Sex signs: transsexuality, autobiography, and the languages of sexual difference in the United Kingdom and United States of America, 1950-2000

This dissertation explores the relationship between transsexuality, autobiography and ideas of sexual difference in the United Kingdom and the United States of America between the years 1950 and 2000. This dissertation argues that rather than viewing sex and gender in hierarchic fashion, transsexual autobiography allows us to see their relationship as mutually legitimating. Both biological sex and psychological gender acted as historically contingent ‘sex signs’ which worked to show the autobiographer as man or woman, despite having been born in the opposite sex. I argue that far from biology dictating gender, or gender defining sex, both were used equally and strategically by transsexuals in order to fluently speak a language of sexual difference which their ‘audiences’ – be they medical professionals, legal scholars, newspaper journalists, or close friends and family members – could understand. This fluency permitted belief in them as the men or women they knew themselves to be. At some times, and in some company, genital sex signs were the most appropriate way of signifying sexual difference, whist in a different place and with different people, certain gender traits were more useful. Always, though, was the transsexual’s signification of him- or her-self as man or woman delimited by public discourses of sexual difference which impacted upon ‘non-transsexuals’ also. In closely reading transsexual autobiographies we are better able to see the construction, and naturalisation, of sexual difference in the second half of the twentieth century. By looking both at the strategic uses of transsexual autobiographies and the wider public reactions to such life stories (and the individuals who tell them), this dissertation shows how the languages of sexual difference, of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ were in a constant state of flux during the period in question

Sex signs: transsexuality, autobiography, and the languages of sexual difference in the United Kingdom and United States of America, 1950-2000

This dissertation explores the relationship between transsexuality, autobiography and ideas of sexual difference in the United Kingdom and the United States of America between the years 1950 and 2000. This dissertation argues that rather than viewing sex and gender in hierarchic fashion, transsexual autobiography allows us to see their relationship as mutually legitimating. Both biological sex and psychological gender acted as historically contingent ‘sex signs’ which worked to show the autobiographer as man or woman, despite having been born in the opposite sex. I argue that far from biology dictating gender, or gender defining sex, both were used equally and strategically by transsexuals in order to fluently speak a language of sexual difference which their ‘audiences’ – be they medical professionals, legal scholars, newspaper journalists, or close friends and family members – could understand. This fluency permitted belief in them as the men or women they knew themselves to be. At some times, and in some company, genital sex signs were the most appropriate way of signifying sexual difference, whist in a different place and with different people, certain gender traits were more useful. Always, though, was the transsexual’s signification of him- or her-self as man or woman delimited by public discourses of sexual difference which impacted upon ‘non-transsexuals’ also. In closely reading transsexual autobiographies we are better able to see the construction, and naturalisation, of sexual difference in the second half of the twentieth century. By looking both at the strategic uses of transsexual autobiographies and the wider public reactions to such life stories (and the individuals who tell them), this dissertation shows how the languages of sexual difference, of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ were in a constant state of flux during the period in question.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceWellcome Trust (Wellcome)University of Warwick (UoW)University of Wisconsin--Madison (UoW-M)National Library of Medicine (U.S.) (NLM)American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHoM)Lawrence College (Appleton, Wis.) (LCW)GBUnited Kingdo

Chromogranin A in uremia: Progressive retention of immunoreactive fragments

Chromogranin A in uremia: Progressive retention of immunoreactive fragments. Chromogranin A is a soluble protein that is stored and released with catecholamines from their secretory vesicles. Its measurement is a probe of exocytotic sympathoadrenal activity, and in plasma it may also be a useful tool in the diagnosis of peptide producing endocrine neoplasms. Because we have found that chromogranin A is elevated in secondary (uremic) hyperparathyroidism, we systematically investigated the influence of renal dysfunction and its attendant hyperparathyroidism on chromogranin A in several subject groups: normal controls (serum creatinine≤1.2 mg/dl), nonazotemic renal transplant recipients, nonazotemic subjects with glomerular disease (serum creatinine between 1.2 and 2 mg/dl), mid-range renal disease subjects (serum creatinine between 2 and 7.5 mg/dl), and end-stage renal disease subjects (serum creatinine <7.5 mg/dl). Plasma chromogranin A rose with deterioration of renal function, and the rise was independent of etiologic diagnosis, blood pressure, or indices of sympathoadrenal activity or hyperparathyroidism. Size fractionation of uremic plasma by gel filtration, and immunoextraction by region-specific anti-chromo-granin A (anti-N-terminal, anti-C-terminal, and antimid-molecule) antibodies suggested that chromogranin A immunoreactivity circulates in uremia as lower molecular weight fragments of the parent chromogranin A molecule, with mid-molecule fragments the major constituent. This immunoreactivity is only minimally removed by peritoneal dialysis and is not at all hemodialyzable. The uremia-dose-dependent accumulation of chromogranin A immunoreactive fragments in renal failure suggests that the kidney is a major site of disposition or removal of the immunoreactivity. Furthermore, lack of detectable chromogranin A immunoreactivity in normal subjects' urine suggests that the immunoreactivity is destroyed as it is removed by the kidney. We conclude that plasma chromogranin A increases in proportion to degree of renal insufficiency and that renal function must therefore be controlled when using plasma chromogranin A in the investigation of amine or peptide hormone storage and release

