What is Bono's DNA male or female? It doesn't matter - IMO if you're born with female genitalia, you can never be a male. That's an opinion and only an opinion and is no more a fact than it is to say she now a male.
I think the show started out to be dancing with stars, but has slipped to dancing with has beens and used to be, plus athletes. It should be called Dancing with Celebrities, but as you pointed out, some of them I've never heard of and Bono's only celebrity comes from being the transgendered daughter of Cher.
I agree with you as to the nature of the show. Its title is a bit too lofty.
As to gender, I specifically asked you about intersex people for a reason. You didn't answer that question, really. The reason I asked is because most people, like you, believe that gender is determined by the outward appearance of our genitalia, hence the announcement at birth: "It's a girl!" or "It's a boy!" Many people share your belief that someone born with female genitalia will always be female. Period.
But intersex people evidence that gender may be more than just genitalia. So does the case of the woman I cited who has female genitalia but solidly male DNA. And what about this?:
Caster Semenya, a South African runner, who has had no known hormonal treatments or surgery, had her gender investigated by the IAAF after she broke a world record and her gender was questioned by those who noted her very masculine appearance and voice. She was born with obviously female genitalia:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/20/caster-semenya-south-afri_n_264451.html
In order to determine Caster's gender, a gender test was conducted:
"The test, which takes weeks to complete, requires a physical medical evaluation, and includes reports from a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and an expert on gender."
The very existence of people like Caster or intersex people call into question the notion that gender is determined by the appearance of one's genitalia. In fact, a whole team including a "...gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and an expert on gender" were needed to determine Caster's gender. So, how can one be so definitive that genitalia is how we determine gender?
There are various types of intersex. Some have very obvious male genitalia, yet they also have ovaries and a uterus. Some have genitalia that is hard to determine - it looks somewhere in between. What causes it? In the case of one example of a type of intersex, the cause is found to be:
46, XX Intersex. The person has the chromosomes of a woman, the ovaries of a woman, but external (outside) genitals that appear male. This usually is the result of a female fetus having been exposed to excess male hormones before birth. The labia ("lips" or folds of skin of the external female genitals) fuse, and the clitoris enlarges to appear like a penis. Usually this person has a normal uterus and Fallopian tubes. This condition is also called 46, XX with
virilization. It used to be called female pseudohermaphroditism. There are several possible causes:
- Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (the most common cause).
- Male hormones (such as testosterone) taken or encountered by the mother during pregnancy.
- Male hormone-producing tumors in the mother. These are most often ovarian tumors. Mothers who have children with 46, XX intersex should be checked unless there is another clear cause.
- Aromatase deficiency. This one may not be noticeable until puberty. Aromatase is an enzyme that normally converts male hormones to female hormones. Too much aromatase activity can lead to excess estrogen (female hormone); too little to 46, XX intersex. At puberty these XX children, who had been raised as girls, may begin to take on male characteristics.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001669.htm
In many intersex cases, a hormone disruptor or the introduction of the opposite hormone in utero, via tumor, or otherwise, causes the sex organs to be atypical. Isn't it also possible that some fetuses are flushed with the hormone opposite to themselves but either not to a degree that it would actively change their genitalia or possibly in a manner that leaves their genitalia as originally determined but changes other aspects of the body, like the brain structure, such that the baby born does not feel the gender reflected by their genitalia? That's what some scientists think.
IMO, if it takes a whole team to test a person's gender, than the question of gender is not as simple as looking at someone's genitals, even though that is an easy approach. Science shows that the question of gender is not fixed and not always so easy to determine. And if hormones can cause the appearance of ambiguous genitalia, why can't they cause changes in brain structure as well, in how someone perceives themselves, etc.?
Scientists have, in fact, shown via brain scans that the brains of most transgendered individuals operate like the sex opposite to the one they were born with. In other words, a child born female who feels like a male, has a brain that operates like a male brain, not like a female one:
"Antonio Guillamon's team at the National University of Distance Education in Madrid, Spain, think they have found a better way to spot a transsexual brain. In a study due to be published next month, the team ran MRI scans on the brains of 18 female-to-male transsexual people who'd had no treatment and compared them with those of 24 males and 19 females.
They found significant differences between male and female brains in four regions of white matter and the female-to-male transsexual people had white matter in these regions that resembled a male brain (
Journal of Psychiatric Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.05.006). "It's the first time it has been shown that the brains of female-to-male transsexual people are masculinised," Guillamon says."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan.html
What do you think of that? And what are we to do with such people? Tell them that the way they think is wrong? That if they choose to identify in a manner dictated by their brain structure rather than their sex organs, that they are merely wearing a costume and will never be what their brains show they are?
And what if that's your child who feels that way? When you come into the bathroom and find your six year old holding scissors up to his penis, wanting to cut off that piece of himself that to him is shockingly opposite from what he knows himself to be - a "she" - do you tell the kid that he's crazy, completely wrong, will always be a boy and if he tries to express otherwise, he'd be doing nothing different than trick or treating?
Or maybe you would do this?:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-irAT0viF0"]AC360 - The 'Sissy Boy' Experiment - Part One - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hadKhD66x4&feature=related"]The Sissy Boy Experiment Part 2 - YouTube[/ame]
(The above case highlights the case of a boy who was gay. But such "treatment" would apply to those who are transgender as well).
I don't know. I'd rather have my kid happy and alive than told that what their brain is telling them is a lie, because it doesn't match their private parts. I'd rather have a kid like this than a kid who wants to cut off their genitals or kill themselves:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gvJnEd7MdI&feature=related"]Jazz sings "Happiness" while chewing gum at the same time - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7FPikrWSt0&feature=related"]Jazz age 9, fun times dancing - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC9idqYU9Ns"]Jazz age 10 Mamma Mia reprise - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S5usRgY720&feature=related"]7yr. old Jazz's thoughts on being a Transgender Child - YouTube[/ame]
:twocents:
