I know fair number of transgender women and one thing I can almost universally say about 95% of them is they…
do not sleep … hardly at all
It’s truly baffling to all of us. But now I might have some ideas on what’s making us become such zombies…damn good lookin’ ones but zombies none-the-less (thank GOD for under eye makeup cover).
In an article titled, “Why We Can’t Sleep?“, Gayle Greene, Professor of Literature and Women’s Studies at Scripps College, teases out some interesting points in her Ms. Magazine article:
- A 2007 poll by the National Sleep Foundation found that 67 percent of women frequently experience sleep problems
- 29 percent of women use some type of sleep aid at least a few nights a week
- 75 percent of sleep research has been done on men, and until recently the researchers have been primarily men. The major texts for sleep studies have had, until recently, little to say about women’s sleep
- There’s a tendency to assume that the problem is psychological. When 501 physicians were interviewed about how they treated insomnia, they revealed that they asked an average of just two and a half questions, mostly about psychological problems. And since doctors believe it’s all in the head, there’s little impetus to research insomnia. In 2005, the National Institutes of Health spent less than $20 million on the condition, although it affects as many as a third of the U.S. adult population. Most of those funds were directed toward treating and managing the problem, while less than $4 million went to investigations of neurophysiological and neuroendocrinal mechanisms — the kind of basic research that might lead to an understanding of cause. (barista note: this whole approach kinda reminds me of how those of us who have GID are treated…we have to be crazy in the head not really being driven by some internal intersex issue none of us can identify but many of us know in our hearts).
The article is very eye opening about how the medical community may be hiding it’s head under the pillow on a cause and help on a real issue in this country. It’s enough to make you stay up late to read! You can read the full article at Ms. Magazine at their link here.
(Photo courtesy of LunaDiRimmel, used under Creative Commons license)
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