Not The Only Way

With research we have to remember that there are possible more than one way that makes us trans. That there can be many vectors that lead to us being trans and this might be one of them.

Born this way? Researchers explore the science of gender identity
Reuters
By Daniel Trotta
August 3, 2017

NEW YORK (Reuters) - While President Donald Trump has thrust transgender people back into the conflict between conservative and liberal values in the United States, geneticists are quietly working on a major research effort to unlock the secrets of gender identity.

A consortium of five research institutions in Europe and the United States, including Vanderbilt University Medical Center, George Washington University and Boston Children's Hospital, is looking to the genome, a person's complete set of DNA, for clues about whether transgender people are born that way.

Two decades of brain research have provided hints of a biological origin to being transgender, but no irrefutable conclusions.

Now scientists in the consortium have embarked on what they call the largest-ever study of its kind, searching for a genetic component to explain why people assigned one gender at birth so persistently identify as the other, often from very early childhood. (reut.rs/2w3Ozg9)

Researchers have extracted DNA from the blood samples of 10,000 people, 3,000 of them transgender and the rest non-transgender, or cisgender. The project is awaiting grant funding to begin the next phase: testing about 3 million markers, or variations, across the genome for all of the samples.

But…

Currently, the only way to determine whether people are transgender is for them to self-identify as such. While civil rights activists contend that should be sufficient, scientists have taken their search to the lab.

That quest has made some transgender people nervous. If a "cause" is found it could posit a "cure," potentially opening the door to so-called reparative therapies similar to those that attempt to turn gay people straight, advocates say. Others raise concerns about the rights of those who may identify as trans but lack biological "proof."

If they do find that there are medical reasons that we are trans, I worry that will be the only indicator that will be used legally.

Then there is this,” If a ‘cause’ is found it could posit a ‘cure’" in the news yesterday there was an article about genetically modifying human embryos. In Smithsonian.com they have an article about gene editing.

A new study this week has pushed the boundaries of gene editing, demonstrating again that scientists can now successfully repair certain disease-causing mutations in human embryos. Published yesterday in the journal Nature, the results garnered many headlines, with news of the move even leaking early last week. While not the first case of human embryo editing, the announcement has re-ignited the controversy over the ethics of gene editing. Here are there five things you should know about this latest research.

If they do find a variance in our genes then can it be cured by gene editing? Could a family “cure” the gay away or trans away?

What a loss to the world that would be.

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I originally found this article on Yahoo and they allow comments on their articles and there were almost a thousand comments on it and most of them were,

God made man and woman
XY = male, XX = Female
Junk science
Fake news
It is what’s between your legs that count

Sadly we can never overcome those who want to be ignorant.