Ford Fiesta Amphibious Assault

With room for two magazines and a grenade in the lunchbox, and more grenades in the cup holders. Plus three fully armed Royal Marine Commandos.

The Frequency of Intersex

From How sexually dimorphic are we? Review and synthesis Blackless M, Charuvastra A, Derryck A, Fausto-Sterling A, Lauzanne K, Lee E. Am J Hum Biol. 2000 Mar;12(2):151-166.: (PubMed URL)

The belief that Homo sapiens is absolutely dimorphic with the respect to sex chromosome composition, gonadal structure, hormone levels, and the structure of the internal genital duct systems and external genitalia, derives from the platonic ideal that for each sex there is a single, universally correct developmental pathway and outcome. We surveyed the medical literature from 1955 to the present for studies of the frequency of deviation from the ideal male or female. We conclude that this frequency may be as high as 2% of live births. The frequency of individuals receiving "corrective" genital surgery, however, probably runs between 1 and 2 per 1,000 live births (0.1-0.2%).

This figure - quoted by Anne Fausto-Stirling in her definitive work Sexing the Body as 1.7% - has been criticised on the basis that the definition of Intersex should be more restrictive.

From How common is intersex? A response to Anne Fausto-Sterling. Sax L. J Sex Res Aug 1 2002 :

Subtracting these five categories--LOCAH, vaginal agenesis, Turner's syndrome, Klinefelter's syndrome, and other non-XX and non-XY aneuploldies--the incidence of intersex drops to 0.018%, almost 100 times lower than the estimate provided by Fausto-Sterling.

Of course most people would consider that a girl born without a vagina (vaginal agenesis) is Intersexed. And so is someone born with neither the 46XX chromosomes usually found in women, nor the 46XY ones usually found in men, but 47XXY ones. But it's necessary for political reasons - Sax is over-sensitive to the fashionable RadFem denial of sexually dimorphic characteristics - to reduce the figure. But his critique hasn't been used the way he intended. Instead, the Unscrupulous have battened onto it like leeches, as is their habit. Hence this little gem from the Hate Group, the Traditional Values Coalition: Homosexual Urban Legend Exposed.

Leonard Sax has stated the obvious about Fausto-Sterling’s views. They are bogus and based upon flawed research, bad definitions, and inflated statistics.
Yet, these are the statistics quoted by Time magazine and promoted by the Intersex Society of North America in its campaign to normalize what are, in fact, birth defects.
...
Intersex Activism Is Part Of The Homosexual Revolution

You can see why they richly earn the sobriquet of "Hate Group".

Oddly enough, I can see where Leonard Sax is coming from. Because he believes, as I do, that there are innate differences between the way men and women think. His website - although flogging his books with the verve of a Saudi member of the Ministry for the Suppression of Vice and Protection of Virtue - is quite informative.

I just see that while there are two distinct sexes, there's an area between, neurologically and anatomically, where things are not so straightforward. Someone can be neurologically usual, but otherwise anatomically unusual, or the reverse. It's by studying these people - like myself - that we can learn more about the extremes, and what causes them. And it's by realising that Male and Female are really, really good approximations, but there are few (if any) people who are total stereotypes of either that we can learn to treat people as individuals. By all means have separate-sex classrooms, for many that will be appropriate. But consider that for some it's not, and for some it is appropriate for some areas of study, in others not. Biology drives all of this, but Biology is messy and fuzzy and multi-variant.

Hence back from science, through politics, back to science again.

For all those who phone at 3am, forgetting my time zone...

"When It's Night Time In Italy, It's Wednesday Over Here"



There are many versions of the lyrics. Here's one that corresponds broadly to the recording.

WHEN IT'S NIGHT-TIME IN ITALY IT'S WEDNESDAY OVER HERE

A Rah-Rah-Rah-Rah college boy threw all his books away.
He said, "I've lost my appetite, my hair is turning grey.
I know my Greek and History, and Latin is a "pie",
But if East is East and West is West, then won't you tell me why

When it's night time in Italy it's Wednesday over here.
When it's fish day in Germany,
You can't get shaved in Massachusetts.
How high is up? I'd like to know.
How low is down? And when will we have snow?
If you bump into Gallager you'll find that Shean is near
When it's night-time in Italy it's Wednesday over here."

When it's night time in Italy it's Wednesday over here.
When it's Christmas in Albany,
They're catching fish in Scandanavia.
That's right, you're wrong.
No, no; you're wrong; that's right.
Although the days are long
It's always cool at night.
If you can't play the piccolo
The holidays are near
When it's night time in Italy and Wednesday over here.

This Rah-Rah-Rah-Rah college boy stood up in class and said,
"I looked up my Geography, and found out Ceasar's dead!
The reason I speak Portuguese is I'm some clever guy.
But if "parley vous" means "how are you"
then won't you tell me why

When it's night-time in Italy it's Wednesday over here.
All the onions in Sicily make people cry in California.
You drive a horse. I drive a Ford.
That doesn't prove a sailor is a board.
If you talk to an Eskimo his breath will freeze your ear.
When it's night-time in Italy it's Wednesday over here.

When it's night-time in Italy it's Wednesday over here.
When it's wash day in Piccardy
They're eating ice cream cones in Georgia
Sixteen and four makes thirty one.
Take eight from five and your day's work is done.
There are people who hesitate, but corned-beef makes them cheer
When it's night-time in Italy and Wednesday over here.

When it's night time in Italy, it's Wednesday over here.
When the wind blows in Louisville,
I always dream of Julius Caesar.
Young folks are young, of course
And old folks are old, why not.
Fire is very hot, but ice is sometimes cold.
Try and fondle a porcupine, what makes ice cream so dear?
When it's night time in Italy, it's Wednesday over here.

I saw a Chinaman
Fight a Scandanavian.
Up steped an Englishman, and said, "I'd like to speak.
Why kick this man around?
Why strike him when he's down?
Just hit him with a hammer and then bite him on his cheek!"

Up stepped an Irish cop
Who said, "This fight will have to stop.
I'd like to know what the scrap is all about".
They said, "When we tell you,
It will drive you nutty too."
And so they held the traffic up while they tried to figure out.

When it's night-time in Italy, it's Wednesday over here.
When the snow falls in Araby
They're squeezing grapes in California.
Look at you here. Grass on the dew.
Leather shoes are black, but other shoes are new.
If there's sunshine in Washington, what makes the moonshine dear?
When it's night time in Italy, it's Wednesday over here.

If you lay on a mattress, you'll find that spring is near.
If you haven't an appetite, just think of Paul Revere.
By the time that they pass a bill to bring back wine and beer,
It'll be night-time in Italy and Wednesday over here.

