News: Gender Bender

[Assertn]

Yikes ... there's a lot wrong with this ...

(1) Hormones can NOT mask chromosomes. EVER. Having a lot of estrogen in your system doesn't have any effect on determining whether you're XX or XY. On the other hand, having a lot of androgens in your system DOES give a telltale pointer to steroid use, which would be a clear foul to begin with. Regardless, the only way an XY male will test as XX in a chromosome test is chimerism (ie: they fused with a fraternal twin in the womb), and that's pretty goddamned rare (and can also be tested for with blood and tissue samples, if need arises).

What about people with XXY?

[complich8]

Hah! Klinefelter's for the lose .

[Yukimura]

I think XXY people still count as male and that extra chromosome will not change the glaring Y lines on the DNA blot.

[samsonlonghair]

[QUOTE=complich8]Yikes ... there's a lot wrong with this ... [/quote/
Okay, one part at a time.

(1) Hormones can NOT mask chromosomes. EVER. Having a lot of estrogen in your system doesn't have any effect on determining whether you're XX or XY. On the other hand, having a lot of androgens in your system DOES give a telltale pointer to steroid use, which would be a clear foul to begin with. Regardless, the only way an XY male will test as XX in a chromosome test is chimerism (ie: they fused with a fraternal twin in the womb), and that's pretty goddamned rare (and can also be tested for with blood and tissue samples, if need arises).

Maye I wasn't being clear about this. I wasn't saying that the hormones literally mask the chromosomes. For the purposes of a blood test changing your hormones can act like a mask. Of course the hormones can't really change your Y chromosome to an X. That was kinda the whole point of my argument which can be summarized: Despite the amazing advancements of medical technology, there's no way to literally change your gender. You can fool a blood test, but a man can not actually have real female organs.
I can see how I might have seemed ambiguous on that part.

(2) While it's true that normal man have no uterus, androgen-insensitive genetic males certainly can. In the absence of (or ineffectiveness of) masculinizing hormones, the human body under normal circumstances develops female. Moreover, women can be born without uteruses, or have them removed (in the case of cervical, uterine or ovarian cancer, for example). The assumption that you can determine a person's "true" sex by looking at their internal organs is a pretty big misconception that hasn't really been accepted as valid by the medical world since the early 20th century.

For the sake of simplicity I didn't include people born trans-gendered (mainly because It will take me off on a tangent). The part about "true" sex is a grating point for me. I can empathize with people who are born one gender, but want to become another. I honestly can. I also understand that in the realm of social sciences, the phenomena of having a true gender other than the one with which you are born is recognized. Unfortunately, there's a very dangerous myth that a surgeon can solve this for you. That is absolutely not true. A person can undergo "gender re-assignment surgery" and even have his/her identity legally changed to match this, but that does not literally change his/her gender. The politics of the matter have obfuscated the facts of hard science. A surgeon has no more ability to literally change a person's gender than an astronaut does to change the movements of the planets.
As mighty as man is with all his science, there are some things he simply can not change.

(3) A CAT scan is based on X-rays, and thus are associated with particularly high doses of ionizing radiation (which is a cancer risk). Further, they typically use contrast agents which people can have allergic reactions to. Given the drawbacks, I'd personally rather submit to a blood test (involving drawing a couple ounces of blood), a small bandaid and some juice) or an epithelial cell culture (involving swabbing the inside of your mouth with a cotton swab). Or, for that matter, an MRI, if you HAVE to look inside. However, in the case of sexually normal people, simply having a doctor look is probably sufficient, and the least invasive method.

To be perfectly clear about this, there is absolutely no blood test on earth that can not be fooled by someone determined enough. Just as any lock can be picked, any blood test can be fooled. There is no blood test currently in use that has not already been "cracked".

I can understand that there's a natural distrust of radiation. It scares a lot of people out of CAT scans, even those who really need them. True, if someone with no training tried to administer a CAT scan he'd kill the patient in a very slow and painful manner. In the hands of a skilled radiologist, however, a Cat scan is not only a life-saving tool, it's a safe one. The typical radiation dose used is very low. See here for a more in-depth study. Your point about the dye is a valid one. Statistically, about one in three hundred patients will have an allergic reaction to the dye. This can easily be tested for.

Ironically, MRI machines are much more dangerous. This seems counter-intuitive, right? How can magnets be more dangerous than radiation? It seems hard to believe, but the accident rate on MRIs is much higher. The magnets needed for an MRI are tremendously strong. Any nearby ferris metals will be pulled towards those magnets at more than one hundred miles per hour. A pocket knife, a syringe, a set of keys, an oxygen tank, anything nearby will fly towards your body once the magnets are activated. No matter how many times the doctor tells his patients not to bring anything with them into the room, they never listen. Cleaning staff can also be at fault here. That just accounts for things outside of the body. Seafood lovers often don't know that the bits of shell fragment they often swallow are magnetic (and often sharp). A number of times patients actually neglect to mention that they have pacemakers next to their heart. It's a good thing that's available in the medical records. There's also a phenomena called PNR (Peripheral nerve stimulation) wherein the magnetic gradients screw with your nervous system. All in all, MRIs aren't as safe as they sound.


This turned out to be a longer discussion than I had expected.