Category: Sex / Sexual
Visualizing Sex as a Spectrum
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/visualizing-sex-as-a-spectrum/
I recently posted a video on how a lot of things go into determining a person’s sex. A human’s sex is created using different ingredients, and everyone has different amounts of those ingredients. I realized I should present a non-video presentation also. I went looking for graphs or charts to explain what the video said, when I found this great article in Scientific American. It has the graphs and charts, but more importantly it addresses the issue of males have external sexual organs and females have internal ones. Here is a quote from the article. Biological sex, on the other hand, appears to leave less room for debate. You either have two X chromosomes or an X and a Y; ovaries or testes; a vagina or a penis. Regardless of how an individual ends up identifying, they are assigned to one sex or the other at birth based on these binary sets of characteristics. But of course, sex is not that simple either. Moreover, sex cannot be depicted as a simple, one-dimensional scale. In the world of DSDs, an individual may shift along the spectrum as development brings new biological factors into play.
The article is informative and pretty easy to read. Hugs
Infographic reveals the startling complexity of sex determination
By Amanda Montañez on August 29, 2017
Sex and gender pervade nearly every aspect of our lives. Each time we use a public restroom, shop for clothes, or fill out a form, we are insistently reminded that we must be either male or female; men or women; boys or girls. Even things that ostensibly have nothing to do with sex or gender—what we eat, for example, or the books we read—are often sold to us as if they are necessarily feminine or masculine.
Some of these conventions currently face challenges, some more polarizing than others. On the milder end of things, enterprising online retailers promote gender-neutral clothing for babies, and city transport authorities mercifully abolish the phrase “ladies and gentlemen” from public announcements. And on the other side of the controversy scale, U.S. state legislators debate so-called “bathroom bills,” which would prohibit transgender individuals from using public restrooms corresponding to their gender identity. This dispute has prompted some venues to offer a gender-neutral restroom option, or simply to do away with gender distinctions altogether in their facilities.
Much of the public discourse in this arena centers on gender rather than sex, presumably because gender is understood to be somewhat subjective; it is a social construct that can be complex, fluid, multifaceted. Biological sex, on the other hand, appears to leave less room for debate. You either have two X chromosomes or an X and a Y; ovaries or testes; a vagina or a penis. Regardless of how an individual ends up identifying, they are assigned to one sex or the other at birth based on these binary sets of characteristics.
But of course, sex is not that simple either.
The September issue of Scientific American explores the fascinating and evolving science of sex and gender. One of the graphics I had the pleasure of working on breaks down the idea of biological sex as a non-binary attribute, focusing largely on what clinicians refer to as disorders of sex development (DSD), also known as intersex.
The project was originally conceived as a data-driven graphic exploring the spectra of sex and gender. I wondered, for instance, what data could tell us about the frequency of transgender and non-binary identities, what proportion of the population is intersex, and how that value might break down into rates of specific DSDs.
I hired the researcher Amanda Hobbs to look into these questions, and what she came back with, rather than answers, looked more like a series of new questions. The search for solid data on transgender and intersex populations proved challenging, and was confounded by a variety of factors. For example, surveys often lump transgender in with gay, lesbian, and bisexual identities. And DSDs, in addition to being variously defined by different entities, sometimes go undetected or emerge unexpectedly, either during sexual development or later in life.
The project abruptly transformed into an exercise in visualizing complexity. First, it seemed imperative to define a few terms. Sex, gender, and sexuality are all distinct from one another (although they are often related), and each exists on its own spectrum. Moreover, sex cannot be depicted as a simple, one-dimensional scale. In the world of DSDs, an individual may shift along the spectrum as development brings new biological factors into play. The density of science underlying this phenomenon compelled a shift towards intersex as the primary focus of the visualization.
Now that my task was clear, I set about assembling the content of the graphic and putting it down on paper. In part, this process clarified how much I could include, as the complete list of known DSDs and their various manifestations proved unwieldy for a single spread in a print magazine. I ended up with a visual outline of sorts depicting a diverse selection of conditions and their convoluted pathways of development over time. Although not an especially pretty sketch, it captured the sense of intricacy the topic demanded.
Credit: Amanda Montañez
Next I consulted with Dr. Amy Winsiewski, a DSD specialist at the University of Oklahoma, who was kind enough to review the content of my sketch for accuracy. And finally, I called upon the visualization experts at Pitch Interactive to help bring the project to life.
Credit: Pitch Interactive
Once the aesthetic of the graphic had been established, I continued to refine both the text and design elements, guided by feedback from my colleagues who helped identify areas that were unclear or difficult to follow.
