Women After All: Sex, Evolution, and the End of Male Supremacy (42 page)

29
thousands of experiments:
For a review and starting point, along with some new complexities, see Kathryn M. Lenz and Margaret M. McCarthy, “Organized for Sex: Steroid Hormones and the Developing Hypothalamus.”
European Journal of Neuroscience
32, no. 12 (2010): 2096–2104, 2011; the 2008 collection edited by Jill Becker and colleagues,
Sex Differences in the Brain;
and the special 2011 issue of
Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology
cited above.

30
A 2004 study:
William G. Reiner and John P. Gearhart, “Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth,”
New England Journal of Medicine
350, no. 4 (2004): 333–41.

30
Reiner’s longer paper:
William G. Reiner, “Psychosexual Development in Genetic Males Assigned Female: The Cloacal Exstrophy Experience,”
Child &
Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America
13, no. 3 (2004): 657–74.

30
BJ interview:
Ibid., 668.

31
“children seemed to be almost empowered”:
Ibid., 667.

31
“demonstrates a scenario that is typical”:
Ibid., 668.

31
“These children adapt”
and
“an important role”:
Ibid., 671.

32
One such unlucky child:
Natalie Angier, “Sexual Identity Not Pliable After All, Report Says,”
New York Times
, March 14, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/14/us/sexual-identity-not-pliable-after-all-report-says.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As, accessed Sept. 12, 2014; Milton Diamond and H. Keith Sigmundson, “Sex Reassignment at Birth: Long-Term Review and Clinical Implications,”
Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine
151, no. 3 (1997): 298–304.

32
“He got himself a van”:
Angier, “Sexual Identity.”

32
John’s suicide:
Debra Black, “Sex, Lies and a Quest for Identity: The Boy Raised as a Girl Suffered for Social Experiment,”
Toronto Star
, May 11, 2004, http://www.cirp.org/news/torontostar05-11-04/, accessed Sept. 12, 2014.

32
In another such case:
Susan J. Bradley, Gillian D. Oliver, Avinoam B. Chernick, and Kenneth J. Zucker, “Experiment of Nurture: Ablatio Penis at 2 Months, Sex Reassignment at 7 Months, and a Psychosexual Follow-up in Young Adulthood,”
Pediatrics
102, no. 1 (1998): e9.

33
growing number of transsexuals:
For a recent and authoritative multidisciplinary view, see the volume edited by Randi Ettner, Stan Mostrey, and A. Evan Eyler,
Principles of Transgender Medicine and Surgery
(Binghamton, NY: Haworth, 2007).

33
“Many young children experiment”:
Randi Ettner,
Confessions of a Gender Defender: A Psychologist’s Reflections on Life Among the Transgendered
(Evanston, IL: Chicago Spectrum, 1996), 21.

33
“Few things are as devastating”:
Ibid.
,
28. Fortunately, this is beginning to change. A young friend of mine here in Georgia has decided to change sex and is in the process of becoming a man. Her family, which consists of fairly typical high school–educated people who grew up here, has been for the most part remarkably accepting and supportive.

34
male-to-female transsexuals who came to autopsy:
A. Garcia-Falgueras, L.
Ligtenberg, F. P. Kruijver, and D. F. Swaab, “Galanin Neurons in the Intermediate Nucleus (InM) of the Human Hypothalamus in Relation to Sex, Age, and Gender Identity,”
Jounral of Comparative Neurology
519, no. 15 (2011): 3061–84.

34
Dominican Republic studies:
J. Imperato-McGinley, R. E. Peterson, T. Gautier, and E. Sturla, “Androgens and the Evolution of Male-Gender Identity Among Male Pseudohermaphrodites with 5a-Reductase Deficiency,”
New England Journal of Medicine
300 (1979): 1233–70; J. Imperato-McGinley, “5alpha-Reductase-2 Deficiency and Complete Androgen Insensitivity: Lessons from Nature,”
Advances in Experimental Medicine & Biology
511 (2002): 121–31.

37
Melissa Hines study of XY women:
Melissa Hines, S. Faisal Ahmed, and Ieuan A. Hughes, “Psychological Outcomes and Gender-Related Development in Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome,”
Archives of Sexual Behavior
32, no. 2 (2003): 93–101.

