Science and Sexuality: The Biology of Sexual Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Intersexuality.

INTERSEX CHICAGO - New Group at Center on Halsted

2011-11-29T17:19:00.013-06:00

The Center on Halsted now serves Chicago’s intersex people as well as its LGBT community. “Intersex Chicago” will meet at Center on Halsted on the first Tuesday of every month from 6:30pm to 9pm. The following show gives more information.

It is gratifying that the impetus for this new intersex group was my June 11th presentation at Center on Halsted, entitled “Intersex People: What You Should Know and Why You Should Care,” that included two intersex spokespersons. Officials from the Center who attended this presentation were so impressed that they offered support for intersex people to meet at the Center.

The first meeting of Intersex Chicago will be on December 6th in Room 201.

Contact us:
intersexchicago@gmail.com
intersexchicago@groups.facebook.com
http://www.meetup.com/Intersex-Chicago

SLIDESHOW - INTERSEX PEOPLE: What You Should Know and Why You Should Care!

2011-06-17T15:46:00.005-05:00

Here is the PowerPoint slideshow I created for “Intersex People: What You Should Know and Why You Should Care!” that was presented at Chicago’s Center on Halsted on June 11th, 2011 to an LGBT audience as part of H.E.R. Day. Some slides were simply lifted from previous presentations, others were modified, lots of old slides left out, and new slides added.

Intersex people

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While my presentation was very well-received, the “stars” were my intersex co-presenters who told their stories, Alex McCorry and Mugsie Pike (pictured left and right below respectively). Alex has previously accompanied me as an "out" intersex representative at several presentations, but this was the first time that either Alex or Mugsie spoke openly about their lives and problems as intersex people.

One result of this compelling first-of-its-kind event is that officials at the Center on Halsted now intend to start a group for intersex people! It is fitting that LGBT people be informed about intersex people, because LGBT people and intersex people share many of the same concerns.

Except for saying David Reimer was intersex (NOT!), the reporter from Windy City Times accurately captured some highlights of my presentation but at best scratched the surface when it comes to Alex's and Mugsie's stories. I intend to eventually post a transcript or recording of Alex’s and Mugsie’s moving and enlightening stories.

INTERSEX PEOPLE: What You Should Know & Why You Should Care! (A New Presentation)

2011-05-07T00:08:00.009-05:00

I am pleased to announce a new collaboratiave effort devoted exclusively to the topic of intersex. It is appropriate that the first venue will be the LGBT Center on Halsted. This presentation "INTERSEX PEOPLE: What You Should Know and Why You Should Care!" is a part of Health, Education and Recreation (HER) Day for LBT women. The complete schedule of events for HER Day follows.

HER (HEALTH, EDUCATION, RECREATION) DAY

DESCRIPTION
H.E.R. Day is an event celebrating health, education, and recreation for women and offers a diverse array of interesting and practical programs (see schedule below). People who register for and participate in H.E.R. Day will also receive free admission to an evening performance by comedian Jessica Halem. Morning coffee and lunch included!

Location: Center on Halsted
3656 North Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60613

Time: June 11th (Saturday), 2011
10am through evening

HER DAY SCHEDULE:

Registration/coffee
Provided by Calihan Catering (9-10am)

Keynote Speech “What I Learned from Cancer”
Given by Jessica Halem (10-11am)
Five years as the Executive Director of the Lesbian Community Cancer (now Care) Project taught Jessica Halem a few things. How to survive being called a traitor while doing the right thing, how to appreciate being at someone's deathbed and while keeping their secrets until your own, and how to live a healthy life even while closing down the bar.

Sex Ed 101 (for L/B/T/Q Women)
Presented by the Chicago Women’s Health Center (11am-12:30pm)
Learn what was missing in your high school sex ed! Hear about risks, options, and ways to make sex safer and sexier! Bring your questions!

Women, the Media, and Beauty Ideals)
Presented by Renee Engeln-Maddox, Ph.D. (11am-12:30pm)
This talk will explore how women’s self-perceptions are affected by media exposure. In particular, we will examine how feminine beauty ideals are shaped by media portrayals of women as well as research demonstrating how and why these images have such an impact on women’s experience of their own bodies. We will also consider the various ways in which women fight back in the battle to define female beauty and the evidence regarding whether these techniques are effective.

Healthy Cooking Demo/Class
Presented by Chef Toni Rivera (11am-12:30pm)
Toni Rivera has a culinary degree from Le Cordon Bleu. She has been cooking for over 15 years, 4 years in a professional capacity. In this class, you will learn how to cook simple and healthy vegetarian pasta dishes. You will also learn the fundamentals of working your kitchen with high energy, safety, and efficiency.

LUNCH (12:30-1:15pm)

Infertility
Provided by IVF (12:30-1:15pm)

Tickle Your Fancy: Female Sexuality, Orgasm & What Toys Can Do for You!
Presented by Searah Deysach from Early to Bed (1:15-2:45pm)
Female sexuality is still a great mystery to many of us. In this workshop a sex educator from Early to Bed will start at the beginning - female anatomy. We’ll dismiss myths you may have heard and talk about the nature of women’s pleasure & orgasm. We will also discuss masturbation and its benefits and give you some great tips for feeling more comfortable in your body. We’ll also touch on some ways to make having sex with women even better for everyone involved and show you a few toys & gadgets that can make sex more fun for anyone. You’ll leave with a wealth of information that will hopefully help you enjoy your/her sexuality even more!

Transgender Health
Presented by Lois Bates from Howard Brown (1:15-2:45pm)
Howard Brown has a whole host of programs specifically designed to serve the needs of the transgender community. Come learn about issues in transgender health and services provided by Howard Brown. You will leave feeling knowledgeable and empowered to be your own healthcare advocate.

Intersex People: What You Should Know and Why You Should Care!
Presented by Dr. Veronica Drantz and intersex spokespersons Alex and Mugsie (1:15-2:45pm)
Who is intersex? What are the types of intersex? Is intersexuality natural? What concerns (sexual, social, medical, and legal) are shared by LGBT people and intersex people? Meet intersex people and hear their stories! Learn why you should care! Questions and discussion will follow presentation.

Veronica Drantz holds a Ph.D. in animal physiology and has taught science to medical professionals most of her life. The more than fifty years of research on the development of core sexuality in mammals, including humans, has been reviewed by Dr. Drantz. She speaks to the public about this research and its societal ramifications.

Alex and Mugsie are brave intersex persons who will tell their stories and answer your questions.

Salsa class
Instructed by Heidi Landgraf (3-4pm)
Heidi Landgraf has an MFA in dance from CalArts. She is currently studying Dance/Movement Therapy on a Follett Fellowship at Columbia College Chicago, and is teaching in the Hubbard Street “Movement as Partnership” Program. She loves bringing people together through dance, and is thrilled to see She-She Salsa thriving in Chicago. You will have a blast while learning salsa basics in this class.

Self Defense class
Instructed by Matt Cowell (3-4pm)
Learn basic moves to protect yourself on the mean streets of Chicago! Taught by Matt Cowell, 3rd Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo, and developed in response to the FBI's nine most common attacks by the American Taekwondo Association, you will learn some strategies to defend yourself, including improvised weaponry, target zones, pressure points, and ground fighting in a safe, fun, and friendly environment. Please wear comfortable clothes.

Yoga class (3-4pm)
(Details to follow)

Have dinner before the show (4-7pm)

Comedy Show, with Jessica Halem (7-8pm)
Bad Feminist (one-woman show)

After Party at Big Chicks (8pm - ?)

PRICE
$15 - includes presentations, morning coffee, lunch, and evening comedy performance! What a deal!!
Purchase Tickets Here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION E-mail lnemani@centeronhalsted.org

RECOVERING THE PAST: A “WESTERN” LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER, & QUEER HISTORY (Slideshow)

2011-03-27T14:22:00.002-05:00

A PowerPoint Presentation by Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld

Dr. Warren Blumenfeld has created an extensive PowerPoint presentation about LGBTQ history for the Queer Studies course he teaches at Iowa State University, and he has generously consented to posting the link for his presentation here. Blumenfeld’s wonderful slideshow entitled RECOVERING THE PAST: A “WESTERN” LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER, & QUEER HISTORY can be viewed and downloaded at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~wblumen. Click on the presentation titled AnLGBTQHistory and allow a few minutes for this huge file of 516 slides to appear. You will learn much from the comprehensive coverage of LGBTQ history in Blumenfeld’s slideshow.

About the author: As a college student in 1971, Warren Blumenfeld founded the National Gay Student Center (see slide 302 of presentation).
Dr. Blumenfeld is Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Iowa State University. http://www.ci.hs.iastate.edu/profiles/warren_blumenfeld.php
Dr. Blumenfeld’s blog: http://www.warrenblumenfeld.com

First Presentation to a Religious Group – Seminar or Sermon?

2011-02-20T00:00:00.021-06:00

The only way to get me to go to church is for a protest like last Sunday's Freedom To Marry Protest 2011 at Holy Name Cathedral as a member of Chicago’s Gay Liberation Network. And now for the first time, just this past Friday, I addressed a religious group: the Changing Conversations program of the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago. The presentation (Myth and Science of Sexuality – Disordered or Just Different) was the same talk that I gave to the Ethical Humanists on October 10th 2011 except for one new PowerPoint slide shown below.

The slide is entitled: Protest at “Holy Shame” Cathedral by the “Intrinsically Disordered.” Photos I took during the Freedom To Marry Protest 2011 were used to prepare the collage in the new slide. The slide shows Gay Liberation Network members and supporters, the new blue-shirted “reparative therapy” Catholic bigots who want to give “love” rather than civil rights (GoFirst Ministries), and an out and proud young gay man who spoke to these bigots about the horrors he suffered during four years of “reparative therapy” (lower right photo). Read the story here.

Catholic teaching insists gay and lesbian people are “intrinsically disordered.” The science in my presentation shows that LGBTI people are natural variants and that the cause of our distress is not intrinsic, but extrinsic – due to the cultural prejudice and discrimination stemming primarily from religious ideology.

I added this sarcastically-titled slide to emphasize the damage that organized religion with its implicit Adam and Eve binary-gendered restrictions has done to LGBTI people. I can only wonder if medicine would have ever pathologized LGBTI people if not for the religiously-inspired prejudice that the medical doctors unconsciously entrenched in their respective specialties.

So I wasn’t preaching to the choir this time. As I reminded these churchgoers during the talk, Presbyterians are still among the religious groups that discriminate against LGBTI people. The nonreligious humanists I’ve spoken to in the past do not discriminate against LGBTI people and many actively support LGBTI rights. The science I presented makes it clear that religious anti-LGBTI discrimination is not justified by the facts. The best I can say about these religious “good guys” is:
• They are followers, not leaders, doing “too little, too late” in the LGBTI human rights struggle
• They have been too reluctant to confront the anti-LGBTI bigots in their own and other religious groups
• They share guilt for LGBTI suffering as they continue to enjoy the perks of their religious affiliation, and
• They have a moral imperative to repent and make reparations for their sins against LGBTI people.

Now, if all religious people made such reparations, that would be true "reparative therapy" for LGBTI people that is long overdue.

VIDEO and SLIDES: Myth & Science of Sexuality - Disordered or Just Different?

2010-12-15T15:07:00.022-06:00

This video and the slideshow “Myth and Science of Sexuality - Disordered or Just Different?” of my presentation to the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago on October 10, 2010, explain the development of diverse sexualities (as natural variations of the organization-activation mechanism), and show that LGBTI peoples suffer persecution due to a socio-cultural disorder resulting from the erroneous "gender binary" concept.
Now you can listen to the talk as you look at the slides. The video is in four parts. The PowerPoint slideshow that I used for this presentation is also posted below. Click on the PowerPoint slides to see them clearly (the slides are fuzzy in the video) as you listen to the talk. This presentation was abbreviated more than any previous version of my presentations to fit the venue's limited timeframe.

Part 1 of 4: The science of core sexuality in mammals is summarized. Development of internal and external genitalia. How many sexes are there? Did Eve come from Adam or did Adam come from Eve? What is a female? Male? Who are John Money and Milton Diamond?

Part 2 of 4: Who was David Reimer and what does his story tell us about whether sexual identity is innate or learned? What is intersexuality? Androgen insensitivity syndrome? Congenital adrenal hyperplasia? What can we learn about sexual identity from intersex people? What has the medical profession been doing to babies with ambiguous genitalia as a result of John Money’s theory?

Part 3 of 4: The sexual brain. Is sexual orientation innate or learned? Sexual identity? Are transsexual people crazy?

Part 4 of 4:

How to explain homosexuality in Darwinian terms? Sex versus gender? Can males be women? Can females be men? Medical quackery and complicity in socio-cultural persecution of LGBTI peoples!

Below is the new abbreviated version of the PowerPoint slideshow used in the above talk to the Ethical Humanists.

Myth and science of sexuality short

View more presentations from drdrantz.