Credit: Pitch Interactive and Amanda Montañez
Credit: Pitch Interactive and Amanda Montañez
The resulting visualization is a source of pride for me, as I hope it is for everyone who contributed to its development. (You can see a larger version here in the September digital issue.) Design and visual communication feats aside, I believe the content itself is of critical importance from a social and policy perspective.
DSDs—which, broadly defined, may affect about one percent of the population—represent a robust, evidence-based argument to reject rigid assignations of sex and gender. Certain recent developments, such as the Swedish adoption of a gender-neutral singular pronoun, and the growing call to stop medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex babies, indicate a shift in the right direction. I am hopeful that raising public awareness of intersex, along with transgender and non-binary identities, will help align policies more closely with scientific reality, and by extension, social justice.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Amanda Montañez is an associate graphics editor at Scientific American. Follow her on Twitter @unamandita
Recent Articles by Amanda Montañez
The biology of gender, from DNA to the brain | Karissa Sanbonmatsu
Again a biologist destroys the idea that gender is binary, male / female. Really just as science moved on from the ideas of 2,500 years ago of biblical writers that couldn’t understand the solar system or have an idea of germ theory, it has moved on from the 1950s stereotypical two genders model of male / female only model popular in the 1950s, where men were automatically at the top of the chart. Science from a scientist destroys tradition. Female / male brains develop differently in the womb. Well it was never this way before or hey tradition was this all my life so it should still be. It is not just feelings, it is based in science facts. Hugs
Marjorie Taylor Greene says it’s OK to show naked Hunter Biden pics because of LGBTQ+ people
How does this make any sense? What is the causal effect between gay people existing and showing revenge nudes in public of someone without their consent. She asks why people are upset over her pushing them on her supporters and displaying them in a committee hearing but not upset Hunter put them on the internet. Because Marge, they are his pictures or him / his genitals so he has the right to do that, you don’t have that right without his permission. Plus the Federal House of Representatives is not the place for such disrespect and disregard for decorum. This is again an internet troll trying to justify doing something that hurts others for her own gratification. Hugs
It’s OK for Greene to send a link to a pornographic video to her followers because some schools have a book about a penguin with two dads.
By Alex Bollinger Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) laughs when asked if she feels any responsibility for the deaths caused by her vaccine misinformation.Photo: Screenshot
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) continues to face blowback for her decision to show naked pictures of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden at a House Oversight Committee hearing last week, and now she’s arguing that it was OK to show the pictures in Congress because LGBTQ+ kids exist.
“The same people offended by this,” she wrote, sharing a screenshot of the pictures with some parts blacked out, “support genital mutilation of children, sexualizing kids with LGBTQ agenda books in school, support men dressed in drag showing their genitals to kids at parades and drag shows and would give anything to have this kind of proof to use against” Donald Trump’s elder sons Eric and Donald Jr.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene accuses Barack Obama of supporting adult content in schools
He said he opposed book bans, and she responded by sharing out-of-context pictures from sex education books.
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“But they aren’t offended at Hunter Biden for making sex videos with prostitutes and uploading his sex tapes onto porn sites himself.”
Last week, the Republican House Oversight Committee held a hearing that was ostensibly about two IRS whistleblowers who claimed that the Department of Justice slow-walked prosecution of the president’s son over a tax matter because he was receiving preferential treatment.
House Republicans convened the hearing despite the fact that Hunter Biden agreed to plea guilty to two charges of failing to pay federal income taxes and one charge related to gun possession in an agreement with federal prosecutors this past June. He does not work in the White House, and he holds no public office.
The hearing devolved when Greene claimed to have pictures of Hunter Biden allegedly having sex with sex workers, screenshots from a video he uploaded to a website, and she showed the pictures at the Oversight hearing. Democrats were quick to point out that the pictures didn’t prove wrongdoing and that they’re a form of the “pornographic content” that Greene herself has built a reputation of opposing, even referring to sex education books as pornography and saying that they “groom” children.
“Today’s hearing is like most of the majority’s investigations and hearings: a lot of allegations, zero proof, no receipts, but apparently some d**k pics,” out Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) said at the hearing.
Greene then sent a fundraising email to her supporters that included a link to a video with the nude pictures of Hunter Biden, sharing the pornographic images with a large audience of unknown ages, leading to accusations of possibly distributing pornography to minors.
She has faced criticism since last week for her actions. Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe David Lowell, filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee, saying that Greene “lowered herself, and by extension the entire House of Representatives, to a new level of abhorrent behavior that blatantly violates House Ethics rules and standards of official conduct.”
