Cell biology indicates the Y chromosome – previously considered a “genetic wasteland” – is teeming with units of DNA that are unique to males. There are distinct male and female blueprints from the moment of conception.
Embryology provides evidence of the earliest activity of those genes. At eight weeks post-conception, when the embryo is the size of a kidney bean, the Y chromosome directs the testes to produce and secrete testosterone. The hormone travels to the brain, enters the neurons, and propels the development of a distinct “boy brain”.
Neurobiology research is mapping out the structural and functional differences in male and female brains. Functional MRIs create color images that highlight distinct boy and girl patterns of thinking and feeling.
Infant Development studies reveal that at one day of age, presumably before children have been socialized to meet society’s expectations, girls show a stronger interest in the face, while boys look longer at a mobile. At one year, girls are drawn to a video of a face moving; boys to a video of cars moving. And the typical toy preferences of children are also found in juvenile monkeys. The females like dolls and the males prefer vehicles and balls.
Male and female are “culturally assigned”? Gender is a feeling, separate from hormones and chromosomes? I don’t think so. Advocates for Youth’s lesson plans are based on last century’s radical social movements. Anyone following this century’s hard science - what’s observed under microscopes or on brain scans – knows those moth-eaten theories have been discredited.
Mr. Wagoner and others in his coalition may choose to disregard advances in neuroscience, but when members of Congress endorse their attitude, thereby institutionalizing it, it is a sad day for the children of this country. The “Healthy Teen Initiative”, if based on the ideology of those groups that promoted it, will, as Mr Wagoner said, bring something back into government. It will bring extreme agendas like we’ve never seen before. It will bring groups who encourage young people to question what they’ve been taught about sexuality at home and in church. It will introduce them to radical ideas that have no basis in reality. It will bring many things, but science is not one of them.