News story - Womb environment 'makes men gay'

thnx for the update paul .. wish they would just leave well enough alone tho.. they'res no need for these kinds of studies.. im happy... most of us here are happy.. anyway just the opinion of one

 

My 9th grade bio teacher was telling us about this last year...although i dont have any brothers watsoever...nor any blood uncles...so im guessing that this predisposition towards girls in my family (especially my mother's side, my maternal grandmother didnt have any brothers either) may foster a stronger immune reaction towards a male fetus somehow...i dunno...just a guess really...

 

Yeah but now they'll probably work on getting some sort of vaccination to wipe us out since it is bio-genetics, which are subject to science and science can look for a "cure to homosexuality" etc.

 

So my bother just linked me this article while he was at work. lol.

 

Yeah but you'll notice that even though pretty much everyone agrees the colour of your skin isn't a choice, racism still abounds. And that even though one has no control over what biological sex one is born with, sexism abounds. Or that even though one has no choice about what class one is born into, classism abounds. And so on, and so on.

Homophobia exists because queer people break the heterosexist rules of society--it doesn't matter, ultimately, why we break them, just that we do.

 

Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest this can hold true for TS women; someone I know is the youngest of 9...

I've speculated that there may be similar mechanisms at work during foetal development; everyone starts off as female; we have three seperate things to consider, sex, gender, and sexual orientation; for all of which there's varying degrees of evidence suggesting these are changed and modified during development - a complex process. And a complex process which doesn't always work out how some people (mainly the transphobes and the homophobes) would like it to ; but it's all entirely natural. Hey, nobody's genetically engineering gays and trannies - so it's gotta be natural; "natural" = "of nature", yeah?

Anyway, the total possible number of combinations considering all these only as binary (which is patently incorrect) is 2x2x2 = 8

So, let's "get binary" for now. Let's say female=0 and male=1.

Note that "gender" trumps" sex" every time; if someone's gender is female; they're a woman, regardless of their physical sex.

Code:

PREF. SEX GENDER RESULT
  0    0    0     gay woman
  0    0    1     straight FtM TS man
  0    1    0     gay MtF TS woman
  0    1    1     straight man
  1    0    0     straight woman
  1    0    1     gay FtM TS man
  1    1    0     straight MtF TS woman
  1    1    1     gay man

Just among the people I know and know of; I can find examples of all 8.

Interesting, eh? But... binary? Nope. There's a spectrum - and that goes for all three. I'll get on to that in another posting...

I hope you like my ramblings; I've had to think about this a lot. Consider I've gone from being what people thought of as a man in a straight relationship, to being a woman in a lesbian relationship, to being a woman in a pansexual relationship - all with the same partner..! Now if that doesn't bake your noodle then... you're a survivor :icon_bigg Jo

 

But don't we all generally start off as biologically XX or XY? I'm a bit confused as to where the whole "everyone starts off as female" comes from.

 

Well, most of us... there's XXY, XXXY, XYY, XY/XXY mosaic and countless other variations...

What I meant by my statement is that physically we all start off as female, with a non-differentiated brain. Assuming things go normally with a chromosomally normal XY foetus; at some point what would otherwise be ovaries become testes; the clitoris enlarges and becomes a penis, the labia fuse together to become a scrotum... men and women aren't all that different; physically, at least. The physical differences become more exaggerated at puberty, though. And as for the brain, that's a different and seperate matter entirely.

A lot of the evidence comes from developmental anomalies. For example, in severe cases of AIS, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, an XY foetus develops as a woman. The androgens, male hormones, are released during development but the body and brain don't respond to them and remain in the "default" female state. There have been cases of female athletes being thrown out of the olympics. One I read of was a woman and had kids; and never suspected a thing. The tests they did back then showed she was chromosomally XY and she got thrown out becaise she was "a man". Needless to say, this was somewhat distressing for her and her family; and they've dropped the tests.

There are also XX men; I know directly of someone who is chromosomally XX and wouldn't otherwise have found out apart from having tests for some problem not related to sex/gender. He's fathered kids, but is he a woman?

How many of us have had chromosome tests? I've had one, but that was because my endocrinologist suspected I might have Klinefelter's Syndrome (XXY chromosomes.) We just assume men are XY and women are XX, but it's really nothing more than a statistical correlation.

