Vir,I am awed by your knowledge of this subject,I am learning more each time I read what you say.Originally Posted by Vir Novum
Vir,I am awed by your knowledge of this subject,I am learning more each time I read what you say.
Yes. The brain has a tendency to place things in categories in order to save space. The less capable the brain, the fewer the categories. With fewer categories, sweeping generalizations are often made.
Some people with poorly functioning brains have only two morality categories: Good and Evil. There are no categories labeled "Ok under the right circumstances" or "not ideal, but acceptable". Since these brains have very limited processing power, they typically rely on other people, usually family, to separate things into categories for them. Because intelligence (or lack thereof) is passed on through genes, often it can be many generations before the lineage produces anyone capable of thinking for themselves.
Way too much generalization in your statement Vir. Clearly there has not been enough research to support a percentage type statement. If there has, I'd like to see it.
As for hormones, what is it that they influence? Some neurological receptor? Characteristics of which are based on what, genes?
See everything about us is based on genes. Some are receptors responding to hormones.
So, it's actually a 50/50 type deal. Our bodies don't respond to the hormones absent the genes the hormones are meant to influence.
DonnaT
Yeah, you're mostly right, but see, our genes are something like 99.9% the same from person to person. Heck they're 98.5% the same as a chimp's. Most of our underlying physiology is really identical.Way too much generalization in your statement Vir. Clearly there has not been enough research to support a percentage type statement. If there has, I'd like to see it.
As for hormones, what is it that they influence? Some neurological receptor? Characteristics of which are based on what, genes?
See everything about us is based on genes. Some are receptors responding to hormones.
So, it's actually a 50/50 type deal. Our bodies don't respond to the hormones absent the genes the hormones are meant to influence.
In the example I gave using percentages, that was just a hypothetical example, not an actual one. My point was that the presence of certain genes does increase the likelihood of homosexuality, but the majority of people with these genes are not gay.
When I referred to hormones, I was talking about maternal hormones. These would be produced by the mother of a fetus, and would influence its development. So yes, I AGREE with you that say, a gene that results in a larger number of androgen receptors unresponsive to androstendione on neurons in the hypothalamus could lead to a predisposition to homosexuality, but the prenatal environmental conditions would have to be right for that to actually happen.
Last edited by Valerie Nova; 10-23-2006 at 06:00 PM.
Vir,
I think you might like to read this article:
From Early Transition.That Stephanie is one amazing mother!To all parents struggling with a child with gender-variant behaviors….
My name is Stephanie, I am the mom of 8 and a half year-old twins Riley (born Richard, m2f) and Ali (born Alison, just f). We knew early on that 'Richie' wasn't like most boys; he played more like a girl and he always wanted to be dressed like a girl. By the age of 3, he insisted he was a girl. We spent the next few years trying to teach him why he was a boy and how boys were ‘supposed to’ act. But all along, somewhere deep down inside, I knew that you didn't have to teach this, it was 'just known'.
Robin
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Diagonally parked in a parallel universe
Interesting. I wonder what they'll do when their kid gets near puberty? Androgen supressors and estrogen maybe? Sexual reassignment surgery at that age seems like a bad idea.
wait until medical sience developes brain transplants
Vir,actually it would be better if all humans were born genderless,neither male nor female,when humans reach legal age they would go to a government run,gender lab,and chose their gender from a computer catalog,then humans could be whatever gender they wanted to be.
Ok so why not look at the areas that science is just begining to admit exist.
Maybe fetal hormone wash, genetics, evironment, culture, brain development all play a part in our male/female/gender balance. There are probably other factors that have a much stronger influence though.
Got to keep in mind that the brain is hardware. Its the software that determines the brains activities, and science is just starting to admit that the software is not in the brain but in the energy field associated with the body. Remove or damage that energy field and the body suffers or stops functioning just as effectively as if the body itself is damaged.
[SIZE=2]The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can change its form.
Our energy fields have been around a lot longer than we have. They have probably been attached to other bodies of different genders over the years. I suspect that the information carried in our energy fields have a whole lot more to do with our gender leanings and male/female balance than all the other factors combined.
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Well, that would probably not be necessary, since most people are the same gender in their mind and in their body. What if they had some combination of genetic engineering and nanotechnology so that changing your body was a simple outpatient procedure? SRS serves its purposes and all, but it results in sterility and is less than ideal in other areas as well.
Not only that, but I'm somewhat of a libertarian and don't like the idea of a government run facility assigning our procreation roles. :mad:
Oh really? What science are you referring to?Ok so why not look at the areas that science is just begining to admit exist.
Maybe fetal hormone wash, genetics, evironment, culture, brain development all play a part in our male/female/gender balance. There are probably other factors that have a much stronger influence though.
