Simple Science

There’s a story making the rounds about a transwoman who was booted from competing in the Miss Universe Canada pageant because she’s trans. Once again I made the mistake of clicking on the Yahoo! News story for this and reading some of the comments. (As an aside: Some people really, really suck boil-ridden ass.)

The good thing about torturing myself in this fashion, however, is that it’s inspired me to continue my response to the ignorant reasons that the grievously ignorant toss out there to hate on and condemn transpeople. So, I now present to you… 

Part II: Biology and Genetics

There’s a whole school of people who often shout things like the following on message boards: 

IF YOU WEREN’T BORN WITH A PENIS AND TESTICLES, YOU ARE NOT MALE!
IF YOU WEREN’T BORN WITH OVARIES AND A UTERUS, YOU ARE NOT FEMALE!
IT’S SIMPLE BIOLOGY!!

-or-

YOU’RE EITHER XX OR XY.
IF YOU ARE XY, YOU ARE MALE AND ALWAYS WILL BE MALE!
IF YOU ARE XX, YOU ARE FEMALE AND ALWAYS WILL BE FEMALE!
IT’S SIMPLE GENETICS!! 

Now as far as science goes, I like it well enough, but I am NOT very adept at either biology or genetics; so the fact that I can even muster up an argument to these two statements kind of shows just how hollow they really are. First let’s deal with biology.

Birth defects* happen all the time. As examples: boys can be born without testicles, and girls can be born without ovaries. Additionally, there are hermaphroditic people in the world who have ambiguous genitalia at birth, so according to “simple” biology, what does that make these people, male or female?

Also, what if something happens where either the testicles or ovaries have to be removed? Does that mean that the person is no longer male or female? If a guy gets into an accident and his genitals are destroyed, does that make him any less of a man? Is a woman who’s had a hysterectomy less of a woman?

In reality there is nothing simple about biology. To break down what someone’s gender is purely by what’s between their legs or what internal organs they happen to have at a given point in their life doesn’t take into account any of the myriad things that can happen to someone, either through some type of defect, disease, or accident. In short, this is a foolish and erroneous way to label and box people. Attributing someone’s gender to what kind of “equipment” they happen to be sporting doesn’t address any of the variations that occur in this multiple-shades-of-gray world, which makes it a poor way to discern such things. 

To springboard off of this, and to tie in the genetics aspect, there are people who have complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (or CAIS). This, from my dime-store understanding of how the human body works, is when someone’s cells are unresponsive to male hormones. This is present in the womb; so what can (and does) occur, is that there are people who are XY chromosomally, but have the genitalia and outwards appearance of a typical female. 

What I found even more interesting about this condition is that XY people with CAIS don’t have ovaries, but have testicles (oftentimes located internally). However, since the body can’t process the testosterone that is produced by these testicles, it is essentially converted to estrogen, which will feminize the body. The overwhelming majority of people with CAIS are born without fallopian tubes or a uterus, but they will develop as women, and, way more often than not, will happily live their lives as women. So, can we disregard all of that and say that they are men purely because they are XY? Well, according to the haters on the message boards, yes… though I, and I’m sure these women with CAIS, would staunchly disagree.

This alone should prove that genetics is not in any way “simple”. To add to that thought, there are also people who are born XXY, XYY, XXXY, XO, XXX, XXXX, and even XXXXX. So yes, let’s all just break it down into XX and XY. As we can see, there are no variations to this at all and everything is as black and white as the braying people on the message boards make it out to be.

Now if all these departures from the norm exist, who’s to say that the brains of transpeople aren’t just different from what their bodies say they are? I’m sorry if all of this information dealing with biological and genetic diversity destroys the basic cut and dry definitions that the uninformed strive to cultivate, but, you know, the facts are what the facts are. Apologies to the people who hate and avoid facts, because the facts are here, and they’re coming to get you.

I hope all is well in your world.

* I'm using the word "defect" only as a way to state that these people are born different from what’s seen as “the norm”, and I am in no way calling these people "defective" or the like. I mean, being trans could actually be seen as a “defect”, though I obviously don't think that trans people are defective in any way.


UPDATE (4/4): The decision to ban this woman from the pageant has since been overturned, and she can now compete. I'm pretty sure this blog post had everything to do with the reversal of this decision.

(Note: I'm 100% certain this blog post had nothing to do with the reversal of this decision.)