There are many versions. Here's some of the Lyrics sung by Robin Dransfield

When it's nightime in Italy
Its Wednesday over here
Oh the onions in Sicily
Make people cry in California
How does a fly?
When does a bee?
And how does a wasp
Sit down to have its tea?
And if you talk to an Eskimo
His breath will freeze your ear
When it's nightime in Italy
And Wednesday over here

When it's nightime in Italy
And Wednesday over here
When its fish day in Birmingham
Don't ever try to milk a kipper
Dogs have their barks
So do the trees
And Pork pies are beef
And some are Mysteries
And we all paid our income tax
And never shed a tear
When it's nightime in Italy
and Wednesday over here

This learned guerned college boy stood up in class and said
Well I've learned at my geography that Granddads feet are dead
But the reason I speak Portuguese is I'm some clever guy
And if parley voo means how are you .Then cant you tell me ,why oh why

When it's nightime in Italy
Its Wednesday over here
And when its high tide at Waterloo
You can mock soup
But you can't mock turtle
How high is up I'd like to know
And how low is down
And when shall we have snow
And if there sanwidges for everyone
And real hops in our beer
Then it's nightime in Italy
and Wednesday over here

When it's nightime in Italy
And Wednesday over here
And when were all multi-millionaires
We'll have a land that's fit for heroes
They'll be no storms
They'll be no gales
And we'll all wear a smile
Just like the Prince of Wales
And we'll all go on our holidays
And dive off Wigan Pier
When it's nightime in Italy
And Wednesday over here

Or as Granny Ogg said in Witches Abroad: "when it's teatime in Genua it's Tuesday over here..."

A Thinking Ape's Guide to Trans-Simianism

Enough is Enough: A Thinking Ape’s Critique of Trans-Simianism:

The following was taken from a cave wall painting in southern Tunisia more than 300,000 years ago. Fossil evidence suggests that the author was of the species Homo erectus.
...
Klomp’s primary argument rests on what he calls the ‘Quickening,’ an imagined point somewhere in the future when the advancement of ‘culture’ occurs so rapidly that its pace will far exceed that of biological evolution. In his own words,

"There will come a time when within a single generation we will develop one or possibly even two new ideas… Current advancements in the ‘bow’ and ‘arrow’ industries suggest an exponential trend in the expansion of our technological capacities. We are able to perform hunts in a fraction of the time it took our ancestors, thus freeing up valuable time to ’ think ’ of new ideas. In the post-simian world, we may develop into a species that is not only intellectually superior to our current state, but capable of feats beyond the comprehension of a contemporary simian."

Pardon this author for not holding his breath.

Notice that Klomp cherry-picks discoveries to better support his argument of an exponential growth. It took more than a million years to develop fire and the hand-ax, and yet Klomp believes simply because it took only 2,000 years to develop bows and arrows that new inventions will spring up in even shorter timeframes. This theory is an expansion of ‘Morg’s Law,’ which states that since a sharpened rock can in turn become a chisel to make an even sharper rock, that the sharpness of hand-axes will increase exponentially over the span of tens of thousands of years. While Morg’s Law has so far proven accurate, Klomp can’t escape the reality that there is an upper limit, namely that a rock can only become so sharp.

More on a similar subject here and here.

The 21st century should be an interesting time. Probably a little too late for me... but not for my son, and that's what's important.

Historians will be amazed at the world of 2010. We're so close to becoming, as Obi-Wan said, "More powerful than you can possibly imagine." But it's also a world where religious primates (so to speak) are foxed by blatant superstition.

"Homosexuality," says Pastor Mario Manyozo of the Word of Life Tabernacle Church in Malawi, "is against God's creation and is an evil act, since gays are possessed with demons." The Anglican bishop of Uyo, Nigeria, the Right Rev Isaac Orama, believes homosexuals are "inhuman, insane, satanic and not fit to live".

It truly is the best of times, and the worst.

A Cure For Low Blood Pressure

It's obvious that he's desperately ill. At death's door, in fact. On his deathbed, he's even gone to the trouble of wearing a shirt, just so he can wear a tie. A tie that no-one, and I do mean no-one, would be caught dead in.

Of course, if I were her, I might add just a little something extra to his breakfast. There's eggs, but no bacon. This MCP is no cannibal. Maybe some serum of Ipecacuana, to make the bedspread match his tie. Potassium Cyanide, while it has its charms, is not nearly lingering enough. Thalium perhaps.

When I was young, such adverts were by no means exceptional. They ticked me off then, too.

Genes Involved in Male Sexual Development

Gene	Chromosomal Region	Associated syndrome when mutated (m) or duplicated (D)	OMIM Number
SRY	Yp11	46,XY gonadal dysgenesis, Swyer syndrome (M)	480000
SF1	9q33	46,XY gonadal dysgenesis with adrenal failure	184757
DHH	12q12-q13.1	46,XY gonadal dysgenesis (M)	605423

From Genetics of Sex Determination

There's more to it than having a Y chromosome... or even an SrY complex somewhere.

Meanwhile in Malawi...

From the New York Times:

BLANTYRE, Malawi — Tiwonge Chimbalanga looked like a man but said he was a woman. He helped with the cooking and dressed in feminine wraparound skirts. Steven Monjeza was a quiet, sullen man often intoxicated on sorghum beer. He said he had never been happy until he finally met the right companion.

The two celebrated their engagement — their chinkhoswe, in the Chichewa language — with a party at a lodge here in Malawi’s commercial capital. It began cheerfully enough. But later, gawkers pushed their way inside, some shouting taunts, others just staring through despising eyes. Then the electricity failed. The band stopped playing, and the bride collapsed in tears.

Someone had tipped off a newspaper, The Nation, for this betrothal was extraordinary in a conservative African nation. The resulting front-page story began with the phrase “gay lovebirds,” adding that the chinkhoswe was “the first recorded public activity for homosexuals in the country.” Readers were reminded that homosexuality carried a sentence of 5 to 14 years in prison.

Two days later, on Dec. 28, the couple was arrested on charges of unnatural acts and gross indecency, and they have been in jail since, denied bail ostensibly to keep them safe.
...
The trial of Mr. Chimbalanga and Mr. Monjeza began on Jan. 11, with hundreds gathering outside the decrepit courtroom, hooting and jeering.

Jean Kamphale, Mr. Chimbalanga’s boss at a Blantyre lodge, testified that she accepted “Auntie Tiwo” as a woman and assigned her cooking and cleaning chores. But after the article in The Nation appeared, she made her employee disrobe and refused to let him stop until he was naked from the waist down and “that’s where the cat was let out of the bag.”