"Disordered or Just Different" Presentation at Chicago's LGBT Center

2010-08-17T16:24:00.002-05:00

It’s a pleasure to announce that my next presentation of “Disordered or Just Different” will be at the Center on Halsted, Chicago’s fabulous LGBT center. I’ve been promised the plush Hoover-Leppen Theatre, so I’m hoping for a large turnout. And I’m hoping that the audience reflects the diversity of core sexualities that the Center serves. My previous presentations have been to audiences that were comprised of either secular humanists (primarily cissexual heterosexuals) or women (primarily cissexual lesbians). This is the first presentation intended for an audience composed of the entire LGBTI community. Oh yes, there will be some conventional cis-heterosexual people attending as well. They can’t help it! They were born that way!

Unlike the biblical story that “explains” only the “Adams and Eves,” the scientific story explains everyone: gay and lesbian people, transwomen and transmen, intersex people, … and oh yes, cis-heterosexual people. Everyone has genitalia, a sexual identity, and a sexual orientation - key components of “core sexuality." At this presentation, I will show you the evidence for the “organization-activation” mechanism responsible for the development of these core sexual components in all mammals. If you live in the Chicago area, why don’t you attend this presentation and find out how “mother nature’ has tweaked this mechanism to produce your particular core sexuality?

Here are the details:

Event Title: Disordered or Just Different? Myth, Science, and Sexuality

Location: Center on Halsted, Hoover-Leppen Theatre
3656 North Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60613

Date: September 18th (Saturday), 2010
Time: 6 pm

Presentation Description:
What exactly is a Female? Male? Intersexual? Is intersexuality natural? How many sexes are there? Sexual Identity - innate or learned? Sexual Orientation? Sex versus Gender? Religious myth versus science! Cruel and unscientific medical treatment of gay and lesbian people, intersex people, and transsexual people! Fifty years of research on core sexual development from a physiologist’s perspective.
Questions and discussion to follow presentation.

FREE!

Please plan to join a group of us who will be going to dinner at a nearby restaurant after this event. This will be a Saturday night you will talk about for a long time!

See the slideshow

PowerPoint Slideshow: "DISORDERED OR JUST DIFFERENT? MYTH, SCIENCE AND SEXUALITY."

2010-07-27T01:30:00.004-05:00

Disordered Or Just Different? Myth, Science, and Sexuality

View more presentations from drdrantz.

This "Disordered or Just Different" slideshow, that I use in my live presentation of the same name, tweaks and builds on my earlier slideshow ("Science and Sexuality"). "Disordered or Just Different" covers the biology of core sexuality (genital development, sexual identity, and sexual orientation) but then builds on this foundation by distinguishing between sex and gender and adding some anthropological considerations. This new slideshow presentation culminates with a scientific indictment of the (pseudo)medical practitioners who are too quick to classify the merely different as disordered and who continue to harm gay, lesbian, transsexual, and intersex peoples.

MichFest Workshop Challenges Womyn-Born-Womyn Policy and Medical Practices: “Disordered or Just Different?”

2010-07-18T16:32:00.001-05:00

I will present a workshop at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival (MichFest) on Friday, August 6th, from 12:30 to 2:30 pm in the Media Tent. This presentation is the same talk entitled “Disordered or Just Different? Myth, Science and Sexuality” that has been well-received at two other venues recently (see previous posts). The title is shortened to “Myth, Science, and Sexuality” to meet the publishing specifications for the 2010 MichFest booklet.

As in last year’s workshop, I will summarize the last fifty years of research on core sexuality in mammals (genital development, sexual identity, sexual orientation) with emphasis on the organization-activation mechanism. Intersexuality in various forms will be explained and brain work regarding sexual identity and sexual orientation will be emphasized. This year’s workshop will culminate with a sharp focus on the damage that the gender binary notion and John Money’s legacy continue to cause. The audience will be updated on the anti-scientific and barbaric policies of the pediatric profession and the psychiatric profession regarding intersex babies and transsexual people respectively.

The damage can be traced to a goofy assumption that the gender binary is natural and to a failure to distinguish between sex and gender. People who clearly refute the gender binary are treated as freaks and threats rather than as the evidence that the gender binary is incorrect. Even though these human beings who are not “Adams” or “Eves” are looking at and talking to us, the culture does not see or hear them because to do so would challenge societal structure. The culture clings to the stupid Adam and Eve notion that has been the source of so much grief for people who are naturally and innately sexually different: gay and lesbian people, transsexual people, and intersex people.

Education of the public about the established scientific facts concerning core sexuality is the best way to end this unnecessary and destructive suffering of innately sexually-different people! The MichFest audience is especially important because it is primarily a lesbian audience. I feel an obligation to educate my lesbian sisters about what I know as a physiologist regarding core sexuality generally and the “womyn-born-womyn” policy of the MichFest organizers particularly.

As I did last year, I will make sure the audience understands that all the science is against the idea of the organizers’ womyn-born-womyn policy regarding who is welcome to attend MichFest. The feeling that causes sexual identity is the result of how the brain is organized during fetal development and is not the result of genital anatomy or learning and experience! What is learned is how to navigate in the culture as the sexual being you were born as. How much trouble you run into depends on the culture.

I attended MichFest during its first year and many years thereafter when I was a much younger lesbian and when there was little hard science concerning core sexuality. I didn’t give any workshops back then because the science on sexuality was in its infancy. But now is different. This will be the 35th year for MichFest!!! A remarkable accomplishment! Also remarkable are the scientific findings on core sexuality that have accumulated over the years since the MichFest organizers conceived of their womyn-born-womyn policy. Lesbians need to be scientifically informed about innate sexuality and should be at the forefront of celebrating all the natural sexual variations of women-identified people.

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

2010-06-28T15:37:00.002-05:00

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!

SIGN the Condemnation of the anti-LGBTI "Manhattan Declaration"

2010-05-12T17:36:00.005-05:00

On November 20, 2009, the Manhattan Declaration -- drafted by Chuck Colson of Watergate infamy, and Robert George of the antigay National Organization for Marriage -- was released. The document was signed by Orthodox, Roman Catholic and evangelical Protestant leaders who have been outspoken in their opposition to gay rights, same-sex marriage and abortion rights for women. Seeking to replace the US Constitution with right-wing religious dogma, the declaration also tries to commandeer the legacy of Martin Luther King to serve bigotry, intolerance and discrimination.

We believe that the Manhattan Declaration is dangerous because it attempts to legitimize and enshrine bigotry and needs to be vigorously confronted and refuted. We have therefore written a counter declaration and ask you to do three things: read it, sign it, and solicit your friends to do likewise.

We make a special appeal to people of faith to speak out against hatred masked as righteousness and to come to the defense of women and Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bisexual and Intersex people. We ask you to affirm the separation of church and state and to help reclaim the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

" MANHATTAN DECLARATION "

CONDEMNATION AND WATCH

We the undersigned stand implacably opposed to the following: the hatred of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people; violations of the separation of church and state; discriminatory attacks upon abortion rights and upon the rights of transgender and intersex people to own and control their bodies; and attempts to hijack the legacy of Martin Luther King and other Civil Rights heroes to serve bigotry and discrimination.

OPPOSITION TO EQUAL RIGHTS IS BIGOTRY

Right-wing Christian church leaders are seeking to impose a narrow set of religious dogmas on the rest of our society.

The latest salvo in their mean-spirited crusade is the Manhattan Declaration, a call to destroy civil rights' protections for LGBT Americans and end abortion rights for women. They would impose a narrow "Judeo-Christian" bias on civil society, and they have the chutzpah to wrap themselves in the mantle of Martin Luther King, who opposed unjust laws through civil disobedience.

We the undersigned hereby adopt a counter declaration of principles, one that rejects all homophobic and transphobic intrusions into the lives of LGBT people and efforts by the state or anyone else to control our bodies. We invite our readers, if you are of like mind and no matter what your sexual affections, to sign our declaration as well.

Our nation has a diverse society that includes millions of LGBT inhabitants. We will NOT tolerate discrimination and hate masked as religious rhetoric; this is bigotry masquerading as righteousness. Just as we are not silent when bigotry and discrimination thunders from the political podium, so, unlike many LGBT "leaders," we do not shrink from condemning the same bigotry and discrimination when they hide behind stained glass windows, priestly robes, and the pulpit.

We reject the shopworn tactic of bigoted Christians employing Biblical passages to justify discrimination against LGBT people while at the same time decrying any angry opposition from its victims as an attack on their so-called "religious freedom." There is no Constitutionally-protected "freedom to discriminate" against gays any more than there is to discriminate against African Americans, women, or Jews.

Civil rights belong to everyone. Rest assured, we will meet all efforts wherever they are made to roll back LGBT civil and human rights with relentless force.

SEPARATE CHURCH AND STATE

We live in a secular society, one founded on equality and justice; all of us―gay and non-gay alike―possess the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Common sense dictates that, embedded in these rights, is the implicit right to live our lives and pursue our happiness as first-class citizens free from the onslaughts of discrimination, persecution, and bigotry.

This nation is not a theocracy. The famous "establishment clause" of the First Amendment to the Constitution built a wall to separate church from state. It is a barrier that desperately needs repairing in order to prevent religious tyranny by bands of Christian believers who seek to make their beliefs the law of the land and thereby impose on the rest of us beliefs we do not share.

It is true that this nation has an historical debt to a minority of religious believers―farsighted and brave Christians, unorthodox and often unpopular in their day―who helped play significant roles in abolishing slavery, obtaining the vote for women, fighting unjust wars, ending child labor, leading the Civil Rights movement―the list goes on. Many times those remarkable Christians met with objections from their own brothers and sisters within the Christian community who championed interpreting the Bible in ways that divided the human family and maintained a traditional, yet evil and oppressive, status quo.

It needs remembering that every system of oppression in the United States has had a religiously sanctioned pillar to uphold and defend it. Through the years, many a preacher or priest has provided that pillar by urging that, “according to the Bible,” black slaves should obey white slaveholders, husbands should have authority over their wives, and it is a sin for workers to strike. Today there are “social-conservative” Christian leaders who conveniently choose to ignore this history or even deny it.

Fortunately, our society has made progress. Slavery has ended. Women can vote. Workers can strike. But, even with the rebirth of a robust feminist movement in the 1960s and '70s, marriage is one area meeting stubborn resistance. Of course, when the Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws in 1967, it settled the matter that marriage, to quote its decision, is one of the “’basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival.” However, President Obama, who as a Constitutional scholar should stand for full civil rights, cynically uses the excuse of his "spiritual beliefs" to oppose equal marriage rights for a whole group of citizens. Let's be clear: Stopping LGBT people from marrying is pure bigotry. In addition, allowing a popular vote to decide a civil rights issue affecting millions of Americans mocks everything the Constitution signifies.

But none of this bothers many Christian leaders who, worried that they may lose the vote on same-sex marriage, frighten an ill-informed public by fabricating imaginary calamities, from pedophilia in the schools to the "destruction" of heterosexual marriage. What these Christians leaders deny is that today many loving partners, heterosexuals as well as gays, have created a variety of enriching spousal arrangements that would be banned if reactionary, so-called "marriage traditionalists" have their way. They also ignore that marriage has evolved into a more just and humane institution over time. Otherwise, we might still have that type of “traditional marriage” in which a wife’s person, income, inheritance, and children were the property of her husband. (In fact, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the secret wish of these advocates of "traditional marriage" is precisely a return to a time when women and children were no better than chattel).

DEFEND ABORTION, TRANSGENDER, AND INTERSEX RIGHTS

Along with advocating a repressive brand of “traditional marriage,” these same Christian leaders wish to dictate what a woman can do with her body. They are “pro-life” on behalf of the fetus though they are conspicuously and notoriously silent about the quality of life of the mother and about that of her children (one in five of whom lives in poverty in the United States ). They deny loving homes to children in need based upon the sexual orientation of the adoptive parents. The duplicity of their "pro-life" position is also underscored when it comes to their full and open support of U.S. wars and the death penalty for "capital crimes."

We believe a woman’s body is her own. She has a right to abortion on demand. The state has no business telling her what she should do with her body; the choice is, and should be, solely hers. We also believe that transgender persons have the right to modify their bodies in any way they see fit and deserve the same full civil rights as everybody else. Further, we support the right of sexual autonomy for all intersex children―those born neither unambiguously male nor female. We oppose all non-consensual and medically unnecessary “normalization” treatments that attempt to force infants to fit into stereotypical gender categories.

In addition to opposing a woman's right to abortion on demand and pathologizing the desires of transgender people and the bodies of intersex children, all in an effort to deny them their full rights, these bigots also oppose genuine sex education in our secondary schools and the passing out of condoms there. They push "abstinence only" as the single "morally correct" response to the often overwhelming sexual urges of adolescents. This is their irresponsible substitute for sex education, and the results―amply verified wherever "abstinence only" holds sway―are an increase in the unwanted pregnancies that lead to the very abortions these Christian leaders abhor.

