Measures of Man Exam 2 Study Guide

Films: Intersexion, Alex Dreger, Geena Rocero, Andrew Soloman,

Angela Duckworth
Egg development,
sperm development
Embryo
fetus development
When biological sex is determined
SRY gene
Barr body - In mammalian species where females are XX and males are XY,
females
have an embarrassment of richestwo X chromosomes where one suffices.
Expressing both X chromosomes would presumably provide an overdose of the
enzymes tweaked to work at the lower concentrations produced by a single X
chromosome (as occurs in males). The workaround
for females is to make one of the X chromosomes inactive. One of the Xs scrunches
up, becomes unavailable for transcription into protein, and appears under the
microscope as a speck in the nucleus called the Barr chromatin body. 18
Which of the two X chromosomes is inactivated in a cell is pure chance, a flip of the
coin. Hence one cell might use the X chromosome inherited from Dad, while the cell
next door uses the X chromosome inherited from Mom.19 If, however, one X
chromosome contains a poorly
functioning gene, females have an alternative. Cells with that chromosome can be
weeded out and replaced by cells expressing the other X chromosome. The
advantage of diploidy is maintained across whole cells, rather than between genes
within a cell.

Variation in autosomal and sex chromosomes

Testosterone and Estrogen
Brain differences in men and women
BSTc - Three rice-grains of brain in and around the hypothalamus are sexually
dimorphic in males and femalesSDN-POA, BSTc, and VIP-SCN. Of these, only BSTc
differs between trangendered and nontransgendered peoplethis rice-grain of brain
is perhaps a gender-identity locus. The data supporting this claim may be thin but
should be taken seriously.
Two studies have analyzed a total of thirty-four brains preserved in formaldehyde in a
reference collection at the Netherlands Brain Bank. The collection includes brains of
people identified as heterosexual nontransgendered male, homosexual
nontransgendered male, heterosexual
nontransgendered female, and transgendered women with varied sexual
orientations. Heres what was found:
1. Among nontransgendered heterosexuals, the males BSTc was about 150 percent
the size (2.5 cubic millimeters) and number of neurons (33,000) of females (1.75
cubic millimeters and 19,000
neurons): straight males bigger than straight females.
2. For the homosexual nontransgendered males, the BSTc was the same as for the
heterosexual nontransgendered males: gay males same as straight males.
3. Among the six transgendered women, the BSTc matched that of the
nontransgendered women, not the nontransgendered men: transgendered women
same as nontransgendered women.

4. For the one transgendered man examined, the BSTc size and neuron count fell
squarely in the male range and outside the female range: transgendered man same
as nontransgendered man.
The studies included photographs of the spots in the brain where the BSTc occurs, so
comparisons are readily visible, supplementing the graphs and tables of data.
Another finding was that the size and neuron count of the transgendered women
didnt relate to the age at which they transitioned. The femalelike number of neurons
in the BSTc of transgendered
women is related to gender identity per se rather than to the age at which it became
apparent. The investigators suggest that the neuronal differences between
transgendered and nontransgendered people are likely to have been established . . .
during early brain development, just as testosterone organizes BST dimorphism in
rodents soon
after birth

When is gender identity determined - Gender identity, like other

aspects of temperament, presumably awaits the third trimester, when
the brain as a whole is growing. In males, three periods during life
show unusually high testosterone levels. One is in the middle
trimester, when the genitals are developing; the second is around
birth; and the third is at puberty. The time around birth may be when
the brains gender identity is being organized cognitive lenses that
instinctively distinguish who will be emulated from who will be merely
observed.
To determine when gender identity develops, a good strategy is to find
an early limit and a late limit, and work in from these two end points.
One clue that gender identity cant occur much earlier than the third
trimester of pregnancy is the absence of sex-hormone receptors from
the
brains of mid-trimester embryos.
When is sexual orientation determined - As we did for the timing of
gender identity, lets look for an early limit and a late limit for the development of
sexual orientation, and work in
from there. An early limit would seem to be a year or so after birth, for two reasons.
First, sexual orientation would seem to require the mental lenses that distinguish
gender and thus would develop only after gender identity develops. Because gender
identity seems set by about the first
year after birth, sexual orientation could begin to form then. Second, adopted boys
with a gay brother are more likely to be gay than adopted boys with a straight
brother. This line of thought also suggests an early limit near a year or so after birth,
when adoptions typically take place.
A late limit is indicated by the average age of first awareness of samesex sexual
arousal, which is about ten years of age, two years before puberty. So the window for
developing ones sexual orientation would appear to be from infancy to very early
childhood, say a nine-year window
from one to ten years of age, as a first guess. The window is probably much narrower,
and further study of when gayness develops in adopted children might be very
revealing.

Homosexuality
Transgender
Intersex - The criterion for what counts as intersexuality is not well defined to
begin with. Basically, if a doctor cant unambiguously assign a baby as male or

female upon birth, then the baby is intersexed. Thereafter, the baby is run through a
checklist to see what its true sex is, and a baby is assigned to one of the two
sexes as a result. Based on the assignment,
the genitals are often sculpted with a scalpel to match some expected norm for
genitals. This procedure presupposes that the binary distinction between male and
female applies to the whole body, which, as weve seen, is not necessarily true.
Lets see if intersexuality qualifies as a genetic defect or genetic disease. Most
medical doctors would consider the answer self-evident and be annoyed at the
question. Yet intersexuality fails to pass even the initial criterion of having
identifiable characteristics. Being intersexed is defined
by the absence of characteristics, not their presence. As a result, the category of
intersexuality includes hundreds of different genetic, biochemical, and anatomical
states, a few of which are arguably genetic defects, and others not.