Jealous, Jealous AGAIN

We’re all probably a little jealous of something that someone else has that we don’t: Be it a great job, an awesome house, a partner, kids, or even straight hair when yours happens to be curly. I’m no exception to this. I would also love to have an amazing job, or someone to come home to, or kids, or something as trivial as straight hair. I don’t go so far as to consider these people who have what I don’t with any degree of contempt or animosity, but I do recognize when jealousy starts snaking through my innards.

The tolerable thing about jealousy, like all emotions, is that it tends to come and go. If you don’t think about that other person’s job, or house, or car, it’s easy to stave off the envious feelings that may surround these things. Jealousy is at its worst is when it’s incessant and inescapable, which is how mine happens to be with regard to a certain situation that I tend to blog about on this site.

You see, what I’m jealous of on a constant and crippling basis, is women. All women. Every single one of them. That woman sitting next to you right now? I’m jealous of her. The woman you just saw on TV? I’m jealous of her. I’m jealous of the woman you saw picking her nose in the supermarket last night, and the oblivious woman who was making your commute this morning ultra-annoying, and even the one in front of you at the convenience store checkout who smelled like mothballs and dirty kitty litter. Oh, and I’m jealous of that woman you saw just now… and of her… and that one… and her… and her… and her… and yes, her. In fact, if you’re a woman and you’re reading this, I’m jealous of YOU.

I’m jealous of the fact that women can just go about and live their lives, fit seamlessly in the world, wear whatever gendered thing they want to wear without even raising a hint of an eyebrow, and not have to undergo tens of thousands of dollars of insanely painful procedures just to look like and be accepted as a woman. Not discounting the societal problems that come with it (glass ceiling… objectification… insanely stupid legislators… etc.), the simple aspects of just being a woman, looking like a woman, and living in this world as a woman are effortless endeavors for women; whereas, although I know that in my head I am most certainly female, there is NOTHING effortless about me attempting to do these things, and this makes my life excruciating.

Like I said, jealousy is at its worst when it’s incessant and inescapable, and mine is certainly that. You can stop thinking about that car or a house that you're jealous of, which sort of makes the jealousy ease up a bit, but I can’t stop thinking about women; half of the population are women! But still, there are times where I’m hurting so bad that I can’t even bring myself to watch a TV show with women in it, because I’m too distracted and overcome by jealousy when I see these women on screen to even pay attention the show itself. I can’t avoid women, and I most certainly wouldn’t want to, because I LOVE women and women make up the large majority of my closest friends.

And even if I could avoid women, which, like I said, I wouldn’t ever want to, I would (and do) find myself getting jealous of men. Not that I want to be a man in any way, but, essentially, I’m jealous of anyone who hasn’t been inserted inside of this I’m-the-wrong-sex meat grinder. The fact that men, like women, don’t even have to think about their sex, and the fact that it’s not an issue to them in any way, shape, or form... yeah, I’m wildly jealous of that as well. I’m wildly jealous of the fact that 99.9% of the population can just blend in and be when it comes to the issue of sex and gender, because it’s NEVER going to be the case for me. NEVER. It’s ALWAYS going to be an issue.

So, if I’m desperately jealous of all women and all men all the time, how do you think this makes me feel about myself and my life? Can you imagine? Well, here’s a hint: I’m filled with hate about both things. Always.

By writing the above I am in no way saying that no one has it worse off than me and my fellow transpeeps. There are a ton of people in more dire situations than I’m in, and my heart truly, truly goes out to these people. But, life still throws its usual bunch of crap at me, much like it does to everyone else on the planet. I’m not exempt to all of the bad things that could happen to a person throughout the course of their life; I just have to deal with all of that and deal with how all this trans bullshit makes me feel on top of everything else. So I try my best (I really do) to smile and put on a happy face, even when I’m constantly shredded by intensely frustrating feelings of jealousy, self loathing, and despair.

Don’t you just love peering inside my happy, sunshiney world? What really blows my mind is that there are STILL people who think that being trans is a choice and that people go out of their way to feel this way for shits and giggles. Yes, who wouldn’t want to be a part of all the joy that I described above? With all the good stuff it brings to your world, I’m surprised more people haven’t chosen the sheer happiness of deciding that their body doesn’t in any way match who they are. </end sarcasm… and this post>

I sincerely hope that you don’t have it worse off than me, and if you do, I offer you my heartfelt empathy, hugs, and love. Be well.