KING STOOD FOR EQUALITY, NOT ANTIGAY BIGOTRY

Martin Luther King was one of the greatest Americans of the last century. He took courageous stands in defense of equal housing, equal employment opportunity, equal voting rights, and equal access to public accommodations. He opposed the Vietnam War when it was very unpopular to do so. He took great risks and paid for doing so with his life. The Christian leaders who claim to appropriate King's legacy of civil disobedience against laws that discriminate are not taking any risks that will get them killed or even jeopardize their careers.

But they are on the wrong side of history. Coretta Scott King, the best interpreter of her husband’s legacy, spoke eloquently in 1998 that "[I]njustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" and that it is a part of "Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people." Those Christian leaders who are abusing King's legacy in a disgraceful effort to adorn their hate and intolerance with legitimacy are not only besmirching a great American's reputation. They are also betraying the great tradition he did so much to further: Facing down power with courage and standing with the wronged and oppressed in society.

* * * * *

The obsession that the homophobic Christian leaders who signed the Manhattan Declaration have with homosexuals and homosexuality would be laughable if it were not so dangerous. Not content to spew their bigotry in the United States and promote anti-gay violence here, these clerics have exported their hate-filled anti-gay fanaticism to Africa and elsewhere.

While death squads operate with impunity against gays in Iraq , leaders in Uganda were inspired by prominent American Christian bigots who attended a conference there in 2009, to initiate legislation that will imprison LGBT people for life and make it a crime for Ugandan citizens, including parents and teachers, to fail to report suspected gays and lesbians to the authorities. In view of the firestorm of worldwide protest, many of these Christian leaders now wish to distance themselves from the Ugandan anti-gay leaders they influenced and deny responsibility for the latter's draconian plans for LGBT people. However, if history has taught us anything, it is that once you ride the tiger of hate and discrimination against a minority, the end of the journey is the demonization of that minority and state-sanctioned torture and murder of its members.

About homosexuals and homosexuality, these cynically sanctimonious Christian leaders are fond of saying that they “love the sinner but hate the sin.” But those are just slick words used by bigots to sugar-coat their public message. (The same type of chauvinist bigots used to say things like, “We love women, as long as they stay in the kitchen.”) Make no mistake, anti-gay prejudice is as poisonous, pervasive, and ugly as racism, sexism and anti-semitism. And make no mistake, these church leaders claim to speak for all "right-thinking" Christians.

We therefore call upon leaders and congregants within Christian and other communities of faith, as well as people of conscience and goodwill everywhere, to stand up and be heard in your churches, cathedrals, temples, mosques, and elsewhere. As the leaders and congregants of the churches in Nazi Germany learned to their everlasting shame, silence is complicity. It is time to speak up and take a stand.

But the question is: Will you stand with the bigots and the haters who currently may have the majority on their side? Or will you stand and link arms with us? You must decide whether to back the forces of ignorance, discrimination, and hate, or join us in word and deed to advance equality and justice for all.

What would King have you do?

PEOPLE OF FAITH AND OTHERS NEED TO FORCEFULLY SPEAK OUT FOR LGBT, INTERSEX, AND ABORTION RIGHTS!

AND YOU NEED TO DO IT NOW!

Go to http://stopmanhattanhate.org/signup.html to add your signature to this statement.

Thank you!

New Presentation: “Disordered or Just Different? Myth, Science, and Sexuality”

2010-03-16T00:17:00.005-05:00

I will be a speaker at the first annual conference of the Center for Inquiry/Chicago on Saturday, April 24th. The theme of this conference is: “Dangerous Nonsense - Exploring the Gulf between Science and its Impostors.” This theme is the perfect context for my talk entitled “Disordered or Just Different? Myth, Science, and Sexuality” that will focus on the scientific evidence on core sexuality obtained over the last fifty years and the medical profession’s treatment of intersex, homosexual, and transsexual peoples.

Here’s a conference description and schedule:

The Center For Inquiry/Chicago First Annual Spring Conference:
Dangerous Nonsense: Exploring the Gulf between

Science and its Impostors

Saturday, April 24th, 2010

8:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.

111 E. Wacker Drive, Chicago 60601

26th Floor - Conference Room

Bunkum grows like a weed in American culture - whether it's climate change denial, conspiracy theories, or healing by prayer. Some ideas are not only nonsense, they are dangerous nonsense, with serious implications for our lives. In this age where misinformation can be spread more easily than ever before, understanding the role of the scientific process in human affairs is critical to our survival. This conference will present top scientists in biology, physiology, and physics, each of them gifted at explaining both the science and its impostors of their respective fields. Join us and gain valuable insight into exploring the world through science and reason.

Conference Schedule

8:30 a.m. Check-in and Registration

Optional: Set up your evening dinner reservation with a nearby restaurant

9:15 a.m. Welcome - the Center For Inquiry/Chicago Board

9:25 a.m. Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York

“Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell the Difference Between Science and Bunk”

10:25 a.m. Coffee Break

Dr. Pigliucci will also be available to autograph his new book

10:45 a.m. Dr. Veronica Drantz, Professor of Physiology at DePaul University’s College of Nursing

“Disordered or Just Different? Myth, Science and Sexuality”

11:30 a.m. Dr. Michael Albrow, Nuclear Physicist at both the Tevatron (Fermilab) and the Large Hadron Collider (CERN)

“What's True and What's Untrue in Physics Today”

12:15 p.m. Announcements

12:20 p.m. Lunch on your own

(Your packet will include lunch options in the immediate vicinity)

1:40 p.m. Dr. Ron Pine, Explorer, retired biology professor, and debunker of Intelligent Design “Intelligent Design or ‘No Model’ Creationism: Why It Can't Qualify Even as Pseudo-Science”

2:25 p.m. The Mentalist “Mystopher” & Carolee

“Serving Fork-Fulls of Magic and Imagination”

3:00 p.m. Dr. Dario Maestripieri, Professor of Comparative Human Development, Neurobiology, Evolutionary Biology, and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago

“What Primatology and Evolutionary Psychology Tell Us About the Evolution of Human Behavior”

3:45 p.m. Coffee Break

Dr. Pigliucci will also be available to autograph his new book

4:05 p.m. Panel Discussion with all of our presenters

“The Future of Science and Science Education in the U.S.”

5:15 p.m. Adjourn

Post-Conference

5:30 p.m. Optional: Post-Conference discussion and drinks (cash bar) at the Hyatt Regency Hotel (directions included in your packet - it’s about a block away)

6:30 p.m. Optional: Dinner (your cost) in downtown Chicago - some of these will be “hosted” by CFI/Chicago Board members (your packet will include a selection of places and cuisines)

Late Optional: Music clubs (your cost) - some of these will be “hosted” by CFI/Chicago Board members (your packet will include a selection of places and musical styles)

Learn more about the speakers here.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER ONLINE

"Science and Sexuality" Presentation to LBTQ Women of Chicago

2010-02-27T11:38:00.004-06:00

I will present a highly condensed version of my "Science and Sexuality" presentation to an audience of LBTQ women at Center On Halsted, Chicago's LGBT center, on March 13th as part of its H.E.R. Day event. Since I only have an hour and fifteen minutes for this presentation and my talk usually takes about two and a half to three hours, this presentation will be very abbreviated and will include only the highlights of the research over the last fifty or so years on mammalian and human sexual development. This short talk entitled "Science of Gender" will be from 1:30 to 2:45 pm in room 201.

The details of the H.E.R. Day event and my presentation are given below. If you are a LBTQ woman in the Chicago area, here is your chance to learn many things that will improve your health and well-being. And it's all free!

CENTER ON HALSTED

presents

H.E.R. Day

Health, Education and Recreation Day for LBTQ Women

Saturday, March 13, 2010

9am - 4:15pm

In honor of Women’s History Month (March), Center on Halsted is proud to present a day-long program for all women, featuring speakers and a wide variety of workshops all about women’s health and well-being.

Seminar Schedule

Keynote Speakers: 10:15- 11: 15
Lynn C. Todman, Ph.D.,
Dr. Todman is the director of the Institute on Social Exclusion (ISE) at the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, IL. Dr. Todman’s areas of interest include urban poverty, social exclusion, and community development. Her work is multidisciplinary, drawing on the fields of economics, political science, sociology, public health, psychology and systems' dynamics, and focuses on the ways in which social, political, and economic structures systematically marginalize urban populations.

Helena Bushong, Advocate for Chicago Women’s AIDS Project

Session One: 11:30-12:45
Room 201: Holistic Healing 101 (specific focus TBA): Pacific College of Oriental Medicine
Room 202: Bisexual Health: A Dialogue; Dr. Wendy Bostwick
Room 204: Older Women’s Health: Dr. Madga Houlberg, Rush University Senior Care
Room 205: Artificial Insemination 101: Chicago Women’s Health Center
Common Threads Kitchen: Cooking Unboring Healthy Food: Jenny Urban and Jonathan Knight
***Pre-registration needed Email women@centeronhalsted.org to register.
Hoover-Leppen Theatre: BodyGuard: DeAnna Bellamy and Margaret Buehler

Session Two: 1:30- 2:45
Room 201: The Science of Gender: Dr. Ronnie Drantz
What exactly is a Female? Male? Intersexual? Is intersexuality natural? How many sexes are there? Sex versus Gender? Sexual identity - innate or learned? Sexual orientation? A scientific update on human sexuality from the perspective of a physiologist.
Room 202: Konversational Kung Fu: Ami Moore, certified ASR Relationship Coach
Tips to Disarm, Deflect and Defend Yourself Against Every Day Verbal Assaults: This seminar will give you tips and tricks to say the right thing, the right way at the right time to help you communicate more effectively with friends, lovers, partners, clients and supervisors. These techniques will allow you to respond consciously and constructively in the moment, instead of suffering from "brain farts" and thinking of the perfect retort days later.
Room 204: Transgender Health: Lois Bates, Howard Brown Health Center
Room 205: Holistic Healing 101 (specific focus TBA): Pacific School of Oriental Medicine
Common Threads Kitchen: Cooking Unboring Healthy Food: Jenny Urban and Jonathan Knight
***Pre-registration needed. Email women@centeronhalsted.org to register.

Session Three: 3:15-4:30
Room 201: A Conversation on Women of Color
Room 202: Room Heart Saver CPR (lasts until 5:30): AED and CPR Consulting
Heart Saver CPR is designed to teach CPR and relief of foreign-body airway obstruction (FBAO). This class covers Adult (8 Years +), Child (1-7), and Infant (under 1) emergencies.
*** Pre-registration needed. Link to register is: http://www.multi-hazard.org/registration.html
Room 205: Sexual Embodiment: Chris Connelly
How many of you felt the sex education you received really spoke to you? If we received it at all, the main focus tended to be on STIs and pregnancy. I wish to approach a subject with the understanding that we are sexual beings and our sexuality is a beautiful integral part of who we are. This presentation will focus on helping people understand how to access their pleasure and become more present in and with their bodies. We will talk about the basics of the brain and anatomy as they relate to pleasure. The power of the senses and breath to enhance your sexual experience, sexual safety and communication in a way that is fun, open and interactive. The idea of this class is for participants to leave sexually validated and with the tools to communicate their sexual desires and better access their pleasure and others'.
John Baran Senior Center: Yoga

This is a FREE EVENT! Complimentary breakfast and lunch!!!

Space is limited, and RSVP is strongly encouraged. RSVP to Christine Forster at

cforster@centeronhalsted.org or call 773.472.6469 X 441.

March 13, 2010 is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

Center on Halsted 3656 N Halsted, Chicago, IL 60613

773.472.6469

www.centeronhalsted.org

LGBT Informational Picket at Holy Name Cathedral on Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T20:47:00.036-06:00

Members of Chicago's Gay Liberation Network were joined by PFlag members from the northern Illinois region and other LGBT folk and allies at Holy Name Cathedral on the cold Sunday/Valentine's Day morning to picket Cardinal George's hateful anti-gay activities. Cardinal George is the most powerful enemy of LGBT people in the Chicago area.
Here's a video snippet featuring Brent Holman-Gomez and Andy Thayer of GLN as the first and third speakers respectively.

While juggling a huge gay flag with a sign I made nailed to the pole that read "BORN GAY I'm supposed to be this way," I managed to take some photos of the picketing with my Treo. Still more here.

Some of our chants were:

Homophobia is a sin
Homophobes go to hell
Stop funding the bigots
Stop the harm, stop the hate, separate church and state
Love your gay children

I noticed that young mothers with small children were the most agitated by our demonstration. When we shouted: "What if your child is gay?," they got visibly upset. Here's what I think. For the first time, these women were confronted in their minds with a divide between their religion's edict and their mothering instinct. The thought that bringing their kids to church could turn out to be a bad thing for the kids (if in fact the kids are gay), startled them. Well, as someone who was a gay Catholic girl, I know the damage that the Church did to me - and that is why I was there picketing at Holy Name Cathedral. That's the only way to get me to go to church!

Anti-Gay Catholic Hierarchy To Be Confronted by LGBT Activists on Both Sides of the Ocean

2010-02-12T19:21:00.009-06:00

The global enemy of LGBT people is being confronted by LGBT activists on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Peter Tatchell and other British LGBT activists will protest against Pope Benedict during his state visit to the United Kingdom. This will occur on the same day (February 14th), as I posted earlier, that Andy Thayer and other members of Chicago’s Gay Liberation Network will picket Cardinal George who has been a major accomplice to the evil doings of the Pope.

Here is what Peter Tatchell has to say about the Vatican:

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE VATICAN

This tiny State inhabited mainly by priests is extremely powerful and its "moral" crusades adversely affect the lives of millions of people in Europe and in the world.

Officially part of the UN, its "observer-state" status means it engages in UN debates on a variety of issues ranging from favourites, such as birth control, abortion and homosexuality, to the environment, war and global trade.

The Vatican has diplomatic relationships with almost all the Countries in the world (174 when John Paul II died) and in many EU countries they benefit from the support of Catholic politicians or in many cases of Christian political parties. Of the 27 countries of the European Union, 14 are bound to the Vatican by at least one treaty. No other religion has such a power in Europe and in the World, thus prompting the Economist to publish an investigation about the diplomatic service of the Vatican, questioning whether it deserves its special status in the UN (21/07/2007)

The Catholic Church is an extremely profitable business. They own businesses such as hotels, restaurants, shops and private schools and they DON’T pay any tax! On top of this, the Vatican receives public money in many countries: in Italy about 1000 million Euros from taxes is destined to the Vatican every year (930 millions € in 2006 ).

The Vatican wields considerable political and economic power. It uses its influence and privilege to impose an agenda on a variety of issues that affect our lives as European citizens, and limit our civil rights and our civil liberties.

THE POPE'S VIEWS ON WOMEN AND LGBT PEOPLE
The issue of women's rights and the Catholic Church goes way beyond the hierarchy of the church, where women are unable to ascend to priesthood as a result of their gender. Women who have had a divorce, women who want to have an abortion and women who are living as single parents in catholic countries are often victims of intimidation and discrimination. The Pope encourages us to view women as unequal to men, by consistently and publicly stating that the two genders are naturally different and that women are naturally inclined for domestic living. In some catholic countries, like Ireland and Poland, abortion is illegal. In others, like Italy, the right to an abortion is constantly under threat from the Vatican's pressure on the Government.

The Pope thinks being gay is an "objective disorder" and a "moral evil". In many countries in the world you can still get the death penalty for being gay. A proposal to de-criminalise homosexuality was opposed by the Vatican in the UN because it would mean that States where same-sex unions are not recognized would be discriminated against and unfairly subjected to international pressure.

WHY SHOULD IT MATTER TO PEOPLE IN THE UK
This is certainly a global issue, but it also directly affects people living in the UK. This country is regarded by many as fairly "secular" but in reality, Christianity remains strongly embedded in many British Institutions and continues to enjoy unfair religious privilege.
Although a limited right to abortion has been granted to women living in England, Scotland and Wales since 1967, in Northern Ireland it remains illegal. This anomaly is significantly due to religious influence. Christian lobbies are engaged in continual efforts to restrict a woman's right to abortion and have succeeded in reducing the time limit for an abortion in Great Britain from 28 to 24 weeks.

Religion retains undue influence and power in various ways. With increasing numbers of state funded faith schools (1 in 3 of all schools in the UK is either Catholic or Church of England), they continue to exercise a strong influence on young people.

With public opinion distracted over the proposal to refer to the Christian roots of Europe they made sure that the proposed EU Constitution – and now the approved Lisbon Treaty (article 16C) - dangerously commits the European Union to "an open, transparent and regular dialogue with Churches and religious organisations".

PROTESTING AGAINST THE STATE VISIT OF THE POPE IN THE UK

The reactionary head of the Catholic Church is to be accorded a state visit to Britain next September: Joseph Ratzinger will meet the Queen and speak in both Houses of Parliament. The whole visit will have the full panoply of a visiting head of state.

We should not forget that his 'teachings' have resulted in the banning of condoms in developing countries where HIV is decimating the populations. He encourages population growth in places where starvation is common. He persecutes homosexuals, treats women as second class citizens, has colluded in the large-scale cover up of child abuse. His Church interferes illegitimately in politics and undermines democracy. It siphons huge amounts of money out of poverty-stricken economies.

We should firmly reject honouring the head of a Church with a lavish state reception in the UK.

WE DEMAND A SECULAR EUROPE

The state should be neutral in matter of religion or belief.

The beliefs of any group may not be used to limit the rights of others.

We affirm the common values of the people of Europe as expressed in the Brussels Declaration.

We need to protect democracy and to champion human rights against those who wish to retain undemocratic influence and privilege.

This event is organized by the Central London Humanist Group in partnership with the British Humanist Association, the National Secular Society, One Law for All, the Gay And Lesbian Humanist Association, the Rationalist Association and Peter Tatchell's OutRage!

Go to http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=415005340443 to RSVP and join in the “welcoming committee” for the Pope!

Here is what Andy Thayer has to say about Cardinal George:

“In contrast to the church laity, who holds a variety of views on gays – pro-equality and anti-equality – the leadership of the Catholic Church has been unified in its opposition to equal rights.

This is not just about the equal right to marry. In Illinois, Cardinal George and his predecessors over the years have worked behind the scenes to vehemently oppose EVERY piece of equal rights legislation for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgender (LGBT) people that has ever been proposed, including opposing:
-- equal employment rights
-- equal access to housing
-- equal access to public accommodations
-- equal access to adoption.

And they haven’t been above playing hardball to get their way:

* The church leadership recently threatened to torpedo support for Congressman Luis Guiterrez’s immigration law bill if it included any consideration for LGBT people

* In Washington, DC, the church leadership threatened remove support for the homeless there if the District upheld its equal marriage rights bill.

On Freedom-to-Marry Day 2010 – aka, Valentine’s Day – we will drag the Church leadership’s bigotry out into the open for all the see with a picket of Cardinal George at Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral, 735 N State Street at 10:30 AM. For more information go to www.GayLiberation.net or email LGBTliberation@aol.com. Please join the Facebook Event for the action, http://www.facebook.com/event.php?invites&eid=281885059470, and invite others!”

I will be at Holy Name Cathedral with my fellow members of Gay Liberation Network picketing the evil Cardinal George on February 14th. Where will you be?

Picket Anti-Gay Cardinal George on Freedom-to-Marry-Day!

2010-02-06T13:10:00.004-06:00

Because bigots need to be called out, whether they wear clerical robes or not!

I cannot think of a greater enemy in the Chicago area to LGBT people than Cardinal George. While this blog has a scientific focus and never mentions the vast majority of my political activism, sometimes I regard a political happening as so important to LGBT people that it becomes a post here. Below is a statement from Chicago’s Gay Liberation Network explaining why Cardinal George needs to be confronted by LGBT people.

In opposition to the desires of millions of lay Catholics for simple justice for all, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church has long alligned itself with, and often led, the forces of hate and bigotry opposing equal rights for gays and women.

At 10:30 AM on Freedom-To-Marry-Day – Sunday, February 14, Valentine’s Day – the Gay Liberation Network will host an informational picket of Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral, 735 N. State Street, to highlight the role the Church’s leadership has played in promoting inequality.

For many years the Catholic leadership has attempted to fly under the radar screen with its opposition to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. A key secret to their success has been their stealthiness, ironically often assisted by gay rights “leaders.” These leaders, not trusting rank-and-file Catholics to be fair and too worried about hurting their fundraising base with well-connected and wealthy Catholics, are too cowardly to call out Catholic leaders for promoting hate and discrimination.

As a local example, Chicago's Catholic leader Cardinal Francis George has worked tirelessly -- albeit from behind the scenes -- to block our path to full legal equality. George attempted to kill LGBT inclusion as a protected class in the Illinois Human Rights Act, which now protects us from housing and employment discrimination. He and other Catholic bishops circulated petitions in a failed effort to force an advisory referendum on "gay marriage," and George is the head of the national Conference of Catholic Bishops which spent big bucks backing Prop 8 hate in California. Back in Illinois, George is working hard today to block same sex-marriage and/or civil unions.

On Sunday, February 14th, with our picket of Holy Name Cathedral, we will make a start in dragging Francis George's bigotry out of the closet.

But Cardinal George is no lone voice in the wilderness. He is joined by almost the entire hierarchy of the Catholic Church whose record of activism against gay equality is long and sordid:

Speaking of the current pope, the Associated Press reported that “Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, spearheaded a Vatican campaign against same-sex unions in 2003, issuing guidelines for Catholic politicians to oppose laws granting legal rights to gay couples when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.” Associated Press, 6/6/05
The Portland, Maine Archdiocese gathered more than a quarter of the funds recently used to defeat marriage equality in Maine. In addition, Marc Mutty, the chair of the principal statewide organization in Maine that fueled anti-gay discrimination there, was the Portland Archdiocese’s head spokesperson until taking a leave of absence from his job to spearhead the successful effort to rob gays and lesbians of their equal marriage rights.
The Catholic fraternal organization Knights of Columbus bankrolled California’s anti-gay Proposition 8 to the tune of over $1 million.
As California’s East Bay Express noted about newly-minted Oakland Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, “What almost no one knows is that without Bishop Sal, gay men and lesbians would almost surely still be able to get married today. As an auxiliary bishop in San Diego, Cordileone played an indispensable role in conceiving, funding, organizing, and ultimately winning the campaign to pass Proposition 8. It was Bishop Sal and a small group of Catholic leaders who decided that they had to amend the state constitution. It was Bishop Sal who found the first major donor and flushed the fledgling campaign with cash. It was Bishop Sal who personally brought in the organization that took the lead on the petition drive. And it was Bishop Sal who coordinated the Catholic effort with evangelical churches around the state. Bishop Sal even helped craft the campaign's rhetorical strategy, sitting in on focus groups to hone the message of Proposition 8."

While Catholic leaders decry any attempts to label them as haters and bigots, their own scapegoating statements tell a very different story about their true feelings:

Former pope Karol Wotija, aka John Paul II, condemned gay foster parents for doing "violence" to children. He called us "disordered," and "against the natural law." He railed against civil marriage equality for all same-sex couples whether Catholic or not, condemning our civil marriage contract as an act "against God," and proclaimed defeating marriage equality his "primary task" for 2005.
In a 2005 pastoral letter read in every church in the diocese of Calgary, Alberta, Bishop Frederick Henry called on his flock to stamp out same-sex marriage. “Since homosexuality, adultery, prostitution and pornography undermine the foundations of the family, the basis of society, then the State must use its coercive power to proscribe or curtail them in the interests of the common good." (365Gay.com)
In an end-of year address in 2008, the current pope, George Ratzinger (aka Benedict XVI), said that the existence of gay people threatens humanity as much as the destruction of rainforests and that "blurring" genders through acceptance of transgender people would kill off the human race.
Beginning in 1986, Ratzinger wrote a series of church documents that branded sexually active gays as "evil," told church officials to kick Dignity chapters off church property and even warned Catholic lawmakers that voting in favor of gay-rights legislation is "gravely immoral" because "the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil." (Deb Price, Detroit News)
Ratzinger has disparaged lesbian and gay couples as engaging in “pseudo-matrimonies by people of the same sex.”
Bishop Cordileone has called same-sex marriage a Satanic plot: "The ultimate attack of the Evil One is the attack on marriage.”
In 2007 Chicago’s Cardinal George wrote that same-sex behavior "brings people's salvation into jeopardy" in a column for the Archdiocese of Chicago newspaper.

When haters garb themselves in clerical robes, their statements and activities must be exposed.

The Gay Liberation Network encourages all people of good will, regardless of faith background, to join us at 10:30 AM, Sunday, February 14 for an informational picket of Holy Name Cathedral, 735 N. State Street, Chicago.

As a member of Chicago’s Gay Liberation Network, I will be in this important picketing event. If you live in the Chicago area, please RSVP and join this protest.

"Science and Sexuality" Presentation at the LGBT Center of SE Wisconsin

2009-11-03T08:49:00.002-06:00

I am honored to be the final speaker of the year in the LGBT Distinguished Speaker Series at the The LGBT Center of SE Wisconsin where I will present an updated version of my presentation on "Science and Sexuality."

Event: "Science and Sexuality" Presentation

Date: Sunday, November 15th

Time: 2-5 pm

Location: The LGBT Center of SE Wisconsin

1456 Junction Avenue

Racine, WI 53403
ph: 262.664.4100
fax: 262.664.4104
info@lgbtsewisc.org

The LGBT Center of SE Wisconsin is relatively new and I am glad to be a part of their activities. Please visit the Center and attend my presentation if you are in the area.