38
Studies of identical and fraternal twins:
For an excellent and highly readable recent account of the history and science of twin studies culminating in the Minnesota Twin Study, see Nancy Segal’s
Born Together—Reared Apart: The Landmark Minnesota Twin Study
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012).

Chapter 2: Hidden in Darkness

46
Komodo dragon habits:
James B. Murphy, ed.,
Komodo Dragons: Biology and Conservation
, Zoo and Aquarium Biology and Conservation Series (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2002); Walter Auffenberg,
The Behavioral Ecology of the Komodo Monitor
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1981). For a brief, accessible overview, see Jennifer S. Holland, “Once Upon a Dragon,”
National Geographic
255, no. 1 (2014): 96–109.

46
Venom:
B. G. Fry and twenty-seven other authors, “A Central Role for Venom in Predation by
Varanus komodoensis
(Komodo Dragon) and the Extinct Giant
Varanus (Megalania) priscus,
”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
106, no. 22 (2009): 8969–74.

46
Komodo reproduction without males:
P. C. Watts, K. R. Buley, S. Sanderson, W. Boardman, C. Ciofi, and R. Gibson, “Parthenogenesis in Komodo dragons,”
Nature
444, no. 7122 (2006): 1021–22.

47
Asexual and sexual whiptail lizards:
D. Crews, “Evolution of Neuroendocrine Mechanisms That Regulate Sexual Behavior,”
Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism
16, no. 8 (2005): 354–61; David Crews, Nicholas S. R. Sanderson, and Brian G. Dias, “Hormones, Brain, and Behavior in Reptiles,” in
Hormones, Brain and Behavior,
2nd ed., vol 2., ed. Donald W. Pfaff (New York: Academic Press, 2009), 771–816.

47
Darwin’s daring primroses:
Charles Darwin (1862), “On the Two Forms, or Dimorphic Condition, in the Species of
Primula
, and on Their Remarkable Sexual Relations,”
Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London (Botany)
6 (1862): 77–96; accessed online Sept. 12, 2014, at http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/published/1862_primula_F1717.html.

47
“We do not even know”:
Ibid., 94–95.

48
“the twofold cost of producing males”:
John Maynard Smith,
The Evolution of Sex
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 58.

49
“from the sexual, or amatorial, generation of plants”:
Erasmus Darwin,
Phytologia; or, The Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening. With the Theory of Draining Morasses and With an Improved Construction of the Drill Plough
(London: P. Byrne, 1800), 104. E-book scanned from the original, online at https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=YggpAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en&pg=GBS.PP11, accessed Sept. 12, 2014.

49
“sexual reproduction is the chef d’oeuvre”:
Ibid., 103.

49
The Loves of the Plants: Erasmus Darwin,
The Poetical Works of Erasmus Darwin, M.D. F.R.S. Containing The Botanic Garden, in Two Parts; and The Temple of Nature. With Philosophical Notes and Plates. In Three Volumes. Vol. II Containing The Loves of the Plants
(London: J. Johnson, 1806). E-book scanned from the original, accessed online Sept. 12, 2014, at https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=uhs6AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en&pg=GBS.PR1.

50
“Each wanton beauty”
: Ibid., 17.

50
“It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank”:
Charles Robert Darwin,
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life; with a New Foreword by George Gaylord Simpson
(1859; repr., New York: Collier, 1962), 484.

51
“Thus, from the war of nature”:
Ibid.
,
484–85.

52
proved true for a species of sea squirt:
J. D. Aguirre and D. J. Marshall, “Does Genetic Diversity Reduce Sibling Competition?”
Evolution
66, no. 1 (2012): 94–102.

52
The Red Queen:
For a good brief introduction, see Carl Zimmer’s article “On the Origin of Sexual Reproduction,”
Science
324 (2009): 1254–56.

