http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/06/29/save-the-males Comments On: Save the Males by Dan Savage en-us Copyright 2009 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:01 -0800 Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by i'm pro-science and i vote]]> Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:32:47 -0700 The Stranger
None of us are who we would have been if not for these chemicals. Every baby on Earth's development is altered by these chemicals since we started synthesizing plastics. Some people that would have been straight are gay because of them. Some people that would have been gay are straight. People that would have been men are women, or feel like they are women. Estrogen mimicking endocrine disrupting chemicals cause changes in behavior and development at a ratio of 1 part per billion in lab rats.

This is a very well documented and concealed subject. The lack of news coverage over endocrine disrupters is a conspiracy. Cleaning our bodies of these poisons, and ceasing production of them would seriously harm corporation’s ability to make profits. We would also have to rework our entire world civilization.

Undescended testicles may fix themselves, but for every obvious deformation, there may be less obvious problems. Will the testicles produce the right hormones? Will the boy develop the way he was supposed to, or will he be stuck in a body that doesn’t suit his mind?

I’m all for the scientific method, but sometimes being pretty sure is good enough reason to take action when the consequences are so sweeping and disastrous.

Posted by Toasterhedgehog]]> Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:32:21 -0700 The Stranger
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810045661…
Posted by freshnycman]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:26:36 -0700 The Stranger there's a big undeground homosexual population. Des Moines, Iowa,
for an example. Look at the soil around Des Moines, Stuart.
You can't build on it; you can't grow anything in it. The government
says it's due to poor farming. But I know what's really going on,
Stuart. I know it's the queers. They're in it with the aliens.
They're building landing strips for gay Martians, I swear to
God
Posted by anonymous]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:40:42 -0700 The Stranger
Consider that right now, I am carrying the eggs that may become my grandchildren. I am pregnant with a girl and she has all her eggs developing right now. So anything I am exposed to can/will affect them. That may not be interesting or amazing to anyone but me, I know, but think of it this way: go back two generations. What were your grandmothers exposed to when pregnant with your parents? What was your mother exposed to and how will that affect your babies?

It seems you can live as cleanly as possible, but some damage may already have been done long ago. It’s a little depressing. --Or maybe if people thought about the scope of our pollution (even if only in the concrete visuals of malformed penises), we’d all be growing our own food, mopping with vinegar, using only natural light and walking everywhere.

Posted by Allyn]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:48:37 -0700 The Stranger
That will kill two birds with one stone.
Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:08:35 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Greg]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:57:34 -0700 The Stranger
(And for those one or two who will want to scold or scoff -- I'm being facetious...)

Posted by Allyn]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:49:24 -0700 The Stranger Posted by scharrera]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:22:34 -0700 The Stranger Posted by scharrera]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:20:37 -0700 The Stranger
Posted by Vince]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:12:39 -0700 The Stranger
All kidding aside, if this is what it takes to get the masculinity obsessed right wing to give a crap about the environment, that's a good thing.
Posted by gexxor]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:47:00 -0700 The Stranger Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one that sees the rise of petrochemicals since 1850 and the simultaneous increase in environmental pollutants as being related. It's not just fuel: it's plastics and their derivatives that are used everywhere, even the keyboard I'm typing on! (pesticides & herbicides use petrochemicals too)
It just seems so obvious that surrounding ourselves with the matter we've extracted from the remains of other living creatures, who died from causes that are still not truly explained, might be a problem.
Global warming and birth defects are just the symptoms of widescale poisoning, and it's pretty clear what that poison is.

Posted by Sir Vic]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:11:30 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:59:02 -0700 The Stranger
I did. I was trying to be funny.
Posted by kim in portland]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:54:44 -0700 The Stranger
That said, you do buy all your produce from organic farmers at the locally grown stands at your farmers' market, don't you?

The things that were said back in the 70s still apply - plastics r bad, local organic food b good, packaging b bad, recycling b good.

Toss me another factory-farmed shrimp on the global-warming-enhancing wood BBQ will you?
Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:26:45 -0700 The Stranger Posted by kitschnsync]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:20:41 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Fnarf]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:59:16 -0700 The Stranger
Is there anything you don't blame Obama for?

I can almost imagine the little plastic ring on a string coming out of your back. Pull.... "Obama blah blah blah"
Pull... "Obama blah blah blah..."
Posted by Ackham]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:53:47 -0700 The Stranger nice to someone who added something interesting to the conversation. I know interesting might be a foreign concept to you, but some of us appreciate it when people's comments here aren't just gibberish.

Plus, the fact that "there have been books for years on this" is totally meaningless. Is a 10 year old book going to talk about the toxins/chemicals the current research says we need to watch out for today (BPA)?
Posted by Julie in Eugene]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:53:24 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Bonefish]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:50:45 -0700 The Stranger Posted by greendyke]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:49:15 -0700 The Stranger
Sadly, this affects just about every other veretbrate on the planet, too. (And indubitably any number of invertebrates.)

Bugger.

Of course, you just know that the republans are gonna use this as an excuse to further limit availability of contraception.
Posted by Sili]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:49:00 -0700 The Stranger
This is pretty much impossible to experiment on in humans due to ethics, but it's almost certain that lifelong gender identity is determined by fetal hormones during a very short critical period (sometime from days to weeks while the fetus is in the womb).

We can easily control a rat's permanent gender identity during fetal development by either injecting androgen (testosterone) and causing a lifelong male gender identity, or blocking androgen and causing a lifelong female gender identity. Nothing unusual has to be done to these rats except during a short period of natal development.

A "male" rat (with a vagina, genetically female, but injected with androgen during fetal development) will completely exhibit stereotyped male behaviors -- from mimicking other males to humping female rats. A "female" rat (with a penis, genetically male, with an androgen blocker during fetal development) will show completely "female" behaviors.

So, in short, due to these endocrine disruptors in our environment, we can probably expect to see a huge rise in FTM's and MTF's. These are "invisible" changes that you can't determine by looking a baby's genitals, but will probably be much more common than abnormalities like hypospadias.
Posted by lizzie]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:38:30 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Carollani]]> Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:36:09 -0700 The Stranger