Recently scientists have found that a specific gene can be altered to make a female body begin functioning as a male, and another to make a male function as female. Now, I am not a molecular geneticist, but my parents are, so I feel entirely capable of talking about this situation by summarizing what other people wrote.

If you remember your 6th grade science class, it has been commonly thought that physical sex is determined by X-chromosomes and Y-chromosomes (XX, XY, XXX, XYY etc). The research for this new study, published in the journal Cell, challenges that concept. The genes known as FOXL2 (active females) and SOX9 (active in males) are found on a non-sex chromosome that is in both the male and female sex. The new discovery states that genes are all that stand between changing the female sex (XX) into the male sex (XY), and ovaries into (non-sperm producing) testes. Long story short, FOXL2 and SOX9 are the light switches between the male and female sex.

When active FOXL9 bonds with estrogen and “blocks” high levels of testosterone from being produced. When working with mice, scientists found a way to artificially “switch off” FOXL2, un-blocking the testosterone (along with other elements) making an otherwise female sexed body function as male. The body begins to produce testosterone at the levels of a healthy male and eventually turns the ovaries to testes. FOXL2 and SOX9 both exist in males and females, but if FOXL2 is on, SOX9 is on. (Apparently Dr. Seuss is a geneticist.) For the female sex to become male, turn FOXL2 off which will turn SOX9 on. The research also suggests, or is interpreted, to show that FOXL2 is continually fighting to keep ovaries as ovaries, resulting in several articles titled “Battle of the Sexes,” along with some cute ones like “Minnie to Micky…” and the poorly written mess in “Gene Stops Ovaries from TESTIfying”

What does this mean for humans, you may ask? The researchers are hoping for this information to be useful in understanding and treating medical conditions such as premature menopause in women and, less in my favor, disorders of sexual development AKA intersex conditions which can lead to more problematic, non-consensual “fixing.”

Another possibility especially relevant for us trans folks is that this can help us in physical transition. If scientists can “switch off” this gene in humans, it would trigger the growth of secondary sex characteristics, like facial hair or breasts, and and chromosomally transform human ovaries into testes and testes to ovaries.The body would begin to naturally produce testosterone or estrogen, which means bye-bye needles and pills. Hormonal transition would be entirely internalized. In addition, the research found no adverse health effects and a normal lifespan, something we can’t say for current hormone therapy. Sterility would still be an unhappy result, but the overall process would be significantly less invasive, healthier, and possibly cheaper in long term.

Sounds great, right? Honestly, I think it does, as long as we keep things in check. There are many ways the institution can flip this around and make it totally inaccessible to all of us… but lets try to be optimistic for a minute. I’d like to have some hope for a minute.

xposted MidwestGenderQueer.com, QueerToday, TransGroup Blog

To all the older transitioners who tell me I’m doing what’s right

When I came out to myself as trans, I thought “okay, this makes it easy now. I’m trans, everything makes sense, I’ll go on testosterone, get top surgery, and then be happy”. I was an idealistic sixteen, and hoped that it was that simple. Nothing ever is.

I’m now 17, I call myself Jamie online, and by my birth name offline. I’ve been out to myself for a year, pretty much exactly (give or take about ten days), and I almost wish I hadn’t come out to myself.

I really do see how it can be harder for older transitioners to transition in many circumstances, and especially male-to-female, but I fail sometimes to see how that is easier than living a double life, living a lie to keep the people that you live with happy. My parents  haven’t accepted the idea of me being trans at all well, and I’m choosing to live as a girl until I leave college probably. Every week I have maybe one chance to present male, and then I tear myself apart getting dressed as a girl again, because it’s not me. People who barely know me have figured out I’m a transguy, where my parents call it a phase.

It’s not impossible to just live as a girl, maybe surprisingly it’s quite possible, but it isn’t a life worth living, and I’m going to be looking back on these two and a half years as the wasted years when I could have been getting on with my life, but instead spent them stuck in a rut waiting for a chance to get out. Alternatively I could see them as a place where I could deal with my issues.

Issues, yes. I have a lot of them, trust issues, abuse issues, eating issues (minimal, thanks be) and self harm issues, I could use this two and a half years to deal with those, so that I can start life as a well adjusted young man when I get out, but that doesn’t work, not when I go back into this unhealthy environment. Because it is unhealthy, I’ve gone back to being clinically depressed thanks to all of this. I say I can live with it, I can, so if it’s “transition or die” then I have no right to transition, because I can manage without, but that’s not how it works, I won’t live unless I do that.

There’s a lot more support out there for trans teenagers than there used to be. I’ve got amazing friends, and an amazing mentor, but sometimes it’s not enough, especially when people see me as trans before they see me as male, and I just want to live my life as a guy. It’s hard being young, I know exactly what I want and need, but I’m not allowed to go out there and get it, because I’m too young, so I’m left in this limbo instead.

I’m an intelligent boy, I would be looking at going to one of the best universities in the country if I hadn’t let being trans take over my college work, if I didn’t spend this whole time in a funk about not being able to be who I am, or at least not being able to be him, and have a managable life. I know things would be a lot harder if I forced coming out, I’d probably end up on a friends floor, but I’ve reasoned that that’s not going to work for me, that I’m not someone who could function so dependent on anyone for everything, and that I just have to do my best.

Sometimes, it’s easier just to stop, and think of how lucky I am, that I can live my whole life as a man, but often I can’t even do that.

This is a letter to all those older transitioners who keep telling me that it’s easier transitioning young.

It’s not easy

Jamie