More Chromosomes Than Just XX and XY

Lately I've been hearing this talking point from the evilgelicals and the transphobically illiterate that goes 'you can't change your DNA'.   The other variant of it they like to throw is 'you can't change your chromosomes'.

They will then follow those initial attack comments up by saying, "If you have XX chromosomes, you are a woman.  If you have XY chromosomes, you are a man."

Not so fast my transphobic friends.   Humans come in far more chromosomal varieties than XX and XY.   There;s XO, XXY, XYY, XXYY, XXXY, XY/XO, XX/XO, XX/XY....

Biology is not a nice, neat binary.

And that's before I get to blow your feeble minds by pointing out an intersex condition that occurs in one in every 20,000 births called androgen insensitivity syndrome that ends up producing women with XY chromosomes like my homegirl Alicia.

She blew some minds in the Texas Lege last year when they were trying to pass SB 6 and came out as intersex     So when you faith based fools ignorantly assert that 'women have XX chromosomes', not all women do.

Another FYI for you scientifically illiterate peeps.  Medical science is rapidly advancing to the point where humans will be able to edit the DNA code in vitro and create 'designer babies'.

Chinese genetics researcher He Jiankui has claimed he helped create the first gene edited babies.  That news is causing controversy in the international scientific community.

So there goes your 'you can't change your DNA' talking point.

That's why I and other scientifically literate peeps in Trans World laugh at you transphobes and call you ignorant when you start spouting those inaccurate talking points.

We know that our trans lives are not subject to debate.  We know better than anybody that gender is between your ears, not your legs.  We also know that the scientific research backing this point up is increasingly on our side as well. 

We also know that science and biology blow up whatever faith based lies you come up with.

Neuroscientist Dr. Ben Barres Dies

We've lost another of our trans elders and pioneers in Stanford University neuroscientist Dr. Ben Barres. 

Dr Barres passed away at age 63 on December 27, 20 months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer

Dr Barres focused his research on the cells in the brain that aren't nerve cells, called glia cells.  That research would revolutionize the field of neurobiology 

He authored over 167 peer reviewed papers during his career and was elected to membership in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.

If we eventually find a cure for Alzheimer's and other neurological conditions, Dr Barres' research into glial cells will be indispensable in putting scientists on the path for doing so.

As a trans masculine person, he was a champion for marginalized groups in academia and society, and will be missed by his colleges and all who loved him.

Flying By Pluto

Because I am a Kennedy Baby, I have grown up as a serious space junkie watching NASA and the US space program undertake some amazing exploratory manned and unmanned space missions .  

The Mercury missions started a year before I was born.  The Gemini missions happened when I was a toddler, and I spent some of my Saturday mornings as a teen watching as an elementary school student and into my early teen years Walter Cronkite cover the various Apollo moon landings.

I got to see the launch of Skylab as a teen and the three missions that happened on it in 1973-74.  I was saddened when our initial US space station burned up on reentry over the Pacific in 1979 before it could be refurbished and boosted into a higher orbit.   I watched the Voyager I and 2 probe launches in 1977 as a high school student that flew by Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and off into interstellar space and the Space Shuttle program.

I have grown to adulthood during a period where the knowledge of our solar system and space has exponentially grown. While bassackwards elements of the GOP may hate science, I and many reality based Americans, especially those of us who have grown up here in a Houston in which NASA is an important sector for our local economy, don't.

I am also quite aware that NASA technology and ongoing research is benefiting our 21st century  lives today.

Today at 7:49 AM EDT the New Horizons probe will zip by Pluto a mere 7800 miles above its surface to take pictures of the planet.  It will do the same to Pluto's moon Charon form 12,000 miles over its surface before zooming off into the Kuiper Belt and a rendezvous with a dwarf planet to be named later.

When that flyby of Pluto happens, the USA will become the first spacefaring nation to have sent probes to all the known planets (I still consider Pluto as a planet along with the IAU) in our solar system.

As New Horizons gets closer to Pluto, I also with the rest of humanity will get to see close up pictures of it for the very first time.

And I'm so looking forward to that along with every other space junkie.

Happy Martian New Year!

If you were sitting on the planet Mars, you'd be celebrating a brand new year this week.

The Red Planet has a similar axial tile to or planetary home and a day that last 40 minutes longer.   But because of an eccentric orbit, it takes Mars nearly two Earth years to make on trip around the Sun.

The Curiosity rover roaming the Gale Crater in Mars' southern hemisphere over the last three years has been doing experiments and ascertaining through soil and rock sample analysis with its onboard instrumentation suite whether Mars once harbored life, and if we Earthlings could live there.

There are even people contemplating if we could actually terraform Mars so that we could comfortably live on the planet.