Three days later, Mr. Chimbalanga arrived in court noticeably ill. His lawyers said he had contracted malaria in the hideously overcrowded jail, though the defendant later blamed guards for trying to beat him into a confession.

As Mr. Chimbalanga fell to the floor and began to vomit, spectators mocked him. “Auntie Tiwo is pregnant,” some called out. Mr. Chimbalanga was led away, only to return with a mop and pail to clean up the mess.

Shades of the KZs in the 1940s. That scene could have come from Belsen, or Dachau. Only this time, not just at the hands of a few camp guards, but with the mob hounding them on. And in the KZs, at least the prisoners were provided with bunks - not so in Malawi.

The hospital facilities are of the same ilk. They're left room to die away from the others.

Now imagine a woman put in such surroundings. She'd have a better chance of survival in Auschwitz, or Treblinka.

On the other hand, Mr. Chimbalanga, 33, was simply indignant. “I have done nothing wrong but fall in love and declare this love for my husband,” he said.

He explained later: “I have male genitals, but inside I am a complete woman. Maybe I cannot give birth to a child, but I menstruate every month — or most months — and I can do any household chores a woman can do.”
...
“Menstruation through his penis” had begun by then, a condition that may have some extremely rare medical cause, some experts say, but could also be the imagined claim of a gay man in a repressed society desperate to think himself a woman.

The word you're looking for is "Intersexed". And yes, it's extremely rare, this form, anyway. It would take an ultrasound or "reverse flow urine test" to confirm it. As I wrote back in 2005:

At least I may find out whether a 32 year history of peculiar medical conditions is merely a long and improbable series of unrelated coincidences, or excusably misdiagnosed signs indicating a root cause even more improbable (though not that uncommon for some subcategories: about 1 in 83,000). If the results are still ambiguous, then the next step is probably "fine needle" biopsies of various glands, with "fine" being a relative term. Maybe even a reverse-flow analysis of the urinary tract, which is as undignified as it sounds.

Oh Joy.

Yeah. Not fun. But it could be worse. hundreds gathering outside the decrepit courtroom, hooting and jeering. At least I didn't have that, and the ultrasounds showed the test wasn't needed for me. It is for others though. It's rare - but it happens.

Now the latest from the NYT:

Two gay men in Malawi, convicted this week of unnatural acts and gross indecency, were sentenced Thursday to the maximum penalty allowed by law, 14 years of hard labor in prison.
...
“I just wanted people to know we were in love,” Mr. Chimbalanga said in an interview earlier this year. He said he considered himself a woman and had been eager to dress as a bride.
...
The nation’s clergy have been united in condemning the gay couple. “God calls homosexuality an abomination, which is greater than a simple sin,” the Rev. Felix Zalimba, pastor of the All for Jesus Church in Blantyre, said Thursday. He said church and state were aligned in agreement: “These two must repent and ask God’s forgiveness. Otherwise, they will surely go to hell.”

I'd say that for Intersexed people in Malawi, that we're already there. That the NYT ignores its own report from February, consistently misgendering Ms (not Mr) Chimbalanga shows that the ignorance is not just confined to some African Hell-hole, either.

I don't know if Ms Chimbalanga is IS or TS. One of the two, anyway. But she's been assigned by all and sundry the role of "Gay Man" by others. She doesn't get a say in it.

From the Grauniad:

'I will give you," the judge, Nyakwawa Usiwa-Usiwa, had warned them in the packed courtroom in Blantyre, Malawi, "a scaring sentence, so that the public be protected from people like you; so that we are not tempted to emulate this horrendous example."

One has to wonder... exactly where is the danger? How powerful and violent a threat are we, the Intersexed, Transsexed or Gay (they make no distinction), that the public must be protected?

"Homosexuality," says Pastor Mario Manyozo of the Word of Life Tabernacle Church in Malawi, "is against God's creation and is an evil act, since gays are possessed with demons." The Anglican bishop of Uyo, Nigeria, the Right Rev Isaac Orama, believes homosexuals are "inhuman, insane, satanic and not fit to live".

Possessed by Demons. Inhuman. Satanic. Not fit to live. Even some who aren't actually homosexual.

President Robert Mugabe once famously declared homosexuality to be "sub-animal behaviour" – "leave that to the whites," he also said

Sub-animal.

Eudy Simelane, who played for the South African women's football team and lived openly as a lesbian, was gang-raped and stabbed 25 times; at least 20 other lesbians have been killed over the past five years, many of them victims of so-called "corrective rape" by men.

Yet it's we who are called insane, and a threat to society.

Pictures of Malawi Prison Scenes via Prisons of Malawi.

Sex and Academe

From WAToday.com.au. That's Western Australia, not Washington state.

What would be remarkably instructive in real life would be if women in various professions could experience life as men, and vice versa. If the same person got treated differently, we would be sure sexism was at work, because the only thing that changed was the sex of the individual and not his or her skills, talent, knowledge, experience, or interests.

Joan Roughgarden and Ben Barres are biologists at Stanford University. Both are researchers at one of the premier academic institutions in the country; both are tenured professors. Both are transgendered people.

As they say, read the whole thing.

For what it's worth - I've noticed no change at the Australian National University. Oh yes, I get talked over etc. Not a big deal in general.

But things changed in large and subtle ways after Barbara became Ben.

Ben once gave a presentation at the prestigious Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A friend relayed a comment made by someone in the audience who didn't know Ben Barres and Barbara Barres were the same person: "Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but, then, his work is much better than his sister's."
...
"When it comes to bias, it seems that the desire to believe in a meritocracy is so powerful that until a person has experienced sufficient career-harming bias themselves they simply do not believe it exists … By far, the main difference that I have noticed is that people who don't know I am transgendered treat me with much more respect: I can even complete a whole sentence without being interrupted by a man."
...
At a meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Minneapolis, Joan said, a prominent expert jumped up on the stage after her talk and started shouting at her. Once every month or two, she said, ''I will have some man shout at me, try to physically coerce me into stopping …When I was doing the marine ecology work, they did not try to physically intimidate me and say, 'You have not read all the literature.'

"They would not assume they were smarter. The current crop of objectors assumes they are smarter."

Joan is willing to acknowledge her theory might be wrong; that, after all, is the nature of science. But what she wants is to be proven wrong, rather than dismissed. Making bold and counter-intuitive assertions is precisely the way science progresses. Many bold ideas are wrong, but if there isn't a regular supply of them and if they are not debated seriously, there is no progress. After her transition, Joan said she no longer feels she has "the right to be wrong".

