Does having a Y chromosome make someone a man?

A lot of unintended harm happens when people assume a Y chromosome makes a person a boy or a man and the lack of a Y chromosome makes a person a girl or a woman. For example, one physician educator on our Medical Advisory Board had the challenging experience of trying to calm a 23-year-old patient who had just been told by a resident that she was “really a man” because the resident had diagnosed the patient as having a Y chromosome and complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS).

It is true that in typical male development, the SRY gene on the tip of the Y chromosome helps to send the embryo down the masculine pathway. But more than the SRY is needed for sex determination and differentiation; for example, women with CAIS have the SRY gene but lack androgen receptors. In terms of hormone effects on their bodies (including their brains), women with CAIS have had much less “masculinization” than the average 46,XX woman because their cells do not respond to androgens.

Moreover, the SRY gene can be translocated onto an X chromosome (so that a 46,XX person may develop along a typical masculine pathway), and there are dozens of genes on chromosomes other than the X and the Y that contribute to sexual differentiation. And beyond the genes, a person’s sex development can be significantly influenced by environmental factors (including the maternal uterine environment in which the fetus developed).

So it is simply incorrect to think that you can tell a person’s sex just looking at whether he or she has a Y chromosome.

Want to know more? The following comes from ISNA’s Medical Advisory Board member Dr. Charmian Quigley:

SRY, discovered in 1989, is a small gene located at the tip of the short arm of the Y chromosome. So what does it do? Actually, like all genes, it does nothing except to act as a blueprint for a protein. In this case, the protein of the same name does funky things to DNA, like bending it and unwinding the 2 strands, so that other proteins can get in and attach themselves to other genes that are then turned on. So how did this gene get its reputation (and its name) as the “sex determining” gene?

As is pretty common in the world of genetics, this was because of some errant mice. Researchers in England took a laboratory-made copy of this gene and inserted it artificially into a female (XX) mouse embryo at a very early stage of development. The mouse was “converted” from female to male, so the gene must have been responsible – right? Well, maybe not. A few years later, a similar gene was found on human chromosome 17. When the important part of this gene was inserted into a female mouse embryo, the same thing happened. Voila! A male.

So now we have 2 genes that can turn a female into a male, and one of them is not located on the Y chromosome! How can that be? It turns out that SRY is probably just a facilitator that allows a more critical gene (or genes) to function, by blocking the action of another opposing factor. Can the magic of genetics do the opposite – turn a male into a female? Indeed it can. A gene on the X chromosome (the chromosome one typically associates with “femaleness”) called DAX1 when present in double copy in a male (XY) mouse, turns it into a female.

So now we have genes on the Y that can turn females with XX chromosomes into males and genes on the X that can turn males with XY chromosomes into females… wow! Maleness and femaleness are NOT determined by having an X or a Y, since switching a couple of genes around can turn things upside down.

In fact, there’s a whole lot more to maleness and femaleness than X or Y chromosomes. About 1 in 20,000 men has no Y chromosome, instead having 2 Xs. This means that in the United States there are about 7,500 men without a Y chromosome. The equivalent situation - females who have XY instead of XX chromosomes - can occur for a variety of reasons and overall is similar in frequency.

For these 15,000 or more individuals in the US (and who knows how many worldwide), their chromosomes are irrelevant. It is the total complement of their genes along with their life experiences (physical, mental, social) that makes them who they are (or any of us, for that matter). The last time I counted, there were at least 30 genes that have been found to have important roles in the development of sex in either humans or mice. Of these 30 or so genes 3 are located on the X chromosome, 1 on the Y chromosome and the rest are on other chromosomes, called autosomes (on chromosomes 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 19).

In light of this, sex should be considered not a product of our chromosomes, but rather, a product of our total genetic makeup, and of the functions of these genes during development.

Implicit Transphobia or sheer ignorance .......

both perhaps

So Dr Glenville Ashby had a piece he penned published in the Sunday Gleaner dated September 25, 2016 entitled “Transgender: denying reality” where he insidiously went off on Transgenderism and so near effortless displayed sheer ignorance on the subject(s). He was quite prepared to conflate transgender with intersex and committed the ultimate infraction when it comes to the latter that of using a now well accepted stigmatizing term as ‘hermaphrodite’ and the faux pas of transgender(ed) as if to suggest someone can be a past participle of who one is, the ‘ed’ at the end is still a problematic issue in terms of designation prior to or after re-assignment surgery or feels.

‘Hermaphrodite’ has been removed from the LGBTQI toolkit in as far discourse surrounding such physiological issues attends since 2005. The word is seen as a stigmatizing terms as it conjures up mental images of someone with merely two sex organs when the issues attendant to such matters are not ones of sexual orientation and or gender identity in as far as psychological considerations are concerned. While Dr Ashby has used the correct term ‘Intersex’ he has misdirected it to mean something else and ends up concluding some sort of abnormality or as the article is subtitled ‘denying reality’

For example he wrote:

“Transgender should not be confused with transvestite

Then he both Transgenerism and intersex as one, he wrote:

“Transgender is invariably referred to as intersex (a person that has non standard genitalia), or transsexual (a person who expresses a gender identity that is different to his or her gender at birth).”

He could have simply done some basic research on this just as how he was able to site opinions of the likes of neuroscientist Tad Pacholcyzk or Dr Paul McHugh. We have been subjected to a series of very deceptive writings and outward transphobic pronouncements by some persons pointing to Transgenderism as madness of some kind; the leader in the wave of the intellectually driven hatred is Dr Wayne West of Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society, JCHS fame. He has been given support by sociologist and radio show host of Everywoman on the sometimes progressive Nationwide News Network, NNN Radio one Miss Georgette Crawford.