Picketing Obama & National Equality March for GLBT Civil Rights in All Fifty States - My Photos

2009-10-13T17:06:00.000-05:00

Gay Liberation Network's message to Democrats: Don't count on GLBT support anymore!

2009-10-13T13:12:00.005-05:00

This video shows members of Chicago's Gay Liberation Network and Dallas's Queer LiberAction who traveled to Washington DC and joined forces to picket President Obama at the Human Rights Campaign fundraiser on the eve of the GLBT National Equality March. We picketed because President Obama needs to start delivering on his promises to us. Democrats and Obama should not smugly assume that they will get the ongoing support of GLBT people. And we will not stop our activism until GLBT people have equal civil rights in all fifty states!

Chicago’s Gay Liberation Network will picket Obama at Human Rights Campaign Fundraiser

2009-10-06T23:57:00.004-05:00

The location of this Saturday night’s picketing of President Obama has changed. On September 18th, I posted the reasons why GLN planned to picket Obama at the White House.

But this morning, as a member of GLN, I received the following message from Andy Thayer, GLN's co-founder.

Subject: CHANGE OF LOCATION for Sat. Night Picket of Pres Obama

In reaction to the announcement yesterday that President Obama will address a black tie fundraising gala of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) on Saturday, October 10th, organizers of a pro-LGBT picket originally scheduled for that night at the White House have instead moved the picket to the site of the HRC gala. The picket will begin at 6 PM in of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, on the northeast corner of Mt Vernon Place NW and 9th Street NW, Washington, DC. Please spread the word widely.

And later today, another email from Andy:

Hi folks,

I thought people would like to know that we will be joined on our picket line at the HRC fundraiser by the people who organized the picket of the DNC fundraiser (and VP Biden) a few months back. They are working hard to russle up more support locally. Since we moved the location of our picket last night, I've gotten inundated with email and Facebook messages from people saying that they'll be there. I think we've really struck a chord. Lots of people and websites are reposting our message.

So this Saturday night I'll be joining other GLN members and a lot of other LGBT activists who will be picketing President Obama at the Human Rights Campaign dinner. GLBT Americans demand equal rights across the United States!

Call for a Pro-LGBT Picket of the White House

2009-09-18T00:58:00.007-05:00

I reported in my September 9th post that I will be going to Washington DC with other members of Chicago's Gay Liberation Network (GLN) to participate in the October 11th National Equality March.

But we will also picket the White House during the prior evening!

Why does GLN want to picket the White House?

Here is our statement:

6 PM, Saturday, Oct. 10th
Lafayette Square (on H Street just north of the White House)

Many of us watched in disgust this past January as the homophobic Reverend Rick Warren was given an honored place at the inaugural festivities. It was as if a leader of the White Citizens Council had been invited to the White House.

After indignant complaints to the incoming administration about this homophobic slap in the face, what was our consolation prize? Openly gay Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson was invited to speak at a lesser inaugural event, as if "balancing" a bigot with a non-bigot was good enough. Then, for good measure – at the behest of the White House – Robinson wasn't televised (see http://www.gayliberation.net/opinion/2009/0122chicagod.html).

This homophobic behavior by the Obama White House has been repeated several times before and since:

** During the South Carolina primary, when his campaign featured rabidly anti-gay Gospel performer Donnie McClurkin at a major rally;

** With the quiet dropping of most pro-gay promises from the Obama website earlier this year – until a firestorm of protest forced them to return much of it;

** With the failure to rescind President Clinton's ban on HIV+ people traveling to the United States, and his ban on granting green cards and citizenship to HIV+ immigrants;

** With the unnecessary administration brief in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), with language worthy of the most vicious anti-gay bigot, making a mockery of his promise to repeal DOMA;

** With the statements by Obama that his "Christian beliefs" make him oppose equal marriage rights, as if the former Constitutional law scholar from the University of Chicago doesn't know anything about separation of church and state. Obama's homophobic statements were of course gleefully quoted to great effect by pro-Prop 8 forces in California;

** With the failure to blunt "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (DADT) by issuing a stop-loss order. Instead, he authorized surrogates to endlessly delay the junking of DADT, thereby breaking his promise to repeal it;

** While an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act has been reintroduced into Congress, President Obama has expended virtually no political capital in getting it or any other pro-gay measure passed.

The organizers of the Sunday, October 11th March on Washington have placed almost their entire focus on Congress (which will be out of town) and almost none on the President. Indeed, rather than making demands of the President, the official march website goes out of its way to praise "Obama's Mobile Messaging Team (for) Donating Services To The National Equality March"!

By targeting congressional districts and lobbying Congress in an effort to win legal equality, the organizers' strategy looks suspiciously like a drive to elect and re-elect Democrats in the 2010 bi-elections, rather than make uncompromising demands on this President and his Congress.

Their current focus on cajoling Congress and the President to do the right thing ignores a very basic fact – this approach has never won civil rights gains. While LGBT activists fawned over the last Democratic President, Bill Clinton repaid our love by giving us much of the crap bullet-pointed above. Like today, many of those anti-gay measures came while the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress plus the Presidency.

By contrast, uncompromising street protests led by ACT-UP and others gave us the Ryan White AIDS Care and the Americans With Disabilities Acts – despite a very reactionary political climate during the first Bush administration. An era of such protests – the 1960s – caused the radical change in consciousness among LGBT people which thereby gave birth to our modern LGBT movement.

The last thing we need today is to parrot "yes we can" chants, like we are cheerleading this president and his party. Instead, we must take as our maxim the quote from the great anti-slavery organizer Frederick Douglass: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. Never has, never will."

Therefore on October 10th we will be picketing the White House to demand that the most powerful politician in the world implement the many reforms that the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans community needs. Please join us.

6 PM -- Saturday, October 10th

Lafayette Square (on H Street on the north side of the White House)

We also will be marching in the Sunday, October 11th march. We invite you to join us – just look for the big yellow banner that reads "President Obama – Keep Your #$^! Promises! Repeal DOMA, DADT"

For more information or to endorse this statement, please email the Gay Liberation Network in Chicago (LGBTliberation@aol.com) or Queer Liberaction in Dallas (LGBTliberaction@gmail.com).

British Prime Minister Issues Posthumous Apology To Alan Turing

2009-09-11T22:31:00.007-05:00

Alan Turing pioneered computer science, broke the Nazi Enigma code and changed the course of world history. But he was also gay. He was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated to “cure” his homosexuality, and took his own life at only 41.

As stated in my August 17th post, there is a campaign in the United Kingdom to recognize Alan Turing as a genius and a hero and to apologize for the horrific discrimination he endured as a British citizen because he was gay. This petition has been signed by many thousands of British citizens. Now as the list of petitioners continues to grow, the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has issued a posthumous apology to Alan Turing. Below is the text of this apology.

2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison - was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices – that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.

Gordon Brown

See The Alan Turing Home Page for a wealth of information about this great genius and Geoffrey Wansell's article for a good synopsis of this unsung World War II hero's life story .

The GLBT March On Washington for Equality Across America

2009-09-09T20:54:00.008-05:00

I'm so excited because I will be taking part in the historic GLBT Equal Rights March on Washington this October. I will be taking a van to Washington with other members of Chicago's Gay Liberation Network. In fact, GLN will be teaming up with another group to picket the White House on the Saturday evening before the big march. That's right! It would be awful to be in Washington DC and not picket the White House, wouldn't it?

Ending Professional Bigotry Against Transsexual People

2009-08-30T08:48:00.000-05:00

In this video I present the scientific evidence showing that transsexuality is a natural variation and that transsexual people are simply different, not disordered. Consequently, the American Psychiatric Association should remove "gender identity disorder" from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. My thanks to Chicago's Gay Liberation Network . This video of the cable television broadcast is in FOUR PARTS.
PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

References specifically referred to in this video are (in order of mention):

Zhou, J.N., Hofman, M.A., Gooren, L.J. and Swaab, D.F.. A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Transsexuality. NATURE, 378: 68-70 (1995)
Kruijver, Frank P. M., Zhou, J., Pool, Chris W., Hofman, Michel A., Gooren, Louis J. G and Swaab, Dick F. Male-To-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers In A Limbic Nucleus. J CLIN ENDOCRINOL METAB, 85: 2034-2041 (2000)
Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia and Swaab, Dick F. A Sex Difference In The Hypothalamic Uncinate Nucleus: Relationship To Gender Identity. BRAIN, (Nov 2, 2008)

Alan Turing - Gay Genius Who Changed the Course of History Was Hounded to His Death

2009-08-17T13:01:00.001-05:00

Alan Turing, “father of computer science,” mathematician, philosopher, visionary and hero who helped win World War II by breaking the Nazi code, has been a major and positive force in shaping our modern life and the future; yet few people know of his enormous and rightful place in history. Why? Because Alan Turing was a homosexual (androphilic) man and he died young by suicide. Now there is a campaign in the United Kingdom to recognize Alan Turing as a genius and a hero and to apologize for the horrific discrimination he endured as a British citizen because he was gay and that no doubt contributed to his suicide.

But Alan Turing deserves to be celebrated around the planet, not just in the United Kingdom. Alan Turing’s accomplishments as a scientist, great thinker, and military hero have benefited all of humanity; thus he is a global hero and should be known and celebrated around the world. Over the years that I have been in American academia, I have observed to my dismay that many computer science students don’t know anything about Alan Turing. This is like a physics student not knowing about Isaac Newton! American students should be taught about Alan Turing in their computer science, math, philosophy and history classes. And they should be taught how Alan Turing died and how all humanity has lost so much due to prejudice.

We will never know what other incredible achievements Alan Turing would have given the world had he been celebrated rather than persecuted for being gay. The same innate brain difference that made Alan Turing a gay man may well have been a factor leading to his genius. We suffer when we punish diversity. The world destroyed a genius and a hero. The whole world lost. Homophobia is a cultural disorder!

Intersex People – Disordered or Different? The DSD Debate

2009-07-30T00:29:00.000-05:00

Curtis Hinkle – founder of OII

Should intersex people be regarded as having a disorder that needs to be fixed or should they be viewed as natural variations and simply different? Robert Davidson has traced the framing processes executed in a debate over the reshaping of a code among three groups of the intersex social movement in order to understand how the groups engage with the medical discourse on intersex. His paper entitled “DSD Debates: Social Movement Organizations’ Framing Disputes Surrounding the Term ‘Disorders of Sex Development’” is an ongoing PhD research project that summarizes the history surrounding the medical community’s treatment of intersex people. It also includes discussion of the influence of John Money and his nemesis Milton Diamond.

Davidson does a good job of explaining the history of the term Disorders of Sex Development (DSD) and analyzing the different perspectives of the three intersex organizations on the issue of terminology: disorder versus difference/variation. Here is an excerpt from the introduction of his paper:

“In the last 15 years discussions around ‘intersex’ have increasingly moved beyond the medical/biological realm and taken growing prominence in gender studies, within social movements, and in the socio-cultural realm. This shift was highly promoted by social movement organizations (SMOs) that have arisen to address various issues related to intersex and was also encouraged by some academics in the social sciences and the humanities. Social movement research is only beginning to address intersex advocacy in social movement terms (Turner, 1999; Preves, 2005; Greenberg, 2006). Research regarding social movements in the last two decades has paid increasing attention, however, to discourse (Steinberg, 1998) and how social movements engage with cultural institutions and use frames (Snow & Benford, 2000) to reshape cultural codes (Melucci, 1985, 1996). This article traces the framing processes executed in a debate over the reshaping of a code among three groups of the intersex social movement in order to understand how the groups engage with the medical discourse on intersex. A medical discourse on intersex is traced based on a Foucauldian perspective. A textual framing analysis of the websites of three intersex SMOs is then presented to examine the internal frame disputes between them over the proposed terminology ‘Disorders of Sex Development,’ or ‘DSD’. The SMOs included are the Intersex Society of North America/Accord Alliance (ISNA/Accord)1, Organization Intersex International (OII), and Androgen Insensitivity Support Group UK (AISSGUK).”

While it is a minor point in the paper, I wish to inform the reader that Davidson mischaracterizes Milton Diamond when describing Diamond’s role in discovering the John/Joan hoax, when he says: “This discovery led to the critical reevaluation of the Money Protocol but has had other problematic side effects, as Diamond and Sigmundson have used this case to re-institute a binary view of sexuality (emphasis mine) based on prenatal influences of androgens on the brain.” Untrue! Diamond would be among the very last to advocate a binary view. Milton Diamond has an evolutionary perspective (like any good biologist) and has repeatedly demonstrated how he values diversity. Diamond is widely quoted for saying: "Nature loves diversity, society hates it."

