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Why boys are turning into girls

Here's something rather rotten from the State of Denmark. Its government yesterday unveiled official research showing that two-year-old children are at risk from a bewildering array of gender-bending chemicals in such everyday items as waterproof clothes, rubber boots, bed linen, food, nappies, sunscreen lotion and moisturising cream.

The 326-page report, published by the environment protection agency, is the latest piece in an increasingly alarming jigsaw. A picture is emerging of ubiquitous chemical contamination driving down sperm counts and feminising male children all over the developed world. And anti-pollution measures and regulations are falling far short of getting to grips with it.

Sperm counts are falling so fast that young men are less fertile than their fathers and produce only a third as much, proportionately, as hamsters. And gender-bending chemicals are increasingly being blamed for the mystery of the "lost boys": babies who should normally be male who have been born as girls instead.

The Danish government set out to find out how much contamination from gender-bending chemicals a two-year-old child was exposed to every day. It concluded that a child could be "at critical risk" from just a few exposures to high levels of the substances, such as from rubber clogs, and imperilled by the amount it absorbed from sources ranging from food to sunscreens.

The results build on earlier studies showing that British children have higher levels of gender-bending chemicals in their blood than their parents or grandparents. Indeed WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund), which commissioned the older research, warned that the chemicals were so widespread that "there is very little, if anything, individuals can do to prevent contamination of themselves and their families." Prominent among them are dioxins, PVC, flame retardants, phthalates (extensively used to soften plastics) and the now largely banned PCBs, one and a half million tons of which were used in countless products from paints to electrical equipment.

Young boys, like those in the Danish study, could end up producing less sperm and developing feminised behaviour. Research at Rotterdam's Erasmus University found that boys whose mothers were exposed to PCBs and dioxins were more likely to play with dolls and tea sets and dress up in female clothes.

And it is in the womb that babies are most vulnerable; a study of umbilical cords from British mothers found that every one contained hazardous chemicals. Scientists at the University of Rochester in New York discovered that boys born to women exposed to phthalates had smaller penises and other feminisation of the genitals.

The contamination may also offer a clue to a mysterious shift in the sex of babies. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls: it is thought to be nature's way of making up for the fact that men were more likely to be killed hunting or in conflict. But the proportion of females is rising, so much so that some 250,000 babies who statistically should have been boys have ended up as girls in Japan and the United States alone. In Britain, the discrepancy amounts to thousands of babies a year.

Yet gender-benders are largely exempt from new EU regulations controlling hazardous chemicals. Britain, then under Tony Blair's premiership, was largely responsible for this – restricting their inclusion in the first draft of the legislation, and then causing even what was included to be watered down.Confidential documents show that it did so after pressure from George W Bush's administration, which protested that US exports "could be impacted".

www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/6418553/Why-boys-
are-turning-into-girls.html

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

I must have been enjoying a misconception about the governmental and economic policies of China.

I did not realize they were capitalists.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,


(Selective Quotations:)


I must admit to also being confused about China's level of regulation. I was under the impression they regulated everything that was important to the government.

They just don't give a shit about people, so human safety isn't one of the things they feel strongly about regulating from what I can tell.

Rue mistrusts Corporations, and I mistrust Governments.

I think we're on the same page and reading different paragraphs.

--Anthony

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
It sounds almost like runaway capitalism, that oft-dreamt-of unregulated free market kind that the conservatives so desperately want for the rest of us.

Mike

Let the wild rumpus start!

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
I'm not sure that femininizing hormones work the other way and can be toted as an explanation for lesbianism, though, nor am I entirely sure it explains homosexuality, or even (and I hate this word) metrosexuality.

I think internalized gender roles and sexual orientation may be two different things. Transvestite males are actually often straight.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:

It may sound that way, Mike, but don't forget that the oft-dreampt of 'free market' was always meant to exist in a 'free society' where the consumer, employee, and competitor could exercise their freedoms, and apply pressure on the system in various ways.

This is not the case in China.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

This would explain the political activism on the part of various libertarians to create the environment most suitable to their ideals.

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Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

Nope. My goodness, man. You need to meet better libertarians.

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On the other hand, I've also never met a Libertarian who thought that a million dollars was a good reward for spilling your hot coffee on your lap. I've also never met one who thought the burglar who fell through your skylight ought to be able to sue you.

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Originally posted by PhoenixRose:

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
I'm not sure that femininizing hormones work the other way and can be toted as an explanation for lesbianism, though, nor am I entirely sure it explains homosexuality, or even (and I hate this word) metrosexuality.

I think internalized gender roles and sexual orientation may be two different things. Transvestite males are actually often straight.

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It doesn't account for any of those things. Nor does it account for those so-called 'lost boys' he mentions, commonly known as hermaphrodites or transgenders. The cause of males developing into females is not too many female hormones, but an inability of their bodies to respond to male hormones. This isn't something new, either, there have been hermaphrodites for all of human memory. There are different levels of androgen insensitivity, some of which are mild and cause some rather gender-bending genitalia. Other forms are complete, meaning virtually no male hormones are absorbed. This creates a person who appears in all ways female, with little or no body hair. These women do technically have an XY chromosome, something generally not discovered until they reach puberty and fail to menstruate. Removal of what would have been their testicles is usually done at this time to prevent them becoming cancerous, which happens in 99.99% of cases.
Androgen insensitivity is believed to be caused by a mutation in one of the chromosomes. About 7 times out of 10 that sort of mutation will cause a miscarriage, or if not a total miscarriage then a premature birth. If there's been a rise in androgen insensitivity syndrome, it's likely due to the increasing number of medical advances that allow babies born prematurely to survive, where in times past they would never have survived. That is if there's an actual rise. I haven't seen anything to indicate that there has been.

[/sig]

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Note to Pirate: A woman can be strong and capable without being a lesbian. She can distinguish herself above the men around her without changing her sexual orientation, or even her sex. She can be a woman, and still kick ass and do a damn fine job. And she can do it without hating men, or exhibiting any of the other negative behavior you attribute to strong, capable females.

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