Before her transition, she enjoyed an above-average salary at Stanford. But since her transition, "My own salary has drifted down to the bottom 10 per cent of full professors in the School of Humanities and Sciences, even though my research and students are among the best of my career and are having international impact, albeit often controversial."

I asked her about interpersonal dynamics before and after her transition. "You get interrupted when you are talking, you can't command attention, but above all you can't frame the issues," she said. With a touch of wistfulness, she compared herself to Ben Barres. "Ben has migrated into the centre whereas I have had to migrate into the periphery."

We'll see what happens with my own situation. Maybe it's just that I'm with a bunch of good people. I've had enormous support - and possibly more, rather than less, from those who know my personal history. Accent on the "his".

More of a Franchise than a Church, really

From the Times:

The Vatican will today make its most detailed defence yet against claims that it is liable for US bishops who allowed priests to molest children, saying bishops are not its employees and that a document from 1962 did not require them to keep quiet.

The Vatican will make the arguments in a motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds filed in Louisville, Kentucky, but it could affect other efforts to sue the Holy See.

Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's lawyer in the US, said the Vatican would assert that bishops are not its employees because they are not paid by Rome, don't act on Rome's behalf and are not controlled day-to-day by the pope — factors courts use to determine whether employers are liable for the actions of their employees.

I think this defence is... misguided. Or is this the wave of the future?

CSS and ABA - I have looked on the face of Evil

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Gender Puzzle

The first 10 minutes of an Australian documentary from a few years ago.


From the program homepage (with links to transcript and feedback):

Please Note: Four Corners would like to point out that in no way is our program drawing any comparisons between "intersex" conditions and transsexualism.

*SIGH*
From the Forum:

From: roger 26/07/2005 12:42:57 AM
Subject: Academic rigidity post id: 703
I am currently preparing an honours dissertation from a gender perspective. The current academic orthodoxy is basically feminist/freudian with the scales tipping heavily towards nurture.
Can anyone suggest a way to introduce the issues raised tonight without committing academic suicide?

*SIGH* Squared.

Things are better now than they were in 2005. But we still have a long way to go.

Texas and Jakarta : A Tale of Two Marriages

This is a story of two marriages. Two Intersexed individuals. And the bizarre, and obscenely insane treatment Intersexed people get due to religiously-inspired law.

First, from the Jakarta Post:

The recent case of Alterina Hofan highlighted the authority’s unpreparedness in dealing with this issue.

Alterina suffers Klinefelter’s syndrome, a rare case where a male has an extra X chromosome that makes him look more like a woman.

After years of operations, Alterina has documented himself as a man and even married Jane Hadipoespito.

The problem arose when Jane’s parents denounced the marriage, filing a lawsuit against Alterina for document fraud because he previously declared he was a woman in his identity cards.

Police then took Alterina to prison, ignoring the latest report from a doctor that confirmed he was a man.

The police decided to take Alterina to the Pondok Bambu women’s penitentiary in East Jakarta, after being transferred between a number of men’s and women’s penitentiaries.

But because of his apparent male physical features, the police separate Alterina from other inmates and place him in a special room in the penitentiary.

Josep Adi Prasetyo of the National Commision on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), views the case as an example of the state’s failure in protecting people’s rights.

He referred to an international convention on civil and political rights that guaranteed people’s rights of their identity. The convention was ratified by the Indonesian parliament in 2005.

“He has the right to say he is a man,” Josep said after visiting Alterina on Wednesday, adding an independent medical practitioner was needed in the case.

He also denounced the police’s decision to carry out a forced medical check on Alterina and undermine previous reports from the doctor declaring Alterina a man.

Alterina with his wife

The police’s medical check-up show the opposite result, saying Alterina is a woman.

They have to, otherwise there's no basis for the arrest...

Alterina’s wife Jane said that she did not really care.

“All I want is for my husband to be freed as soon as possible,” she said.

The story is introduced as a "transgender" issue. In fact, it's one of Intersexuality, and Transition. An area I know a little about myself...

More from the Jakarta Globe, wherein we learn the intimate details of his exact genital configuration. That happens to Intersexed people you see, privacy is something they are denied. I've talked about my own situation - but that was my decision, not anyone else's.

Alter, as the 32-year-old is also known, said he was born a boy but because his male genitalia did not develop properly when he was a baby, his mother decided to registered him as female, even dressing and treating him as a girl. However, he says he grew up thinking he was a boy.

Only when he was in his teens did his penis finally develop, Alter added.

Doctors at Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital in Central Jakarta, Alter said, had diagnosed him as suffering from Klinefelter’s syndrome, a sex chromosome disorder which reduces testicular hormone production and can result in abnormally small testes and underdeveloped genitalia.

Alter was reported to the police by the mother of Jane Deviyant, 23, a deaf girl he had married in Las Vegas in September 2008. The woman’s mother, who was a friend of Alter’s, believed he was a woman, not a man.

Alter said he had always felt he was a boy growing up, adding that when he was in elementary school, he would always ask to wear trousers and not skirts.

Alder said he was physiologically a man and could perform sexually as such. “Just ask my wife,” he said.

But law enforcers beg to differ, arguing that the results of a lab examination had showed that he was a woman.

Sugiyono, assistant for general crimes at the Jakarta prosecutors’ office, said that although Pondok Bambu initially declined to accept Alter because he appeared to be a man, its warden relented after being given an explanation by prosecutors.
“The rejection was because of misinformation,” Sugiono said, “she is really a woman.”

Mother-in-law Maria Grace, who opposed the marriage, reported Alter to the police in October for falsifying personal data on his birth certificate. Alter said it had been unofficially altered by his mother to rectify the initial mistake.

Sugiyono said the indictment had been forwarded to the South Jakarta District Court and a trial was imminent.

Alter said that as a result of his chromosome disorder, he had grown breasts. “My breasts grew but not big,” he said, adding that he had them surgically removed in Canada in 2006.

“Jane knows that I have undergone breast reconstruction,” he said.

The couple was introduced by Grace in Singapore, where Jane was visiting during holidays from her business administration studies in the United States. Despite Grace’s objections, Jane and Alter met in secret and, eventually, also married in secret.

When Jane finished her studies and returned home, however, Grace found out about the marriage and forbade her to contact Alter. In the end, Jane left her mother to join her husband.

Grace had initially reported Alter to the police for allegedly abducting Jane, but the investigation was later dropped because Jane said she had gone with him willingly.

Jane said she could not accept being separated from her husband. Although Alter was not detained during the police investigation, he was taken into custody on Thursday once his indictment was filed with the court.

“If he is detained I want to be detained with him,” Jane said.

