Thursday, December 01, 2011

Are Chemical Plants A Factor In Transsexuality?

I remember reading with interest the story about the documentary entitled The Disappearing Male which focused on the Chemical Valley near Sarnia, ON and the nearby Aamjiwnaang First Nation reserve.

In Canada, the ratio of male births to female births is 106 boys to every 100 girls.  Since the 1990's on the Aamjiwnaang First Nation reserve it's 46 boys to every 100 girls.

Dr Warren Foster, an expert in reproductive health at the Hamilton Health Sciences Centre has done research pointing to what he calls endocrine toxicants. These are endocrine disruptors — chemicals that mimic hormones like estrogen, and that are found in pesticides, organo-chlorides, heavy metals and plastics.

He suspects those endocrine disruptors may be interfering with in-vitro development of a fetus before it can get to the hormone wash point where fetal development will go onto the male path and produce a live male child.

After reading that, I had a things that make you go hmm moment.  If being around Chemical Valley was enough to radically skew the birthrate at this First Nations reserve and there are reports of the same phenmenon happening near other chemical complexes around the world, are those endocrine disruptors doing just enough to cause the spike in trans children we're seeing now? 

For starters between Houston and New Orleans are 1/4 of the petrochemical plants and refineries in the United States with 107 of those plants being in the Houston metro area alone.  When you drive along I-10 from Houston through Beaumont to Lake Charles you are passing several major petrochemical complexes   There's also another major concentration of chemical plants between Philadelphia and  New York

Note where the clusters of transpeople are   Besides the Houston, Dallas-Ft Worth, Austin and San Antonio areas, the trans community clusters off the top of my head in the States are in New Orleans, Washington DC, Memphis,  Nashville, Indianapolis, Tampa, Miami, Pittsburgh, the Philadelphia-New Jersey-New York-Boston corridor, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco-Oakland, Los Angeles,.San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, Jackson MS, .Louisville KY, Puerto Rico and the Ashland KY area.

Many of those cities and territories I named have petrochemical plants in the area.  In terms of the Ashland KY-Huntington WV area having trans people I always wondered what was up with that until I rode I-64 east through the area in 2000 on the way to Washington DC and saw the massive refinery complex there..  
 
So is this just a coincidence in terms of the clusters of transpeople being in areas that also have petrochemical complexes, or are endocrine disruptors a factor causing a hormone wash that doesn't quite do its job in vitro to either masculinize a fetus or get the masculine development path going?  

Only more medical research will provide the answer to my question..

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