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November 15 edition of Quirks & Quarks, the "award-winning radio science program of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, featured the UCLA researcher Eric Vilain, who made a series of questionable comments to the press about what his research on mice brains can tell us about the nature of human sexuality and gender identity. In the program, Vilain explains what his new findings suggest and its possible use in identifying potential genetic "causes" of sexual orientation or gender identity (which again proves that the earlier news report "sexual identity is genetically hard-wired" is premature).
Toward the end of the program, the interviewer asks Vilain "why do we even bother looking [for the difference between male and female brain] in the first place?" to which he answers: "Understanding the difference between male and female brains is quite important in many different levels. One is general understanding of human development. Second one is understanding the causes of gender identity. Last point is [that] if we had a biological clues into gender identity, [that is] whether we feel male or we feel female, and if we could predict at birth if someone is going to have male or female gender identity, this could have some implications in our way of managing intersex individuals. [...] One of the issues is gender assignment that is whether the baby is going to be raised as a boy or a girl [...] Mistakes have been made and will be made just because our understanding of gender identity is very poor so if we had a way at the genetic level looking at sequence variations for instance into DNA of the babies, if we had a way to figure out what was their most likely gender identity is going to be, that would definitely help gender assignment at birth."
As he admits, gender identity is not an exact science: "mistakes" will always be made, because the best any genetic marker, if they discover one, could predict is what one's gender identity is likely to be. Of course, any additional clues that helps us to predict child's most likely gender identity (thus most appropriate sex of rearing) is helpful, but there is a danger that it would be used to justify the invasive surgical "treatment" such as vaginoplasty. Intersex activists are challenging these treatment not only because doctors might "guess" their gender wrong, but because they are unnecessary and harmful. Most intersex activists are not suffering from the assignment of "wrong" gender, but from physical, psychological and sexual damages caused by the surgery and the secrecy and shame that it symbolizes.
Further, Vilain seems to assume that growing up with the gender identity that does not match the sex of rearing will always be undesirable and tragic, but it need not be. Instead of trying to prevent intersex children from becoming transgendered, we could be working to build a society that is less hostile to gender variant children, whether they are intersex or not. It is not tragic that our bodies or gender identities are different from the majority of people; it becomes tragic only when the society insists that we are "abnormal" and that our differences must be eradicated (through surgery, genetic treatment or transphobic social environment) against our will.
Posted by Emi on Nov 17, 2003