Consequences!

by Sophia Siedlberg.

Recently a newspaper in Virginia, US called "The Daily Press" carried an article by someone called Jack Drescher, asking about the scientific understanding of homosexuality. A somewhat interesting example of objectivity where Drescher is obviously trying to balance evidence against claim. The core of the debate, as it always seems to be in the US is this idea that Gay and Lesbian people are "Choosing a lifestyle" versus the idea that Gay and Lesbian people are gay and lesbian because of certain biological factors, and correctly Drescher points out that in truth the jury is out on this debate.

But, Drescher does make a few errors in assessing who can be defined as Gay or Lesbian, and of great interest to me, as a commentator in this area myself, who is not from the US. I can see a few things that actually prove my point about the way normalization seems to be working.

Take this paragraph:

"In intersex (hermaphroditic) conditions, a child's sex at birth is not clearly male or female. For example, girls with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, exposed to unusual amounts of male hormones before birth, may be born with clitorises resembling penises. Studies of adults with CAH indicate a higher rate of female homosexuality than that found in the general population. This suggests that hormonal "masculinization" or "feminization" may contribute, in some cases, to human homosexuality."

Aside from being a somewhat large jump from one subject (The basis of being gay or lesbian) to another (An intersex condition). It is very interesting that "Intersex (hermaphroditic)" suddenly becomes "girls" who when exposed to higher levels of androgens are "female homosexuals". It is a very interesting chain of statements really how "Intersex (Hermaphroditic)" is a problem that has to be "defined" in "normalized terms" thus "girl" (Not woman you will notice if you are a feminist) and this moves on to "because of too much testosterone" we move on to a definition of "homosexual female". If that is not a chain of pathological logic, I do not know what is.

I am not arguing that people with CAH are of no given sex or are. I am not arguing that some who are Lesbian are "justified" or "not justified" as Lesbians with regard to the debate. (Do they see themselves as Lesbians, Has Drescher ever asked anyone? They could be identifying as male and heterosexual, has Drescher ever considered that possibility) That "make em fit our ideas" silliness, quite frankly, is for the Falwell fundies and the LG-GL-BT people to squabble pointlessly about in the US as they always do.

No I am arguing that this is a chain of reasoning that gives an individual with CAH a poor chance of saying anything for themselves, about who they are, what they experience as human beings and their rights, as people with an intersex condition. (This is the important part) I repeat this, their rights as people with an intersex condition. They may identify as female and be attracted to men, they may identify as female and be attracted to women, they may identify as male and be attracted to men, or may again be male and attracted to women. But commenting on sexual attraction is missing the point when you consider some of the very unpleasant surgery those with CAH are subjected to as children. And some of the often ignored health problems people with CAH suffer.

Dresscher also forgets to mention the full range of CAH, and illustrates the point by discussing Androgen Insensitivity syndrome in the next paragraph. Even more clumsily.

So some clarification is needed.

Let’s start with chromosomes. (Ah yes the stick with which eugenically challenged normalizers beat us all with). In most cases XX chromosome parings (23rd pair) result in the reproductive tract differentiating in a female direction. In most cases XY pairings result in male differentiation.  That is because the Y chromosome has a few "MSR’s" (Male Specific Regions, like SRY) on it that causes gonads to differentiate into testis.

However.

From there the process depends on other factors to produce male reproductive organs, An MSR on the X chromosome for example (Xq 12) is needed to make all the tissue sensitive to androgens, without that you get AIS (Androgen insensitivity syndrome) which results in a external female genitalia and a body that would only feminize further if exposed to androgens because the androgens are converted to estrogen.

In CAH it is different, basically you get either the XX initially moving towards female, but due to problems with hormone synthesis, you find higher levels of androgens involved. Hence someone who is more "masculine". In the case of CAH where the person has XY chromosomes they have male differentiation (Testis) but then become "hypervirilized" by the increased amounts of androgens from their adrenal glands.

