(no subject)

I wake up from another excellent night's sleep (Is my insomnia gone?) and stretch my arms and legs. I open my eyes...

And there's this HUGE ugly bug on my pillow!

I screamed, shoved my hand in my blanket, used my blanket to brush him to the space between my bed and the wall, and I got RIGHT out of bed, and almost fell down because I stood up too fast.


Good morning, Chandra....

Found in the Calgary Herald today.

Sexual identity genetically wired
Discovery has huge social implications

Chris Zdeb
CanWest News Service

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Scientists have discovered 54 genes that suggest sexual identity is hard-wired into the brain before birth and the development of the sex organs.

The findings released today by a team of University of California, Los Angeles, researchers, could mean that sexuality, including homosexuality and transgender sexuality, are not a choice.

It rebuts 30 years of scientific dogma that the hormones, estrogen and testosterone, alone were responsible for differences between the male and female brain. So the researchers were surprised when they found 54 genes produced in different amounts in male and female brains prior to hormonal influence. Eighteen of the genes were produced at higher levels in the male brains and 34 were produced at higher levels in the female brains.

Overall, the researchers believe genes, hormones and environment exert a combined influence on sexual brain development, says lead researcher Dr. Eric Vilain, a professor of genetics, urology and pediatrics at UCLA.

"This is not about finding the gay gene to start with," Vilain stresses. "The first human implication will be to understand transsexualism, which is different than homosexuality. But it's possible some of these genes, with more research, could explain homosexual behaviour."

The implications that one doesn't choose homosexuality are huge.

"If it's not a choice, you can't have the typical conservative argument that says you choose this lifestyle so you have to bear the consequences," says Vilain.

"If you can't do anything about it, therefore you should have all the rights to be integrated into society and have the same rights as heterosexuals in terms of marriage and the rights to inheritance."

At the same time, he worries what prenatal diagnoses could mean. Parents could misuse the information and decide to abort a fetus, he says.

Vilain's primary interest is in finding what makes the brain more masculine or more feminine, but these findings could help reduce the mistakes made with intersex children -- children born with ambiguous genitalia.

In these children, the genital bud is too large to be considered a typical clitoris and too small to be considered a typical penis, he explains. "Basically the doctor or midwife looks and is unable to say the baby is a boy or a girl."

This happens in one in every 4,000 births, but nobody really talks about it because intersex is surrounded by shame and secrecy, Vilain says.

"Families who have a child like this are extremely stressed out and they feel an intense social pressure to do something about it that will make everything normal. That's why you don't hear about it."

Typically, such an infant is assigned a gender and in many places in North America, including Canada, surgery is performed to make the genitals appear to conform to the gender selected. But many of these babies go on to grow up very unhappy.

Vilain thinks the risk of assigning the wrong gender to a child could be dramatically reduced if surgery was delayed until a child's tendencies are known.

The UCLA research could also explain why transsexuals, while not born intersex, think they are trapped in the wrong body, Vilain says.

This gender identity disorder, or gender dysphoria, occurs in many children and manifests itself, for example, in boys who like to dress up in their mother's dresses and high heels.

"For most of them, this is just a phase. They will actually not become transsexual, but on the other hand, most of them do end up being gay men," Vilain says.