transgender in unidentified remains

[carbuff]

I'm sorry if this is too blunt, but I can't think of any good ways to paraphrase it.

Clearly if the body of a transgendered person is found, the DNA tests will identify the person's sex at birth. But if the person had undergone sex reassignment surgery and treatment, would that leave any traces that could be detected after skeletonization?

Related: if a transgendered person is missing, do they get listed under their sex at birth, or the sex they lived as?

Pointers to detailed discussion would be most welcome.

[dewey decimal]

I very rarely discuss this with strangers since people can be intrusive and I'm an introvert, but my partner is transgendered (MTF, or male to female).

When a person transitions AND takes hormones (estrogen for MTF, testosterone for FTM) on a regular basis, there are changes to their muscular structure. I have heard that there can also be changes to skeletal structure, but am having a hard time finding a good link to back this up. The International Olympic Committee only permits trans athletes to compete if their hormones are within the average range associated with people who are born female (see The Transgender Athlete).

The earlier in life someone begins taking hormones, the more his/her body will look like the sex to which he/she is transitioning. Now that people are more aware of trans issues, some adolescents who are trans are being allowed to take hormones that suppress secondary sexual characteristics. This is so they can decide when they're an adult whether or not they wish to fully transition.

I don't know much about osteology, but some people who are MTF have facial feminization procedures done such as brow ridge reduction and cheekbone enhancement. I would certainly expect these to show up on a skeleton.

Carbuff, your latter question is very important. Each state has its own laws regarding changing birth gender on official documents. You do have to go to court to get a name change. My partner is fortunate enough to have been born in California and has an official (re-issued) birth certificate listing the name she uses now and listing her gender as female. By contrast, if we were in Texas, they would still consider her male because that state uses your chromosomal makeup to dictate whether you're male or female.

My partner's path follows the ideal in many respects--she had enough family support and financial resources to go through full surgery, changing her name, etc. Many trans people don't have this--they might not have had surgery, are taking black-market hormones (very dangerous), or their families don't accept them for who they are.

[carbuff]

Hm, thanks, dewey decimal. That's very useful.

[Roselvr]

Originally Posted by dewey decimal

I very rarely discuss this with strangers since people can be intrusive and I'm an introvert, but my partner is transgendered (MTF, or male to female).

When a person transitions AND takes hormones (estrogen for MTF, testosterone for FTM) on a regular basis, there are changes to their muscular structure. I have heard that there can also be changes to skeletal structure, but am having a hard time finding a good link to back this up. The International Olympic Committee only permits trans athletes to compete if their hormones are within the average range associated with people who are born female (see The Transgender Athlete).

The earlier in life someone begins taking hormones, the more his/her body will look like the sex to which he/she is transitioning. Now that people are more aware of trans issues, some adolescents who are trans are being allowed to take hormones that suppress secondary sexual characteristics. This is so they can decide when they're an adult whether or not they wish to fully transition.

I don't know much about osteology, but some people who are MTF have facial feminization procedures done such as brow ridge reduction and cheekbone enhancement. I would certainly expect these to show up on a skeleton.

Carbuff, your latter question is very important. Each state has its own laws regarding changing birth gender on official documents. You do have to go to court to get a name change. My partner is fortunate enough to have been born in California and has an official (re-issued) birth certificate listing the name she uses now and listing her gender as female. By contrast, if we were in Texas, they would still consider her male because that state uses your chromosomal makeup to dictate whether you're male or female.

My partner's path follows the ideal in many respects--she had enough family support and financial resources to go through full surgery, changing her name, etc. Many trans people don't have this--they might not have had surgery, are taking black-market hormones (very dangerous), or their families don't accept them for who they are.

I've wondered this myself. Is it possible for your partner to see if her physician can give us an answer?

[Roselvr]

Just found a case in Canada- links are not working. Not sure if any of you have seen this case on WS. I don't have time to search.

cold cases scroll to The Man in the Red High Heels: Unidentified skeletal remains.


To amateur and professional cold case investigators: Your assistance is urgently needed to help identify this long neglected victim!

The victim’s remains were discovered on July 16, 1980, on the Eleventh Concession near Steeles Avenue in Markham, Ontario and he is believed to have died approximately 3 years earlier. In 1983, three years after the body was found, for some unknown reason, the body and the clothing found with it were buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery essentially causing all physical evidence to disappear.

In 2007, the remains were exhumed, believing a possible connection with the murders of Richard Hovey and Eric Jones who were identified through massive media coverage of facial reconstructions. (Please see links below).

The skull of The Man in the Red High Heels had been virtually reassembled from fragmented remains and recreated in 3d on a rapid prototype printer at John Abbott College, QC. The facial reconstructions were completed within 3 weeks and delivered to York Regional Police Cold Case Unit in July 2009. The facial reconstruction of The Man in the Red High Heels has been exposed once on the national news in Dec 2009 at approximately 8:10 am. (News coverage is to the best of the artist’s information).

To date, the facial images and clothing sketches have never been posted on the unidentified bodies site belonging to the Ontario provincial authorities. While there may have been more local media releases in the Toronto area, it is the artist’s opinion that news coverage of any cold case file must be extensive and repeated in order that just one person out there with the knowlege of the deceased can recognize the images and the story.

The 2d reconstruction has never been seen as a 3d photo was incorrectly posted instead on the police website.

