Edith Pilkington
Sep 7, 2018 · 3 min read

Lisa Littman is at Brown, here, in Providence. The Brown Daily Herald has written about this piece:

http://www.browndailyherald.com/2018/09/04/gender-dysphoria-study-meets-criticism/

Your colleague in molecular biology commented on the article:

“Fausto-Sterling, however, worries that shutting down Littman’s research has its own consequences. She believes the University and PLoS ONE journal have been treating Littman unfairly.

The University claims to support free speech, Fausto-Sterling said. “I’m not convinced they’re doing it.”

I wrote a response under a pseudonym I’ve used since I was writing into Arianna Davis’ Gender Indentity Group(I forget the exact name of her group which was dragged through the mud by certain so called trans and intesex activists. I resorted to using a pseudonym because I did not want to be associated with certain people on the site):

Sheila Gilligan:

“Not surprised to hear Fausto-Sterlings response. It follows a pattern — support for Kenneth Zucker’s reinstatement at the CAMH; support for Elinor Burkett’s highly toxic piece in the NYT; freely quoting J. Michael Bailey at her lectures on post natal neurological development. Bailey is the researcher who conducts his “studies” in bars on Halstead St. in Chicago.

Quote from the New York Times letters to the editor on Elinor Burkett’s article:

‘ Ms. Burkett’s essay expresses what lots of people, myself included, have long noted in private but felt reluctant to say in public.’

That’s exactly what I heard people saying about Trump.

Sexing the Body was a work of genius but it has a sub-text involving Fausto-Sterling’s focus on “late onset CAH”. Fausto-Sterling is a “late onset” lesbian. Onset is a beach in Wareham. Fausto-Sterling has an extreme bias against organization/activation theories. The bias is ideological, not scientific. She is not an objective source.”

There is a more important issue that is being overlooked, however. It has to do with recommendations for collection of “Sexual Orientation” and “Gender Identity” data promoted by Lambda Legal, The Fenway Institute, and the Williams Institute. From Lambda:

“A. Recording Gender in Admitting/Registration Records. Current best practices call for collecting both the patient’s current gender identity as well as the patient’s sex assigned at birth. This “two-step” process is recommended because not every transgender person will identify as “transgender.” However, a patient whose current gender identity does not match the patient’s sex assigned at birth should be flagged as transgender in the admitting/registration record because this information can be important knowledge informing a provider to offer preventive screenings appropriate to that patient’s anatomy.”

The Center for American Progress has teamed up with The Fenway Institute to promote recording post transsexual people as their “sex assigned at birth”. While Lambda gives lip service in their TRANSGENDER-AFFIRMING HOSPITAL POLICIES pdf titled, CREATING EQUAL ACCESS
TO QUALITY HEALTH CARE FOR TRANSGENDER PATIENTS, it has been my experience that my medical providers, including my PCP, who is a prominent LGBTQ activist, locally, and has presented at the Philidelphia Trans Health Conference, has played fast and loose with my medical history involving my transsexual history, outing me to countless staff at all levels of the totem pole.

I wish you would look into this public policy being promoted, almost exclusively based on the recommendations of Sari Reisner, psychiatric epidemiologist at the T H Chan School of Public Health at Harvard. Reisner follows Dean Spade’s recommendations in Spade’s Documenting Gender, which separates people by the presence of a cervix or a prostate. There is so much wrong with this. I can point to a few different studies on CAH people who karyotype as XX who have been found to have prostates, as well as female assigned people with CAIS, in which prostatic tissue has been found. Also the focus on the prostate approaches the ridiculous for post transsexual women. A study of over 700 patients by Louis Gooren and Abraham Morganthaler concluded there is little risk of prostate cancer in post transsexual women, just as there is hardly for anyone w/ testicular failure. I was examined by Morganthaler pre-surgery and finally diagnosed as unilaterally cryptorchid. Even Judith Butler acknowledges that Bodies Matter. I think this is a huge problem. People who promote this kind of public policy are concern trolling, if there has ever been such a thing. Currently, the only people not affected by the controversy involving psa screening seem to be women.

I’m looking for someone to have a serious conversation to share my experiences with — edithpilkington@gmail.com.

    Edith Pilkington

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