Dr. Milton Diamond

This controversy over whether intersexuality per se is a disorder was addressed in 2006 in the journal, the Archives of Diseases of Childhood. Here is the letter that Dr. Milton Diamond sent to the editor. In this letter, Dr. Diamond chides the medical profession for its arrogance: “What medicine observes are variations in human sex development, it does not know the biological purpose of such variations, and there remains great controversy about how, whether or when to intervene. Terms such as error or disorders reveal an unwelcome arrogance in light of medicine's limited vantage. Medicine can do better. One way is to, instead, use the term Variation in Sex Development (VSD), a term that is without judgment and neither prohibits or ordains medical intervention”

And here is what Dr. Diamond had to say about this issue in a footnote of his recent historical review of the science on sexual development: “It has been recommended that intersex conditions be referred to as Disorders of Sex Development (DSD) (Hughes et al., 2006. Consensus statement on management of intersex disorders. Archives of Disease in Childhood. 91, 554-563.). This I refuse to do. I consider using the adjective disorder to be demeaning and pejorative to the individuals so identified. And so too does it seem insulting to members of the Organisation Intersex International, the largest intersex organization in the world (http://oii-usa.blogspot.com/2006/08/three-intersex-activists-defend.html). I use the abbreviation but with the meaning of Differences of Sex Development Diamond and Beh, 2008. Changes In Management Of Children With Differences Of Sex Development (Nature Clinical Practice: Endocrinology & Metabolism. 4, 4-5).”

So Milton Diamond refuses to refer to intersex people as disordered and likes to turn the acronym DSD into "Differences of Sexual Development". He also favors “Variations in Sex Development” that is advocated by Organization Intersex International and its founder Curtis Hinkle.

I agree with Milton Diamond and Curtis Hinkle that intersex persons are natural variations and are not disordered. In my presentation of “Science and Sexuality”, I discuss the different perspectives of biologist versus medical doctor. A dominant theme of my presentation is “Difference does not equal disorder.” Biologists see differences or variations. Medical people are predisposed to see disorders or anomalies or aberrations or faults or pathologies that they can “rectify” (for a fee of course). Medical professionals want to “fix” people even when the people are simply different.

The cultural taboo nature of sexual matters has allowed untold thousands of sexually-different people to be grossly mistreated by the medical profession and to suffer in secrecy and shame. Three sexual groups have been medicalized and pathologized by the medical professions: gay/lesbian people, transsexual people, and intersex people. (Note that intersex people have sexual identity and sexual orientation issues also.)

Gay and lesbian people were mentally-disordered in the United States until the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) was revised in 1973 and remained mentally ill elsewhere in the world according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) until 1992. Some quacks (e.g., Exodus International) still purport to do “reparative therapy” on gay people. Now reputable psychologists and psychiatrists do not treat gay or lesbian people for their sexual orientation but do treat other problems caused by the culture’s treatment of homosexual people. The culture is disordered, not gay or lesbian people!

As for transsexuals, who are currently regarded as mentally disordered in the DSM and ICD, any medical concern (e.g., gender dysphoria) can be treated without considering transsexuality per se as a disorder. (This is my position in my letter to the American Psychiatric Association regarding the revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual).

The same logic applies to intersex people. Treat any problems the patient presents and wants treated but do not consider the intersex condition itself as a disorder – consider it as a natural variation, one of the many differences to be expected in any normal population. The stigma of the label “disorder” should be replaced with “difference” or “variation”.

People do not need surgery just because their genitalia are ambiguous. Many intersex people have an “intersex identity” and their anatomy feels appropriate to them. I know of intersex persons who would gladly identify as “intersex” if the culture permitted. (Of course, intersex persons should be able to decide what surgery, if any, they require. Only they can know that - because only they can know their sexual identity, their unique sensibility which is something else again and is an issue some intersex people share with transsexual persons.)

Intersexuality is natural. Intersex people should come out of the closet. There should be no secrecy or shame. Intersex is beautiful! Intersex people do not need to change; the culture needs to change. Society needs to be enlightened, and the culture should change to acknowledge and accommodate intersex people.

Milton Diamond Reviews A Half Century Of Science On Sexual Development

2009-07-29T20:56:00.000-05:00

Clinical Implications Of The Organizational And Activational Effects Of Hormones

Milton Diamond, who I regard as the most important figure in modern sexology, has reviewed the scientific history of the nature-nurture debate about sexual behavior. This is a wonderful summary of the science, the theories, and the medical controversies regarding intersexuality and transsexuality written by a leader in the field. Below is the abstract of Dr. Diamond’s article, “Clinical implications of the organizational and activational effects of hormones” which was published in the journal Hormones and Behavior in March 2009.

"Debate on the relative contributions of nature and nurture to an individual's gender patterns, sexual orientation and gender identity are reviewed as they appeared to this observer starting from the middle of the last century. Particular attention is given to the organization-activation theory in comparison to what might be called a theory of psychosexual neutrality at birth or rearing consistency theory. The organization-activation theory posits that the nervous system of a developing fetus responds to prenatal androgens so that, at a postnatal time, it will determine how sexual behavior is manifest. How organization-activation was or was not considered among different groups and under which circumstances it is considered is basically understood from the research and comments of different investigators and clinicians. The preponderance of evidence seems to indicate that the theory of organization-activation for the development of sexual behavior is certain for non-human mammals and almost certain for humans. This article also follows up on previous clinical critiques and recommendations and makes some new suggestions."

This is the paper to read if you are looking for a quick way to be brought up to date on the evidence for the “organization-activation theory” of sexual development and an understanding of the controversies on “core sexuality”. Here is the complete article entitled Clinical Implications Of The Organizational And Activational Effects Of Hormones.

"Gender Puzzle" - What is a female? a male?

2009-07-26T02:17:00.000-05:00

Here is the summary of the documentary "Gender Puzzle".

"Are we on the cusp of discovering what determines gender? The old mantra - all girls have XX chromosomes and all boys have XY - is no longer reliable. Scientists are now looking beyond chromosomes to "brain sex" and the role of newly discovered genes. By studying transsexuals and people on the gender extremes, they believe they can unlock the gender puzzle. This high-quality documentary looks at the new and challenging science of gender.

Tall, thin and strikingly beautiful, model Christie North always felt female. But when she was 15, she discovered she’d been born with male chromosomes. “There was no mention at school that there can be mix ups with your chromosomes”, she complains. “Many people have the same problem – more than you think.” As well as girls with XY chromosomes, one in 500 born with a double XX as well as a Y. Most only find out about their condition when they try to father children and discover they’re infertile. Until the 1990s, gender was largely about chromosomes. But this principle was challenged when a new gene was discovered which is needed to start the process of ‘maleness’. “I think we’re starting to understand how the brain is hard-wired differently between males and females”, explains Prof. Vince Harley. Scientists are now looking at a further 54 genes which are turned on differently in males and females. They may help to explain why people identify as one gender or the other, regardless of chromosomes. There is a small but growing body of evidence that transsexuals’ brains are hard-wired in the uterus to be either male or female. A Dutch study found that male-to-female transsexuals have the same brain features as other women instead of being identical to men’s. “There is a public perception that transsexualism is a lifestyle choice”, states Prof Vince Harley. “To reaffirm a biological basis is quite empowering for them.” These discoveries are starting to redefine the gender debate. In the 60s and 70s, it was believed the nature of a child’s upbring had such a strong influence that an intersex condition could be corrected through the right upbringing. The child was allocated a sex, underwent genital surgery and was then raised in its assigned sex. But many of these children had a traumatic childhood, unable to reconcile their identity with their bodies. For them, the ‘brain sex’ theory makes perfect sense. The theory of brain sex is also challenging the law. ‘Kevin’, a transsexual, was threatened with imprisonment if he married his female partner. He successfully contested this by providing the court with evidence suggesting a biological basis to his transsexualism. In his verdict, Justice Richard Chisolm concluded: “In view of all the evidence, the things that characterise transsexuals are as much biological as mental.” Far more controversial than adults changing gender, is the issue of teenagers who want to. “All the medical evidence indicates that the earlier children with transsexualism receive treatment, the better their lives are”, reasons lawyer and transsexual Rachel Wallbank. But others disagree. “You’re wondering all the time whether the young person actually has enough life experience to make that judgement”, states Craig Andrews. He runs a support group helping transsexuals and is concerned about the increasing number of young people who want treatment. As science discovers more about what determines gender, making these decisions may become a little easier. But for now, we are only just starting to understand just how complex the biology is."

And here is the complete transcript of this video.

See my PowerPoint slides for more information on intersexuality and transsexuality.

"Science and Sexuality" Presentation at Michigan Womyn's Music Festival

2009-07-24T23:46:00.000-05:00

My presentation entitled "Science and Sexuality" will be given as a workshop at the National Womyn's Music Festival (aka MichFest) which runs from August 4th through the 9th in the woods near Walhalla, Michigan.
The evidence presented in my PowerPoint slides will be thoroughly discussed and additional information not in the slides will be woven into the talk. As always, questions and discussion will follow the presentation.

Here are the details:
Event: Workshop entitled "Science and Sexuality"
Day: Thursday, August 6th
Time: 3-5pm
Location: MichFest near Walhalla, Michigan
Site: Media Tent

MichFest is the first and the biggest of all women's music festivals and is attended by thousands of women from all over the United States who will coalesce in a tent city that pops up overnight in the woods of northern Michigan for the thirty-fourth year this August. As a largely lesbian event, this is a great venue for reaching a large number of women who already know the pains of being sexually different in a binary gender culture. If the MichFest audience receives the scientific information about intersex and transsexual persons as sympathetically as the audience at the National Women's Music Festival in Wisconsin did just a few weeks ago, then I will be very pleased.

Five Genders of Indonesia

2009-07-10T23:06:00.000-05:00

Sex is biological. Gender is defined by culture. There are five genders in Indonesia. These Indonesian transsexuals seem comfortable with their somatic selves. Is this because the culture "welcomes" them and they are not forced to fit themselves into one of only two categories?

Sexual Development Determined “In Utero” By Two Independent Programs of Sex-Chromosomes and Androgen Influence

2009-07-07T22:38:00.000-05:00

Below is the abstract of a hot new paper that elaborates on the "two layers" of sexual/gender programming that make you the "sexual somebody" you are at the time of birth. I will post more on this paper soon.

Disorders of sex development expose transcriptional autonomy of genetic sex and androgen-programmed hormonal sex in human blood leukocytes
Paul-Martin Holterhus , Jan-Hendrik Bebermeier , Ralf Werner , Janos Demeter , Annette Richter-Unruh , Gunnar Cario , Mahesh Appari , Reiner Siebert , Felix Riepe , James D Brooks and Olaf Hiort
BMC Genomics 2009, 10:292doi:10.1186/1471-2164-10-292
Published: 1 July 2009

Abstract (provisional)

Background
Gender appears to be determined by independent programs controlled by the sex-chromosomes and by androgen-dependent programming during embryonic development. To enable experimental dissection of these components in the human, we performed genome-wide profiling of the transcriptomes of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) in patients with rare defined "disorders of sex development" (DSD, e.g., 46,XY-females due to defective androgen biosynthesis) compared to normal 46,XY-males and 46,XX-females.

Results
A discrete set of transcripts was directly correlated with XY or XX genotypes in all individuals independent of male or female phenotype of the external genitalia. However, a significantly larger gene set in the PBMC only reflected the degree of external genital masculinization independent of the sex chromosomes and independent of concurrent post-natal sex steroid hormone levels. Consequently, the architecture of the transcriptional PBMC-"sexes" was either male, female or even "intersex" with a discordant alignment of the DSD individuals` genetic and hormonal sex signatures.

Conclusions
A significant fraction of gene expression differences between males and females in the human appears to have its roots in early embryogenesis and is not only caused by sex chromosomes but also by long-term sex-specific hormonal programming due to presence or absence of androgen during the time of external genital masculinization. Genetic sex and the androgen milieu during embryonic development might therefore independently modulate functional traits, phenotype and diseases associated with male or female gender as well as with DSD conditions.

The complete article is available as a provisional PDF. The fully formatted PDF and HTML versions are in production.

"Science and Sexuality" Presentation at National Women's Music Festival

2009-06-28T22:21:00.000-05:00

My presentation “Science and Sexuality” will be given as a workshop at the 2009 National Women’s Music Festival. The Festival runs from July 2 through July 5th.

Event: "Science and Sexuality" presentation
Date: Saturday, July 4th
Time: 8:30 to 10:45 am
Location: Marriott Madison West Hotel in Middleton, WI
Room: Green Bay Room
The evidence presented in my PowerPoint slides will be thoroughly discussed and additional information not in the slides will be woven into the talk. There should be plenty of time afterward for questions and discussion. Please attend if you’re in the area.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KsLEQ2EuR4 for a video from last year’s NWMF.

Chaz Bono Was Never a Lesbian!

2009-06-27T21:12:00.001-05:00

According to my interpretation of the scientific evidence (see PowerPoint slides), Chaz is a transman since he has a male (androcentric) identity). But since he is still gynephilic (attracted to women), Chaz is actually heterosexual. One must have a female identity to be a lesbian. Now that Chaz has come to grips with his “felt sexual identity,” the lesbian designation is automatically negated. The only change that’s happening is that Chaz’s gynemorphic body is now being altered to be more andromorphic.

