The father gives Alex a Valium “right before she goes onstage”. It would hardly have started to dissolve in her stomach when she walked out. Alcohol, yes; pills and tablets, no. It couldn’t possibly calm her down in time.

Routinely, House takes a dose of Vic right before confronting Cuddy, or some other painful moment. Once, Cameron was debriding his wound, and said, “This will hurt. Take two now, and two later.” Of course, House swallowed all four. But that’s not going to do any good at all for the pain of the debridement that *followed immediately”. Again, about 20 minutes to initial effect, and 30+ for the full effect of any oral capsule/tablet, from aspirin to Vicodin.

The only way to achieve pain relief (for the debridement) that quickly would be an IV, which would start working in some seconds as the blood circulated it to the brain, or an IM injection, which would take a little longer.

This same general error is rampant throughout House episodes, with patients, with House himself, with everyone. I hope that Dr. Scott has noted it elsewhere, as I’m still fairly new here, but this episode glitched on the pt., not on House, and should have been nit-picked.

To Nada – under-developed ovaries in this case were supposed to be her testicles.

To everyone who is offended and/or horrified at House’s lack of gender image sensitivity –
A favorite movie of mine uses the line “All any lesbian needs is a good …” I’m sure you can finish the sentence. When asked about the offensiveness at this line, the writer said (paraphrased)

I was really surprised when I heard all of the fuss about that statement. I put that line into the mouth of the idiot character who is always wrong, thus totally negating that argument!

So, House, whom we all know acts insensitive, callous, uncaring and superficial takes an offensive stance? Of course! And the more sympathetic characters (i.e. Cuddy) make a point of saying that “he” is still a “she” because that is her identity is how she sees herself, regardless of what her chromosomes say. House may tend to be right medically, but socially… c’mon people, how often is he really right?

So this was very delayed compared to the original airing of the episode, but when I read all the comments, I couldn’t stay quiet. I give the show a C- on the medical solution, personally. But, not a doctor, so hey, I don’t diagnose as part of my profession.

Thanks Indeed.

Print ShareThisAn Australian family court has given the OK for a 14-year-old girl — born with a rare genotype — to have surgery to remove two testicles, the Courier Mail reported.

The parents of the girl, known in the case as “Sally”, had to apply to the court for permission for the surgery after they discovered their daughter had androgen insensitivity syndrome, which means she is genetically male, with one X chromosome and one Y chromosome.

People with this condition have the external sex characteristics of females, but do not have a uterus, the National Institutes of Health said on its Web site. Instead, individuals have male internal sex organs (testes) that are undescended.

The court heard “Sally” had been a healthy girl until she turned 11-years-old and discovered two lumps, one of which was in her abdomen.

“It hurts sometimes, knowing I have this condition,” the teenager told the court. “Sometimes I blame myself, because I feel like I am not normal. Sometimes I get angry, even though I know why and how it happened.”

The court also approved other procedures to confirm her gender.

In my opinion House has been at least this politically incorrect in many episodes, and I am more interested by how this review has accumulated far more replies than average and a lot of them discusses this particular issue.

House doesn’t look foolish at all. Alex is, functionally and philosophically, a woman, and House knows that. He’s intelligent and educated enough to know that. I guarantee that if someone were to ask House if he’d still do Alex after it’s been revealed she’s a ‘he’, he’d say absolutely, and bonus, she can’t get pregnant. Either that, or he’d say something homophobic just to piss them off. And that’s the point: he only made his outrageous comments for the same reason he always makes outrageous comments: to get a rise. He said shocking things about Alex all through the episode because it was inappropriate and enraged people. He says racist things about Foreman, not because he’s genuinely a racist, but because it annoys him. He says sexist things about Cameron and Cuddy, not because he’s genuinely a misogynist, but because it annoys them. And he said inappropriate things about underage Alex, not because he’s genuinely a lecher, but because it annoyed Alex, her father, the staff, you name it.

The only thing I would have changed about the handling of the issue was to have a scene where House makes it clear that Alex hasn’t changed. Somebody could call him on it in an outraged fashion, tell him that Alex’s XY status doesn’t change her gender identity, and House would say “I know that” with his usual you’re-stating-the-obvious sneer. Then add a comment about the hypocrite father who won’t be abusing Alex again, depressingly due to homophobia rather than incest-taboo. A scene like that would illustrate that House wasn’t being a bigot, he was just exaggerating to shock the father (and the daughter as well, I guess, though she didn’t deserve it as bad).

“Notice how as always in good old neocon America the ’scarlet woman’ gets her come-uppance by being deprived of a right to call herself ’she’? the politics and ethics of this episode sucked…”
You are totally right, promiscuous people should be worshiped. As if modern pop/hip hop music and commercials don’t do enough of that already.

I also do not recall house being cruel when telling Alex she is really a he. He went about it the same way he goes about diagnosing all his other patient, matter of fact. What makes her more special than the people in other episodes who had more serious, even terminal illnesses?

This isn’t necessarily a contradiction of what you are saying, but to me, amusing because it represents yet another discrepancy in the legal systems.