Gender Expression: Where Trans, Gay and Mainstream Intersect
Filed by dentedbluemercedes
September 14, 2010
http://dentedbluemercedes.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/gender-expression-where-trans-gay-and-mainstream-intersect/ (http://dentedbluemercedes.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/gender-expression-where-trans-gay-and-mainstream-intersect/)
(Originally published in GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine as an introduction. Possibly old-hat to readers here. References footnoted rather than directly hyperlinked)
In 2007, I wrote "Conversion Therapy in the Womb?"1 in response to the Southern Baptist leader Rev. Albert Mohler's blog, in which he speculated about the possibility that future genetic studies would be able to cure homosexuality and ->-bleeped-<- in utero (ironically without, of course, completely acknowledging that there could be any intrinsic nature to them instead of the usual "sinful choice" meme that churches adamantly tout).
In 2010, pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Maria I. New (with some assistance from intersex and trans-specific researcher and therapist Heino F.L. Meyer-Bahlburg) is studying exactly that. She is examining the use of Dexamethasone – a drug that has commonly been used with pregnant women when there is a history and risk of the fetus developing the intersex condition of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia – to redirect sexual orientation and gender expressive development of the fetus.