It's all a lot more complicated than a lot of us think; so keep those questions coming; and I'll do what I can to answer them :icon_bigg Jo

 

Yeah... that's why I said generally.

I did not realise that. That's pretty crazy. So our brains start developing before our biological sexual characteristics? Hmmn... the things they don't teach you in biology class.

 

Hiya,

I've been digging up some detail to flesh this out a bit.

I'm simplifying a lot; a human biologist would probably pull this to shreds then confuse everyone with a lengthy essay and lots of technical terms.

Some of it is still not agreed on; it's fairly new research. But the research I've read makes sense - I've never been a boy, never mind what the doctor said when I was born; there's got to be a reason why I've always known something was wrong and why I look back and know I've always been a girl.

Anyway, quick and cheerful explanation... around week 12 is when the physical sexual characteristics start to visibly differentiate, that (in boys) is triggered by hormones a little before then.

But it's around week 15 that there's another hormonal trigger in boys that causes the brain to differentiate.

Two different triggers at two different times, one for the body, one for the brain... If neither trigger happens, you get a girl. If both do, you get a boy...

How about if one trigger "goes off" but not the other...? How about if one, the other or even both triggers only go off "a bit"?

Hope that makes sense! Jo

 

While what you say is true, this research is a step in the right direction. With racism and sexism, it took more than just philosophy to get more people to think logically. We may still have a lot of both, but very slowly, they are diminishing. Now, too, people are very slowly beginning to warm up to the idea of differences in sexuality. While research like this won't make differences in sexuality widely accepted, a few dacades from now, things like it(not necessarily just scientific) will have built up and made a huge difference. In Becoming a Man:Half a Life's Story, the author spoke a lot about how bad things were in his youth. That wasn't so long ago.

Jo A:
I remember asking my dad why men had nipples when I was a lot younger. He told me a much simpler version of what you talking about. He didn't say anything about a clitoris enlarging and labia fusing, though. That's pretty interesting, and so is that scale you mentioned... Sorry if i'm nitpicking, though where do bisexuals fit in?

 

Yeah; we're all based on the same "base model"; the differences are really down to size and position; if you see what I mean. Nature's clever like that. Sex reassignment surgery works with this; it involves rearranging things so you end up with a pretty close approximation of what you shoud have had in the first place.

Hormones play a part as well - when I started on them, my boobs grew and lots of other changes happened - I went through puberty a second time, this time the right way for me. That'd happen to any physically male person taking them; though unless they're TS they're not likely to like the effects much!

Well, I suggested that considering these as binary was wrong

Physical sex - There's a spectrum; I've mentioned how development happens; sometimes it only happens partially producing intersexed individuals - I personally know a few.

Gender - That's a spectrum; my partner's an androgyne; (that's not the same as having no gender; ey has a gender; it's just that Western culture doesn't have a name for it. Other cultures might, as some have more genders than the "usual" 2.) I know others too...

Preference - Yet another spectrum. Gender doesn't seem to matter to me; I can find people of any gender attractive. Again, I know of others...

Just with a binary selection for three attributes, you get 8 combinations. When they're all really a spectrum... Much diversity... well, it'd be boring if we were all the same! :icon_bigg Jo

 

huh..I'm the older brother...and i have 1 younger brother...
so how is this study right?

 

I have to agree with what someone said earleir. I think all or most of su are happy with who we are but its kind of cool that they have "found a reason" so tro believe. I really dont care, Im proud to be gay weather it be through this or that. I just like to hear about connections they make to it.

 

This Is Probably Unrelated, But My Friend Has Two Older Brothers And They're BOTH Gay. My Friend Is Straight And Feels Like The Odd One Out. Lol.

Memory Stuff? Shot Down.

 

exactly what i was gonna ask, I'm the older brother and I only have a younger sister

 

Does it mean that if the eldest brother is gay, the rest are gays?

 

I've heard the "older brother" thing, too, but there has to be something more to it IMO. I'm an ONLY child, and I'm gay, and my cousin is the oldest of three, and he's the only gay one of them.

BTW, interesting reading a few posts up from here!