>the society in general that opposes changes, the medical profession
>is just the part which relates to this problem (sex change). So to
>really deal with the problem we have to deal with social attitudes.
Under your model, I suppose that follows, but I utilize Judith Lorber's
paradigm of gender as a social institution in itself, a product of human
invention adopted for its usefulness in allocating societal
benefits and responsibilities. The maintenance of constructed gender
differences underlies most other societal institutions, most of which
are constructed along the differentials in varying ways.
Because gender-bending of any sort reveals the artificial
constructions and learned behaviors that constitute the institution
of gender, (however constructed in whatever society) it would
therefore be in the best interest of all other societal institutions
to constrain that behavior, to control who has access to it, to
determine how much to marginalize or integrate it. The medical
profession, as part of both the social institutions of community
service and academia, has developed its own methods to accomplish
this.
Kathryn Aegis