The Lesbian Hand Thing - Biology and Homosexuality

[Candleshoe]

Well, I'm not sure that GG was being PC, just picking me up on some language that I was too blase to think about properly. I like it when I am challenged, and I sometimes fail to notice when I fall into using too short a shorthand.

I like the word queer, but have been conditioned into shouting at people who use it, because where I come from it is not normally a descriptor or a compliment, it's an insult. I often forget that there are some "safe" places, and this board is one of them, where everybody has a valid viewpoint, and we don't all shout at once.

So, we all have a point, and we are all right (except for me, but I am used to that ) so shall I get back on topic and notice that the theories in the article are said not to work for lesbians? Have we found any theories that do?

[billy]

people can just be ridiculously pc these days and there's no pleasing those types. i personally have been scolded for not adding the rest of the goddamn alphabet onto LGBT or for not using the word queer (i'm old school, and haven't quite reclaimed queer yet).

I would have said that not using the word queer is very PC.

Anyway...

This thread has really made me wonder if anyone else in my family has been, or is, gay or bi. My Gran didn't remarry when my Grandad died when she was in her 20s, I had three elderly aunts who never married and I have a male cousin in his mid-40s who has only had one girlfriend which lasted about a year, the rest of the time he's been alone. Makes ya think.

[FineyMcFine]

Yeah, that's the ticket, billy - I wonder who else in my family plays for the pink team too. I've always had suspicions about one of my second cousins and his son, but never anything confirmed as such.

You know what I wonder about, and this thought has actually tapped on my mental shoulder a time or two, is back in colonial times and stuff I'm sure that lots of people were GLBT but didn't have as much opportunity to be open and honest about it (and for the T folks, the resources). You do read some stuff from time to time, but I imagine that a lot of lesbians ended up married to men, and what was that like for them, and did they ever find each other, etc. That's one of the reasons that I find The Legend of Green Eyed Red so compelling (hear that, Cam?).

I've thought about a fic set in rural Canada set back in the 1700's or 1800's, we'll see...

[Candleshoe]

I had a great uncle who was a poet. My gran always said the word "poet" in a whisper, so I always wondered whether she meant something else...

Sadly both are gone now, so I guess I'll never know.

[Boschi]

Two thoughts:

1) Re: the 60 Minutes article.
Towards the end of the article they spoke of hormones possibly playing a large role in determining gender associated behaviors in rats, the implication being that they do so in other animals as well (like, say, humans as a totally random selection...).

I think this may be a factor, but am reminded of an NPR piece from last year (possibly a This American Life???) in which NPR office staff members had their testosterone levels measured. The findings were remarkably inconsistent with the genders and sexual orientations of the folks tested. Anyone else remember this?

2) It is rather depressing how much sexual orientation is missing from most of our family trees, isn't it? I know vaguely of one cousin (now dead) who was a lesbian. I never met her and am not close to that part of my family, yet was inordinately pleased when I found out that she 1) existed 2) was openly gay and 3) both she and her partner were accepted and loved by my aunt. All sorts of emotions on my part: relief, sadness that I never knew her, gratitude to my aunt, and an unexpected feeling of connection. It was like I was grasping rather desperately at a connection to this woman I didn't know simply because she was the first person in my family that I could point to and say "She is too! Look! My family, my sexual orientation."

On a related and depressing yet amusing note: My grandmother came from a very conservative, fundamentalist background. She never went to college or travelled much. By the time I left for college in the early nineties she was fairly confused from early onset dementia, and as such didn't take in new information very well. Old fears came up often however, so I was surprised when she took me aside and warned me fearfully of the "lispians" I might meet in college. (Is that not the best "verbal typo" ever??? I'm proud to say I kept a, errr, straight face.). I often wonder if these "lispians" where something new on her mental horizons or if there was an older context for her fear/awareness.

Sorry for the long post, and apologies for my rambling musings.

- Boschi

[Gatito Grande]

Re: the 60 Minutes article.
Towards the end of the article they spoke of hormones possibly playing a large role in determining gender associated behaviors in rats, the implication being that they do so in other animals as well (like, say, humans as a totally random selection...).

I think this may be a factor, but am reminded of an NPR piece from last year (possibly a This American Life???) in which NPR office staff members had their testosterone levels measured. The findings were remarkably inconsistent with the genders and sexual orientations of the folks tested. Anyone else remember this?

You can listen to that here: http://207.70.82.73/ra/220.ram (Real Audio required)

The point of the 60 Minutes bit though, Boschi, was on prenatal hormones, not the hormonal levels of adults (ala the TAL staff screening). Hormones undoubtedly do play a significant role, prenatally, in "mapping out" the way our brains are wired (of course, all sexuality/gender ID begins in the brain!) . . . but I also think it's probably too simplistic to say that "prenatal hormones are destiny".

The thing that most concerns me, is that things like "prenatal hormone levels" are not pathologized (this was especially true on a 20/20 store about a year and a half ago, wherein one identical twin was a het female, and one was FTM. The mother had had a traumatic experience while the twins were in utero, and "experts" were theorizing that one twin---guess which one? ---had absorbed all the "stress hormone" that the mother had experienced, due to the trauma. See? "Trauma = Queer!" the show seemed to say )

GG Which just goes to show: evidence is neutral, interpretation is LOADED! Out

[Boschi]

Gracias GG, for the link.

And a tip of my hat for your observations as well.

- Boschi