Crossdressers-Haven.com

This was interesting: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MensHealth ... 217&page=1

Are CDs the leading edge of this change? There have always been CDs in the population. Is the ratio changing? Is it happening fast enough for anthropologists to notice?

Do we all agree there is a strong genetic basis to dressing?

Its goodbye to Mr "Y" , I'm sure I'm a leading example of this degeneration.

Hi Della,

Not to rain on ABC News' parade, but wasn't there a ballyhoo about this a couple of years back that has since been debunked, or anyway denied?

If memory serves, some scientist wrote a well-publicized book stating that the studies showed deterioration in the Y chromosome was projected to result in future male attrition. The more vivid tabloid accounts got in hysterics about men dying off ... I picked up a dirt-cheap second-hand copy and it sounded pretty convincing ...

But come to find out, later and more sober accounts showed there was little or nothing to it (just like this year's "blondes will die out" stories proved to be of little substance). So I tossed the book (and thus have to rely on my memory instead of giving you a firm reference).

The ABC News account linked above does seem a little more cautious—they'd like it to be understood men won't actually die off or leave the world populated only by Genetic Females—but even in its present form it sounds like it's in the same ballpark with the above accounts, and thus may be considerably overstated.

Just my guess for what it's worth, but I would not be surprised to hear, a few weeks or months down the road, a "course correction" to the effect that the science supporting this either just isn't there, or at the very least, is pretty flaky.

Still, I could easily be wrong. Maybe I better brush up on my ladylike manners?

Love, Robyn Katie

Ah yes, rumors of the end of the world and other Chicken Little stories.

Might be a few errors of fact in the story too. First, there are documented circumstances in which genes jump not only along the length of a chromosome but between chromosome strands, likely the result of errors arising from incomplete division of chromosome strands during cellular reproduction during fetal development. Puts the lie to the suggestion that the two chromosome strands do not exchange a few genes. These splits are believed by some to be responsible for some forms of intersex births.

There is also the documented mutations that occur on the AR gene (an X-linked recessive mutation), which if made longer by the mutation may result in births with androgen insensitivity syndrome, another form of intersex. Other forms include 5 alpha reductase deficiency, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, and some others, though CAH masculinizes females born with the mutation.

It also seems that there is an increase in the number of people born with weak androgenic attachments in their phenotypic expression if the lengthened AR gene is present. Such males are said to not be as "masculine" as the supposed norm, more passive, and often with more feminine personalities. This though, was an animal study (rats), so it's direct application to people is currently a planned study.

There is also suggested research results to indicate the number of males born with genital deformities may be increasing. This first came out a year or more ago in an article in SCIENCE, and now appeared in a newspaper again last month.

Some people are linking this with estrogenic homones in the environment, and also pointing to abnormalities in frogs and other amphibians, which seem to be increasing in some polluted areas, especially around stockyards and poultry house concentrations. Both these operations depend on a type of hrt to rapidly develop their food products for us to eat. Apparently the anomolies are the result of leaching from the soil (waste application as "fertilizer") into the water supply, and possibly from the meat of animals fed up for wt. gain with special feed containing the hormones.

Take all this, including the ABC story, with a grain of salt or an asprin, lie down and breathe deeply, and all will be well. Alternatively, there is a lot on the web about it, including wild eyed activist action groups.

Carolynn

Another possiblitlity is that with better prenatal care and nutrition the number of spontaneous abortions (micarriages) decreases. Since miscarriage is the bodys way of ending a problematic pregnancy, maybe more viable but unusual fetuses are surviving.


Personally however I think this is more Chicken Little stuff.

Absaroka

I saw that too. Not being a geneticist I am not qualified to comment but I think is probably ties in with the oestrogen mimics found in non-surfactant cleaning products.

Bye Bye Human Race

researchers say there is a dramatic loss of genes from the human Y chromosome that eventually could lead to its complete disappearance -- in the next few millennia. While the Y chromosome's degeneration has been known to geneticists and evolutionary biologists for decades

Seeing as how it has only been recent that the human genome was able to be mapped, I find it hard to understand how they could state that the Y chromosome's degeneration has been known to geneticists and evolutionary biologists for decades. Hypothesized maybe, but certainly not "known."

Della wrote:Do we all agree there is a strong genetic basis to dressing?

Seems the most likely scenario.