On Friday, NASA will celebrate the occasion at a event for space enthusiasts in the town of Mars, PA, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh.  The town of 1700 has a flying saucer sculpture in the town square, and will celebrate the occasion with a festival that has an outer space costume contest and exhibits from NASA.

And if you want to attend the next one, here's your save the date moment for it.  It's scheduled to happen May 5, 2017.

With the upcoming Pennsylvania event, NASA wishes to inspire kids to take science and technology courses.   Their goal is hopefully when NASA is ready to tackle the scientific and engineering challenges of manned missions to Mars in the 2030's and we have the political and societal will to do so, they will have a pool of qualified STEM trained people to select from.

Happy Martian New Year!  In the meantime, we'll keep looking thorough our telescopes, watching movies, reading sci-fi books with Mars as part of the plot, and contemplating if we have what it takes and the will to make that dream a reality.

Dr. Ben Barres Elected To National Academy of Sciences!

It's one huge honor for him and one giant leap for transkind.

Meet neurobiologist Dr. Ben Barres, a professor and chair of the department of neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.   He is one of 84 new members elected to the 150 year old National Academy of Sciences.

It is a major accomplishment and one of the highest honors a scientist can achieve. There are 220 NAS members who have won Nobel prizes and potential NAS members are nominated and extensively vetted by their peers, “in recognition of distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”

Dr. Barres joins a distinguished group of 2,200 American NAS members and 400 NAS members from other nations. While he was humbled and thrilled about his election to the NAS, he also recognized the significance of his achievement to the trans community.

“This was a total surprise,” Barres said. “I had heard last year that I was nominated but had no idea I had actually been elected.”  Barres said that personally, his election to the Academy was a “nice honor.”

“But the primary significance to me is that it matters for young people. It sends a strong message to them that our country really values science and that they should consider becoming scientists. And of particular importance to me is that this matters to young trans kids. I am the first transgendered person to be elected to the NAS. This helps them to have confidence that they can feel comfortable being who they are, including changing sex, and still be successful in their career, in this case science. They don't have to choose between the two (identity and career).

“Young people should never let anyone make them feel bad about who they are--their differences are often their greatest advantages in life! I have been contacted by so many talented young trans kids (and I meet with them at every Society for Neuroscience meeting and hear their personal stories) who tell me their parents strongly resist their changing sex because they will lose their careers. That they can point to me as an example that this is not true really matters.

“When I decided to change sex 15 years ago I didn't have role models to point to. I thought that I had to decide between identify and career. I changed sex thinking my career might be over. The alternative choice I seriously contemplated at the time was suicide, as I could not go on as Barbara. Very fortunately, my academic colleagues have been incredibly supportive and my fears were far worse than reality. I hope that my election to the academy will help young trans scientists (and LGBT folks in general) to see this.”

Congratulations Dr. Barres for your groundbreaking National Academy of Sciences election.  Thank you for being a strong voice criticizing the gender divide in science and being a role model to our kids who may be considering careers in science, education and technology fields.

Thank you for proving once again to our naysayers that transpeople, if given the opportunity, can excel in any field.

More Than Just XX Or XY Chromosomes

One of the things that makes me laugh my butt off whenever I see it in a comments section I decide to peruse to gauge the ignorance in is when the scientifically illiterate trans bigots start braying that 'XX chromosomes equals female' and 'XY equals male'.

I'm hearing trans bigots spew that far too often in their attacks on Fallon Fox (and other trans women) and I'm sick of it.

FYI trans bigots.  As we transpeople are a living testament to, Mother Nature doesn't like nice neat gender binaries.   She likes to throw you curve balls, which is why I like to constantly remind people who spout that ignorant jibber-jabber that transpeople are part of the diverse mosaic of human life.

It's why we transwomen can come out of the womb with a masculine body and a female mind and gender ID.  The reverse is true for our trans brothers who have the masculine mind and gender ID but the body stayed female.

But back to the chromosome issue I wanted to shed some light on. 

There's XO, Turner Syndrome in which a female has only one X chromosome. A female bodied person can also be XY due to Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS).  Men can have an extra X chromosome due to Klinefelter's syndrome, which means they have an XXY.   

There are also some of you alleged cismasculine he-man transwoman haters who are walking around this planet with XX chromosomes.  There's also XXX, XYY, XXXX, XXYY....

Are your heads spinning yet?   Oh yeah, the only way you are going to find out what somebody's chromosomal makeup is damned sure not by looking at their outward gender presentation or the genitalia between their legs and making loud and wrong assumptions about it.   It requires you to do lab testing to find out for certain. 

Human beings are far more complex than the gender binary allows.  The existence of humans in all their biodiverse configurations is making that crystal clear as the mounting scientific research continues to point out. 

