Misinterpreting Research Results: A Question of Ethics?
07 Nov 2008
Sex: the biological characteristics involved in being either male, female, or a variation of either. The definition recognises the biological variation that exists between these two states.
Gender: the cultural, social, religious and environmental implications of being either male or female. The definition recognises the potential to alter presentation to give an appearance of belonging to another sex.
Historically, western cultures have no tradition of recognising biological variation in sex formation. As a consequence any departure from the male/female binary tends to be regarded as a gender role issue, usually equated to sexual orientation, rather than the result of any biological influence. This lack of recognition became even more entrenched following the development of a set of theories during the mid-1950's. These argued that all sex related gender behaviours resulted from complex Pavlovian gender role conditioning received during the first two years of life. (Money, J. and A. Ehrhardt (1972). Man and Woman, Boy and Girl. Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press.)
The duplicity of one of the authors, (John Money) who claimed to have successfully caused a seven month old baby boy, (David Reimer) to mature identifying as a female as a result of cross-gender upbringing is now common knowledge. http://www.infocirc.org/rollston.htm .
Between 1967 and 1997 Money first claimed success then subsequently withheld details of the experiment's failure. This finally became public in 1997 when the failure was exposed by Professor Milton Diamond and Dr Keith Sigmundson. http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/onlineartcls/intersex/mdfnl.html
During the thirty years transgenderism consolidated itself. The same one-size-fits-all gender based ideology and jargon, complete with pseudo-scientific theories and policies that developed as explanations of gender role transgressive behaviour, were applied to individuals with biological variations in sex formation in the belief that Money's experiment with David Reimer had been successful.
The existence of 'Gender identity', an entrenched identity that formed as a result of gender role conditioning, became a received wisdom. The belief that Primary (HBS) Transsexualism resulted from inappropriate cross-gender role conditioning in the first two years of life helped create the diagnosis of gender identity disorder. (GID)
Based on the perceived success of the Reimer case the practice of 'gender assignment' became common place. These involved surgical interventions on the genitalia of intersexed babies, usually in the first few months of life. Assignments were thought acceptable on the basis that any Gender Identity, male or female, would be imposed by whatever gender role conditioning was considered congruent with the newly constructed genitals. (Money and Ehrhardt (1972).
Gender identity; gender assignment, reassignment and gender roles. By the 1990's the entire discourse revolved around gender. There was no room for consideration of possible influences in brain variation. Encouraged by feminism and explained by behaviourism, the concept that the human brain was psychosexually neutral, rather than part of an holistic human biology with its own sex characteristics, had became a received wisdom.
In 1995 the first challenge to transgenderism appeared in the science journal Nature, with the identification of neurobiological sex reversal in the limbic nucleus of the stria terminalus.
Within months the article was reprinted in the International Journal of Transgenderism, (IJT) a publication dedicated to 'cross dressing, transvestism and transsexualism', indicating how deeply entrenched the conflation of sex and gender was by 1995. (the first two are gender role transgressive behaviours, primary (HBS) transsexualism is a 'sex' issue).
The public exposure of the Reimer case should have been another nail in the dogma's coffin. But thirty years worth of semantic entrenchment were not easily shifted. The insistence on converting sex issues into gender issues continued. In 2006 Professor Milton Diamond constructed a complex internalised conversation which purported to explain how neurobolical brain variation (sex) morphed into gender role behaviours. (Diamond, M. "Biased-Interaction Theory of Psychosexual Development: "How Does One Know if One is Male or Female?" " Sex Roles 55(9-10): 589-600. 2006.)
Diamond's theory is, of course, pure supposition. But few researchers give even that much consideration to the issue. Consider the almost cavalier attitude demonstrated in the email (below) received in response to the article, Inappropriate Conflation of Sex and Gender May Harm Research Subjects. Joanne Proctor. (The article was sent to both Vincent Harley and Dick Swaab for comment, prior to publication.)
http://www.ts-si.org/. October. 2008.*
Dear Joanne
Fair comment - I agree that sex identity would be the correct term, but no-one would know what I meant. So I guess I just slipped into the conventional use of 'gender identity'.
My main research is on disorders of sex development (e.g. XY gonadal dysgenesis) - I keep away from the term gender most of the time!
Sincerely, Vince.
This admission is remarkable by any standard. Convention is more important than precision, even when the researcher is aware that convention is wrong. Peer approval and acceptance ranks higher than accuracy. And there is no comprehension of any ethical issues stemming from knowingly misleading the research subjects, or (perhaps recklessly) misleading individuals with gender transgressive behavioural problems into believing they may carry the identified genetic arrays.
Ethics lie at the heart of this issue. Whether it’s the ineluctable faith that researchers and theorists still place in the validity of the understandings transgenderism had created forty years before detailed genetic and neurobiological research was possible. Or the ongoing practice of gender assignments, which depend absolutely on transgenderism for their legitimacy. Or even the insistence on using and validating the pseudo-scientific jargon of transgenderism out of habit, as demonstrated by Dr Harley's email.
Research subjects, and those in the same category as the subjects, largely depend on science for an understanding of their own experiences. It requires little more than a cursory understanding of history to see that transgenderism has been beneficial for individuals with gender role transgressive behaviours, and consistently harmful to biological variants of all kinds.
For that, if no other reason, science has an absolute responsibility to interpret its conclusions in the least confused and most specific manner possible. To do otherwise is a fundamental breach in the ethical contract between researcher and subject.
*See Transsexual genes identified. http://www.news-medical.net/?id=42169 In which a genetic variation (sex) was presented as a gender identity (performative) issue by the researchers.)
