A letter to Mandi Mckee!

Having not seen the show, perhaps I should be silent here, but just as Mandi should have soem education here, I also think getting facts out is important, so I will add my thoughts here for your consideration.

1) Cancer has but one cause, right?  Wrong... there are a bunch of different reasons and causes from genetics, chemical exposure, medications, radiation exposure, and diet,  All of these factors affect cells.. 

2) The medical causes for transgenerism / transsexualism are still not known, just like all the causes of cancer are still unknown as well as all the mechanism by which the cells are affected.

3) There are differences in brain structure and functionality in transgender people than in cisgendered people.

4) There are a few drugs known to increase the prevalence of TG /TS offspring (including several studies of the drug DES).

5) Childhood trauma has been ruled out as a cause of being transgender since lots of people have childhood trauma but few people end up transgender.

6) Exactly what causes a person to be transgender is unknown.  It could genetic but that link has not been established. It could be developmental but that is not firmly established. It is shighly uspected to be related to brain development and the hormones the brain is exposed to during development, but again that has not been established. To date, there are over 4,000 published studies on transgender /transsexual issues.  None are conclusive one way or the other.

For example, the link between DES and more children being TS/TG has been well established. However, the mechanism by which the drug affected these affected off-spring is still not understood.

Did Mandi say any of that?

Underlying your frustration is the battle you are engaging in in trying to get people to understand that what we face is not something with our control. The AMA, both APAs,NASW, WPATH, all agree with you on that and they are the medical experts.  Courts have made the same decisions.  Even the IRS has agreed that we ahve a "serious medical condition" and therefore our treatments are deductible.

And the fact that Mandi is likely not educated on transgender issues highlights a problem in our community. We aren't educated either. If I ask transgender people a question like, "Have you read the WPATH standards of care?"  most times I will get a huge, NO" and looks like they are thinking, "Well maybe I shoukld read that..."  The maybe part is what scares me. The best minds in the world help create those standards andthey go unread by those of us struggling with these issues?

So does Propecia cause a person to be TG/TS? I doubt it...  the scientific evidence is simply not there to support such claims, so good luck with her court case. But the science is there that this is a medical condition and that there are effective treatments available to help some of us.

So let's be mad at Mandi, but only a litle mad - let's be more so mad at ourselves for not being more educated and then for not stepping up to educate the world around us.  I know how scary that can be and I know it is not for all of us to be in the media, but all of us have family and friends.  Let's start there.  And some of us will handle the media..