“I am really happy. Please, mother and father, do not separate us. I know what I want.”

The Mother-In-Law From Hell - who is the daughter of the founder of one of Indonesia's major Universities. The trial begins today. For those with better Indonesian skills than mine, the best article is at Viva News (Google Autotranslated version here)

Now from the Texas Tribune:

The two women are hardly the typical Texas married couple, yet their union has been blessed by the courts. That's because Hill is a transgender female: She was born with both male and female genitalia, and her father ordered surgery to make her a male. Three decades later, she would surgically reverse his decision. Today, Hill's driver’s license and a judge’s order say she’s a woman — but her birth certificate and now her marriage license say she’s a man. The county clerk in San Antonio gave Hill and Bur a license to wed, putting the couple at the center of a decade-long fight over whether unions like theirs are legal in a state that has overwhelmingly opposed same-sex marriage in polls and at the ballot box.

In a complex and ironic twist of Texas politics, a 1999 conservative court ruling actually sanctions unions like Hill and Bur’s — though they are, by their own definition, a gay married couple. That's because the ruling, which sought to establish gender as unchangeable, established a person's birth certificate as the legal document that defines his or her gender, regardless of later sex-change operations. And so it had the odd side effect of allowing transgender homosexuals to legally marry. It’s a conundrum that dismays social conservatives, confounds some county clerks and has advocates for gay and transgender rights calling for clarification. In perhaps their sole point of consensus on social issues, some conservatives and gay and transgender advocates agree, for different reasons, that people like Hill shouldn’t be allowed to identify as one gender in daily life but another when getting married.

“It’s all screwy, and the reason why it’s screwy is because people are worried about same-sex marriage,” says Houston lawyer Phyllis Randolph Frye, a transgender woman who represented the plaintiffs in the 1999 case.

For all the handwringing by politicians and courts over the anatomy and sexual orientation of married couples in Texas, the saga of Hill and Bur is infinitely more complicated and agonizing. Raised as a boy but never quite man enough for her father, Hill endured decades of abuse at the hands of those she expected to love and protect her. After discovering at age 28 that she had female internal organs, she came to terms with her identity and eventually found someone who accepted and loved her. That person happened to be a woman. In the ultimate irony of an arduous life, Hill is now legally married to a woman solely because of the gender on her birth certificate — the one she could never truly accept.

Legal Judo - using their own powers against them.

Chief Justice Phil Hardberger, who would later become mayor of San Antonio, wrote the appeals court’s opinion in the Littleton case. The decision, he said, involved a deeper philosophical and legal question than simply determining when a man is a man and a woman is a woman: “Can a physician change the gender of a person with a scalpel, drugs and counseling, or is a person's gender immutably fixed by our Creator at birth?”

“As soon as I … saw that God was in this decision, I knew we were going to lose,” Frye says.
...
“The decision essentially said, for the purposes of marriage, Ms. Littleton is a vaginaed male. Stupid,” Frye says. Frye believes the decision was predicated on the idea that homosexuals who wanted to get married would have sex-change operations so that they could get around laws prohibiting gay marriage. But what kind of crazy person, she asks, would have their body cut up just so they could get hitched? “That just doesn’t make sense, but that’s what people believe of us,” Frye says.

I encountered the same mindset in the Australian Passport Office. The mindset that assumed I had to be a gay male trying to pull a fast one, to avoid the anti-Gay legislation.

What's amazing is that I've observed that this attitude persists, even when the anti-Gay legislation is long repealed. Even when same-sex partnerships, even marriages, are permitted. It's a kind of irrationality that's impossible to fathom.

Hill knows about faith. That’s what’s kept her fighting through a lifetime of abuse because of her ambiguous gender identity. Hill wouldn’t find out her true nature and history for three decades after her father ordered the surgery that aimed to make her a male. Her inability to live up to the role tormented her father, who in turn tormented her. “In his mind, a proper man could drink anyone under the table, take any woman to bed he wanted to, outfight any other guy,” she says. “This was a guy, so stereotypical, and if I didn’t act like this growing up … then I was beaten within an inch of my life.”

By age 4, Hill says, she knew what she felt inside her mind and body didn’t match what was on the outside. In 1962, when she was 12, teachers at school started sending her to doctors and psychologists. They told her parents Hill might be more girl than boy. “I almost got killed over that one,” she says. Her father was the first person to call her a faggot. Her mother often told her she wished that Hill had died in the car crash that took her younger sister’s life. “There was a lot of abuse.”

When she turned 18, Hill joined the Army. Though her father had died when she was 15, Hill says she remained on a mission to prove to him she could be the man he wanted — even tougher. It wasn’t long, though, before her peers saw something different. In the shower, they could see the scar from her surgery as a baby. When she sang, her soprano voice rang out above the tenors and basses of her fellow soldiers. They harassed her and threatened her with “blanket parties” and gang rape. “I was more afraid of my buddies — [who] I was sworn to lay my life down for — than of going to war,” she says. Hill was medically discharged in 1971, though she later returned as a reservist and directed a communications team.

After her discharge, Hill began seminary school to become a pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In 1978, during her first year of studies, doctors tested her for kidney stones. An ultrasound didn’t show any, but it did reveal partially developed ovaries and fallopian tubes inside her abdomen. The discovery left her confused again, so she went to the college chaplain. “I said, ‘What do I do here? I know how the Adventist Church feels about women — they’re not supposed to preach at all. Now I’ve got these parts. What do I do?’ I asked him to pray with me and pray for me for divine guidance.”

So of course he acted with True Christian Charity, right?

The chaplain told her she’d be kicked out of the missionary school, and she was told to leave within a week.

Exactly. That's the kind of "True Christian Charity" we're used to. We're hardly ever get other kinds of treatment from clerics, but I'm told they happen. I've even experienced genuine compassion myself, from a former teacher, now the Right Reverend Bishop of Gloucester.

So she left for Germany to begin her transformation with hormones and therapy. A year later, she returned to the United States, looking much like a woman but still with male genitalia. Rather than having expensive sex reassignment surgery in the United States, Hill went to a Mexican doctor they called "The Butcher." She was so “sick and tired of looking at something that should not be there” that she told him to just lop off the offending appendage. She has been living as a woman since 1979.

*SIGH*.

We're all so stereotypical. Variations on a theme. Whether we're standard XX, XY, XXY, whether born with an innie or an outie, there's precious little variation. I'm slightly atypical - went into Defence Contracting rather than in Uniform, and I was always a good enough actress, even to myself, that no-one suspected. Not even me at times, because I "forgot" stuff. My parents were anything but abusive, they sacrificed so much for me.

