Monday, June 28, 2010

“Disordered or Just Different” presentation at National Women’s Music Festival

I will give my new presentation “Disordered or Just Different?” at the National Women’s Music Festival at the Marriott Madison West in Middleton Wisconsin on July 3rd, at 10-11-30am. The salient science is summarized to address the following issues: What exactly is a Female? Male? Intersexual? Is intersexuality natural? How many sexes? Sexual identity - innate or learned? Transsexuality? Sexual orientation? Sex versus gender. Medical profession’s shameful treatment of gender-variant people!

This scientific update on human sexuality from a physiologist’s perspective culminates with an indictment of the pediatricians and psychiatrists who continue their barbaric practices and policies against intersex babies and other gender-variant people in spite of all the science that says they should stop!

4 comments:

Zoe Brain said...

How did it go? Your presentations must have created quite a contrast with the various forms of faith healing being presented.

I find it very difficult to keep an open mind about such things, and accord them the respect they deserve.

Here am I at GECCO, the genetic and evolutionary computation conference in Portland, Oregon, and I'm aware of the numinous alright. I can't avoid it. But I see it in our progressive understanding of processes within the cell - that if we'd understood more biology, we wouldn't have to invent logic gates and flip-flops, the components of CPUs, as they're already inside every cell in our bodies - though implemented in Ribosomes and proteins.

I see it in models of our neurology, and in the robot controllers patterned on that.

I see it in people talking about implementations in vivo, in vitro, and in silico, interchangeably. Patterns with commonalities within cells, within brains, within societies, within ecologies.

One can't help but be affected in a very spiritual sense when the fractal nature of nature is revealed. Or at least, I can't.

OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/ said...

Keep up your great work. I really appreciate your knowledge and your willingness to speak up!

Kind regards,
Curtis E. Hinkle

Veronica Drantz, PhD said...

Hi Zoe,
Sorry about my late response. I’m trying to finish my teaching responsibilities so I can vacation during August before starting again in September.

Yes, my talk was indeed a sharp contrast with the mostly “spiritual” workshops that are so common at lesbian festivals such as the National Women’s Music Festival. But my presentation was well-received just as it was last year and I made important contacts.

I know exactly what you mean about the ubiquitous patterns and fractal nature of nature that are the reasons that we can hope to understand nature. Intellectually and aesthetically, the scientific story is always far more beautiful and satisfying than any other. That’s why I am a secular humanist, and why I feel it necessary to give my presentations at venues where you don’t expect any science. For example, I will refute the “womyn-born-womyn” policy again this August at MichFest (where else?). I think that the scientific process and the attempt to understand nature is the ultimate spiritual activity.

Veronica Drantz, PhD said...

Hi Curtis,
Thanks for your words of encouragement. They mean a lot to me since they come from a hero such as yourself.