The full body clothing sketch is the artist’s initial impression received from a meager available description. Although the shoes were described as pink and red, the pink portion could never be pin-pointed. Specific details of the shirt and jeans are only an impression as no examples were offered at the time of the drawings.

To Recap: The Man in the Red High Heels has not been seen by family or friends since approximately 1977. His remains were discovered in July 1980 one mile north of Steeles Avenue in a bushy area on the east side of 11th Concession in Markham Ontario. He is said to have been a white male between the ages of 25 to 40 years with a slim build weighing approximately 99-121 lbs. and was about 5ft 4 in. to 5ft 7 in. tall. He had medium to dark brown straight hair, 4 inches long. He had fillings in his teeth and a number of his teeth had been missing for some time before he died. His eye colour is unknown. He was wearing a lady’s red shirt, women’s “Brittania” jeans (sized 30 inch waist and a 29 inch inseam), white frilled socks and red and pink high heeled shoes.

Articles found in the same area include a compact containing a mirror and face powder and 2 green, plastic garbage bags with additonal articles.

Please help this victim go home. Talk about the case and spread the news across the borders, as he may not be from Ontario, Canada. If you recognize the face or the story and can offer any leads to detectives, please contact Det. David MacDonald, Homicide Unit, York Regional Police at 1-866-876-5423, (905) 830-0303 ext 7871.

[SeeMamaRun]

I think how the missing person is reported would depend on the family and friends and how they felt about their loved one being trans. I have seen one missing person report which stated that the man preferred to dress in women's clothing. If the family did not approve they might not be willing to share this information though...

I don't know anything about the forensic side of things but unless the person had surgery which changed the bones then I don't know how anyone would know if they'd had gender reassignment surgery. I suppose hormones changing muscle tone could affect the bones though. Interesting topic!

[Houston Mom]

The picture of this UID does not appear on NamUs but is present on the ME site. She does not appear on TXDPS UID site. She needs to be returned to her loved ones!

https://identifyus.org/en/cases/3240

http://www.co.galveston.tx.us/Medica...iner/cases.htm

ML 2004-092

[SeeMamaRun]

Here's the missing case I was remembering:
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/...on_harold.html

It was bugging me that I couldn't remember his name! Harold went missing in 1983 so he's not the man in the red high heels although that case is intriguing to me! He is described as a cross-dresser, not transgendered but it sounds like he was almost always seen in women's clothes. It's hard to know how he viewed himself. It would be harder to identify skeletal remains as Harold since the picture posted is of him dressed as a woman. You might not think of him as readily when reading about male remains.

[Veidt]

I have no idea if this is any help at all, but:

- If the person has not undergone surgery and has not taken any hormones, and if there was nothing in the remains to indicate that this is a trans person, they would probably be listed as the gender they were assigned at birth.

- As to hormones, I believe it depends on the type of hormones and how long. If someone starts hormones when they're very young (say, puberty-ish) it's very likely that there will be at least some changes in their skeleton. However, in the case of older people, I'm pretty sure that changes are minor if there are any because after your skeleton has stopped growing it has already assumed a more definitive shape. According to the NHS (#1 link) hormones cannot change the shape of your skeleton, so if you're not exceptionally young, you won't get wider shoulders, wider hips, changes in height. According to Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt, while the size of bones cannot change, enough time can make testosterone change bone shape. If it's true then people with apparently contradictory features in their bones could have been FtM trans people. I don't know if the reverse is also true of MtF people.

NHS - scroll down to "Monitoring" - http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Gender-...Treatment.aspx

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormone...female-to-male)

I found this link which discusses the skeletal changes in a MtF girl who starts hormones around the time of puberty - http://www.gendercentre.org.au/82article6.htm

If you google a combination of transgender, hormones, and skeleton, you'll also finds LOTS of FAQs on trans and health sites that say basically the same thing, starting hormones as an adult won't have much of an influence on your skeleton, at least not in huge amounts and quickly.

- I don't know if this is possible, but hormones can lead to changes in muscle and fat tissues. I don't know if it could leave a mark if a person who wasn't very fat or very muscly gained fat/muscle tissue. I've heard that rapid weight losses and gains can leave a mark on the skeleton but I don't know if hormones would make it sudden enough, plus I don't know if this is true of muscles.

- As to surgery, I don't know if it would leave a mark. It seems like most of it is related to soft tissue and not bones. I can try to find some more information about this. So far the only thing I know is that there is facial surgery, for MtF people at least, that changes facial bone structure so I assume that at least would leave a mark. However, something to keep in mind about surgery is that different parts of the world can have different standard procedures and it might depend on the person's background. For example, it's not free or cheap everywhere so in some parts of the world a trans person may not have had it.

- By the way, in the case of FtM people, I know that binders that are not of good quality or are ill-fitting can be dangerous. I don't know if that would leave marks on bones, in some cases I think it could be possible.

- The gender that a person would be reported as would depend on people. If their family/friends are not ok with them being trans or don't know they might report them as the gender they were assigned at birth, or perhaps less likely, might use their correct gender but not mention that the person they're looking for is trans so no connection gets made between them and the remains. It also depends on the local police. If the family thinks they won't get help if they're looking for a trans person or if the police officers in the case are fans of misgendering or being dismissive (or plain ignorant). We're not even talking about the media which always seems to love using the wrong pronouns.