Pregnant Turkish Woman With Uterine Transplant Draws Interest In Trans Community

Jazz in a recent interview expressed the hope and desire to become a mother.   If medical events in Turkey continue to be positive, she and other girls like us might get the chance to have her own child with a transplanted womb.

Back in August 2011 doctors successfully transplanted a donor uterus from a deceased woman into now 22 year old Derya Cert, a Turkish woman born without one but who had functioning ovaries.   Being born without a uterus affects one in every 5000 women and until this procedure came along meant that the woman in question would be childless. 

A uterus transplant has been attempted once before by a medical team in Saudi Arabia back in 2000.  The womb came from a live donor but failed after 99 days due to heavy blood clotting and was removed from the patient receiving it.    Medical centers in Sweden and the United States are also working on perfecting uterine transplant medical technology and the medical procedures and drugs necessary to prevent the body from rejecting the transplanted organ.

Cert became the first woman in the world to have a successful transplant from a deceased woman, which raises the hopes of women that are in a similar situation to hers that they could one day undergo the procedure once the techniques are refined and give birth to their own biological children.

On April 1 Cert had an embryo implanted into her developed from one of her own eggs.  It has been confirmed that she is now pregnant    The embryo should it countinue to develop will be delevered by Ceasarean section.

Where the interest comes from in the trans feminine community is on multiple levels.  We know that Lili Elbe's death was caused by a uterine transplant done on her back in 1931 because she wanted to be able to have children. 

There are trans teens like Jazz who would love to someday become mothers, and if this technology is perfected by the time they reach adulthood, we'd have one of those situations we brainstormed about and we saw once upon a time as an impossible dream now becoming a possibility due to modern microsurgical techniques. 

We've long wistfully expressed the sentiment in transworld if only trans men and trans women could swap body parts.  It's becoming increasingly possible that a trans man when having the hysterectomy could designate it be donated to a trans woman for implantation.

But if they did so, this is a situation in which cis privilege would aggressively assert itself.  If that trans man donated their uterus, it would probably get prioritized toward being given to a cis woman without one.   Trans women would be extremely far down the transplant list despite the desires of some of us to be fruitful an multiply.    

That research is also geared at this time toward helping infertile couples, not giving trans women the ability to give birth to biological children of their own

But that shouldn't stop us from doing hard solid thinking about reproductive rights issues, procreation and the potentially game altering way that uterine transplant medical technology that hones its procedures and becomes as common as heart and other organ transplants could one day be applied to trans women. .

The trans community definitely needs to be having these conversations about where we fit in this equation and think about what happens if they perfect uterine transplants.  Could testicular ones be on the horizon next? 

In the interim, cis and trans world will definitely be watching developments in Turkey as Derya Cert's historic pregnancy comes to a hopefully successful conclusion.

Asteroid Passing Way Too Close To Earth Today

At 2:24 EST today an event will take place unprecedented in recorded human history.  

Asteroid 2012 DA 14 will uncomfortably zip by our planet and miss it by a mere 17,200 miles (27,700 km) above the eastern Indian Ocean near Sumatra..

That is way closer than our communications and weather satellites parked in geosynchronous orbits 22,000 miles above our planet.  

The asteroid is 45 meters across (150 feet) but if the calculations of astronomers are off and it struck it would be a real bad day for the peeps on that side of our planet.

Scientists calculate if 2012 DA 14 made impact it would have the explosive power of a few megatons of TNT and cause localized damage similar to the 1908 Tunguska Event.  

That was an airburst explosion which flattened about 750 square miles (1,200 square kilometers) of a thankfully remote Siberian forested region in what is now northern Russia.

NASA and other international space agencies are tracking the space rock in order to calculate its precise orbit and add it to the 9500 asteroids it is tracking with diameters of half a mile (one km).

And speaking of calculations, hope the astronomers were right .

TransGriot Update:  If you have a good pair of binoculars and live in Asia, Australia and eastern Europe, you'll be able to see 2012 DA 14.

It's Already December 21st....

for my readers west of the International Date Line.

Those of you who east of the International Date Line who presume December 21 is the last day our planet will be around you have until the end of the day to send me your valuables for safekeeping.  I'll give them back to you after the Christmas holidays, minus a 10% administration fee.

There's something happening on the 21st, but it happens every year.  It's called the winter (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere) or the summer solstice.  It's the shortest day of the year for those of us in the Norther hemisphere and the longest day for those of you in the Southern one.  

If you're north of the Arctic Polar Circle, you'll now get 24 hours of darkness while those of you below the Antarctic Polar Circle will get 24 hours of sunlight.

