OK Lawmakers Start threatening library funding

Re:GBLT

“Boys have penises, girls have vaginas. End of story.”

So gender is determined by the phenotype, then, not by the genotype? Careful, there’s a lot more grey area around than most people imagine. Here’s a short list of situations where medical doctors find the line between the genders to be broad and blurry:

• 5-alpha-reductase deficiency (5-ARD) is a condition caused by a mutation of the 5-alpha reductase type 2 gene. Individuals with 5-ARD have XY chromosomes and testes, and tend to have a vagina, but with a small penis capable of ejaculation instead of a clitoris (this penis, however, appears to be a clitoris at birth). These individuals are normally raised as girls. However, come puberty, their testes will descend, their voice will deepen and they often will develop a male sexual identity. But they develop only limited facial hair.
• Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) refers to any of several autosomal recessive diseases resulting from defects in steps of the synthesis of cortisol from cholesterol by the adrenal glands. Most of these diseases involve excessive or defective production of sex steroids and can pervert or impair development of primary or secondary sex characteristics in affected infants, children, and adults. (Some problems caused by various forms of CAH: ambiguous genitalia such that it is difficult to determine sex; early pubic hair and rapid growth in childhood; precocious puberty or failure of puberty to occur; excessive facial hair, virilization, and/or menstrual irregularity in adolescence; infertility due to anovulation)
• Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) is a set of disorders of sexual differentiation that results from mutations of the gene encoding the androgen receptor. The nature of the resulting problem varies according to the structure and sensitivity of the abnormal receptor. Most of the forms of AIS involve variable degrees of undervirilization and/or infertility in XY persons of either sex. Visible expressions range from the subtle [Complete AIS (CAIS): completely female body except no uterus; testes in the abdomen; minimal androgenic hair at puberty.] to the blatant [Reifenstein syndrome: obviously ambiguous genitalia; small testes may be in abdomen or scrotum; sparse to normal androgenic hair; gynecomastia at puberty.].
• Klinefelter’s syndrome is a condition caused by a chromosomal abnormality in males (specifically, a nondisjunction); sufferers have a pair of X sex chromosomes instead of just one. The XXY chromosome arrangement is a common genetic abnormality, occurring as frequently as 1 in 1,000 male births.
• Swyer syndrome, or XY gonadal dysgenesis, is a type of female hypogonadism in which no functional gonads are present to induce puberty in an otherwise normal girl whose karyotype is then found to be XY. Her gonads are found to be nonfunctional streaks. Estrogen and progesterone must be replaced. The gonads are usually removed surgically because they do not function and may develop cancer in them.
• Also: Turner’s syndrome; Chapelle syndrome; and Chimerism.
• According to the some estimates (Fausto-Sterling et. al., 2000) perhaps as much as 1 percent of live births exhibit some degree of sexual ambiguity, and that between 0.1% and 0.2% of live births are ambiguous enough to become the subject of specialist medical attention, including surgery to disguise their sexual ambiguity.

And all of these involve ambiguity before you even consider the issue of how someone self-identifies their gender.

Re:GBLT
Interesting stuff, but like I said in another thread, cruel science.

Don’t blame science. Science is the method of acquiring knowledge to help understand what’s happening. It’s a cruel society that fears when things become a gray area, and imposes consequences on the situation.

Boys have penises, girls have vaginas.

Unless you happen to be one of the “boys” who begins to menstruate through your phallus at puberty. Or one of the “girls” created because of a botched circumcision who ends up totally confused about why you never liked skirts or dresses except for when they were worn by other girls.

Dr. Milton Diamond is a Professor of Anatomy and Reproductive Biology and director of The Pacific Center for Sex and Society at the University of Hawai`i. His research has led him to consider that there are three primary aspects that combine to make up gender:
Sexual Identity; How one sees oneself at the deepest level. He includes “intersexed” in addition to male and female.
Gender Role; How one presents publicly in dress, speech, gesture and so on, as man or woman.
Sexual Orientation; who you desire as a prospective partner (or that you may not desire one at all).

He was one of the first to challenge John Hopkins University’s established protocol of sexual assignment of intersexed babies. A very interesting aspect of his work is the significant amount of support it has received from adult persons who had their ambiguous gender “assigned” one way or the other at birth.

Variability in other body features (size or shape of ear, nose, hands, etc.; coloring of hair, skin, or eye) are more readily recognized and accepted. But gender identity that is not obviously male or female, but is perhaps both or neither, is considered monstrous. It is evidence of that gray area and it MUST be corrected to either black or white.