Posted on 02/18/2005 3:09:21 PM PST by srm913
It's the first question new parents hear: girl or boy? But hundreds of babies are born each year where the gender isn't clear. Prompt surgery to assign one was once the norm.
But gender depends on more than anatomy or hormones. It also seems to stem from the very earliest brain development, researchers said Friday in urging doctors to hold off on the knife until children can determine their own sex.
"To discover who or what a child is ... you have to ask them," Dr. William Reiner of the Oklahoma University Health Science Center told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"There is no one biological parameter that clearly defines sex," added Dr. Eric Vilain of the University of California, Los Angeles, whose research suggests gender is genetically hard-wired into the brain before birth — regardless of which genitalia develop.
The issue is "intersex," the name for numerous conditions that result in roughly one in 4,000 babies born with both male and female traits.
One of the more common is congenital adrenal hyperplasia. In such cases, genetic girls with XX chromosomes are exposed in the womb to such high levels of androgen — the hormone that triggers male development — that they appear male externally even if they have female reproductive organs. A different condition leaves genetic males less responsive to androgen during development, so they're born without a penis.
The parents must pick a gender somehow, to know what to call their child and because gender is required on a birth certificate. So specialists check non-obvious factors such as which sex chromosomes the child has and levels of sex hormones in the blood.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
I am speechless. Utterly speechless.
See BS on CBS!
Damn... Thats a bum way to start off in life!
I have heard of people being born with both organs, but with no penis?
Females have a similar component to the penis, anyway.
Is that what they mean? They aren't very clear.
(yep, no penis. I never have to use the john on airplanes, so it saves me lots of time)
This seems like your kind of thread, Laz.
Bump and "just incredible" ping.
Golly gee whiz. Neither me (1949) or my sister (1951) had to ask Mom or dad who or what we were.
WTH's wrong with todays kids/punks/lowlifes? WTF?
Golly gee whiz. Neither me (1949) or my sister (1951) had to ask Mom or Dad who or what we were.
WTH's wrong with todays kids/punks/lowlifes? WTF?
I worked on a neonatal unit. A baby was born, a boy, but his pubic area wasn't fused. They had to do surgery to make him a girl(they couldn't repair him), it was very hard on his parents. The baby did suffer, very much.
Oooops! Sorry for the double post...
Oh, great...
HERE WE GO...
HELEN THOMAS PICS!!!
RUN FOR THE HILLS, FOLKS!
And this happens in nature in about 1 in 100,000 people, right?
That's Janet Reno dummy! :-)
I know.
But the dam has burst!
No, that's Jack Reno.
Well, it was the only time I've seen it, in 14 years.
This seems to be the best description of Gays and Lesbians I've ever seen. In short, Queers are biological freaks.
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