Here is the Gleaner article in question:

The highly publicised sexual transformation of United States Olympian Bruce Jenner (now Caitlyn Jenner) has ignited a bruising political and cultural debate on gender dysphoria and 'transgenderism'.

Academicians, scientists, theologians and laypersons have weighed in on a phenomenon that is as old as civilisation.

With a shift in the cultural paradigm, transgender rights are slowly being accommodated. Federal laws prohibit discrimination against transgender individuals, and bathrooms at most public places in the United States are required to accommodate new 'gender realities'.

Not surprisingly, political, academic, and judicial activism has advanced a new confrontational liberal zeitgeist that has made it difficult to have a dissenting opinion for fear of being maliciously labelled. The same held true when conservatism was universally dominant.

There are key questions surrounding this debate. For example, is surgery appropriate in dealing with somatic dysphoria? Also, is being transgender a psychopathology? What is needed is a sober discussion based on measurable arguments and not malleable evidence fashioned by individual and social leanings.

Transgender should not be confused with transvestite (a man having pleasure in dressing like a woman), homosexuality (having sexual feelings for the same sex), bisexuality (having sexual feelings for both sexes), or hermaphrodites (a person having male and female genitalia).

Transgender is invariably referred to as intersex (a person that has non-standard genitalia), or transsexual (a person who expresses a gender identity that is different to his or her gender at birth).

In many of these cases, gender transition is made possible through surgery.

Orthodox religions have long expressed paradoxical views regarding abnormal sexual identity, not unlike its position on homosexuality. The actions of the so-called sinner are vehemently condemned, although love is professed for the perpetrator.

Russell D. Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the southern Baptist Convention, said: "The transgender question means that conservative Christian congregation must teach what's being handed down to us, that our maleness and femaleness points us to an even deeper reality, to the unity ... of Christ and the Church.

"A rejection of the goodness of those creational realities, then, is a revolt against God's lordship, and against the picture of the gospel that God is embedded in His creation."

In marginal cases, pastors have been accused of fomenting a climate of hatred and violence towards transgender people who are deemed morally bankrupt and evil.

James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family, declared: "If you are a dad, I pray that you will protect your little girls from men who walk in unannounced, unzip their pants and urinate in front of them ... . If this happened 100 years ago, someone might have been shot."

WORSHIPPING IN CHURCHES

 

Sensing and experiencing slight from mainstream Christianity, many in the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community have begun worshipping in churches and temples where sexual orientation is inconsequential.

Secular society, though, has pushed back forcibly against what they call intolerance and bigotry. Prominent businesses are boycotting states, such as Georgia, Indiana, and North Carolina that uphold the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that is arguably discriminatory and unconstitutional.

While battlelines are drawn, some are critically measured, preferring to understand the sexual dynamics and overall psychological profile of the transgender community.

Among those is priest and neuroscientist Tad Pacholczyk, a Yale and Harvard graduate and education director at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. His scientific and theological background offered a unique insight into this highly charged subject.

In the article, 'Seeing through the intersex confusion,' he acknowledged that confounding physiological (hormonal) triggers and cultural forces lead to psychological discordance.

Comparing somatic disorders to other developmental disorders that should never "be subjected to bias or mistreatment", he argued that "while a newborn's 'intrinsic maleness' or 'intrinsic femaleness' may be difficult to access in certain more complicated intersex cases, the point remains that there is an 'underlying' sexual constitution that we must do our best to recognise and respect and act in accord with".

Equally important is his far-reaching assertion that "wilfully (denying this reality) is a prescription for disillusionment and dishonesty".

Pacholczyk has oftentimes referred to the work of the eminent Dr Paul McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, who has been in the cross hairs of liberal professionals.

His detailed study of transgenderism and sex-reassignment surgery has produced some explosive assertions.

McHugh observed that after transitioning, individuals are still plagued by psycho-emotional and identity problems; that there is an absence of maternal characteristics and desires in transgendered individuals; and that despite haute couture over compensation there remains definitive, irreversible indicators of their maleness or femaleness.

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, McHugh likened the transgendered to "anorexia nervosa patients who believe that a drastic physical change will banish their psychosocial problems".

"At the heart of the problem," he argued, "is confusion over the nature of the transgendered."

McHugh continued: "Sex change is biologically impossible (and) people who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminised men or masculinised women."

He concluded that the transgender issue "is not a civil rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder".

VERY REAL PROBLEM

 

McHugh has always emphasised that a diagnosis of mental illness should be met with the most appropriate means to address a very real problem.

Lending support to McHugh is the conservative American Association of Paediatricians.

Featured on its website is the article, 'Gender Ideology Harms Children', in which we read that "gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept (and) not an objective biological one".

It also highlighted the disproportionately high rates of suicides among those who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex realignment surgery, "even in Sweden which is among the most LGBT- affirming countries".

As both sides of the debate harden their position, the words of Pacholczyk invite reflection: " ... allowing people to 'define their identity' ignores the crucially important truth that numerous aspects of our identity, especially those related to our bodily and sexual identity, are predetermined, objective goods that we are called upon to recognise and respect in the choices we make".

I am sure as we wade through the sea of ignorance and the bliss that accompanies it we are going to see more nonsense such as this article so worded to give support but the true reasons becomes clear.

Peace & tolerance

H

also see:

Jamaican human rights advocate uses the "H" word in submissions on intersex/lgbt issues a ..... 2014

Five Myths that Hurt Intersex People 2010

Intersexuality, Ambiguous Genetalia & Psycho-social issues Discussion on Nationwide Radio 2009