Sex vs Gender

Login to find out (May 13, 2005 at 4:12pm)

arent such people called 'hijri'? and arent they also highly regarded in indian (maybe paki) society?? someone shed some light please. --and shazia, my male cousins only had brothers!!! not that many females around. amazing indeed.

Login to find out (May 13, 2005 at 12:27pm)

(to answer plato's question of earlier) definition of playing with dolls - well playing with dolls. giving them tea parties, having dolls that are babies, dressign them up etc. activities considered generally female or associated with largely females. sarah - did your male cousins have lots of sisters/female cousins/females around and play with their dolls?

Login to find out (May 13, 2005 at 12:23pm)

i usually subscribe to quite a lot of stuff proposed by evolutionary biologists. BUT we've heard that there are gay animals in nature, there are gay humans too. what would be the evolutionary advantage of being gay?

Login to find out (May 13, 2005 at 12:22pm)

to raise another question, though nowhere near as philosophical as Styx's: does it matter to YOU whether sexuality is essentially biological or learned behaviour? it's a tricky one because i think studies such as those that have been mentioned still look at sexuality - particularly homosexuality - as a 'dis'order, ie. one that is worthy of investigation and further research. and to some people, if it is proven to be biological then it is easier to accept as it is something you are born with in the sense that we are born with green eyes or red hair. YET what will these same people think of homosexuality if it is a choice??

Login to find out (May 13, 2005 at 11:38am)

"our so called life"... used to love that show! Love, lust, teenage angst... how incredibly romantic. Learned helplessness.... how completely fascinating a theory. Ok... I know, I should stop this totally fragmented babble session... I'm not quite completely on terra firma today, but then thats hardly my fault, the receptionist just told me how "Saturn is in Pisces" so I will be flying a little high :)

Login to find out (May 13, 2005 at 11:18am)

A recent study done by researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, shows that sniffing a chemical form of testosterone, the male sex hormone, causes a response in the sexual area of gay men's brains, just as it does in the brains of straight women, but not in the brain's of straight men. Now Ms. Sandra Wilson an expert on brain anatomy and sexual orientation at the Medical college at McMaster University believes that this is one more piece of evidence that shows that sexual orientation is not all learned. But my question is more philosophical... I mean we CAN evoke certain chemical reactions in the brain.. we can almost "will" things to happen and the brain is (often) but helpless to follow through on the mechanics required to carry out that "will". I guess this takes us back to the eternal unanswered question... who controls what? does the brain control the body, does the brain control the mind? does the body control the mind? is there a body? Is there a mind? I don't think any one control the other exclusively. Consciousness and existence co-existing and being interdependent translate into what I see as our so called "life".

Login to find out (May 12, 2005 at 12:04pm)

technically everything in biology is a predisposition vs being born a certain way... and nurture either mildly reduces or enhances the predisposition.

Login to find out (May 12, 2005 at 11:40am)

since the inheritance isn't 100% (not all monozygotic twins are gay if one is gay) but it is high. so genetic predisposition, with nurture influence makes you a flammer. but only if your genes are set up just so. i buy that.

Login to find out (May 11, 2005 at 10:31pm)

I think from conception to birth is the sole domain of nature so to speak and everything else is significantly influenced by nurture.

Login to find out (May 11, 2005 at 2:46am)

plato, i think nurture plays a big role, esp in hermies (hermaphrodites), like in the case of herculine, a person who's IDENTIFIED and lived as a female her entire life, was unable to sustain life as a man because nature was not on her side. (she was fine living as a female PRIOR to the announcement of her hermaproditeness). and by that i mean that sometimes all it takes is the ambiguity of sex to realize the impact of nurture (i.e. how one identifies w/ gender and also as important, how one is viewed by society) --- And because sex is not clear cut with hermies, in this case we can essentially dismiss nature as a variable, leaving us with only nurture to consider. hmmmmm...

Login to find out (May 11, 2005 at 2:06am)

has anyone read the memoirs of Herculine Barbin discovered by Foucault? a must read! -- "With an eye for the sensual bloom of young schoolgirls, and the torrid style of the romantic novels of her day, Herculine Barbin tells the story of her life as a hermaphrodite. Herculine was designated female at birth. A pious girl in a Catholic orphanage, a bewildered adolescent enchanted by the ripening bodies of her classmates, a passionate lover of another schoolmistress, she is suddenly reclassified as a man. Alone and desolate, he commits suicide at the age of thirty in a miserable attic in Paris."

Login to find out (May 11, 2005 at 1:00am)

so it looks like a bunch of nature over nurture here, does that mean Simone is wrong?

Login to find out (May 10, 2005 at 11:31pm)

Even within the heterosexual population you have men who are more effeminate, or women who are tomboys. They are usually just born that way...

Login to find out (May 10, 2005 at 11:28pm)

Sexual Orientation I also think is mainly due to nature... reason being that no matter which society throughout mankind there has always been that 2-5% of the population that is clearly homosexual. I don't think this consistent percentage can be explained through family neglect, abuse, boredom etc. Why else would gays especially in Muslim societies where there is so much stigma, risk ruining their reputation unless they were really driven by it.

Login to find out (May 10, 2005 at 11:23pm)

I lean towards the theory that gender identity is primarily determined by nature... Nurture may help refine what it means to be a man or woman in society... but nature determines which gender one identifies with... The As Nature made him is a classic case of this.

Login to find out (May 10, 2005 at 11:14pm)

hey! the money study! the "as nature made him" book is all about that case

Login to find out (May 10, 2005 at 10:48pm)

I also like another study where a gay researcher, no less, determined being gay was attributable to mothers expriencing a certain amount of stress during a certain tri-mester where the brain was being developed within the foetus. It was conducted on lab rats.

Login to find out (May 10, 2005 at 10:45pm)

Gender is cognitive and sex is physical. Both are determined during the gestation period. Sexual orientation is not learned behaiviour at all. PS - have you read the study by John Money? He instructed a couple to have their newborn son changed to a girl for medical reasons and assured them their child will learn to be a girl over time. It did not happen because the son was hardwired as male no matter how many times he put on make up and played with dolls. During his teen years the young man just gave up, became a man and lives over here in Winnipeg, Canada.

Login to find out (May 10, 2005 at 7:25pm)

sorry for the diatribe. genetics vs behavior is a subject i am very interested in. i was a behavioral therapist for a while, and picked up a bachelors degree in psychology with a concentration on behavioral theory. things like the twin studies, and the issue dealt with in the book "as nature made him" support strong genetic influence in behavior, many anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, and behavioral evolutionists, also argue for genetic basis of alot of what we do. fascinating stuff. Marvin harris writes about it alot ("our kind" excellent book)

Login to find out (May 10, 2005 at 7:18pm)

www.bol.ucla.edu . Michael Bailey and Richard C. Pillard's December 1991 study found a 52% concordance for homosexuality for MZ twins, 22% for DZ twins, and 11% for the adopted brothers, who are not genetically related. Their subjects were 161 homosexual men with at least one twin or adopted brother. The overall range of heritability (31-74%) can be compared to Bailey and Pillard's 1993 study of lesbians which produced values from 27-76%. In this later study, Bailey and Pillard researched 147 lesbians with at least one twin or adopted sister. They learned that 48% of MZ twins, 16% of DZ twins, and 6% of adopted sisters were both gay (Horgan and Cummings 413). The heritability for "male and female sexual orientation were at once distinct and partially overlapping, but there was not enough evidence to say if the cause was genetic, environmental, or some combination"

Village Journals

Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.