Same-Sex Behavior Found in Nearly All Animals

2009-06-20T11:21:00.000-05:00

Seek and ye shall find! While many examples of homosexuality among animals have been documented in recent years, now biologists see homosexuality as widespread in the animal kingdom! Until recently, even some biologists were duped by the goofy Adam & Eve story so that they didn't see the homosexual behavior even when they were looking at it, and some were afraid to report the gay sex for fear of reprisals in such a homophobic culture. Now the cultural change that increasingly embraces diversity (started by the women's movement and furthered by gay and transgender activists) has affected science in a good way - opening the eyes of researchers and giving them the freedom to report what they find.

(It's ironic that while as a lesbian I have looked to science to help liberate me, I had never considered that advocacy for gay rights would liberate the scientists!)

Transsexuals versus the World Health Organization and the ICD

2009-06-19T18:07:00.000-05:00

Revision Suggestions for Gender Related Diagnoses in the DSM and ICD
Here is the transcript of the talk as it was given at the 2009 World Professional Association for Transgender Health conference in Oslo, Norway on June 19th, 2009 by Randall D. Ehrbar, Psy.D., Kelley Winters, Ph.D. and R. Nicholas Gorton, M.D.

Transsexuals are considered disordered not only according to the DSM of the American Psychiatric Association but also according to the ICD, the international standard diagnostic classification of the World Health Organization and to most psychiatrists around the world who use the ICD for all general epidemiological and many health management and clinical purposes.

It's incredible that psychiatrists still cling to a policy that is refuted by science and is abhorrent to all people who celebrate human diversity. The intelligence and courage of transsexual people who, in spite of being so abused throughout the world and throughout their lives, fight for their dignity and rights is testimony to the healthiness of transsexuality itself.

Transsexuals versus the American Psychiatric Association

2009-06-12T19:03:00.000-05:00

A Lesson for American Psychiatrists!

Hear Kelley Winters Ph. D. speak at the American Psychiatric Association DSM Protest. Her identity is not disordered! And here is what Madeline Deutsch MD told the APA. Her identity isn't disordered either!

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and provides diagnostic criteria for mental disorders. It is consulted not only in the United States but around the world in varying degrees by clinicians, researchers, psychiatric drug regulation agencies, health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and policy makers.

It is gratifying to see that Dr. Ecker is among those trying to get psychiatrists to "face the facts" about sexual identity.
Read about the presentation by Dr. Sidney W. Ecker, MD, FACS to the American Psychiatric Association on May 18, 2009 in A. E. Brain's blog.
Dr. Ecker's "Brain Gender Identity" list of scientific references
Dr. Ecker's PowerPoint slides on "Brain Gender Identity"

Read the letter I wrote to the American Psychiatric Association regarding the designation of transsexuality and gender variance as disorders!

Down with "Zucker, the _ucker"!
Professor Lynn Conway has filed a formal complaint against Dr. Ken Zucker. Sure, Zucker tries to scare and shut up his critics. Even he must know that his theories are goofy and the science on sexuality is against him. Dr. Zucker does harm! Here is the background explaining why the world would be a better place without him.

1 How Many Sexes Are There?

2009-06-05T12:43:00.001-05:00

Part 1 of "Science & Sexuality." How many sexes are there? You don't believe that biblical story, do you? So, did Eve come from Adam?

1 How Many Sexes Are There

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2 The Sexual Brain

2009-06-05T12:41:00.001-05:00

Part 2 of "Science & Sexuality." The most important sex organ is between your ears! The hypothalamus is an ancient brain area governing instinctive drives and behaviors. People are animals and sex is more ancient than people!

2 The Sexual Brain

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3 Sex Hormones

2009-06-05T12:40:00.001-05:00

Part 3 of "Science & Sexuality." Sex hormones, how they're made and how they work.

3 Sex Hormones

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4 Female, Male, Chromosomal Intersex Conditions

2009-06-05T12:37:00.001-05:00

Part 4 of "Science & Sexuality." What exactly is a female? male? intersex? What can we learn about sexuality and sexual identity from sex chromosomal variants? Who is Milton Diamond? John Money? John/Joan?

4 Female Male Chromosomal Intersex

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5 Androgen Insensitivity

2009-06-05T12:22:00.001-05:00

Part 5 of "Science & Sexuality." What can we learn about sexual development and sexual identity from XY individuals with testes who have hormone receptor molecules that don't work at all or only partly?

5 Androgen Insensitivity

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6 Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia

2009-06-05T12:10:00.001-05:00

Part 6 of "Science & Sexuality." What can we learn about sexuality from XX females who have atypically high testosterone influence during fetal development? What can they teach us about the development of sexual identity and sexual orientation?

6 Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia

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7 Cloacal Exstrophy, DES treatment

2009-06-05T12:09:00.001-05:00

Part 7 of "Science & Sexuality." What can we learn about sexual identity from genetic males who were altered surgically at birth to look female, treated with "female hormones," and socialized as "girls"? What can we learn from individuals who were exposed to synthetic estrogens "in utero"?

7 Cloacal Exstrophy Des

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8 Biology Of Sexual Identity

2009-06-05T11:59:00.001-05:00

Part 8 of "Science and Sexuality." Is sexual identity a biological reality? How does it develop? What determines a person's sexual identity?

8 Biology Of Sexual Identity

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9 Biology Of Sexual Orientation

2009-06-05T11:57:00.001-05:00

Part 9 of "Science & Sexuality." What determines sexual orientation? Is it learned or inborn? How does culture affect the expression and treatment of sexually different people?

9 Biology Of Sexual Orientation

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10 My Sexuality Model And the Drantz Hypothesis

2009-06-05T11:53:00.001-05:00

Part 10 of "Science & Sexuality." My interpretation of findings on human sexuality to date and my hypothesis regarding what we will find when we examine the first lesbian brains and androphilic FtM brains

10 My Sexuality Model And Hypotheses

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My letter to American Psychiatric Association regarding the 5th edition of DSM

2009-06-02T15:24:00.000-05:00

June 2, 2009

Veronica Drantz, PhD
Professor – School of Anesthesia
NorthShore University HealthSystem
Evanston, Illinois

Alan F. Schatzberg
President
American Psychiatric Association
1000 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1825
Arlington, VA 22209

Dear Dr. Schatzberg:

The upcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual offers The American Psychiatric Association an opportunity to reclaim its compassion for human dignity and its mandate to do no harm. As a physiologist who has been following the research pertaining to the issue of sexual/gender identity, I am registering my dismay at the continued categorizing of transsexual and other gender variant people in the DSM as mentally disordered.

The scientific evidence that core sexual identity is biological and innate comes from multiple sources and is overwhelming. Moreover, transsexual persons have atypical brain structure and function that correspond to their felt identity. There is no scientific support for considering transsexuality “per se” as a psychiatric disorder. While transsexuality may not be common, transsexual people are natural and merely different. It is my ethical responsibility as a biologist to point out that diversity is the rule in nature and to insist that the psychiatric profession understand that differences are not necessarily disorders. Natural variations in sexuality are many and include the transsexuality that should be expected and celebrated in any population. The psychiatric profession needs to minimize the damage to its credibility in the eyes of the scientific community by doing its part to change the culture that persecutes transsexual people. The APA should learn from its past mistreatment of homosexual people and take the lead in educating the public about the natural variations in human sexuality rather than continuing its horrific complicity in societal discrimination against transsexual and other gender variant people.

1. I insist that the elected leadership and Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association issue a position statement making clear that gender identity and expression which differ from assigned birth sex do not, in themselves, constitute mental disorder and imply no impairment in judgment or competence.

2. I urge the APA to issue a statement clarifying the medical necessity of hormonal and surgical transition treatments for those who suffer painful distress with their physical sex characteristics that are incongruent with their persistent gender identity. While it is a shame that the APA is not leading this cause, it can at least follow the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association in this regard.

3. I advise the American Psychiatric Association to follow the example of the American Psychological Association in encouraging legal and social recognition of all people that is consistent with their gender identity and expression. The APA should affirm in a position statement the dignity and legitimacy of individuals who have transitioned their social gender roles, regardless of their physical anatomy or assigned birth sex. Surely, psychiatrists can help the public understand the important distinctions between the biological terms such as male or female and cultural terms such as man or woman.

4. In addition to the above three requests, I ask that the APA scrutinize the reasons for giving Dr. Kenneth Zucker and Dr. Raymond Blanchard such inordinate influence in the DSM revision process. The bizarre and mean-spirited theories of Zucker and Blanchard are refuted by the scientific evidence and do real harm to people who simply don’t conform. Their arrogance and unscientific attitude should not be tolerated in a profession that claims to be based on science and compassion.

It is my hope that the APA will revise the DSM in a fashion that is consistent with the evidence from all the sciences. It is time for the APA to officially take a stand that celebrates the natural sexual diversity of our species and promotes human dignity and freedom.

Sincerely,

Veronica Drantz, PhD

Sexual Identity is Biological & Innate!

2009-04-29T11:59:00.000-05:00

Questions: Is Sexual identity a biological phenomenon or a cultural/psychological construct? Is sexual identity innate or is it learned? Now we know! The science is in! SEXUAL IDENTITY IS A REAL BIOLOGICAL PHENOMENON AND IS INNATE!
When I first wondered about this issue, little scientific evidence was available on sexual identity per se. In 1965, Milton Diamond published his legendary challenge to John Money's goofy
"psychosexual neutrality-at-birth" theory. Much science has been done since then, some of it by Diamond who, having the evolutionary perspective of a biologist is a proponent of the "sexuality-at-birth" theory.
The scientific evidence is compelling, coming from many different avenues and all of it pointing in the same direction. While the molecular mechanisms are not yet entirely clear, there is a clear answer to the question: "Is sexual identity innate or learned?" The simplest explanation for all of the evidence is in keeping with Diamond's theory: Sexual identity is biological and innate!

After a long hiatus (due to all sorts of personal distractions), I will soon be posting about issues that spring from the important realization that sexual identity is biological and innate. Some of these issues are:

The significance of the fact that sexual identity is a biological phenomenon and innate - why haven't biologists picked up on this important biological fact? Everyone has a sexual identity!
Why we should be grateful to transsexual people for teaching us about our human nature
Why medical science needs biologists. Biologists recognize the value of differences and celebrate diversity but medical doctors pathologize/medicalize differences and attempt to "fix" them. Transsexuality is uncommon but not necessarily a problem for anyone.
Why transsexuality is a biological variation and transphobia is a cultural disease!
The treatment of trans people: Should we change the body or the culture?
Why it was inevitable that a biologist (Milton Diamond) would be right and a psychologist (John Money) would be wrong when theorizing about sexuality (even though psychologists pretend to understand behavior)
Why parents, educators, and medical professionals need to know that sexual identity is innate
Why, as a biologist, I can say: It is possible to be a man and a female at the same time. Similarly, it is possible to be both a woman and a male.
Exactly what is sexual identity? On the brain systems level, cellular level, molecular level?
What is the neurological relationship between sexual identity and sexual orientation (also innate)?
What about intersex people?
The political and social justice issues regarding sexual identity
Gender binary?...The only thing binary about gender is gamete production (egg or sperm)!

Please feel free to post any questions you would like me to address.

Intermediate States of Sexuality: Intersexuality, Blended Sexual Identity, & Bisexuality

2009-01-21T21:53:00.000-06:00

Bad Hair Days, who viewed my slideshow (see sidebar), posted this question on January 3rd on AE Brain's blog:

“What hit me with your slides was the ignorance on any in-between state according to sexual orientation and sexual identity (bisexuals, Kinsey scale, transgender, intergender).”

Hi Bad Hair,

Sorry about the long delay answering this excellent question. LIFE got in the way.

As explained in my presentation and as illustrated in my graph in Part 10 of the slideshow "Science & Sexuality," the data indicates that human sexuality is comprised of at least three dimensions or parameters: (1) body/genitalia, (2) sexual identity, and (3) sexual orientation. Each of these dimensions is a continuum from default state (typical female) to fully altered state (typical male). Intermediate states of alteration then are to be expected for each of these dimensions, resulting in: (1) intersex morphologies on the body dimension, (2) blended sexual identity on the sexual identity dimension, and (3) bisexuality on the sexual orientation dimension. Everyone is someplace on each of these three dimensions, and according to this theory, one’s sexuality could be plotted as a point in the three-dimensional space on the graph in Part 10. Persons who have undergone intermediate alteration in all three dimensions would have a sexuality represented by a point at the origin of all three coordinates putting them at the center of the graph. They would be people who have ambiguous genitalia (roughly a 3 on the Prader scale: http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/HowTheBodyWorks/The-Prader-Scale.aspx?articleID=7715&categoryID=XS-nh4-03) , who feel both female and male, and who are attracted to both females and males (bisexual intersexuals with blended identity).

