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In the article titled "Sexual Identity Hard-Wired by Genetics," Reuters reported on October 20 that one's sexual or gender identity is "wired into the genes," citing the new research by UCLA geneticist Eric Vilain and colleagues. According to Vilain, the findings would suggest that "sexual identity is rooted in every person's biology before birth" and that this knowledge may be used to ensure that intersex babies are assigned the correct gender. "If physicians could predict the gender of newborns with ambiguous genitalia at birth, we would make less mistakes in gender assignment," Vilain said. However, none of this is actually established or discussed in the actual research paper this news report is based on.
The actual research published in Molecular Brain Research (Vol. 118, pgs. 82-90) is titled "Sexually dimorphic gene expression in mouse brain precedes gonadal differentiation," and this title summarizes the entire paper accurately: this study shows that female and male mice develop different brain structure even before their gonads are formed. The significance of this study is that sex differences in the brain have been traditionally said to be caused by the different levels of hormones produced by the gonads--testes for males, ovaries for females. Vilain et al. observed sex differences in the brain prior to the formation of sexually specific gonads, which suggests that there are other mechanisms that cause brain sex differences than hormones.
Interesting discovery, but how does that show that gender identity is "hard-wired"? Paper does not address this question at all, but it would be ridiculous to claim to have discovered the nature of gender identity in a study using mice, because mice do not report their gender identity to researchers like human subjects do. And besides, is findings from the mouse sexuality really generalizable to the human population?
Vilain's application of his "findings" to the intersex controversy is also ethically questionable. If there was really a way to predict a child's gender accurately, will that justify surgically mutilating the child to fit into her or his "true gender"? Intersex activists are seeking to end shame, secrecy, and traumatic medical treatments that are not necessary, safe, nor effective--not an end to "mistakes" of assigning the "wrong" gender.
Besides, the methodology Vilain used for studying the brain structure of a mouse involves cracking its head and grinding brain--not an ideal method if our goal is to "predict the gender of newborns with ambiguous genitalia." Clearly, the Reuters story is way, way off at many levels.
How did a reputable news agency such as Reuters make such horrible reporting errors? We found a press release issued by UCLA on October 15 which apparently provided the basis for the Reuters story. Titled "Is sexuality hard-wired by the brain?", the UCLA release states, among other things:
"Our findings may explain why we feel male or female, regardless of our actual anatomy... These discoveries lend credence to the idea that being transgender --- feeling that one has been born into the body of the wrong sex -- is a state of mind... Their gender identity likely will be explained by some of the genes we discovered."
Vilain's findings on the brain's sex genes may also ease the plight of parents of intersex infants, and help their physicians to assign gender with greater accuracy... "If physicians could predict the gender of newborns with ambiguous genitalia at birth, we would make less mistakes in gender assignment," said Vilain.
Lastly, Vilain proposes that the UCLA findings may help to explain the origin of homosexuality. "It's quite possible that sexual identity and physical attraction is 'hard-wired' by the brain," he noted. "If we accept this concept, we must dismiss the myth that homosexuality is a 'choice' and examine our civil legal system accordingly."
These are wild claims, and none of them is warranted from the actual study. And Vilain knows it: which is why he and his colleagues didn't mention any of this in the actual paper, which must be peer-reviewed by other scientists, but chose to wildly speculate in the press release, which is only read by science novices. I suspect that Reuters reporter did not even read the actual paper, relying solely on the press release to write the article.
Reuters is irresponsible for uncritically relaying the message, but we find UCLA's press release much more unethical, because it appears that the release is intentionally written to be misleading and sensationalistic. Perhaps the UCLA researchers thought that the press release would help make the society more accepting of gays and transsexuals, but they overstepped the ethical line when they made these wild predictions and suppositions about the biological roots of transsexuality or homosexuality when their study actually had nothing to do with gender identity or sexual orientation (or even human sexuality).
- Emi Koyama, Director, Intersex Initiative
Thanks to Dr. Lisa Weasel for her knowledge and insight that contributed to this commentary.
Posted by Emi on Oct 21, 2003