But yes, I knew. I knew before puberty.

These are two stories. Stories about legal insanity - insanity being the denial of reality. They're stories about marriage, and the bizarre contortions and grotesqueries from those who claim to be defending its sanctity, yet make of it a mockery and farce in the attempt. They're stories about Intersex conditions, rare biological syndromes, and how parents sometimes react badly, even with cruelty at times.

But most of all... they're stories about something very simple. They're Love stories.

Gender Stereotypes

6 Absurd Gender Stereotypes (That Science Says Are True)

Just remember that these are statistical; and that people have to be treated as individuals. Moreover, most "Gendered Behaviour" is a matter of social construction, which differs from time to time and place to place.

Most.

Not all. Some is biologically based.

Woot

I've just had a paper accepted for ALIFE-XII the 12th International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems.

So I'll be presenting a short paper and poster at GECCO 2010, the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference in Portland, Oregon in July, and then off to Odense, Denmark in August.

Note to self: Repeat after me...

I must not evolve SKYNET. I must not evolve SKYNET. I must not evolve SKYNET....



I have to be honest, and say that it sounds a lot more impressive than it actually is. But it's impressive enough. Both GECCO and ALIFE are fairly highly rated conferences.

Now, the hard part. Trying to get the money to pay for the trip. Funding's been approved from the Vice-Chancellor's fund for the Portland conference, but they don't normally pay for two international conferences in the course of a PhD, let alone two so close together. Still, if I'm going to go into Academe, getting funding is something I'm going to have to do. So call this an impromptu exam.

Hmmm... how to celebrate... I think sharing some sparkling shiraz and Lindt 99% Cocoa chocolate with the other PhD students and my co-author has a certain cachet..

I Forgot

Every 4th of May, I've been reporting on my transition. A summary of the previous year.

I forgot this year. And I've just realised, some eight days later.

Guess that means it's complete.

Now I'll have to go back, and insert a backdated post, and a new one tomorrow summarising what happened this year.

What was I blogging about on that day, 8 days ago? My anger at girls being excluded from seeing a Rocket Scientist. Pure Feminism. Yes, I guess I've 'trans'ed now. I'm on the other side. This side. Gosh.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

A song for my son, Andrew.

Good night, Scampasaurus.

The Washington Times shills for the FRC again

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Prosthetic Neurology

From Wired.com :

Now the Pentagon’s rolling out a revolutionary initiative to treat the condition: brain implants that one researcher likens to “replacement parts” for damaged gray matter.

“When something happens to the brain right now, there’s so little that the medical community can do,” Krishna Shenoy, associate professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at Stanford University, told Danger Room. “Our goal is to understand — and then be able to change — how a brain responds to trauma.”

No surprise that military extreme science agency DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) is behind the project, which is called REPAIR, or Reorganization and Plasticity to Accelerate Injury Recovery. Yesterday, they announced an initial two-year round of $14.9 million in funding for four institutions, led by Stanford and Brown universities, that will collaborate on the brain-chip project. All in, it’ll involve 10 professors and their research teams, working in neuroscience, psychiatry, brain modeling and even semiconductors.

Significant progress has already been made in understanding brain injury. Scientists can create conceptual, mathematical models of brain activity, and are also able to record the electrical pulses emitted by individual neurons in the brain, which offers insight into how those neurons communicate. That knowledge has spurred rapid progress in neural-assisted prosthetic devices, a program that Shenoy collaborated on with Geoffrey Ling, the same Darpa program manager behind REPAIR.

Here's what I said three years ago in 2007:

The difficult thing is going to be decoding the sensory data from parts of the body below the break. But simple control of a prosthetic, that is at worst only a decade away.

Looks like in this one area, they've cracked it. Again, from Wired:

But what experts can’t yet do, Shenoy said, is alter those electrical pulses to turn brain circuits on or off. His team will use optogenetics, an emerging technique that involves emitting light pulses to precisely trigger neural activity, to develop an implanted TBI treatment device.

“Before this, emitting light into the brain would be like hitting it with a hammer,” Shenoy said. “What we’re doing now is pin-pointing a single neuron, and that neuron will naturally change its activity depending on the cue.”

The implants developed by the project will likely be composed of electrodes or optical fibers, and will sit on the surface of the brain. They’ll read electrical signals from neurons, and deliver appropriate light pulses to stimulate other brain regions in response. The implants would allow the brain to operate normally, by acting as substitutes for areas that were damaged or “unavailable.”

First up for Shenoy and company are optogenetic tests on mice, rats and eventually monkeys, to better understand how different regions of the brain interact. For example, how one area of the brain knows which signals to send to other parts. Once they’ve got that down, the researchers hope to develop chips that essentially mimic those interactions, so that an implant can “read a signal from region A, bypass damaged area B, and get that signal to C,” Shenoy said.
...
If all goes according to plan, Shenoy expects implants for lab animals within four years

And ready for prime time a few years after that. About a decade all told. And some time after that, things rather more ambitious.

Some of possible pitfalls we'll have to look after are in this article here. Wherein I wrote:

Many brain injuries will now be, if not curable, treatable with "prosthetic brain segments" that will restore the cognitive deficits. Blindness may become extinct as artificial eyes coupled with artificial visual cortices will give sight to even the worst cases.

Yes, I do feel smug.

My Final Word on George Alan Rekers

Hopefully final. I gave him the benefit of the doubt in a previous post. No longer.

Here's what I wrote in the Catholic Answers Forum:

Anyone wanting to quote George Rekers as a reliable source now? Given his 10-day European jaunt with a rentboy who gave him daily erotic massages?

Matthew 23:27 (Douay Rheims)
27 Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones, and of all filthiness.

Holly - the main witness for the state of Florida in the recent court case to prevent Gays from adopting children was this False Witness.

He was paid $120,000 of taxpayers money to make stuff up. Which he did. (He also earlier tried to get $200,000 from the state of Arkansas for the same thing, but had to settle for $60,000 as his performance was insufficiently credible)

In January 2005, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Timothy White ... called Rekers' testimony "extremely suspect." He also accused Rekers of testifying solely for promoting his "own personal agenda."
...
Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Cindy Lederman ... said "Dr. Rekers’ testimony was far from a neutral and unbiased recitation of the relevant scientific evidence. Dr. Rekers’ beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science. Based on his testimony and demeanor at trial, the court can not consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy."

Lederman may have been put off by the fact that Rekers said based on "research," a case could be made for banning Native Americans from adopting children.

Some 4 years ago, he himself adopted a 16 year old boy, the same age as his "travelling companion".

