Veronica Drantz on the Biology of Gender, Intersex and Sexual Orientation.
In 26 concise minutes, Dr. Drantz an animal physiologist lays to waste social myths about gender and sexuality in all its variations with plenty of just good science. She pulls no punches in attacking both the religious and social misinformation and wrong attitudes toward LGBTI people and their conditions and behavior. If I could summarize, atypical is not abnormal and the variation in genetic and hormonal effects on the reproductive organs, body and especially brain during prenatal development that we observe in animals and humans are well described and understood in terms of biology and physiology.
The made up nonsense that the Conservative religions promote as explanations of LGBTI behavior are exposed. She also takes the medical community to task for moving much too slow away from the social attitudes towards LGBTI people that are primarily religion-promoted and have no basis in reality.
This is a classic example of the clash between scientific knowledge and religious claims. Religions are bastions of old ideas that must give way to new knowledge.
Information Kills Religion.
Thank you Dr. Drantz for providing a clear, concise summary of the reality of gender and sexual variance. If every high school kid in America was taught the biology of the prenatal development of sex and gender, the bullshit we hear repeated about “choice” and “sin” and the strict male/female dichotomy would disappear even quicker than it already is.
end religion now.
(1984)
Thanks for this post! One of the first times I began to question my religious upbringing was in regard to the baptist church’s strongly held belief that being gay was wrong and that it was a choice people made, not merely “just the way they were born”. I had a friend who during high school decided to ‘come out’ and be himself. I found it very easy to accept him as the human being that he was and never judged him or considered him an outcast or deviant. I remember being in church in high school (forced to go each week by my born-again parents) and the pastor delivering a sermon about the evils of homosexuality and I was disgusted by that opinion. I refused to believe my friend was evil! A few sermons later I listened to the pastor speak of how women should be obedient to their husbands in the way they are obedient to the “lord”. These are the two most life changing moments in my young life because I knew immediately that this church bullshit would never be a part of my adult life. As soon as I was 18, I would no longer be forced into this weekly lesson in stupidity and I would never seek out, promote or encourage a religious view of life ever again. Thank you misogynists and homophobes for exposing your ignorance in time for me to get off the crazy, religious train before I was brainwashed into insanity!
Rhonda, I grew up in the North, but spent 5 years teaching in KY and I heard stories so similar to yours from so many friends, students, and colleagues that grew up in a strict Baptist or other Conservative Xian church: same stuff “homos burn in hell” and “women must obey their husbands” I know two ladies who left their husbands and churches over the “obey” part. I read so much of Xian pastors, ministers, priests that just dont “get it” and cant figure out why so many young are dropping their religion…what guy would volunteer to be treated like a woman as their church demands…thnx for reading and the insightful comment