Genome-wide association of sleep and circadian phenotypes

BACKGROUND: Numerous studies suggest genetic influences on sleepiness and circadian rhythms. The Sleep Heart Health Study collected questionnaire data on sleep habits and sleepiness from 2848 Framingham Heart Study Offspring Cohort participants. More than 700 participants were genotyped using the Affymetrix 100K SNP GeneChip, providing a unique opportunity to assess genetic linkage and association of these traits. METHODS: Sleepiness (defined as the Epworth Sleepiness Scale score), usual bedtime and usual sleep duration were assessed by self-completion questionnaire. Standardized residual measures adjusted for age, sex and BMI were analyzed. Multipoint variance components linkage analysis was performed. Association of SNPs to sleep phenotypes was analyzed with both population-based and family-based association tests, with analysis limited to 70,987 autosomal SNPs with minor allele frequency ≥10%, call rate ≥80%, and no significant deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (p ≥ 0.001). RESULTS: Heritability of sleepiness was 0.29, bedtime 0.22, and sleep duration 0.17. Both genotype and sleep phenotype data were available for 749 subjects. Linkage analysis revealed five linkage peaks of LOD >2: four to usual bedtime, one to sleep duration. These peaks include several candidate sleep-related genes, including CSNK2A2, encoding a known component of the circadian molecular clock, and PROK2, encoding a putative transmitter of the behavioral circadian rhythm from the suprachiasmatic nucleus. Association tests identified an association of usual bedtime with a non-synonymous coding SNP in NPSR1 that has been shown to encode a gain of function mutation of the neuropeptide S receptor, whose endogenous ligand is a potent promoter of wakefulness. Each copy of the minor allele of this SNP was associated with a 15 minute later mean bedtime. The lowest p value was for association of sleepiness with a SNP located in an intron of PDE4D, which encodes a cAMP-specific phosphodiesterase widely expressed in human brain. Full association results are posted at. CONCLUSION: This analysis confirms prior reports of significant heritability of sleepiness, usual bedtime, and usual sleep duration. Several genetic loci with suggestive linkage to these traits are identified, including linkage peaks containing circadian clock-related genes. Association tests identify NPSR1 and PDE4D as possible mediators of bedtime and sleepiness.National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study (N01-HC 25195); National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute;s Sleep Heart Study (U01 HL53941); National Institutes of Health National Center for Research Resources Shared Instrumentation grant (1S10RR163736-01A1); Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute's young clinical scientist awar

Almost perfect nonlinear power functions with exponents expressed as fractions

Let $F$ be a finite field, let $f$ be a function from $F$ to $F$, and let $a$ be a nonzero element of $F$. The discrete derivative of $f$ in direction $a$ is $\Delta_a f \colon F \to F$ with $(\Delta_a f)(x)=f(x+a)-f(x)$. The differential spectrum of $f$ is the multiset of cardinalities of all the fibers of all the derivatives $\Delta_a f$ as $a$ runs through $F^*$. The function $f$ is almost perfect nonlinear (APN) if the largest cardinality in the differential spectrum is $2$. Almost perfect nonlinear functions are of interest as cryptographic primitives. If $d$ is a positive integer, the power function over $F$ with exponent $d$ is the function $f \colon F \to F$ with $f(x)=x^d$ for every $x \in F$. There is a small number of known infinite families of APN power functions. In this paper, we re-express the exponents for one such family in a more convenient form. This enables us to give the differential spectrum and, even more, to determine the sizes of individual fibers of derivatives.Comment: 30 page

The role of physical and mental multimorbidity in suicidal thoughts and behaviours in a Scottish population cohort study

Background: Physical illness and mental disorders play a significant role in fatal and non-fatal suicidal behaviour. However, there is no clear evidence for the effect of physical and mental illness co-occurrence (multimorbidity) in suicidal ideation and attempts. The aim of the current study was to investigate, whether physical/mental health multimorbidity predicted suicidal thoughts and behaviours as outcomes. Methods: Data from the West of Scotland Twenty-07 cohort were analysed. Twenty-07 is a multiple cohort study following people for 20 years, through five waves of data collection. Participants who responded to past-year suicidal thoughts and suicide attempt items were grouped into four distinct health-groups based on having: (1) neither physical nor mental health condition (controls); (2) one or more physical health condition; (3) one or more mental health condition and; (4) multimorbidity. The role of multimorbidity in predicting suicidal ideation and suicide attempts was tested with a generalised estimating equation (GEE) model and odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CIs are presented. Whether the effect of multimorbidity was stronger than either health condition alone was also assessed. Results: Multimorbidity had a significant effect on suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, compared to the control group, but was not found to increase the risk of either suicide-related outcomes, more than mental illness alone. Conclusions: We identified an effect of physical/mental multimorbidity on risk of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts. Considering that suicide and related behaviour are rare events, future studies should employ a prospective design on the role of multimorbidity in suicidality, employing larger dataset