Got to keep in mind that the brain is hardware. Its the software that determines the brains activities, and science is just starting to admit that the software is not in the brain but in the energy field associated with the body. Remove or damage that energy field and the body suffers or stops functioning just as effectively as if the body itself is damaged.
And the second law of thermodynamics states that any conversion between forms of energy results in an energy loss and an increase in entropy.The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can change its form.
Sorry, but that's psudeoscience. You're trying to use a scientific theory to add credence to a metaphysical theory. But the scientific theory was based on experiment and observation, whereas the metaphysical theory was not. I'll admit there is probably a lot more to the universe than we can perceive, but I don't see any reason to believe that mental gender is in that category.Our energy fields have been around a lot longer than we have. They have probably been attached to other bodies of different genders over the years. I suspect that the information carried in our energy fields have a whole lot more to do with our gender leanings and male/female balance than all the other factors combined.
Vir for 23 years old you sure have a lot of knowledge,maybe you should take over Dr.Steven Hawkings job and settle this Hawking paradox about black holes once and for all.
Vir,
I did not realize you were just 23 years old. I am HUGELY impressed.
Shannon
So much has been said in this thread that I would have said so I'll just add that I subscribe to the hormone wash theory as well - it feels right, knowing where I come from and what I'm like.
Also - my mother is also a very stressed out person and went through great stress with a young pregnancy and a rocky marriage. Both my brother and I are "softer" men - he's in theatre *nudge nudge* - and I'm, well, here.
Heh, thanks for your vote of confidence. Still, Hawking's work has to do with string theory, which has no scientific evidence whatsoever. It's like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin all over again.
How'd you know I was 23 anyway? I guess I must have put in my birthday when I signed up. Still, most of this is pertinent to my degree in biomedical engineering, we had to take a lot of biology type courses. That, and I did a paper on the effect of maternal hormones on sexuality. I'm glad to see other people are interested in learning about this stuff too.Vir,
I did not realize you were just 23 years old. I am HUGELY impressed.
Was your interest in biology at all driven by personal identity disorder?
Thank you vir you have brought some interesting topic's here. but if all this is true then why can't they stick a needle in our arm and take a quart of blood and test it come back and tell us what was found instead of listening to us and then telling us what we are..i don't think that there will be a sure way to find out.. and even if there were a cure would you take it ?? that might be a good post !!!
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MJ,I believe it's more than that,I believe it's in our DNA.and from what I have read scientists only know about 3% of human DNA,unless they have learned more I don't know about.
Steph - My interest in biology mostly just comes from the fact that I think it's really interesting to know how I work. Plus, my mom is really interested in this stuff too so maybe it's partly genetic.
MJ - that only works when there is something in your blood or DNA that's causing whatever's wrong. According to this theory, any of the hormones that effected the development of your brain would be long gone by the time you're born.
Snookums - The human genome has been sequenced as of a few years ago. (I think it was 2002) Still, you're right that they don't know how most of the genes work. Add to that the fact that many if not most genes code for multiple proteins, and everything becomes extremely confusing.
To anyone interested - this is a really neat video showing some of the mechanisms going on on the inside of a cell. Anyone with even a passing interest in biology should check it out:
http://www.aimediaserver.com/studiod...rd/harvard.swf
More to the point, there's also some good theories about the advantages of homosexuals (and grandparents) when you look at it from the standpoint of kinship groups. In other words, while gays and lesbians may not reproduce themselves, they can provide an advantage in raising offspring the increases the possibility their relatives will survive and reproduce. Which keeps the genes going. Similar to having greater longevity for grandparents, who can no longer have children of their own, but whose help can make the kinship group fetile as a whole.
Likewise, a mistake that's made is to assume that it's either/or, when in reality the number of people who are to some degree bisexual is far larger than those at the end. It's society that forces sexuality (and gender) from being a spectrum into a binary. So that means "homosexuals" are likely to reproduce, particularly in societies where one was expected to get married and have a family.
"Situational homosexuality" is well-documented. Not just the obvious examples -- prison, sailors, etc. -- but also things such as among British women after World War I (where something like a quarter of men their comparable age had been killed), or among the Greeks, where it was used create political mentor/mentee relationships.
As far trans-ness and biology, the scientific concensus I've seen is likely but not proved. There are definitely some suggestive studies, but they're far from conclusive. Joan Roughgarden's "Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People" has a good look at the issue (from what I've been told -- I haven't had a chance to read it yet). Also Anne Fausto-Stearling's "Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality" offers an important cautionary tale about making too much out of some of the studies. (Fausto-Sterling analyzes how often in the research for biological causes of sex differences, researchers have been biased by cultural assumptions, which has led them to see what they wanted to see in data that was actually considerably more ambiguous.)
