There will not be a real update until Tuesday, or maybe next Friday. Nick might send in another blog entry, but she's been kind of a recluse lately. The reason for this is that I'm going on a brief "summer vacation" (although I know it's still spring.) First, down to Bethesda for a conference at BISA, then a little R&R getaway. It's a Canadian long weekend, and I'm making it longer.
Still, there's always something going on. I have a few stories lined up for later once I get back. I'm sure Dr. Gulf and Dr. Bergman will have plenty to tell me. And of course, if you're dying to get in touch, you can leave a comment or e-mail your questions/swap stories to Ken Moorehead (who has very graciously allowed me to drop his personal e-mail on here for weeks now and has gotten very little of the credit he deserves.)
The last thing I wanted to say was that Newsweek recently did a cover story on gender. They actually contacted me and I spoke briefly to their reporter, because of my previous project but nothing I said was too relevant to the angle of the article. One of the unsolved mysteries of the Swap phenomenon is that 70% of them occur across gender lines (a number which has held consistent as the swaps have increased.) Most puzzling, to me especially, has been that the reaction has not been... consistent. And why should it be?
You have the Frickmans, an early swap case, a husband and wife who had the fortune to be swapped when in the throes of passion. Apparently, the lingering effect was that the new Mrs. Frickman took very enthusiastically to her wifely duties. Then of course there is Nick, who has been a woman for about two months now and yet wouldn't consider herself as such if you spoke to her (and remains quite convincing as "gender neutral.") Meanwhile, the person in Nick's body, Traci, has very gradually toughened up and become "male," but it was gradual. So you've got a number of alternative possibilities for when these swaps occur.
If gender is, as the article postulates (and I agree) hardwired into the brain by physiology and environment, I wonder what effect it truly has on the swapees? Do the hormones of the new body overrule the old instincts? And what about everyone looking at you and talking to you differently? You would certainly think, wouldn't you, that the swaps would be creating transgendered individuals - crossdressers, people on the waiting list of surgery, etc - but by and large, people are just getting on with their lives.
Hopefully I'll be able to pick Dr. Bergman's brain about it.
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