O U R S E X U A L IT Y A N D I T S O R IG IN S
R B Mootf,
During the last quarter of a century, from 19 6 6 to
1 9 9 2 , scientific research and findings about the
sexuality of mammals has completely changed what
human populations know By 1968 research on the
psychosexual orientations of all mammals had clarified
these were created by hormones in the uterus after
pregnancy began S»search has appro a ch e d this
inquiry from many avenues, hormone influence and
timing, anatomical differences and conclusions, genetic
studies and f mat ly psychological studies T his fcr ief
outline contains some of each of these
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Dr Charles Phoenix of the Oregon Primate Center
outside of B sever ton, and his co, leagues from many
centers, are internationally regarded as major
researchers on physical and behavioral impacts of
hormones in all mammals His research, started in the
1950s, established what determines masculinity and
fem ininity, and the biological mechanisms by which
sex and sexual-related behaviors are determined
Psychological Research
Psychological tests to offset commonly held beliefs.
condemning homosexuals, in the mental health
professions and society *er e firs t reported in 19 5 6 by
Dr Evelyn Honker. professor of Psychology at UCLA,
one of the "Or and Dames of American Psychology
Many other clinical psychologists replicated and
expanded her findings in the next 33 years Evelyn
Hooker s August 30. 195t> definitive "paper was read
at the Amer ican Psychological Convention in Chicago
She included in the paper the following about her
col eagues “ I t is w a ll known th a t m any p e o p le .
In c lu d in g p h y s tc la n s . re a c t In an exag g erated
way to sexual ( o r ie n t a t io n ) , end p a r t i c u l a r l y
to h o m o s e x u a lity w ith d is g u s t, a n g e r, and
h o s t ilit y
Such fe e lin g s o ften a r is e fro m the
in d iv id u a l s own c o n flic t c e n te rin g about h is
unconscious homosexual im p u ls e s
These
a ttitu d e s may in t e r f e r e w ith an in t e llig e n t
and o b je c tiv e h an d lin q of ( a ) p ro b le m ' One
of the conclusions of thia paper and one that
Is masculinized by the horm one te s to s te ro n e
has been d u p licated m any tim es is th a t,
"h o m o s e x u a lity as a c lin ic a l e n t it y due* not
exist,* Not a clinical entity means there s no
problem, there is nothing to f i x The American
Psychiatric Association dropped homosexuality as an
emotional and personality disorder in 19 7 3
Masculinization has s dual function morphological
(demonstrated in 19 3 8 ), and daqrees of
Reference Liat.
R esearch d e te rm in e d th a t in a l l m a m m a ls , a
fe tu s begins w ith a fe m a le b r a in , and th at th is
physiological-psychological - behavioral
masculimzation ( 1 9 5 9 - 6 8 ) These changes are made
in a short period of time with critical lim its, and this
produces the permanent' psychosexuaI
differentiation", at which time the fetus brain and
nervous system become male or stay female,
independent of gender The book Brain Sex, detailing
most of these findings and others in this outline,
in the womti aHalS-Dram
reports that testosterone
sexuality during at least three ph«es that develop i J
behavior. 2) sexual or ientation, 3J color sensiUyily
and style, so that in each of us every one q < tnoLflcas
develops independently as to whether it is more to the
female or male characteristic. So we are composed of
independent areas with ranges of these character ist’. a .
whatever our appear ances me
The Man With the Pink Triangle, by Heinz Hager
,9 8 0
W ritten by in Austrian man who w k imprisoned in
Nazi concentration camps for six years This shows the
dehumanizing of minor ities by the Nazi and is an
important observation as it is the same strategy used
by the church and society to exclude and)ustify denial
of human rights to gay men and lesbian women
The Pink Triangle, by Richard Plant. 19 8 6
insight into the politics and sexuality of Nazism in the
1 9 3 0 ‘s W hile the gays were being persecuted,
Hitler s second-in-command, Ernst Roefim. was gay
Christianity. Social R Q la ra riM .a n d H o m ^ u fllity .
the Christian Era to the Fourteenth CenturyA by John
Anatomical Research
In November 1991 Simon LeVay, a neuroscientist at
the Salk institute in LaJolla California, reported that
he had scanned the brains of 41 cadavers including 19
homosexual males and found that an area in the
hypothalamus of the brains of gays to be a quarter to
one half the size of male heterosexuals'. this area of the
ga/s brain is the same size as the females This was
the firs t direct evidence that gay b r a in s w e r e
structurally different from heterosexual males, and
that brains could be different within bodies of the same
sex LeVay said, *T he main result of this
re s e a rc h is to show that it is possible to
study sexual orientation at the bioloqical
level It is not just the province of the
psychologist and psychoanalysts anymore"
Dr Thomas R Insel, a behavioral neuroscientist at the
National Institute of Mental Health in
Rockville Md said, “It s quite a striking observation,
and as far as I know it s unprecedented Simon LeVay is
a top-notch, world-class neuroonatomist. and this isa
very provocative paper Most of us who look at the
influence of the brain on behavior work at the
molecular level But this is a rather gross anatomical
difference and it is a dramatic finding "
Dr Ingebord L Ward, professor of psychology at
Vtllanova University near Philadelphia, said the
finding fits in logically with what is known about the
development of the central nervous system The brain
a tb ir th is thought to be basically female During
pregnancy it requires the influence of the male
hormone, testosterone, generated by a male fetus
testes, to develop a masculine structure "Male rats
who are exposed to testosterone blockers during fetal
development w ill emerge from the womb with
characteristically feminine brains, including the
region that corresponds to the anterior hypothalamus
in humans "
Dr Roger Oorsky, chairman of the depar tment of
anatomy and cel I biology at the University of California
School of Medicine in Los Angeles is prepar ing for
publication the discovery of another difference in brain
structure between homosexual and heterosexual men
which w ill show that the con n ectio n betw een the
le f t and r ig h t h e m is p h e re s in gays is
composed of female b rain cells
The
hormonal-psychosexual orientation indicates that the
male homosexual has a female brain and nervous
system, w h iles lesbian hm a male brain and nervous
system
tenet ic R w w rch
From ,9 8 1 to 1992 the hormonal findings have
Boswell. ,9 8 0
A large, comprehensive volume that searches the roots
o f m o d e rn p re ju d ic e a g s in s t h o m o se xu a ls
C o ve rs
social intolerance over the last 700 years
Brain Sex, by Anne Moir ,1 9 9 1
Covers many differences among the sexes and their
biological origins Ms Moir collected sexual studies
fo r m a n y ye a r s and g iv e s th e r e s u lts in readable fo rm
B e in g H om osexual
O ff/ M y i gn0 T h f t i L ^ a l f l B G l g l l
byR ichardD ls»y 1989
A study on the timing of the development of sexuality
Bob Mixxh collect«, and wrote this information
Shewn Higgins edited and presented it
To the Editor
Deer Reverend Hults.
