What's A Real Woman Or Man ?

[Gilded Graper]

Teaser:
The genes that determine sex, interact with each other in complex ways (pathways) thus M or F trapped in wrong body must happens by the millions.

And there must be millions of GMen with GG body who delivered babies, just as there are women with GMale body who impregnates their wives.

- Intro:
This post is about environmental (env) causes of sex, gender or intersex.
By env, I mean hormonal exposure, imprinting (GG of the 1950' is so different from today's), family, etc.

This post introduces thoughts (not all mine) on genetic (DNA) basis for IS, CD & TG.
Just to keep it simple, I am excluding CAH, AIS and XXY, and focuse on simple XX and XY.

I hope we or most of us will contribute w/ your thought and a coherent picture
of TG, TS and IS.

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- What's A REAL Man Or Woman ? -

We know there are fertile people with opposit chromosomes.
GG's with XX chormosome (chromo) and Men with XY chromo.
GG's with XY chromo and there are GMales with XX chromo.

Genes (part of a chormo) are responsible for the 'mismatch'.

The genetic IS research is a new science and only few of these genes have been found.

Up for discusion:
as the genes interact with one or more other genes, they put us somewhere in the rectangle below.


100%--------------------------------100%
XX Female . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XX Male
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
100% . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100%
XY Male-------------------------XY Female


The environment can change the fetus and more changes are made to the person by the outside world but the DNA is not changed.

Please add what you find and your thouthts. I hope we can present a coherent picture we can present (spam) to the TG/TS/IS/CD world.

oh, please correct my english, as I english is my 2nd language.


--- Google word-set for further research ---

Copy and paste entire line below into one box at google.
DAX1 WNT4 SRY SOX9 WT1 SF1 2004 OR 2005 OR 2006

Some of the 'older' (2000) papers are wrong, that's why the search is restricted by years.

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Side note: Thread's title is from an interview of Eric Vilain.
The history of sex testing by the Olympic Committee is hilarious.

http://www.learner.org/channel/courses/biology/units/gender/experts/vilain.html

[Maria D]

Not sure really.
The gist of your post is that genetics cannot determine what a 'woman' or 'man' is. With this I agree.
It has also been determined that social pressure cannot 'tell' you which you are either.

To society, it's what you look like. Not very informed or empathetic, but there you go.

To anyone who asks the question 'what is?', it's something inside that just knows what it is, and therefore what you are. For the majority of the population it agrees with the physical appearance of the body; for the unlucky few it does not.

Anything else: genetics, nurture, foetal malformation etc, just tries to explain why, not what.

That's just my view of course. :)

[MandyTS]

I agree with Maria 100%,

The reason that society views men and woman with visual aids are because that they have to go on, facial structure, hair, size, manerisms, etc. The interesting thing are that those who transisition visual is the component most of us deal with, although it is not really the most important part. I believe male or female is mental, between the ears as they say. In my case, when I finally started to believe, not tongue and cheek but truly that I am a girl.

Just like they say... SRS is the least important part of being percieved female... and that is so true!

Mandy

[Sierra Evon]

I going to say ditto,with Maria , caffine will cause that to happen .
just a bit of humor thier , sorry!!!, but like for me its simply what
you feel inside, I have male parts,yes, but I think and act to a "T"
very female , and looking like one makes me feel soo good inside.
the more female I look the happier and free'er I feel , its my womenhood
and I feel liberated as a CDer, I wish I could go all the way. Someday!!
never say never!!!!!!!!!......hope this helped ya....Sierra......;)

[Gilded Graper]

Genes determin the sex/gener of the brain.

I'm saying is that other genes may determin to what degree we are away from 100% M and F.

In 1850's Dr Magnus Hirschfeld MD, presented the concept of "woman trapped in a man's body."

Genetic research has shown that this is true (a genetically female brain in a man's body see link in #1).

There are men who have all the body parts (brain too) that are female and have had babies.

Just as there are women with all male parts (brain too) and can impregnate women.

I'm proposing that most TGs & CDs are somewhere between the 4 extremes.
Example, take just one body part, the brain. Genes make it X-degree male and Y-deg. female in a totally M or F body.

Hope I made myself clearer.

[Maria D]

Genes determin the sex/gener of the brain.

I'm saying is that other genes may determin to what degree we are away from 100% M and F.

In 1850's Dr Magnus Hirschfeld MD, presented the concept of "woman trapped in a man's body."

Genetic research has shown that this is true (a genetically female brain in a man's body see link in #1).

There are men who have all the body parts (brain too) that are female and have had babies.

Just as there are women with all male parts (brain too) and can impregnate women.

I'm proposing that most TGs & CDs are somewhere between the 4 extremes.
Example, take just one body part, the brain. Genes make it X-degree male and Y-deg. female in a totally M or F body.

Hope I made myself clearer.

I have the point of view that not everything intended by the decoding of your genes actually happens.
First off, mistakes happen in nature during and after development; that we know of, siamese twins 'go wrong' but not from genetics. There's nothing to say it's our genes that cause us to be, but there's nothing to say they don't either.
Secondly, another obvious example is someone whose genes code for 5 fingers on each hand. This person has an accident and loses a finger, thus the physical does not match the gene's intent.
So, it's hard to say that genes would 'make' the brain anything, since though they may intend something, it might not happen as such. If a blueprint is misread, a building can be built wrong.

That said, genetics does go wrong in some fantastic ways, so yes, all sorts of combinations would be possible.
If you assume it IS genetics ONLY, then I'd probably say that 'most' normal people have 'normal' sex chromosomes, and with slight variation they work the same, in the same way that 'most' normal people have the same genes to code for the hand, with variation present. You could build your rectangle for finger number gene differences. Though there would be differences in the genes, it wouldn't be noticed except for the oddities like 4 or 6 fingers, like us being noticed while other differences aren't.

I still think I'm a 'the cake went wrong during baking' mistake, rather than a 'the recipe was wrong' mistake, but that'll take many years to prove.
Take care :)

[Gilded Graper]

Thanks Maria D for your input.

Vilain says, "What we know even less is how our brain becomes either more of the masculinized brain or more of the feminized brain. That is a big mystery and that is really the goal of a number of scientific studies including my laboratory."

Above made me wonder about the brain sending Male instructions but one or more of the part is the other sex, Female.

I'd like to relate it what we know.

BTW, XY (male genes) men do get pregnant & have babies because they have female body and brain.
Probably most of them don't know they are genetic male.