Questions about ourselves, gender identity and squeaky hips

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Check out these stories from elsewhere on the Web:

In Psychology Today, mental health experts ask whether we’re living with our authentic selves:

‘Contemporary culture seems to mock the very idea that there is anything solid and true about the self. Cosmetic surgery, psychopharmaceuticals, and perpetual makeovers favor a mutable ideal over the genuine article, MySpace profiles and tell-all blogs carry the whiff of wishful identity. Steroids, stimulants, and doping transform athletic and academic performance. Fabricated memoirs become bestsellers. Speed-dating discounts sincerity. Amid a clutter of counterfeits, the core self is struggling to assert itself.’

On NPR, two parents ponder the best way to cope with their son’s gender identity issues:

‘Robert and Danielle soon came to find out about a new, highly controversial, treatment for preteen kids with gender identity issues. The treatment allows kids to postpone puberty and avoid developing the physical attributes of the sex they were born with.’

And in the New York Times, people with artificial hips worry about what those sounds might mean:

‘Any artificial hip can occasionally make a variety of noises. But until Stryker, a medical products company, began marketing highly durable ceramic hips in the United States in 2003, squeaking was extremely rare. Now, tens of thousands of ceramic hips later -- from Stryker and other makers that entered the field -- many patients say their squeaking hips are interfering with daily life.’

Worth a read.

-- Tami Dennis