• Genetics
• Development

• Appearance/function
• Brain
• Self
• Cultural influences

• "plumbing and electricity work fine"
• "enlarged bed nucleus of stria terminalis"
• "knew from inside that I was a girl"
• "gender preference" ... "gender identity" ... ?

• in terms of binaries (did biology actually create this?), there are 16 "sexes/genders"
• not hard to understand, since each region is product of complex and to some degree independent development (like other parts of body)
• since each characteristic is actually continuous, there are many more, multiple "bell curves"
• "I think I object to the use of the term 'defect' in this setting" (me too, see Diversity and Deviance: A Biological Perspective and Culture as Disability)
• The situation is further complicated/enriched by a capacity of the self not only to adjudicate but to alter, with varying degrees of difficulty.
• Differences may result from genes, and/or a variety of other factors.
• Is useful for many people to have support for "knew from inside from a very young age" so they don't feel shame/guilt/personal frustration, but also raises specter of eugenics (issue not of observations but of "social construction", to return to).

Questions that arise:

• what/where are the brain regions? is there a "social standards" brain region? how does it work? can one explore "culture" in the brain?
• what/where is a "self" brain region? how are inputs adjudicated there?
• what in terms of neurons is a tolerable mismatch? one that requires action?
• given variability in brains, why is "culture" so concerned with binaries? can that be changed? how? .... issue of "social construction"

A specific case: homosexuality

• Concordance among identical twins is high but not 100%
• there is no "gay" gene, or even a determining set of genes
• there is reasonable explanation for "I always knew it, from inside"
• there is reasonable explanation for homosexuality being a characteristic difficult to alter
• new observations/stories CAN be be useful, but also carry hazards ...
• why should homosexuality (or other variants) be treated as a target for alteration?
• "social construction" of homosexuality? (or transsexuality or ... )?

• Continuous and unending change
• Driven form inside as well as from outside
• No measure of "success" other than existence
• At any given time, lots of DIFFERENT "successes"
• Future emerges unpredictably from pool of "successes" of present

The story of sex

• Sex and reproduction are not the same thing
  • Reproduction without sex - mitosis, plants
  • Sex without reproduction - bacteria and ...
• Function of sex is ... to enhance exploration/discovery?
  • Bacteria, viruses
  • Meiosis and fertilization
• The human exploration
  • Genome played on by internal environment played on by external environment played on by personal choice
  • Independent variation of body, several brain regions
  • Creation of multiple "sexes/genders"
  • "Success" to date and exploration in progress .... new forms of culture?
• Multiple sexes/genders is to be appreciated/enjoyed for what it can/may create rather than to be worried about/winnowed as threatening/disruptive

• Depends on scientists being careful about what they do and how they talk about what they are doing but NOT on scientists avoiding any personal engagements/commitments relevant to what they are doing
• Depends on everybody treating science not as "Truth" or "fact" but as what it is, and exercising the same critical judgements re "science" as should be exercised re anything else
  • Re Levay in general:
    • collecting observations always useful, benefits clear for himself and others wrt correcting some "social constructions", risks have to do not with observations collected nor his story of them but with other "social constructions".
    • Levay himself certainly motivated by his own interests, NOT so far as I know by an interest in stamping out homosexuality.
  • Re Levay in particular:
    • "But if you're talking exclusively about evolutionary theory, there is no really convincing account that homosexuality is an adaptation, that it has some evolutionary advantage. So it's more likely probably that it's a disadvantage, connected with lowered reproduction."
    • Levay (and others) would be well off to think a bit more about "evolutionary theory" and its relation to culture. People (like other organisms) have all kinds of significances in ongoing exploration over and above individual reproduction.
  • Re textbooks:
    • "This suggests that sex is biological while gender is subjective"
    • Be skeptical of them, whether they are "science" textbooks or any other kind of textbook
  • Re Jennifer Terry, An American Obsession ...
    • "If we continue to look to science and medicine at all, perhaps it should be to investigate how we might all consist of recombinant elements that make the binary face-off between homosexuality and heterosexuality a thing of the past"
    • Here, here ... and (re "at all") it would be a shame if one withdrew from science, both in terms of the cost to one's own ongoing explorations and in terms of the lost opportunity to play a role in an enormously powerful and effective way to explore/discover/create new things collectively

Might in fact be a way of counteracting "existing systemic violence" not only re homosexuality, and re sex/gender variation in general but also re the whole host of other forms of oppressive "hierarchy"?