It's very comforting for folks to look to a biological cause -- both in a "it's not my fault sense" and politically lobbying sense -- but the reality is that it's probably a combination of biological/psychological/social factors, which also are different for each individual.
Lena
A dream? What is a dream, but a blueprint for courageous action.
http://www.adahlshouse.com
I know that my mother was under a lot of stress when she was carrying me. She was a farm girl married to an Air Force enlisted man in the mid 1950s. Uprooted from her home and family, moved across the country from Wisconsin to Washington state, away from everything she knew. Lots of stress there, plus my dad was gone a lot, being on flight status all the time. And I wonder why I'm not "normal". I'm suprised I'm not intersexed, with the stress induces hormone soup mess she had going on while she was carrying me.
Hmmmm.
I was the last of three, the 1st 2 died on birth, so I was the last chance and was born ceasarian (sp?). Also on the day I was born, both of my mother's parents were killed in a car accident..... So I would have to say my mother was VERY stressed.
I dont know if anyone has seen this one but it does carry a lot of credibility. I have posted it before (long time back) Anyway, it is a good read on this subject.
http://www.tgcrossroads.org/news/archive.asp?aid=770
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www.transgenderlondon.com
Venus and Mars are not aligned; Good thing.
Where are all the rumballs?
I may not soar with eagles, but then weasels dont get sucked into jet engines...
There was an episode of Star Trek: TNG like this - and things didn't work out so well for them either.
Actually, threads like his make me nervous. It's fine to discuss the biological, hormonal, genetic possibilities, as long as it's just in the interest of information. My fear is that if people find a "reason" for our being different - whether it's the fetal wash theory or the gay gene theory - next they'll be looking for a way to "cure" us. Don't want that.
But why is the rum gone?! - Capt. Jack Sparrow[SIZE="1"]Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl[/SIZE]
Why is the rum always gone? - Capt. Jack Sparrow[SIZE="1"]Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest[/SIZE]
Why is all but the rum gone? No, the rum's gone too . . .- [SIZE="1"]Pirates of the Caribbean: At World End[/SIZE]
[SIZE="3"]Lex on the Beach[/SIZE]. . . [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Hormone wash would probably go a long way explaining the why of TG, however I suspect the casual CD'er (fetish, fun) is more like Pavlov's dog. Positive feedback produces desire to repeat behavior. My CDer's mom was probably stressed (high strung anyway w/ 2 small boys while pregnant with my SO) so I don't doubt there was some hormonal waves-a-washin'.
I recently read a published work called "Study of Social Deviance" that was actually more about recreational drug use, however they made several points that would apply to any perceived socially deviant behavior (deviant=outside accepted social norm NOT wrong or bad). Making the "choice" to engage in deviant behavior; reasons deviant behavior continues or does not continue (usually pleasure, "high", positive experience scenarios); devotion or lack of devotion to the deviant behavior; just to name a few.
Even with a genetic or biological tendency toward trans-gendered behavior, the behavior has to be reinforced and nutured to become an integral part of a person's life. Even in the TS arena, I'm sure many people have gone to their grave fighting the gender battle in their mind & soul without pursuing "the other side". So as much as I hate to agree w/ Karren's "who cares why" attitude (no offense intended, Karren), once the choice to cross that social gender line has been made & acted upon - whatever the catalysts - the path is chosen. What we choose to do now is more pertinent, in my mind, than what happened envitro.
Marlena - As far as the benefits of homosexuals, I agree that it's possible for them to contribute to a society without having kids, and thus help overall. This is a lot like how worker bees contribute to a hive without reproducing. However, the difference between a worker and a queen bee CANNOT be genetic, otherwise those genes would never be passed on. Likewise, the primary predictor of homosexuality cannot be genetic.
Kim - That article is mostly correct, and interesting, but sort of misleading too. It mentions the brain producing testosterone, but really, only the testes and adrenal glands produce testosterone. It also kind of minces words so that it seems like they're saying that sexual identity is hereditary. Really, they're talking about genes being expressed in different parts of the brain. Everyone would have those genes, but only certain people would express them. Kind of like how everyone has nipples, but they only really do anything in women. It's interesting though that these genes are being expressed prior to the formation of genitals and therefore sex hormones.
CaptLex - If this theory is correct, there is no cure, since the brain is already formed. True, there might be a way for parents to prevent it from happening, but that might not be such a bad thing.
Tree - Of course, there are many, many factors contributing to a person's behavior, but a behavior and a desire to act that way are two different things. A lot of people might desperately want to dress in women's clothes but don't because, say, they believe it's a sin in the eyes of God.
Last edited by Valerie Nova; 10-24-2006 at 12:30 PM.
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