For those of you clinging to gloom and doom scenarios, we already had the 3 mile wide (5 km) asteroid 4179 Toutatis zip within 7 million kilometers (4.3 million miles) of Earth yesterday.  

Once again I point you to the words of astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. 

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson Debunks 2012 Mayan Doomsday Prediction

For those of you running around 'scurred' because December 21 is rapidly approaching and it's alleged that the Mayan calendar predicts it will be the last day of Planet Earth as we know it, peep this answer to a question about that very subject by astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Before we segue to the video and Dr Tyson, some food for thought for you peeps thinking December 21 will be the planet's last day.  

One, you're raising the anxiety of the younglings with that kind of chatter. 

I can also point out numerous examples in my lifetime of so-called end of the world predictions exculing the religous based ones that were supposed to happen.  Back in 1997 we were supposed to be according to Nostradamus in the throes of World War III.  Let's not forget Y2K and the calendar flipping to January 1, 2000 that was supposed to wreak havoc on our computer systems.   Then there were the 1982 and May 5, 2000 Grand Conjunction in which the planets aligning was supposed to cause major drama for Planet Earth on those dates.

And yeah, NASA has commented about the subject as well..

But I like what Dr. Tyson had to say.    And yeah, I'm planning to have Christmas dinner at my mom's house and looking forward to the January 21, 2013 second inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Take it away Dr. Tyson.

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..

Exoplanet Found Orbiting Double Stars

For those of you who are Star Wars fanatics, we have all witnessed the scene from Episode IV of Tatooine's double suns setting in the desert planet's distance.

There's also another truism amongst science fiction devotees that has been borne out by our history that today's science fiction is tomorrow's science fact.

Was intrigued to find out about the accidental discovery by the planet hunting Kepler telescope of one that was found in the Kepler-16 star system 200 light years away from planet Earth orbiting two stars smaller than our own   

"This discovery confirms a new class of planetary systems that could harbor life," Kepler Principal Investigator William Borucki, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., said. "Given that most stars in our galaxy are part of a binary system, this means the opportunities for life are much broader than if planets form only around single stars. This milestone discovery confirms a theory that scientists have had for decades but could not prove until now."

The planet does so in 229 Earth days, and we probably aren't going to find Luke Skywalker and Artoo Detoo on it because it is a cold Saturn style and sized gas and rock ball that lies outside the binary stars habitable zone   The Kepler project scientists are checking to see if the Kepler-16 planet has habitable moons similar to Pandora in the Avatar movie.   

At the rate they are finding exoplanets over the last several years, it's past time to get busy finding a way to get us to them in an expeditious manner. ..

If Reparative Therapy Didn't Work On GL Peeps....

What makes you misguided folks think its going to work on trans people?  

One of the things that pisses me and other transpeople off is this trend, whether it's coming from Kenneth Zucker and other like minded educated fools, the Malaysian government with their forced masculinization camps , transphobic monks in Thailand setting up an ex trans monastery, or fundies urging us to turn away from our 'lifestyle' (sarcasm meter on maximum when I say that word) and pray the girl away, is cis people thinking that you can 'change' us. 

Just like sexual orientation, gender identity hardwired in the brain.  If you think I'm selling you woof tickets on that, you may wish to peruse in addition to the increasing medical evidence supporting that view, the New York Times best selling book As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto.

It focuses on the story of a Canadian boy named David Reimer, who was born in Winnipeg as a healthy male identical twin named Bruce in 1965. After a botched April 1966 circumcision, his parents were advised by Johns Hopkins Gender psychologist John Money to have an orchiectomy performed on the child and raise him as a girl named Brenda.        
  
Money believed that gender was learned behavior rather than innate, Bt the way Brenda's life turned out says otherwise.   Brenda didn't identify as a girl, was teased and bullied, had a difficult relationship with her parents and grew up angry, depressed and confused in that gender role   With Brenda's threatening to commit suicide if she was taken to visit Money again, her parents revealed her birth gender to her.

After transitioning at age 15 to become David which by 1997 entailed testosterone injections, two phalloplasties and a double masectomy, he eventually got married and told his story to John Colapinto who published it in a Rolling Stone magazine article.

Colapinto's article was later expanded into the book.   He split the profits with Reimer, which gave him  financial security but unfortunately he was still battling a combination of problems that led to his suicide in May 2004.

The transphobic Buddhist monks in Thailand trying the trans reeducation route haven't had much success either in flipping the gender script of the people that have been urged by their families to go to this ex-trans monastery. . 

I predict the money the Malaysian government spent on their forced masculinization camps will be a waste of time as well   


So you still think forcing someone to live in a gender role not comfortable to them because you have a problem with it is a good idea?

No, it isn't.