Wednesday, August 06, 2008

treating my homophobia

I knew about homosexuality when I was in my teenagers. Those who were homosexuals at my school were disgusting for me. They were abused by many as I can remember, and they were behaving like prostitutes. They got multiple partners, and they seemed always to be happy and showing a silly smile that made me irritable in their existence. We thought, as many Iraqi doctors still think, that the problem is in their anus, and not in their brain. They are described in the Iraqi slang language as “having worms in their anus”.

Today I have seen the first case of gender identity disorder as a psychiatrist. He was born as a male. He believed since he was 5 years old that she is a woman entrapped in a body of a man.

He is very polite. Presented with disturbed sleep. He accepted to be presented by one of my colleagues in a case conference. I thought at first that he likes to show himself. As if searching for a handsome man to have some affair with him. He came to the conference today putting a lipstick. I said to my self “he is impolite” when I first saw him.

As the conference reached the point of asking him some questions, I noticed how polite and clever he is. He told us about his suffering. He told us about his trials to change his feelings. About his feelings of guilt. About his prayers to God. He has only one partner at time being. He dreams about being a female and marrying to a man and having a baby.

He respects himself in spite of the guilt he has. He made us respecting him. It was very important for me to feel that I am not irritable next to someone who is homosexual. What helped me in that were his neutral eye contacts, respect, and politeness.

I studied about gender identity disorder.
I found that it was called before as Onanism. The term came from the name of Chevalier d'Eon de Beaumont, whom I searched for his picture in the net and found that as a child I saw a related cartoon named "Lady Oscar". The picture below is from the cartoon of Lady Oscar.

I remember that I liked the soundtrack of this cartoon like many Iraqi kids did.

It is not clear whether lady Oscar and d'Eon de Beaumont are the same person or not. But it seems that d'Eon is a real person while Lady Oscar is a hero in a novel.

In psychiatry literature, the condistion was mentioned by Esquirol in 1838. This a picture of a statue of Esquirol, a french psychiatrist, but I don't know where the statue is.


The condisiton was described in more detail by Krafft-Ebing in 1886. Below are two photos, the first is for him and his wife, and the other is a cover a one of his well known books. And in the recent time, Harry Benjamin had studies the condition and he found the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association. Here is his picture below.
I found that there is a syndrome after his name, the "Harry Benjamin Syndrome", but it is not mentioned in neigther of my 3 textbooks "Oxford (shorter); Companior to psychiatric studies; and kaplan and sadocks". It seems that it is another name for Gender Identity disorder which is also called transexualism.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi again,

One of my best friends is a Dutch therapist specialising in transgender patients at a specialist hospital in the Netherlands (Groningen). She also edits this academic journal:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a747719784~db=jour~tab=content~order=page

which perhaps you have access to? She's written several introductory articles published in the journal - you might find them interesting to read and I'm sure she'd send them to you if you contacted her via the hospital. I really recommend her article "About Indians and Eskimos" and think you would find it very interesting.

I worked with a transgender person until very recently - I like her enormously and (without ever saying anything) she really challenged my notions of gender and forced me to see beyond people's gender in a way which I would have found difficult before meeting her.

Best wishes,

Margaret

saminkie said...

Thank you Margaret for your visit and sharing with us the experience of seeing beyond people's gender...
And thank you for the link, I am really lucky that you visit the blog Margaret...

sami

Don Cox said...

You seem to be confusing trans-sexual patients with homosexuals. Ordinary gay people have no wish or need to change their sex. Nor does a heterosexual person who enjoys cross-dressing want to be gay or to change sex. ______ It takes all sorts to make a world.

saminkie said...

Dear Don Cox, I was confusing them before, and my phobia was directed against both... as far as I knew about them I am not confused nor phobic anymore.

Thank you for your care and comment..
sami.

oscar said...

السلام عليكم دكتور سامي

يا دكتورنا العزيز اليوم (بمحض الصدفة) دخلت مدونتك التي بعنوان

treating my homophobia

و بصراحة العنوان بحد ذاتة ما كان سبب دخولي لمدونتك ولكن جذبتني فيها عبارة تهمني كثيرا وهي(ليدي اوسكار

في الحقيقة انا سأكون مقصرة في التعبير اذا قلت لك اني من اشد المعجبين بشخصية الليدي اوسكار لأنني لست كذلك وحسب و انما انا اعتبر اوسكار بطلتي ولا ابالغ اذا قلت لك انها ربتني اكثر مما فعلت امي

لقد تعلمت منها كل ما جعلني ابني شخصيتي ويوم عرفت انها شخصية خيالية لا تعرف كم بكيت

على العموم ما دوخك ورح اجيك من الاخير سبب ارسالي لهذة الرسالة هي عبارتين كتبتهم حظرتك

الاولى

and found that as a child I saw a related cartoon named "Lady Oscar

اتمنى ان تعرف انه لا يوجد ادنى تشابه بين ليدي اوسكارو

Chevalier d'Eon de Beaumont

ببساطة لان هذا الرجل هو بايولوجيا ذكر كما عرف عند تشريحه بعد موته اما اوسكار فهي انثى بايولوجيا و عاطفيا وهية ما عندها مشكلة من هلناحية كما هو معروف ولكن والدها رباها كرجل لاسباب اجتماعية والكل كان يعرفها كأمرأة و هي تعرف نفسها كذلك ولكن الفرق بينها وبين باقي النساء انها امرأة محاربة قوية الشخصية تفضل مبارزة الرجال على ان تطبخ لهم

اما تشبيهها بهذا الرجل الجاسوس غريب الاطوار فهو مرفوض تماما

اما العبارة الثانية فهي

It is not clear whether lady Oscar and d'Eon de Beaumont are the same person or not

بالطبع ليسا نفس الشخص و لكي تتأكد سأقتبس لك عبارة من مؤلفة الانمي نفيها تقول فيها

Some characters (Oscar, Andre, and the people from the Jarjayes family) are made up from my fantasy, with no reference model.



ان عبارة

with no reference model.

تعني بكل وضوح انها لم تقتبس فكرة وردة فرساي ليدي اوسكار من اي موديل كما تقول

اتمنى ان اكون اوضحت فكرتي وانا سأكون سعيدة جدا لو صححت وجهة نظرك هذة

مع تمنياتي بالتوفيق

Anonymous said...

شكرا يا اوسكار العزيزة لقد اسعدتيني بتنبيهك المهم للخطأ الذي وقعت به.

انني محظوظ لانك استطعت اكتشاف ما كتبته وصححتيه لي يا اوسكار.


شكرا لك