These are the kind of people you have to use as "reliable sources". Hypocrites. Liars for Hire. Because no-one else will tell you what you want to hear, what you want to be true.

And here's the family he was employed to destroy.

The children arrived…on the evening of December 11, 2004. John, the elder sibling, arrived with his four-month old brother wearing a dirty adult sized t-shirt and sneakers four sizes too small that seemed more like flip-flops than shoes. Both children were suffering from scalp ringworm. Although John was clearly suffering from a severe case of ringworm, the medication brought from John’s home to treat his scalp was unopened and expired. James, too, suffered from an untreated ear infection, as evidenced by the one-month old, nearly unused, medication. John did not speak and had no affect. He had one concern: changing, feeding, and caring for his baby brother. It was clear from the children’s first evening at the Petitioner-Roe home that the baby’s main caretaker was John, his four year old brother…

For the first few months, John seemed depressed and presented a void, unresponsive demeanor and appearance. Upon arriving at the Petitioner home, John did not speak a word for about one week. After two weeks, he began to mumble imperceptible utterances. After about one month, John finally began speaking. Petitioner quickly learned that John had never seen a book, could not distinguish letters from numbers, could not identify colors and could not count. He could not hold a pencil. He had never been in an early childhood program or day care. Nevertheless, John’s potential for educational development was apparent. Although he had not had any formal education, John could sing and pick up lyrics very quickly. Early on, Petitioner and Roe noticed that John hoarded food by requesting additional servings at the start of dinnertime and later hiding the extra food in his room. John eventually grew out of this behavior, due in part to a tactic employed by Petitioner and Roe of showing John, in advance of mealtime, the more than sufficient amount of food on the stove prepared and available for the family.

James was a very happy baby and was content with anyone, even strangers. After approximately two months, James began to exhibit signs of attachment to his primary caregivers, Petitioner and Roe. John, however, took about two years to fully bond. At one time, John shunned hugs from Petitioner and Roe. However, in his own time, John developed bonding and today, initiates goodbye hugs each morning before going to school.

And here’s what their world turned into — the world Rekers wanted to kick them out of:

On weekdays, the household wakes up at about 6:30 a.m. Petitioner usually prepares breakfast, permitting each child to assist with an assigned kitchen duty. Each morning, the family eats together without distraction from the television. As each child finishes his breakfast, he puts his dish in the sink and proceeds to the bathroom to brush his teeth and hair. Petitioner and Roe purchased a Ford minivan, which Petitioner jokes was not his dream car, however, to accommodate the family size, is the most feasible. Tom Roe, Jr. is dropped off at school first. Afterwards, Petitioner takes John and James to school, walking them into their classrooms and usually speaking to their respective teachers. In the afternoon, after Petitioner picks the boys up from school, they generally go to the park for tennis lessons. At the conclusion of their lessons, the family heads home for dinner. At mealtime, the family blesses the food together and takes turns sharing the highlights of their day. Phones are not answered and the television is off during dinner. After the children are excused from the table, the older children load the dishwasher.

After dinner, the children spend one hour doing their homework. Although James does not have homework, he spends time at the table pretending to do homework. John requires more supervision and one-on-one interaction to complete his homework. If a child finishes his homework early, the remaining time is spent reading. After homework is completed, the children are allowed to watch television. At bedtime, the boys retreat to their separate beds. By morning, however, James seems to always find his way into John’s bed.

The family attends a non-denominational Christian church and have as pets, a dog, rabbit and kitten. John and James refer to Petitioner and Roe as “papi” and “daddy” respectively. John and James have lived in the same neighborhood, attended the same school, day care and aftercare since their arrival in the Petitioner-Roe home. As a result, each child has created friendships from school and in the neighborhood. John and James are closely bonded to Tom Roe, Jr., and their extended family. The boys consider Petitioner and Roe’s parents, brothers and sisters their grandparents, uncles and aunts. The extended family sends the boys gifts for their birthdays and the holidays. Roe’s mother, who lives in Tampa, visits the family regularly.

No Good Christian Heterosexual couple volunteered to take these two damaged youngsters in.

None have done so since.

If separated from their parents, they will be sent to separate state institutions.

Dr Rekers testified under oath that even if they'd have been with their new parents for ten years, it would still be in the children's best interests to split them up and institutionalise them.

The man is a monster. He's also the senior guiding light of NARTH's "Scientific" advisory committee, and also the American College of Pediatrics (ACP), a religious activist group where non-pediatricians, even non-medical personnel, are encouraged to join. They have no affiliation with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the actual medical body that represents pediatricians. Last month, the ACP launched a campaign called "Facts About Youth," and began contacting educators to spread the "facts" about homosexuality. The AAP has declared the ACP literature to be scientifically baseless.

Rikers is also the co-founder of the Family Research Council, prior to its merger with Focus on the Family. He was in charge of UCLA's "Feminine Boy" project, where he lied about the good results he'd had from psychologically and physically torturing gay and trans kids to "straighten them out". He concealed the many suicides and suicide attempts that resulted.

Many members of this forum have quoted NARTH, or FotF, or the FRC, or the ACP in good faith, not knowing any better. Warnings by others of the mendacity and "Junk Science" manufactured by this man and Paul Cameron have been dismissed as typical Leftist propaganda, utterly baseless. "He said, she said".

Hopefully this will open your eyes. I'm not holding my breath.

By all means believe that the Almighty meant X to happen, or Y, or Z. But don't lie to try to justify with bogus "science" your religious beliefs. And don't quote those who do, when you know they do.

I suppose I better quote some eyewitnesses to Dr Rekers activities at UCLA:

Parents who brought their children to Rekers had to agree to participate in the "curing" of them. "Kraig," a four-year-old who participated in the UCLA Feminine Boy Project, was also monitored in the clinic's play-observation room. Only this time, it was his mother who wore the bug-in-the-ear, listening for her behavioral cues from the folks behind the wall. While playing, "Kraig would have seen her suddenly jerk upright, and look away from him toward the one-way window," Burke reports (based on transcripts of his case):

His mother was being prompted, through the earphones, by the doctor. She was told to completely ignore him, because he was engaged in feminine play. Kraig would have no understanding of what was happening to his mother. On one such occasion, his distress was such that he began to scream, but his mother just looked away. His anxiety increased, and he did whatever he could to get her to respond to him, but she just looked away. She must have seemed like a stranger to have changed her behavior toward him so suddenly and for no apparent reason . . . He was described as being in a panic, alternating between sobs and "aggressing at her," but again, when his distraught mother finally looked at him and began to respond, she stopped mid-sentence and abruptly turned away, as if he were not there. Kraig became so hysterical, and his mother so uncomfortable, that one of the clinicians had to enter and take Kraig, screaming, from the room.

