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Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 6:05 pm
by TPRJones
To expand a bit on the current science, it looks like things like personality and gender identity and homosexuality and many other such more complicated factors aren't about genetics but are instead possibly encoded in epigenetics. This could explain way the odds of a son being homosexual increase depending on the number of older brothers he has. The mother tends to develop antibodies to some of the male-related proteins from the first birth which can alter the gene expressions of future sons.
DNA isn't a blueprint, it's a recipe. If you put together flour, water, salt, and sugar depending on how you do it you could have a cake or a loaf of bread or a bagel or gravy. DNA is the similar in that it gives guidelines about what the creature will be like, but the actual growth of the embryo depends just as heavily on the environment in the womb.
The evidence here is still early yet, but it looks like it could explain a lot once it's better understood. But it's certainly not as simple as "Y chromosome = manly man and anything else is broken".
Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 6:06 pm
by Vince
LOL! I thought I was about to pull up an article where someone claimed to be mutilated by aliens or something.
Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 6:09 pm
by Vince
TPRJones wrote:To expand a bit on the current science, it looks like things like personality and gender identity and homosexuality and many other such more complicated factors aren't about genetics but are instead possibly encoded in epigenetics. This could explain way the odds of a son being homosexual increase depending on the number of older brothers he has. The mother tends to develop antibodies to some of the male-related proteins from the first birth which can alter the gene expressions of future sons.
DNA isn't a blueprint, it's a recipe. If you put together flour, water, salt, and sugar depending on how you do it you could have a cake or a loaf of bread or a bagel or gravy. DNA is the similar in that it gives guidelines about what the creature will be like, but the actual growth of the embryo depends just as heavily on the environment in the womb.
The evidence here is still early yet, but it looks like it could explain a lot once it's better understood. But it's certainly not as simple as "Y chromosome = manly man and anything else is broken".
Are you even willing to acknowledge the possibility that we may be dealing with an emotional or mental issue rather than a physiological one?
Edited to clarify that I'm talking about transgender issues here rather than homosexuality.
Edited By Vince on 1425940289
Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 6:31 pm
by TPRJones
Sure, that is indeed a possibility. But the prevalence - not only today but throughout history - of people that are different from the norm in terms of gender identity or sexual orientation makes it either based in something else - my money is currently on the epigenetics explanation - or it's the most common form of mental illness there is by a wide margin. There aren't more people like this around now then before, they're just able to live more openly now than they could in the past.
If it's that common it's going to need an explanation as to cause. Defining it as a mental illness doesn't reduce that need for explanation, on the contrary it makes it essential to justify such a classification.
EDIT: Limiting this to just gender identity does reduce the numbers a bit, but I'm not so sure these things are so unrelated as that. Regardless the fact still stands that a cause will need to be defined before I'm comfortable with classifying someone as broken and in need of some sort of adjustment. And if you aren't going to try to "fix" them then there's no point in just labeling them as broken unless your intent is to essentially throw them away.
Edited By TPRJones on 1425940520
Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 6:45 pm
by Vince
I would really separate gender identity from sexual orientation. Their underlying cause might be related, but that would surprise me. The reason I would separate them is because issues with gender identity seem to present much more like Apotemnophilia than homosexuality.
And I agree that defining it as a mental issue makes it more imperative that we figure out the hows and whys because we'd be faced with the reality that the medical community has been unnecessarily mutilating healthy bodies when we should have been treating unhealthy minds. And if it's truly a physiological issue, we need to learn to address the entire issue because just lobbing off members and pumping hormones as Malcolm said, isn't doing much to help with the suicide rates among those afflicted.
Most importantly, medical professionals need to be able to ask the questions without being labeled a homophobe.
Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 6:46 pm
by Malcolm
Mental illness runs deep in history, I guess.
Hijras have a recorded history in the Indian subcontinent, from antiquity, as suggested by the Kama Sutra period, onwards. This history features a number of well-known roles within subcontinental cultures, part gender-liminal, part spiritual and part survival.
...
The ancient Kama Sutra mentions the performance of fellatio by feminine people of a third sex (tritiya prakriti). This passage has been variously interpreted as referring to men who desired other men, so-called eunuchs ("those disguised as males, and those that are disguised as females"), male and female transvestites ("the male takes on the appearance of a female and the female takes on the appearance of the male"), or two kinds of biological males, one dressed as a woman, the other as a man.
...
One of the forms of Lord Shiva is a merging with Parvati where together they are Ardhanari, a god that is half Shiva and Half Parvati. Ardhanari is especially worshipped in North India and has special significance as a patron of hijras, who identify with the gender ambiguity.
There are quite a lot of Hindu folk. Are they all mentally disturbed for believing this?
Edited By Malcolm on 1425941376
Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 6:49 pm
by Vince
Did you think otherwise? There's really nothing new under the sun. Read Genisis and it's pretty clear that Noah was an alcoholic.
Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 6:51 pm
by Malcolm
Read Genisis and it's pretty clear that Noah was an alcoholic.
I'm willing to let that slide given some of the larger problems I have with that book.
Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 7:22 pm
by TheCatt
Vince wrote:non-penis member
*giggles*
Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 7:28 pm
by Vince
My mind flagged that as I was typing, but I pressed on 
Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2015 7:49 pm
by TPRJones
Vince wrote:Most importantly, medical professionals need to be able to ask the questions without being labeled a homophobe.
Sure, but they need to approach it with an open mind instead of the traditional approach that assumes it's a mental issue and goes from there. And if it turns out not to be a mental illness, what do we tell to all the trans people that are going to be labeled as nutcases and treated very shabbily in the meantime? Their lives are already hard enough as it is, as can be shown by the suicide rates you referenced.
Mental illness has a huge stigma in our society. You need to be damn sure you can prove it's true before you paint someone with that brush. And I'm pretty sure future science will show that this is just not the case here.
The problem isn't honest scientific investigation into causes. The problem is that historically that's been the excuse to lock them up and throw away the key based entirely on prejudgement and distaste. There's a very rough history there so it does need to be approached gently.
All that having been said, people do need to be less quick to throw around the homophobe label, too. But I have a hard time getting too mad at them given how badly they've been treated. All this will be less of a problem as the old homophobes and the old homos who lived through the bad times pass away.
Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 9:43 am
by TheCatt