“Rather than evaluate the credibility of the IRS agents’ testimony or review our tax laws, Ms. Greene sought to use the power of her office to generate some clicks online, fundraise, and provide sensationalist clips for Fox News at the expense of harassing and embarrassing Mr. Biden, a private citizen,” Lowell wrote. “This political stunt by Ms. Greene will go down as a historic event unbecoming of any member of Congress and beneath the dignity of the House of Representatives.”
In her tweet, Greene claimed that “the corrupt DOJ has not prosecuted Hunter Biden” even though he was charged by federal prosecutors last month and agreed to a plea deal with the DOJ.
Parents protest school district’s no opt-out policy for LGBTQ+-inclusive curriculum
Gay and trans people exist, get over it! Gay and trans kids exist. LGBTQ+ people are real and in every part of society. We deserve equality and our civil rights. We deserve representation in media as much as white religious people. These programs are not sexual acts or positions instructions. These programs do not teach kids how to change their genders and flaunt their parent’s god. What they do is give kids information on what some feelings they are having might be, they teach that different people exist. These programs increase understanding, acceptance, and tolerance for people that are different. That is what really is horrifying to these religious bigots. They seem to think if they deny that LGBTQ+ people are real, if they wipe out any representation of them in media of all kinds, they can make the LGBTQ+ disappear. Poof, gone. It doesn’t work that way! It is like claiming that redheads don’t exist and removing books and movies that have redheads in them that redheads will disappear. Do they think if they ignore people of color, they will just stop existing? It doesn’t happen that way. Like red hair and skin color being LGBTQ+ is something you are born as, it is not learned or a lifestyle choice. Remember there have been gay and trans kids / people in all the history of the human existence. I grew up in a time and place where there were no books about gay kids, there were no movies with gay kids, there were no out gay people among anyone I knew. Yet I was gay, I knew it in every part of me that I was attracted to boys growing up. I felt it, I was experiencing it, but I had no understanding of what it was. As I got near my teens, I thought I was the only one in the world that felt this way. How great it would have been for me in school to have been able to see a movie with a gay boy and have it be accepted as normal. How great it would have been to read stories of gay boys instead of straight boys and girls only all the time. It is like if you were black and had to watch movies or read books with only white people in them. And think how great it would have been had a teacher explained to me and my classmates what those feelings were, and that there was a world of good role models for people like me. Think of the years of teenage bullying that could have been avoided or tempered if the schools / teachers had inclusion and acceptance programs. These religious bigots want their kids to be able to shame and insult / bully LGBTQ+ kids without any push back or consequences. These bigots have to learn to coexist with others. They are not living in a bubble, in isolation. They are like the Amish except they are not happy with themselves being allowed to ignore advances / changes in the world but they are demanding that everyone else do so also. They are demanding that everyone live as they do and the world pretend that only they are real. Hugs
A group of parents is suing the school board to allow them to opt their children out of LGBTQ+-inclusive lessons.
By John Russell Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Parents protest Montgomery County Public Schools no opt-out policy.Photo: Screenshot/WUSA9
Parents are demanding that a Maryland school district allow them to opt their children out of its LGBTQ+-inclusive curriculum.
As Axios reported last month, in March, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Rockville, Maryland, ended a policy allowing parents to opt their students out of the district’s pre-K–12 language arts curriculum, which had been updated to include books featuring LGBTQ+ characters.
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As states attack LGBTQ students, Maryland law protecting kids advances in legislature
States across the country are banning discussions of LGBTQ people in schools. Not Maryland.
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According to a district statement on its “Inclusive and Welcoming Learning” initiative, the LGBTQ+-inclusive materials are part of the district’s efforts to cultivate “an inclusive and welcoming learning environment” and “to create opportunities where all students see themselves and their families in curriculum materials.”
In a Frequently Asked Questions section of the statement, the district notes that there is no “explicit instruction on gender and sexual identity in elementary school as part of content instruction,” adding that the LGBTQ+-inclusive books “include a diversified representation of people.”
The decision to end the opt-out policy, which the district instituted last October, led to an outcry from religious groups and members of the community. Protesters began showing up at Montgomery County School Board meetings in late March.
In May, a group of Christian and Muslim families sued the Montgomery County school board and superintendent, arguing that not allowing them to opt out of the lessons violates their First Amendment rights.
“Our clients represent families from all across Montgomery County with diverse religious faiths,” Will Haun, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty which is representing the families, told KATV in May. “And while they have differences on those issues, they share one thing in common, which is the right of parents to direct their children’s religious upbringing and their education, especially when it comes to sensitive issues, like a person’s identity, their child’s own identity.”