Quite simply, chromosomes do not have the last word in defining sex. But the way Drescher talks you would think that Chromosomes were the last word. So if an XY pairing with the MSRs in the Y chromosome not working results in a woman with a uterus and streak ovaries. (Like Swyers for example) Some idiots would even then define such a woman as a man. Others have perfectly "healthy" XY chromosome pairings but do not end up as the demanded sex (Demanded by eugenically challenged normalizers) because other genes in the autosomes are also critical for sex differentiation. (It is called the polygenic model, in case you are wondering).

Why did Drescher not mention CAH when manifested on someone who has XY chromosomes I wonder? Ignorance, or pathological trains of thought? In fairness this does not quite get the same airing because we get male differentiation driven to the extreme, manifesting as an early male puberty (At around the age of 6)

I suppose to Normalizers that is not so much of a "Problem" (Which says a lot.)

Well let’s look at Drescher on AIS:

"An environmental role is further suggested in Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. Although AIS children have male XY chromosomes, they are born looking like girls. They are usually raised as girls and most develop adult relationships with men.  Are people with AIS heterosexual because they think they are women and choose male partners? Or homosexual because they and their partners both have XY chromosomes? Either interpretation may be correct, depending on one's point of view: an individual's subjectivity vs. chromosomes. Obviously, there are limits to the questions that biology can answer."

Well there are many questions biology cannot answer, but I would argue that dragging chromosomes into it is missing the point. Lets look at this again, what about a woman with Swyers, who would have a uterus, who could technically carry a child to full term. (But cannot conceive). Would any sane biologist call woman who could carry a child to full term a man then? Personally I think that the application of "XY = Male" across the board, with Swyers or AIS is absurd basically. But Drescher slips up when being "Objective" on this, let’s re-examine the statement.

"Are people with AIS heterosexual because they think they are women and choose male partners?"

Note the word "think" - note the slip of Money’s ideas about environment being used to re-enforce the idea of environment. "They are born (Or assigned as in PAIS sometimes) outwardly female, are raised as female therefore they are conditioned to be female, so they "Think they are female". Problem is Money was proven wrong in the Reimer Case, but still you find most women with AIS identifying as women. So the environmental argument explaining a woman with AIS identifying as a woman does not stand up to scrutiny does it. Or is Drescher informed by those American "medical dramas" like House where anything that does not fit is derided and hammered? Seems Drescher’s understanding of intersex conditions is skin deep.

I mean let’s face it, does being born visibly female at birth, being raised as female, having most of your body differentiate into female except the uterus (In the case of AIS) or with a uterus (In the case of Swyers) constitute some "Delusion" or "lifestyle choice" if you say "I am a woman". I think not.

I am not going to condemn Dresher’s ideas to some sin bin of bad journalism, because there was a serious attempt at being objective, about a debate that actually is about sexual orientation, not sex differentiation. But this is the consequence of mixing orientation with intersex issues. Drescher’s mistake was a common one, to make chains of assumptions about people. Chains of assumptions that did not involve Drescher actually talking to anyone with any of these conditions, chains of assumptions that were misleading and chains of assumptions that evidently went off into trying to define humanity as consisting of two sexes in some absolute sense, despite all the "PR and Rhetoric" type remarks to the contrary, claiming that biology does not have the answer. It is not biology that is at fault here, a true biologist would not be calling people things they are not on the basis of arbitrary definitions of chromosomes. Biology does not judge a book by it’s cover. If a gene is a chapter in a book then the chromosome is the binding, the cover. Would someone look at a book and judge it by it’s cover. Does a Buccal Smear test look at anything more than the cover?

If Drescher is going to talk about Biology, I would suggest that Dresher and other journalists take the time to actually open a textbook and read the contents. Look up "Polygenic" and "Pliatropic" while they are at it.

Chromosomes do not determine sex, genes do, and the genes involved are not all on the X and Y chromosomes.