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    Transgender Mysteries

    Posted Tuesday, October 21, 2008 8:26 AM | By Ann Hulbert
    South Korean Transsexual Harisu (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)In the new Atlantic, Hanna has a fascinating, and unsettling, piece on transgender children, in which she examines how the issue is being reconceived by experts and parents. Following her through the maze of biology vs. culture, I found myself wondering what light, if any, history might shed on the debate. Girls spending at least part of their childhoods imagining, or wishing, they were boys seems a familiar—and culturally very explicable—drama. Greater freedom, more leeway for ambition and assertiveness, a sense of separateness from omnipresent mom: Certainly back in the day—and now, too—it's easy to see why energetic girls have seen advantages in being a boy—until the hormones kick in and other urges complicate the picture. I'm intrigued to know whether there is any data to suggest a more recent rise in boys wishing they were girls. If so, could that suggest anything about wider cultural, as well as family, influences—or does it perhaps point to possible gender differences in the transgender phenomenon? Could it be, say, that culture plays more of a role in "gender dysphoria," as it's called, among girls, and biology among boys?
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