Kraig's treatment continued in this vein. He was also put on the "token system" at home. Inappropriate, feminine behaviors earned him a red token, masculine ones, a blue token. Each red token earned him a spanking from his father. After more than two years of treatment, Kraig's behavior had turned around. He was now described by his mother as a "rough neck," and he no longer cared if his hair was neat or his clothes matched. But when he was eighteen, after years of being held up (under a pseudonym) by Rekers as "the poster boy for behavioral treatment of boyhood effeminacy," Kraig attempted suicide, because he thought that he might be gay.

Matthew 23:23-24 (Douay Rheims)
23 Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you tithe mint, and anise, and cummin, and have left the weightier things of the law; judgment, and mercy, and faith. These things you ought to have done, and not to leave those undone.
24 Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel.

I don't hate the man. I confess I have difficulty being suitably charitable to him, and forgiveness is out of the question at the moment, he's shown no signs of repentance or restitution, preferring to try one contradictory story after another to "clear his name".

I'm sorry, but he doesn't matter to me. He should, he's a human being, but I have great .difficulty caring a fig what happens to him at the moment. I should, and I'll try to.

But I hate his sins. I hate the sadism and cruelty. The bearing of false witness.

And I'm not too keen on the situation where people would rather see kids kill themselves than be gay. They strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.

Sources: Please read them, I've only skimmed the surface.
http://www.sbpress.com/2010/03/feminine-boy-project/
http://wakingupnow.com/blog/the-evil-of-george-rekers
http://www.brainchildmag.com/essays/fall2001_wilkinson.htm
http://holybulliesandheadlessmonsters.blogspot.com/2009/01/something-worth-knowing-about-narth.html
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/columnists/os-mike-thomas-gay-adoption-050910-20100506,0,123960,full.column

UPDATE - This piece:
The Christian World View of the Family
Edited by Dr. George Rekers, Ph.D., Chairman; Jerry Regier, M.A.B.S., Co-Chairman; With contributions by members of the Family Committee of The Coalition on Revival; Dr. Jay Grimstead, General Editor; E. Calvin Beisner, M.A., Assistant to the General Editor

9. We affirm that a man's authority as head of his wife is delegated to him by God; that this means that his legitimate authority over his wife is limited by what God's Word allows him; and that all authority is established by God and no one and no social institution has the right to exert any authority contrary to God's laws or the bounds God has set for the man's office in the family (Romans 13:1; Ephesians 5:22-23)....
....
42. We affirm that sexual abuse and parents' willfully depriving their children of shelter, clothing, food, sleep, or essential medical care, thus endangering their lives and physical health, should be treated as unlawful assault or attempted murder and the offenders punished accordingly by civil government and disciplined by the Church. We deny that the state has a right to impose unrealistic standards on families; that the so-called offenses of "emotional neglect," "emotional abuse," "educational neglect," etc., which form the bulk of substantiated reports of "child abuse and neglect," are in fact crimes against children; that the state has any right to administer criminal penalties or usurp custody in neglect cases except when a child's life or physical health is obviously endangered; and that the state should ever administer criminal penalties or usurp custody in cases where the only accusation concerns mental health, since the state should not mandate what particular beliefs and attitudes are healthy or acceptable. We further deny that involuntary circumstances should ever be treated as a crime, and that even sinful families are helped more by the threat of removing their children rather than by prayer, godly instruction, and loving assistance.
...
45. We affirm that Biblical spanking may cause temporary and superficial bruises or welts that do not constitute child abuse, but that proven brutality to a child resulting in permanent disfigurement or serious injury should be punished by law (Exodus 21:23,24; Proverbs 13:24; 22:15; 23:13,14).....

Temporary disfigurement is A-OK though. Just don't break bones. Major ones, anyway.

Dr Rekers told his travelling companion that he was a child psychologist. And indeed, he's "treated" many children. Entirely in accordance with Biblical principles, I'm sure.

One thing though. Dr Rekers is not gay. No, really. His masseur/luggage carrier stated as follows:

Rekers allegedly named his favorite maneuver the "long stroke" -- a complicated caress "across his penis, thigh... and his anus over the butt cheeks," as the escort puts it. "Rekers liked to be rubbed down there," he says.

Ah, but such a massage by a young, strong, hard-bodied escort from rentboy.com does not make you gay. Even if he's in the nude.

In Howard vs Arkansas the judge stated:

In counterpoint to the quality of Dr Lamb's testimony was the testimony provided by Dr George Rekers. It was apparent from Dr Rekers testimony and attitude on the stand that he was there primarily to promote his own personal ideology. If the furtherance of such ideology meant providing the court with only partial information or selectively analyzing study results that was acceptable to Dr Rekers. Dr Rekers was unable to testify without referring to approximately seventy pages of notes. A large part of his testimony was not responsive to the questions being asked him but consisted of Dr Rekers simply reading his prepared notes on a topic he wished to promote. For the most part, whether on direct examination or cross examination, he was unable or unwilling to directly answer a question.... Dr Rekers willingness to prioritize his personal beliefs over his function as an expert provider of fact renders his testimony extremely suspect and of little, if any, assistance to the court in resolving the difficult issues presented by this case. Dr Rekers personal agenda caused him to have inconsistent testimony on several issues. One example being that after testifying at length about how transitions were stressful for foster children and should be avoided if possible, Dr Rekers then testified that it was hypothetically in the child's best interests to be removed from a successful fourteen-year foster relationship in a homosexual household for the sole purpose of placement in a heterosexual household. When informed of Dr Rekers statement on such point, Dr Lamb testified that such statement was an "extraordinary suggestion" that "flies in the face of all that we know about the importance of relationships between children and parent figures". Such portion of Dr Rekers testimony is also directly contrary to the legislative intent of the Arkansas General Assembly... which states that "The policy of the state of Arkansas is that children in the custody of the Department of Human Services should have stable placements."

In this case, it clearly states:

Homosexual, for the purposes of this rule, shall mean any person who voluntarily and knowingly engages in or submits to any sexual contact involving the genitals of one person and the mouth or anus of another person of the same gender...

George Alan Rickers merely had his genitals and anal area manually fondled by a nude rentboy. There was no oral contact, so according to a law Dr Rekers must be intimately familiar with, he's not Gay at all. Just a fine upstanding (VERY upstanding according to his masseur) Christian Gentleman, who's very, very straight indeed. Yes siree. Completely straight.

Because if he wasn't, he'd be one of those awful Gays. And that is unthinkable to him.