at last, some good use out of this icon

[esmenet]

Okay, I take it back about not talking to people lately, I just had an hour-long conversation about houses and interior design and Venezuelan classical music. :D

Please recommend me manga to read! I feel like I've gone and fallen out of fandom, or at least like I'm still stuck in the fandoms I was in five years ago, and I'm finding it difficult to watch new shows/movies or read new novels at the moment. (Which is severely curtailing my ability to hold conversations with people on the internet, b/c it's like I have nothing new to talk about.)

In other news:

My psych teacher is TERRIBLE. Our midterm test covered, among other things, gender and sexuality, and every moment of those questions made me absolutely table-flipping angry. Not just because they were gross, but SO MUCH of the science and statistics were flat-out straight-out bang-up one hundred percent OUTDATED and WRONG. I'll give you less than three percent of the population is (willing to admit to be) homosexual (in nineteen ninety-two)! I'll give you over-simplified and completely inaccurate summations of chromosomes and their relationship to biological sex! I'LL GIVE YOU 'TRANSGENDERED', YOU HALF-ASSED LYING INCOHERENT EXCUSE FOR A COMMUNITY COLLEGE TEACHER!

I did write my midterm paper for that class on genderqueer people, though, since he said 'any topic from the selected chapters', so in a way I suppose I did get at least one good dig in.

Comments

[quadruplify]

I'll give you over-simplified and completely inaccurate summations of chromosomes and their relationship to biological sex!

How so?

[talkswithwind]

Chromosomes come in many shapes, sizes, efficacy and carried genes. A few fun cases:

• Turner Syndrome - Absence of two complete copies of the X chromosome. One may be completely gone, or it may be partially there. Sometimes results in incomplete formation of ovaries, and may not menstruate.


• Klinefelter Syndrome - These individuals are trisomal (three chromosomes) in an XXY arrangement. These individuals do form a male reproductive tract, though the syndrome means their gonads are smaller and will produce less testosterone, and are prone to gynecomastia.


• Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome - These individuals are chromosomally XY and do form testes, but lack any receptors that process androgens like Testosterone. This is most impactful during fetal development. It can be partial or complete insensitivity. Partial insensitivity can lead to intersex presentation at birth. Complete presents as fully female, and they will have a completely normal female puberty, just without menstruation due to the lack of a uterus.

That's just the major ones. There all sorts of ways in which 'XY' is an incomplete answer to biological sex determination. Anything that gets in the way of gonadogenesis in-utero is likely to create an intersex infant; that interference can be chromosomal, a normal cell-division 'oops' at just the wrong time, and even external. To make matters even more interesting genetic mosaics can form in which two very slightly different genotypes inhabit the same body; this is how some people get one blue and one brown eye, can also show up in XXX females (triple X syndrome), and even is one cause of hermaphrodism (XX/XY mosaic).

Chromosome analysis can get you most of the way there for most people. But it is definitely not a 100% solution. My first exposure to AIS was in the 1992 (if I remember right, could be the 1996) Olympics, when they introduced a genetic test for femaleness for some sports, and found two women with AIS who didn't know about it and were then banned from competition with women.

[quadruplify]

I've heard of most of these conditions before, but I've never heard of AIS or mosaicism before. So thank you very much for taking the time to put all this together! I really appreciate it. :D

[esmenet]

This tumblr post has a pretty decent explanation, too.

[quadruplify]

Thanks for this! :D Though really, I was more or less asking about your professor and how he approached (or didn't approach) the fact that not everyone can be neatly classified into XX or XY. As in, did he say anything like, "People can only be XX or XY and that's it," or, "If there are any 'flukes' they're not worth your time"? Or was he more like, "There are other possibilities than XX and XY, but this is a broad survey course and we don't have the time to cover it all"? Because if it were the latter, it wouldn't exactly be fair to call him a bald-faced liar. :/

And it sounds to me as though this professor had done stupid stuff besides teaching bad terminology and outdated statistics. Sorry if I wasn't very clear; it was late, and I felt I had to say something, but the words weren't coming to me as to what I should ask. ^_^;

[esmenet]

He just DIDN'T, at ALL. The question on the test was something like 'this parent has XX chromosomes, which parent are they?'

Though mostly I am calling him a bald-faced liar b/c of his approach to gender and sexuality. Like, he was teaching stuff that, while technically falling in the guidelines for 'not homophobic', was either inaccurate and/or actively harmful. Like . . . have you ever wanted to shout STOP HELPING ME?

("Homosexuality has not been conclusively linked with childhood abuse.") ("does anyone in this class have a gay relative"*) ("practicing bisexuals")

*I kinda wanted to shout "IT'S ME. I AM THE GAY COUSIN. I AM EVERYONE'S GAY COUSIN."

[quadruplify]

"Homosexuality has not been conclusively linked with childhood abuse."

It's sad that some people have to be told this still, and yet...:PPP

*I kinda wanted to shout "IT'S ME. I AM THE GAY COUSIN. I AM EVERYONE'S GAY COUSIN."

LOL, imagine if you did say this -- the professor would have to rethink a lot of the things he was saying in class. ;-)

[esmenet]

I will say that I am truly amazed at the way people will talk when they don't know there are queers in the room. --not even necessarily actively offensive, it's just like . . . they're talking about aliens or animals or something. Not people, and definitely not people who might be present and listening.

ofc, none of that should be news to me, but it's just really weird when I'm there and they do it to me.