I read Arlene’s article (http://www.trixiestarr.com/weblog/) concerning the research on gay sheep (http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2006/12/curing_gay_sheep_/) and I feel that there is a bigger issue at stake; mainly, the issue of manipulating embryos and fetuses to make “recipe” babies. At first I had intended to post a comment on Arlene’s post titled, “Thugs in skirts” on her site, but as the size of the comment increased, I decided it would be much better if I wrote my own separate piece on the issue of the gay sheep research.

As far as the preventing homosexuality or transsexualism question, if I had been born as a man in a man’s body and grew up from birth as such, everything would have been fine. I don’t think I would have spent my life from birth up to a year and half ago suffering from Social Anxiety Disorder. I would have been able to function socially and I would be surprised if I did not have a wife and children and a good job and a happy life as a man. The problem I experienced was that while in the womb, my brain developed as a girl’s brain, while my body developed as a boy’s body. The two needed to match and which steps to take to make them match can be debated. With present day science, nothing can be done while the child is in the womb and only cosmetic physical changes can be done to the body after birth and no changes to the mind. All attempts at bringing the mind in alignment with the body have not been successful. Now here is where I think the real rub is for transsexuals and why so many are upset. How many transsexuals want to have their mental sex or gender changed? I certainly don’t want to be a man. We are our minds, our brains; we are not our bodies. I am happy being female and my frustrations come from being too poor to do anything about my body. There is a big difference in preventing a condition from happening in a fetus, and in changing one’s identity as an adult. Many of the problems facing adult transsexuals arose from allowing the body to go through puberty and hopefully, with better understanding, children will not have to face what we faced. Once a child has been identified as a transsexual, a condition that is simply a form of being intersex, then the child can have his/her hormones balanced to fit their gender and prevent some of the secondary characteristics that cause undue emotional stress and will later require medical procedures to correct.

The article in question discussed the possibility that changes could be made to the chemistry of fetuses to prevent homosexuality. The article did not deal with transsexualism. Even in the case of homosexuality, increasing or decreasing hormone levels may or may not change one’s sexual orientation. The experiment in question is still in its early stages. Just because researchers were able to get gay sheep to mate does not imply that they changed the sheep’s sexual orientation. Animals are not humans. Most animals mate from an instinctual need to procreate. It is possible that all the researchers did was to place the sheep in a highly sexual state that they were compelled to mate from an instinctual level; not because they were attracted to the opposite sex.

If the research is to gather an understanding of sexual orientation that may help to convince the general public that homosexuality is not a lifestyle choice…. Here I need to pause and insert a comment. One could just as well make the statement that heterosexuality is a lifestyle choice as well. If one can choose one’s sexual orientation to be gay, then can not the reverse be true as well? However, I am guessing that you if ask heterosexuals if they consider their sexual orientation a choice they made, you would get some strange looks and remarks in return. Continuing, if the research is to help educate the public, then it will be a good thing. All research has the potential to be misused. We always have to consider the misuse and the need for legislation to help prevent the misuse.