From: ah568@yfn.ysu.edu (Melissa Preston)
Subject: Bogus theories... (Discovery, Jan '93)
Reply-To: ah568@yfn.ysu.edu (Melissa Preston)
Organization: St. Elizabeth Hospital, Youngstown, OH
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 21:04:47 GMT


Sasha <an857@anon.penet.fi> writes (reformatted):
> Check the recent Discovery (Jan '93), pp. 55. The article on 'Gay
> Genes' may be of interest. 'Homosexuality may be more than a state of
> mind. Studies over the past two years have offered tantalizing clues
> that the brains of gay men are physically different from the brains
> of heterosexula men. The studies are controversial, but if the
> differences are real, researchers would love to know when they cam
> about: during puberty, in the womb, or perhaps even earlier, in the
> genes'. Now that leads me to consider the same for us.

I hope we don't get too sidetracked by this comment, since this is
alt.transgendered, not alt.sex.homosexual or soc.motss or whatever, but
this sort of stuff strikes me as "dangerous rubbish". Assuming that
there really is a correlation between particular patterns in the brain
and the sexual orientation of the person in question, that is not and
should not be reason to assume a cause and effect relationship between
the two. "Living a homosexual lifestyle" (whatever that is) could just
as easily cause patterns in the brain as patterns in the brain could
cause homosexuality.

I'd be curious to know how they handle the fact that sexual orientiation
isn't a black and white system of homosexuality and heterosexuality,
but a spectrum. Are the brains of men who admit to fantasising about
homosexual acts different from those who don't admit to doing so?

I'm reminded of the "Brain Sex" folks, who conducted studies that say
that mens and womens brains are different, and say that this might
explain differing aptitudes among men and women. "Well, Mrs. Taylor, I
don't think we can really expect young Tracy to be very good at Math,
after all, she does have a girl's brain and so we really can't expect
her to be good at logical thought". Ugh.

The fact that people are too willing to take such questionable theory
as fact, and use it as a justification for sexism and homophobia makes
is a source of at least as much worry as the fact that there are scientists
who are prepared to push such unproven and unrealistic theory.

As to whether transsexualism or transvestism has a related etiology to
that of homosexuality, no one knows the cause of either so it's an open
question, and one that is almost totally pointless to debate. Most
professionals will say that "it's something you're born with and cannot
change", but while I think that that is a good view to present to the
general public (since it can be used to expain why such people can't
"choose to be like everyone else"), I think even that explanation is
somewhat simplistic. I would say that the way one feels with regard to
gender and sexual orientation is part of what makes us who we are (and
shouldn't be something we try to "fix" to fit in with society's
expectations of us), and that these feelings tend to come from places
deep within is, places that we have little concious control over. That
may sound similar to the first view, but this second view says that our
feelings of gender idenity and sexual orientation can change (usually
subtly and gradually) over time, although we

Rambling as ever,

     Melissa.

P.S.
Sasha, it would be nice if you went to the trouble of giving your postings
a subject line. A lot of people select what articles to read based on
their subject.
-- 
Okay, so I got it wrong; I guess I was in a hurry.  //  Melissa Preston
						   //  ah568@yfn.ysu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.transgendered