Just how much alteration an individual undergoes during fetal development is determined by a combination of genes and steroid hormone influence during the critical period of development for each of these three parameters. The critical periods for the three dimensions are different so the degree of alteration is usually different for each parameter, resulting in an individual occupying a different point on each continuum. Thus, since I am a CisLesbian, my genetics and fetal hormonal influence was such that I underwent largely default organization on the “body scale” and “identity scales” but much alteration on the “sexual orientation scale” producing my innate sexuality profile: female-bodied (“gynemorphic”), female identity (“gynecentric”), and attracted to females (“gynephilic”). I differ, then from typical females, who are attracted to males (“androphilic”) because typical females are near default state in every way.

The neurological studies looked only at brains of people who the researchers have reason to believe are at one or the other extreme of the sexual identity continuum or the sexual orientation continuum (for the sexual identity or sexual orientation research respectively). It is critical that the experimental subjects (the gay men, the transsexuals) are correctly identified as such so that a difference in the brain from controls (straight men, cissexuals) is more likely to be seen (if in fact brain differences account for these behavioral differences). The researchers knew the medical and life histories of their subjects (see original papers cited in my presentation) and I’m sure they purposely avoided subjects that would “muddy” the results in order to improve their chances of seeing a difference between experimental and control subjects. I would expect people with murky identities and bisexual orientation would have brain regions with intermediate organization (e.g., brain volume, neuron cell number) between default and fully altered states.

The prenatal hormonal theory causing “sexuality at birth” as championed by scientists such as Milton Diamond explains the infinite variety of sexualities manifested by human populations everywhere. Biologists recognize that normal populations are comprised of individuals – individuals are unique by definition. Everyone’s sexuality is unique and occupies its own spot in the three-dimensional sexuality space. I hope that this explanation answers your question.

"Sexual Diversity Award"

2008-12-31T18:14:00.000-06:00

Dear Zoe,

Congratulations on being chosen as a finalist for the 2008 Weblog award in the category “Best Australia or New Zealand blog. Now I am especially honored to have been cited in your blog. I am not surprised at your being chosen as a finalist for a blog award, since even as a total novice to blogging, I could immediately see what a classy blog you have created. But I am not surprised that you created such a good blog either, since you are such an amazing person.

It occurred to me, after reading about your finalist designation, that there should be another award that you should definitely win: a “Sexual Diversity Award” for being the most amazing sexually-different person! You have managed (much to my delight) to transgress the “Adam & Eve sexual rules” and qualify for all the sexually-marginalized categories simultaneously and even create some new categories along the way.
Since you have female identity and now look more female than not and still have a female love interest, you would be perceived by many as behaving like a lesbian.
Since your genital anatomy is slightly atypical, you qualify as an intersex individual. Another plus is that you are an unusual type of intersexual person.
Born more male-bodied than not but with a female identity qualifies you as transsexual in many people’s view.
And you have undergone transformation of secondary sex characteristics that became commensurate with your sexual identity, this transformation being driven by endogenous hormonal fluctuations (a kind of “natural quasitransitioning”) that is without parallel in the lives of most people.

Hence, you a homosexual intersexual “endogenously quasi-transitioned” transsexual! What is not to love about you, Zoe? You are a living proof that the “gender binary” paradigm is unnatural and you are an impressive representative as a sexual variation. You deserve an award for your honest self-presentation in your courageous blog that allows us to see your intelligence and heart and humanity. You are a credit to our species.
Thank you Zoe,

46XY/45XO Turner's Mosaic True Hermaphrodite

2008-12-31T01:38:00.000-06:00

This well-spoken person is a 46XY/45XO Turner’s Mosaic True Hermaphrodite, a rare type of “Intersex” person. In spite of an unusual sexual life history, this particular person has a definite female sexual identity! Listen to her story! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vNzBW0ZNzA

Sex is not just about gonads and genitalia; sexual identity develops in the fetal brain and may take a different route than the genitalia. Also, difference does not equal disorder. As a biologist, I agree that “intersex” conditions are sexual variations and not disorders. Shame on the medical doctors! But hey, variations don’t bring in $$$, do they?

Heterosexuals need defense from "Gender Theories"

2008-12-27T16:11:00.000-06:00

Pontiff equates gender theories with threat to rainforests!!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/23/pope-gender-sexuality?commentid=109df3f9-2adf-443b-a94a-b0837e08b74a

This message from the Holy Roman Poop, ... er ...I mean Pope, is so stupid! As if the Catholic Church has never cared about the well-being of the planet! As a biologist, I know that the primary problem of our planet is human overpopulation. It is irresponsible reproduction by heterosexual people that has caused destruction of the rainforests and all the rest of the global ecological calamities. No other institution has fostered irresponsible reproduction as much as the Catholic Church by condemning birth control and resisting the freeing of females from male-controlled reproductive policies. Of course the truth or facts have nothing to do with religion. Religion is all about mind control and the 24/7 behavioral control of the believers to serve the agenda of the hierarchy. And the Catholic Church hierarchy is comprised of male-bodied, male-identified, misogynists with purported heterosexual orientation.

The following paragraph about the holy roman poop's xmas message concerning "queers" is from the 12/27/08 blog of the remarkable Zoe Brain: http://aebrain.blogspot.com/ (emphasis mine).
"The pope was not talking about "transgender" or even "gender theory". He was talking about the concept that gender is distinct from physical sex. He denied this concept as merely an artifact of Man's Pride (for want of a better term), the same urge that led to the Tower of Babel.Theologically speaking - and how else could the Pope speak, he professes that there are men, and women. Nothing else. Men are attracted to women, and women to men. That is the natural order of things. There is no "gender", only sex. He states that all other things that appear to contradict a strict Male/Female binary, such as Homosexuality, or "women born in a man's body", "post-operative transsexuals" or any body not obviously male or obviously female, are all against the natural order of Creation, and dangerous. All such are artefacts of Human origin, perfect Divine creations spoilt by Man. Intersexed people may be explained away as the result of Man's tampering with the environment, with chemical and possibly spiritual pollution."

So the concepts of "sexual identity" and "sexual orientation" as neurological/biological phenomena independent of the genitalia are threatening to the Church. Yippee!!! And you know what happens when a religion makes a statement about the natural world - science eventually investigates and disproves that idea. Now we all know that the earth moves around the sun; Copernicus and Galileo were right and the bible was wrong. And the biblical Adam & Eve binary sexual system is as unnatural as the sun moving around the earth. The very existence of gay people, transsexual people, and the many types of intersex people refutes the "gender binary" and this obviously threatens the Poop.

In the last twenty years or so, a lot of groundbreaking research on homosexual, transsexual, and intersexual people has been done and a compelling scientific picture of sexuality has emerged!!! There are at least three separate dimensions to sexuality: one for the body, one for sexual identity in the brain, and one for sexual orientation also in the brain. Everyone occupies a point somewhere on each of these three continuums.

Should Doctors Still Consider Transsexual People to Be Suffering a 'Disorder'?

2008-12-20T00:08:00.000-06:00

The fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders will soon be published, and with it come a slew of updates for medical professionals on what, exactly, "disorders" are. Whether somebody's mental state is considered a disorder isn't a silly little matter of clarifications; it can have consequences on insurance coverage, power of will questions, and stigmatization. The debate rages on for whether things like shopping addictions and binge eating should be included as official disorders, but for our kind, whether transgender people should be included — for "suffering" from a genderidentity "disorder" — is a heated exchange.

Reports the NYT <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/health/18psych.html> :

The debate over gender identity, characterized in the manual as"strong and persistent cross-gender identification, " is already burning hot among transgender people. Soon after the psychiatric association named the group of researchers working on sexual and gender identity, advocates circulated online petitions objecting to two members whose work they considered demeaning.

Transgender people are themselves divided about their place in the manual. Some transgender men and women want nothing to do with psychiatry and demand that the diagnosis be dropped. Others prefer that it remain, in some form, because a doctor's written diagnosis is needed to obtain insurance coverage for treatment or surgery.

"The language needs to be reformed, at a minimum," said MaraKeisling, executive director of the National Center for TransgenderEquity. "Right now, the manual implies that you cannot be a happy transgender person, that you have to be a social wreck.

"Dr. Jack Drescher, a New York psychoanalyst and member of the sexual disorders work group, said that, in some ways, the gender identity debate echoed efforts to remove homosexuality from the manual in the 1970s.

After protests by gay activists provoked a scientific review, the"homosexuality" diagnosis was dropped in 1973. It was replaced by"sexual orientation disturbance" and then "ego-dystonic homosexuality"before being dropped in 1987.

"You had, in my opinion, what was a social issue, not a medical one; and, in some sense, psychiatry evolved through interaction with the wider culture," Dr. Drescher said.

Dec 18, 2008 · posted by David Hauslaib
Tagged: Health, Medicine, TransgenderCopyright 2009 Jossip Initiatives
http://www.queerty.com/should-doctors-still-consider-transgenders-to-be-suffering-a-disorder-20081218/

7yr. old Jazz's thoughts on being a Transsexual Child

2008-12-19T00:49:00.000-06:00

"Why won't the world let everyone be who they are?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S5usRgY720

Zucker, Blanchard, Bailey: A travesty of science & medicine!

2008-12-18T08:52:00.000-06:00

Zucker, Blanchard, and Bailey's misguided and unscientific attitude toward transsexuals and homosexuals reflects their ignorance of biology!

http://transactive.blogspot.com/2008/05/dsm-v-kenneth-zucker.html

http://waitingfordorothy.blogspot.com/2008/05/anti-trans-moron-appointed-as-head-of.html

Transsexual Children - Out of the Shadows

2008-12-18T08:29:00.000-06:00

All parents, teachers, health care providers and anyone else who deals with children should know the "Bill of Rights for Transgender Children."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2EV3w2QxII

Proposition 8

2008-12-14T23:56:00.000-06:00

The insanity of prejudice!

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c0cf508ff8/prop-8-the-musical-starring-jack-black-john-c-reilly-and-many-more-from-fod-team-jack-black-craig-robinson-john-c-reilly-and-rashida-jones

Beyond Gay & Straight - Muxes of Mexico

2008-12-14T23:31:00.000-06:00

"Muxe" is a zapotec word pronounced Moo-shay
See a slide show about the muxes of Mexico and read comments from their parents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/weekinreview/07lacey.html?_r=1

Special Presentation at Center For Inquiry

2008-10-29T00:49:00.000-05:00

I gave a presentation entitled "Science & Sexuality" on November 9th at 10:30 am for the Center for Inquiry. I reviewed key research data on sexuality from a physiologist's perspective. Details can be found at these links:
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/chicago/events/science_and_sexuality_dr_veronica_drantz_guest_presenter/
and
http://www.meetup.com/cfichicago/calendar/9085859/?from=list&offset=0

In this presentation, I answered the following questions:

What can science tell us about sexuality?
How many sexes are there?
What exactly is a female? A male?
Is intersexuality normal?
What is known about the biology of sexual identity?
What is known about the biology of sexual orientation?

Click the following link for PowerPoint presentations that cover the above questions:
http://science.meetup.com/77/files/

Confusion about Sexual Orientation versus Sexual Identity!

2008-08-25T20:19:00.000-05:00

The Gendercator has sparked debate across the country for its take on gender identity, including the premise that some butch lesbians might be pressured to become transmen in a right-wing future with room for only two genders.

WHAT CAN SCIENCE TELL US`ABOUT THIS CONTROVERSY?
And why do we assume that the lesbian would be "butch" in order to be a viable candidate for transmaleness? Does this attitude reflect the biblical binary system of sexuality? Whoa! Lesbians making assumptions based on the goofy Adam & Eve story? Lesbians should know better!

Sexual identity and sexual orientation are very different aspects of sexuality, and the scientific evidence supports the idea that both are innate. Click on my proposed "SexualityModel" at http://science.meetup.com/77/files/. I welcome questions and feedback.

Gendercator Screening & Panel Discussion

2008-08-25T01:07:00.000-05:00

On 11/21/2007, Chicago filmmaker Catherine Crouch attended the local premiere of her controversial short film, The Gendercator, a futuristic look at forced gender roles. The 15-minute film, shown at Center on Halsted as part of the Reeling annual LGBT film fest, was followed by more than an hour of debate and discussion with a panel of experts on gender issues, as well as comments by Crouch about her intentions behind the project. Panelists included Jackie Anderson, Catherine Crouch, Ronnie Drantz, Judith Halberstam, Kate Kane and Casey Schwartz. Pictured is Ronnie Drantz (left) with Judith Halberstam during the Gendercator Panel Discussion. Photo by Tracy Baim.

Ronnie Drantz refuted the simplistic biblical binary sexual system with a scientific update including the biology of sexual identity and sexual orientation.

see http://www.wctimes.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=16694