Tag: girls

Dominican Republic – Girls Become Boys After Reaching Puberty

For some adolescents living in the village of Salinas in the Dominican Republic, one pubescent change is the development of a penis and testes.

One in 90 boys residing in the area suffer from a rare condition that causes them to be born without male reproductive organs.

Known as Guevedoces — which means ‘penis at 12’ — these children spend the first decade or so of their lives as girls before turning into boys upon reaching puberty.

According to The Telegraph, Cornell endocrinologist Dr Julianne Imperato found an explanation to the phenomenon after making a trip to Salinas in the 1970s.

Dr Imperato’s study found that human embryos only have protrusions called tubercles and remain sexless for the first few weeks of life.

If the embryo is genetically male, the Y chromosome will instruct the gonads, or reproductive glands, to become testicles.

Hormone

Testosterone is then sent to the tubercle to be converted into a hormone known as dihydro-testosterone, which is responsible for transforming the tubercle into a penis.

In female embryos, dihydro-testosterone is absent and the tubercle transforms into a clitoris instead.

In its TV series Countdown To Life, BBC Two told the story of one of the Guevedoces — a 20-something man named Johnny who was once known as Felicita.

Johnny told BBC Two that he wasn’t comfortable spending the initial years of his life as a girl.

He said: “I never liked to dress as a girl and when they bought me toys for girls I never bothered playing with them – when I saw a group of boys I would stop to play ball with them.”

When Johnny made the transition from girl to boy, he struggled to fit in with the rest of the children.

He said: “They used to say I was a devil, nasty things, bad words and I had no choice but to fight them because they were crossing the line.”

After becoming a man, the next thing on Johnny’s mind is settling down with the right woman.

He said: “I’d like to get married and have children, a partner who will stand by me through good and bad.”

Source: www.tnp.sg

September 22, 2015
Warning: Hidden-Cam Menace On The Prowl In Singapore

The Real Singapore has been alerted to a blog online which is showcasing many illegally taken videos of upskirt shots around Singapore.

The videos featured on the blog also show feeds from spycams in the female changing rooms of malls in Singapore.

In many instances, the victims are young girls.

We would like to remind our readers to be very careful and aware of your surroundings when in public and to check the changing rooms that they use. It seems that even public toilet cublices are not safe as the blog features videos of women using public toilets.

None of the videos bother the censor the face of the victims and they are proudly uploaded online.

The serial up skirt videographer has taken videos on Singapore buses, shopping mall escalators and even stairs along sheltered walkways:

He has then uploaded them online in a huge collection onto his tumblr blog.

The videos on the blog also show some instances where girls have been video taped in public toilets showing girls peeing and from the background voices it is clear that it took place in Singapore.

The blog is even shared on social media for all to see.

Ladies, please be careful. The police have already been alerted to the blog but we wanted to remind women to be extra careful.

Always be aware of your surroundings when using public toilets and changing rooms and always keep a look out for pinhole cameras or suspicious objects.

Please Note: The name of the blog has purposely been left out of this post. If you do know which blog this is or come across it in future, please do not share the link further with others as this may be illegal and can further distress the victims whose faces are not censored.

Source: www.therealsingapore.com

February 16, 2015
Smoking in a headscarf
Not too long ago, a friend of mine posted a photo of a woman wearing a headscarf and holding a cigarette in her hand. There was a minor ruckus on her profile about this picture. Why does this image shake up some of our worlds?

Because in Singaporean society Muslim women who wear the headscarf have been constructed to be examples of virtuous, moral, proper women. If you wear a headscarf, you’d better behave in these certain ways –
1. No smoking in public (cigarettes at least, but smoking shisha/hookah/Arab water pipe is mysteriously tolerated),
2. No kissing in public (even if married!),
3. No unruly behaviour like shouting or fighting, and
4. No close contact with men in public.
Otherwise, you’re going to be pointed out as a bad example of a Muslim woman. Interestingly, holding hands is still kind of acceptable, as is wearing trousers (not the same case in other Muslim communities).

In our context, the headscarf is a visible sign of morality. You can’t tell if someone believes in God, or prays, or fasts, but you can see a headscarf. The wearer is assumed to be a morally-upright person who has to follow certain rules of (Islamic) behaviour, and therefore also assumed to be discipline-able by any member of the public.

No one has any qualms about telling off a woman with a headscarf if she’s seen to be ‘violating’ any of the above rules. Many older and young women and men, have no qualms about policing young women who are not ‘properly’ dressed.

However, women without a headscarf can do any of the above things without nary a public comment because her morality is invisible (Or you can argue that her ‘immorality’ is visible, haha.). Being under constant surveillance can be annoying at best, and exhausting at worst. Is it really a surprise then that some women choose to appear in some situations with a headscarf, and some without?

Sadly, there are no equivalent markers for men in our Muslim community. In some other societies, perhaps a beard plays the same trick, albeit to a lesser extent (and a beard doesn’t entail an entire dress code). Baju kurung? No one wears that anymore except to the mosque or during Ramadan or Eid. Long sleeves and long pants? Come on man, Singapore is too hot and humid. But why do young men wearing (tight) T-shirts get picked on far less?

Because of the invisible morality of young Muslim men, they can get away with a lot of things. For example, wearing a T-shirt that says “Playboy” on it. The contrast is even starker when you know that they are probably good, practising Muslim men, who have ‘proper’ social relations with young Muslim women.

Heck, the best contrast is to see them in the company of ‘properly-dressed’ young Muslim women at Islamic events. Young men are free to go everywhere in their T-shirts and no one is going to say, Hey dude, your T-shirt is a bit too tight, eh? But you can hear, Eh your hair is sticking out! Or, You should wear a top that covers your butt, or, You look so beautiful in an abaya!

There will be people who say that if a woman really wore the headscarf for God, all this would not matter. But my focus is not on the reasons for wearing it. My focus here is on the headscarf as a visible signifier of morality and its implications for the daily lives of young women.

I can’t change the way people think, but I think awareness of why we think the way we think is the first step.

Source: http://bit.ly/1jOTlBF
January 26, 2014