According to WUSA9, the lawsuit points to a Maryland law that requires school systems to establish opt-out policies for students. But in its own court filing, MCPS said that the school administrators are allowed to deny opt-out requests if they become too burdensome.
“Individual schools could not accommodate the growing number of opt-out requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment and undermining MCPS’s educational mission,” MCPS’s response read.
Last Thursday, both protesters and counter-protesters again descended on a Montgomery County School Board meeting. As WUSA9 reported, the protest against the no opt-out policy was led by Muslim parents, one of whom argued that religious children were being bullied and labeled as bigots by their peers.
“You say you want to protect the rights of trans children and their families while simultaneously you violate the rights of other children and their families,” Nadhira Rasheed said.
Rachel Hull, the parent of a non-binary child, was among the counter-protesters. “Much of the opt-out arguments are couched as parental rights and religious freedom,” she told WUSA9. “But what it boils down to is that the LGBT+ community is being told that their very existence is abnormal. And that their identity should be a source of shame.”
A short round up as I start a new post to catch the Friday to Sunday bunch.
the Republican infrastructure plan !!
House Bill 245 expands the definition of adult cabaret performers from strippers and topless dancers to include “entertainers who exhibit a gender identity that is different from the performer’s or entertainer’s gender assigned at birth.”
Biden got a Target Letter, too!
Bisexual trait in macaque monkeys common, heritable, and beneficial, says study. Link sent by Ali
https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/macaque-monkeys-bisexual-benefits/
A study tracking hundreds of macaques over three years has found that same sex behaviour in males is very common, and it might even be beneficial to the species.
“We found most males were behaviourally bisexual, and that variation in same-sex activity was heritable,” said the first author Jackson Clive from Imperial College London.
“Our research therefore shows that same-sex sexual behaviours can be common amongst animals and can evolve. I hope our results encourage further discoveries in this area.”
The research has been published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Although there’s been plenty of reports of same-sex behaviour in the animal kingdom, usually they are just opportunistic observations in the wild, and so are classed as rare.
This study observed 236 male rhesus macaques on the Puerto Rican island, Cayo Santiago. The observations were taken from 2017 to 2020, and was accompanied by genetic analysis, and a review of the macaques’ pedigree (or family tree) records back to the mid-1950s.
They found that 72% of the males in the study undertook same-sex mounting, while only 46% did different-sex mounting.
——————————————————————————-This at first might seem paradoxical. Sexual behaviour that is not reproductive would soon be bred out. This is called ‘Darwin’s paradox’.The team investigated whether the same-sex behaviour led a loss in genetic ‘fitness’ – meaning less offspring overall. This was not the case – they suggest that bisexual males may be more successful in reproducing.
“We also found that males that mounted each other were also more likely to back each other up in conflicts – perhaps this could be one of many social benefits to same-sex sexual activity,” says Clive.
“The behaviour can have an evolutionary underpinning.”
Using the genetic data, the team found there was a small heritable component – around 6.4%. This is the first evidence of a genetic link to primate same sex behaviour outside of humans. They also found a genetic correlation between which role – the mounter or the mountee – the males undertook.
Demographic factors such as age and social status didn’t affect the likelihood of the macaque undertaking same sex behaviour or which role they took.
The researchers say that this challenges the belief that same-sex behaviour is rare, or only a product of particular environmental conditions.
“Unfortunately there is still a belief amongst some people that same-sex behaviour is ‘unnatural,’ and some countries sadly still enforce the death penalty for homosexuality,” says senior author Professor Vincent Savolainen also from Imperial College London.
“Our research shows that same-sex behaviour is in fact widespread amongst non-human animals.”
OK Education Chief: “We Want The Bible In Schools” From JMG
Remember the governor of Oklahoma is a fervent fundamentalist Christian who has claimed the entire state for Jesus / his Christian god including the Native Peoples lands. He has used the office of Governor to push his religion on the entire state. The backstory of this Oklahoma Education Superintendent, Ryan Walters, is crazy. He is not qualified for the office except he is also a fervent fundamentalist Christian nationalist. The governor tried to have him hold the two highest positions over education but was blocked by that funny thing called laws. It is time to take seriously this sneak effort to get fundamentalist die hard Christian nationalists in to state office at all levels as they have taken over schools up to governors offices. They are the US Christian Taliban and the Christian moral police. They are going to force their religion on everyone, make everyone live by their church doctrines / religious views no matter what religion or lack of that people have. Just look at their insistence on Christian prayers and the Christian bible in public schools. They want to enshrine their church doctrines and religious convictions into state laws that everyone will be subject to and have to follow. Hugs
“Instead of allowing Biden and the unions to inject their ideology through graphic pornography like ‘Gender Queer’ and “Flamer,’ we want the Constitution, we want the bible in our schools where kids understand our nation’s history and what has made this country great. The reality is that the bible is a foundational document in our country’s history. Read the Founders, read their letters, listen to what these men and women said about why founding a country with the freedom of religion, the free exercise of religion was so important.” – Oklahoma Education Superintendent Ryan Walters, today on Fox Business.