Just a note to thank you for the lovely evening
spent among friends in your home watching
Armisteed Maupin s "Tales of the City"
It was
poignantly appropr late that Lon Mabon was
attempting to poison the hearts of Clatsop
County residents on T uesdoy, January I Oth.
while you were hosting a gathering of loving
neighbors nibbling cheese A. crackers, crudites
& chocolates Thanks
In Peace,
Mona
C
oyote
D la t r lf e « t l« a
W hen you
w a n t the
w o rd
out
shaped the work of xien tists on g en etic m akeups of
m am m als as to how and when s e x u a lity la
d efin ed in the u te ru s and w hat In flu e n c e s
s e x u a lity a f t e r b ir t h What we know of the human
is that an individual's discovery of one's sexuality can
be very early or quite late ,n a lifetime
Psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and psychologists
realize that the sexual development before b irth
becomes dominant and is permanent Scientists look
for how and when genetic variables shape the timing,
extent and shape of our sexuality East te r many, as
well as other countries, has been experimenting with
end stud/ing the development of sexuality in mammals,
that can be found in the literature
A SPEECH made at seaside high school .
JANUARY I4TH, COMMEMORATING MARTIN LUTHER
KING. JR’S BIRTHDAY
You see here before you a v ic tim of
discrim ination I am Amerastan. my mother is
Chinese, my father is Caucasian I lived in
Portland un til I was nine years old Up un til
then, I had no idea I was diffe ren t I was always
a litt le weird, but I s t ill had friends of all races
Then l moved to Cannon Beach over the summer
and my siblings and I made friends w ith a lit t le
boy next door We spent a lot of time together,
playing in the d irt and picking blackberries Then
one day our friend came over and told us that his
dad said he couldn t play w ith us anymore
because we were Chinese He slid an abalone
shell under the fence that divided our yards as a
reminder of him Shortly afterw ards, he moved
away and it was time to sta rt school I went to
Cannon Beach Elementary School The fourth
qrade consisted of about th irty students, all of
them Caucasian except for me and another g irl of
hispanic heritage I was made the butt of many
racial jokes which continued throuqh junior high
school I realized that the children here weren t
exposed to much culture and they didn t know any
better, but ,t s t ill hurt and it s t ill made me
furious I thought that it would end once I got to
high school, but ,t s t ill happens High School has
been a wonderful experience for me. all these
people w ith open minds who are w illin g to accept
me for who I am Yet my fellow freshmen are the
ones who s t ill h it the hardest and most
frequently Not just because of my Asian
heritage, but because of the way I dress, and
because I am different
Just the other night I was watching a program
about AIDS and a man stated that when AIDS
fir s t hit, the government was slow to do
anything about it, because it attacked
homosexuals and drug addicts f irs t if it had mt
the middle class white fam ilies, they would ve
gotten right on it Do you know what solution
President Reagan suggested7 He said that we
shouldn t try to find a cure, we should prevent it
by teaching sexual education in schools If
anything, that would make the problem worse
The only thing I cannot do without crying is look
at the AIDS quilt M illions of people who died of
AIDS had patches sewn onto the quilt by people
who loved them, and it breaks my heart
The OCA is campaigning to end gay r ights
which they call "special rights", but the way I
see it, the gay community just wants equal
rights and to not be discrim inated against Lon
Mabon said that he would set up a counseling
center for homosexuals to convince them to
become heterosexuals As if being homosexual is
wrong' The OCA claims that in the bible God
condemns gays As a friend of mine put it,
"Homosexuals are people who love people of the
same sex How could God condemn people for
loving7""
Amimals are discriminated against also We
destroy their homes for our crops and houses and
test our medicines on them Who gave us the
right to do th is to them7 We humans think we
are superior to other animals because we are
able to think ratio n a lly and mold the environment
to f it our needs The question ,s not "Can
animals think ra tio n a lly 7" but "Can animals feel
pain7" and YES, they can
I see many, many wrongs going on in the world
Ethnic Cleansing for example It's the Holocaust
all over again Yet we do nothing about it
because it doesn't a ffe ct us personally But
m illio ns of people are dying because they are
different
We are gathered at this assembly to commend
Martin Luther King Jr He strove to give his
people equal rights and he died for ,t
We cannot let th is go on any longer
by Su, Lin Chin
I ain't b lack, but there's a lot of times
I wish I could say I ain't white.
2 1 0 -9 4 *4
r . o . Bww a i t *
OB » 7 a « S « l » a
Trenk Zappa
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