victims, but as people with self-respect and "agency" or the ability to think and act for themselves, and there's real resentment of condescending sympathy coming from the majority group.
All my life there has been a sexual revolution going on, and all my life I've seen unhappy participants in it, demanding the rest of us also play along. The only thing worse that a Puritan - thinking someone, somewhere is having fun and wanting to stop them - might just be a liberated sexual hedonist demanding we all follow their same practices, regardless of desire, aptitude or consequences.
I'm sure gender dysphoria exists, just as I'm sure multiple personality disorder and other mental health issues occur. I just think mass media can cause these things to happen more frequently. We're an awfully suggestible species.
It is fascinating to me that we have come to view the body as more plastic than the mind. That we have represents the total surrender of psychiatry as a discipline.
Language is important. The male swimmers who have identified as female and won all the competions against women swimmers are called "transexual women". No, they are, and should be called, "transexual men". I don't deny anyone the right to identify his/her preferred gender, but I do deny that person's right to force other people to accept that identification.
The pervasive trans movement is recruiting children into a lifetime of misery. It is quite evil and we should not pussy foot around calling it that.
Tom made one of the smartest most perceptive comments I’ve read here in a very long time. I tried to copy and paste it but I’m on a cellphone in a tent on the side of the road in Quartzite AZ. (Rock and mineral show!). All this gender identity business is a luxury delusion,and it will not always be affordable. Enjoy it while it lasts! Or not, according to your preferences.
Just saw a headline "Pregnant people not getting vaccine". We are in the midst of a mass insanity.
I fight back in a small way: I refuse to use the word gender except regarding words. There are THREE genders, in English: masculine, feminine, and neuter. A person has a sex, period.
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