Last week Walters declared that the infamous 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre should not be taught as having been caused by racism. Over 300 black people were murdered by white mobs and 10,000 were left homeless.
Last month Walters appeared here when he announced that Oklahoma’s public schools will soon have a mandatory daily prayer, the mandatory posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, and a mandatory high school course in “Western civilization.”
Walters, who was appointed state secretary of education by Christianist Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2020, faced calls to resign in 2022 after it was revealed that a Koch-funded group that advocates for privatizing public schools was paying him $120,000/year.
Stitt rejected calls for Walters’ resignation and attempted to reappoint him again earlier this year, but the state Senate refused to allow him to hold the elected superintendent and appointed secretary of education posts at the same time.
Trans Rights: on their terms | The Serfs
This video shares a lot of information on the sex spectrum and the fact that sex determination is not binary. It does it without being overly technical or preachy. Hugs
While using the unpleasant drama (I started this script a few weeks ago) as a jumping off point I wanted to make a documentary about how liberation movements have to be one in which the oppressed people dictate the terms of their liberation.
Knowles: We’re Coming For The Right To Contraception
This is the same person who played a gay man hooking up with other men who now is super anti-LGBTQ+. This guy admits men like sex and don’t want the resulting pregnancies. But he still feels women shouldn’t have sex, that women shouldn’t like sex, or maybe he believes the old stereotype that women just don’t like sex. He seems to be an entitled white religious guy who don’t care what harm he causes to others as long as it benefits him. But the truth is the right is coming after contraception and no-fault divorce. They are serious about returning to a 1950s or even 1850s mentality and public acceptance. These people are the Christian version of the Taliban or Iranian moral police. But women like the gays / trans are not going to give up their rights and go into hiding or being submissive just to please stupid males. Hugs
Media Matters has the transcript:
The culture that treats sex very casually and that suggests that we have a right to sex absent the consequence of pregnancy, is going to be a culture that’s more likely to engage in abortion.
The culture that embraces radical individualism and selfishness and libertinism in one area of sexual matters is going to embrace it in another, and that’s going to result in abortion.
And furthermore, we’re all complaining about the Pride movement, and the Pride movement has become much less popular than it used to be. You’re seeing this in a drop — Gallup polling and the values survey that it gives out showed a significant drop in support for the Pride coalition in just one year.
So, a lot of people are turning on it. A lot of mothers, a lot of parents in schools — it’s how Glenn Younkin won in Virginia. It’s how Ron DeSantis won in Florida. You go all the way back to the beginning of the sexual revolution. And you go all the way back to contraception.
There were two cases, Eisenstadt and Griswold. First was Griswold in 1965. Then Eisenstadt comes around in 1972, the year before Roe v Wade. And Griswold finds a right to condoms within a marriage.
Where is that in the Constitution? I have no idea. But some libs on the court discovered that magically in 1965. But they said, but — there is no right to condoms outside of marriage. Then seven years later, the court discovers, oh, actually, there was more invisible ink in the Constitution.
And actually, there is a right to condoms outside of marriage. Okay. Maybe you like condoms. Maybe you don’t like condoms. I don’t know where you’re gonna find that in the Constitution.
I think a lot of people are beginning to notice that the contraceptive mentality is the beginning of the Pride mentality. Because the contraceptive mentality divorces sex from the consequences of sex.
It introduces a sterile sexual ethic, which is exactly what gave us the Pride movement. There’s no distinction here. If you can’t read between the lines, the conclusion that one draws is that condoms are kind of gay. To put it as bluntly as possible. Okay?
And people are beginning to realize, okay, if I don’t like this insane, anarchistic view of sex that is totally self-centered and divorced from any ends whatsoever, well, then maybe I gotta rewind it and ask what is the point of sex?
Which is why it’s not gonna be the patriarchy that’s coming for your consequence free birth control. It’s not going to be the men.
The men, frankly, are huge supporters of — of birth control and contraception because it allows them to have consequence-free sex. It’s gonna be those conservative women. That’s who’s coming for it.
I’ve been telling heterosexuals for years that the same people coming after us are going to be coming after them.
Here is Knowles in his gay sex scene.
Scottie's Playtime 