Hypospadia -a common intersex form in which the urinary opening is

not at the tip of the penis, but at some location on the undersideboys
have gender-typical male identity and male gender-typical forms of
play and presentation.9 Here penis
morphology is not connected to male identification. The male
hormones
affecting gonadal morphology, which act in the middle trimester,
apparently
do not affect the brains later acquisition of gender identity circuitry.
Congenital adrenal hyperplasia - the adrenal gland produces
more than the usual amount of androgen. In girls, these hormones
masculinize
the genitals, leading to a large clitoris and sometimes labia fused
into a partial scrotum. CAH girls almost always mature identifying as
female.
The androgen produced from the adrenal gland, while higher than
typical in girls, is apparently still less than that produced by the testes
of
boys. Hence a female gender identity develops, even though some
impact
on genital morphology is evident.
Androgen insensitivity syndrome - Some XY people become
intersexed because they have receptors that
dont bind very tightly to testosterone. This trait, called androgen
insensitivity
syndrome (AIS), is X-linked. The genital morphology in AIS is
variable, but unlike hypospadics and guevedoche, many AIS people
identify
as female. Presumably, the bodys partial unresponsiveness to
testosterone
is not restricted to the time of genital formation, but lasts

throughout embryonic growth, allowing some AIS people to develop

female
and others male gender identity.11
Chromosomal variation - Another pathway to intersexuality comes
from sex chromosome configurations other than XX and XY. These
people might be termed chromosomally intersexed, and some also
have ambiguous external genitals.
The most common are XXY at 1 in 1,000, XYY at 1 in 1,100, XXX at 1 in
2,000, a single X at 1 in 2,700, XXYY at 1 in 6,500, and XX males at 1
in 20,000. The people with XXY chromosomes show geographic
variation ranging from 1 in 500 in Germany to 1 in 7,400 in Winnipeg,
and people with a single X chromosome vary from 1 in 600 in Moscow
to 1 in 9,500 in Edinburgh. Although some people with unusual
chromosome counts suffer from health risks or from low or no fertility,
many
dont: Many 47,XXX girls develop secondary sex characteristics at
puberty,
and are sometimes fertile.21 Similarly, many 47,XXY and
47,XYY males are undiagnosed because they present no symptoms
which prompt a chromosomal analysis.22 Sex chromosome
configurations
other than XX and XY are clearly quite common and cannot generally
be called genetic diseases except in severe cases.
Hermaphroditism - The rarest bodily state lumped under
intersexuality is possessing both testicular and ovarian tissues
simultaneously. About 1 in 85,000 people has this trait, averaged over
our entire species. As with other intersex
traits, though, large geographical variation exists. In southern Africa,
one study showed that half of all the babies born with ambiguous
genitalia
were hermaphroditic, placing hermaphroditism on a par with more
common pathways, such as classic CAH or AIS.23 One developmental
pathway to hermaphroditism is fusion of two embryos into one soon
after conception, the reverse of how identical twins are produced.
As with other paths to intersexuality, the way hermaphroditism is
expressed
is also quite variable. One survey of 367 hermaphroditic people
revealed that 30 percent had an ovary on one side and a testis on the
other, 30 percent had an ovotestis (gonad with both ovarian and
testicular tissue in it) on one side and an ovary on the other, 21
percent had an ovotestis on both sides, 11 percent had an ovotestis on
one side and a testis on the other, and the remaining 8 percent had
structures that were not classified or reported.24 The structure of
internal genital tubes and external genitals is similarly variable.

Medical treatments for homosexuality, transgender, and

intersexuality
Even though there is no scientific basis for generalizing that LGBTI
people are diseased, medical practice has for many decades tried to
transform
these people into the social norm of a heterosexist gender binary.
Using whatever techniques are available or fashionable, medical
practice
has aimed to cure diseases that dont exist, thereby violating the
Hippocratic
Oath and abusing the human rights of a diverse people. Specifically,
therapists have tortured gay and lesbian people with a technique
called aversion therapy.25 The person, say a gay man, is brought to
the clinic, exposed to erotic photographs of nude men, and then
punished for any signs of arousal. In theory, the man is supposed to
associate the erotic photograph with pain and learn somehow not to
be arousedmuch as a mouse is trained with rewards or punishment
in
operant conditioning. The punishments used can only be described as
diabolical.
In the 1960s the drug apomorphine was administered to induce
vomiting (or hypnosis might be used to cause uncontrollable nausea);
in
the 1970s electric shock therapy was added, sessions sometimes
lasting
thirty minutes, repeated twenty or more times over several months.
People were not only traumatized but physically burned. Even worse,
electroconvulsive shock therapy (ECT), administered by either
delivering
shocks to the head or giving the drug metrazol, induced epileptic
seizures with side effects of memory impairment and depression that
could last for years.