54
The black widow:
Helma Roggenbuck, Stano Pekár, and Jutta M. Schneider, “Sexual Cannibalism in the European Garden Spider
Araneus diadematus
: The Roles of Female Hunger and Mate Size Dimorphism,”
Animal Behaviour
81 (2011): 749–55. For a general account of the evolution of sexual cannibalism, see Mark A. Elgar and Jutta M. Schneider, “Evolutionary Significance of Sexual Cannibalism,”
Advances in the Study of Behavior
34 (2004): 135–63.

55
Orb weaver spiders prevented from eating males:
Klaas W. Welke and Jutta M. Schneider, “Sexual Cannibalism Benefits Offspring Survival,”
Animal Behaviour
83, no. 1 (2012): 201–07.

55
“nutrient-limited”
and
“males are high-quality prey”:
R. Rabaneda-Bueno, M. Á. Rodríguez-Gironés, S. Aguado-de-la-Paz, C. Fernández-Montraveta, E. De Mas, D. H. Wise, and J. Moya-Laraño, “Sexual Cannibalism: High Incidence in a Natural Population with Benefits to Females,”
PLoS One
3, no. 10 (2008): e3484, p. 1.

55
“Safer Sex”:
Lutz Fromhage and Jutta M. Schneider, “Safer Sex with Feeding Females: Sexual Conflict in a Cannibalistic Spider,”
Behavioral Ecology
16, no. 2 (2004): 377–82.

55
Female praying mantises have their own charms:
Katherine L. Barry, Gregory I. Holwell, and Marie E. Herberstein, “Male Mating Behaviour Reduces the Risk of Sexual Cannibalism in an Australian Praying Mantid,”
Journal of Ethology
27, no. 3 (2008): 377–83. For a lovely video (not suitable for squeamish males), see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYp_Xi4AtAQ, accessed Sept. 12, 2014.

56
Octopus sexual cannibalism:
Roger T. Hanlon and John W. Forsythe, “Sexual Cannibalism by
Octopus cyanea
on a Pacific Coral Reef,”
Marine and Freshwater Behaviour and Physiology
41, no. 1 (2008): 19–28.

57
Consider the syrupy primordial slime:
Of the many accounts of the whole of evolution, I recommend Michael Ruse and Joseph Travis, eds.,
Evolution: The First Four Billion Years,
introduction by Edward O. Wilson
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009).

57
a string of genetic material:
The best popular account of the logic of this—the essence of the evolutionary process—remains Richard Dawkins’s
The Selfish Gene
(1989; repr., 30th anniversary ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

58
Trich meiosis:
S. B. Malik, A. W. Pightling, L. M. Stefaniak, A. M. Schurko, and J. M. Logsdon Jr., “An Expanded Inventory of Conserved Meiotic Genes Provides Evidence for Sex in
Trichomonas vaginalis
,”
PLoS One
3, no. 8 (2008): e2879.

59
the asexual New Zealand mud snail:
D. Paczesniak, S. Adolfsson, K. Liljeroos, K. Klappert, C. M. Lively, and J. Jokela, “Faster Clonal Turnover in High-Infection Habitats Provides Evidence for Parasite-Mediated Selection,”
Journal of Evolutionary Biology
27, no. 2 (2014): 417–28.

59
“Ancient Asexual Scandals”:
Olivia Judson and Benjamin B. Normark, “Ancient Asexual Scandals,”
Trends in Ecology and Evolution
11 (1996): 41–46.

60
“Love is coming down to war”:
Ronald Chase is quoted by Hillary Mayell in “Lovebirds and Love Darts: The Wild World of Mating,” National Geographic Daily News, February 13, 2004, accessed Sept. 12, 2014, at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/02/0212_040213_lovebirds.html. For the scientific background see Ronald Chase and Katrina C. Blanchard, “The Snail’s Love-Dart Delivers Mucus to Increase Paternity,”
Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences
273, no. 1593 (2006): 1471–75.

61
“Sex and Violence in Hermaphrodites”:
N. K. Michiels, and L. J. Newman, “Sex and Violence in Hermaphrodites,”
Nature
391 (1998): 647. The quotes from Newman and Eberhard are reported by Susan Milius, “Hermaphrodites Duel for Manhood,”
Science News
153, no. 7 (February 14, 1998): 101, accessed online Sept. 12, 2014, at http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.2307/4010187?locale=en.

62
our old friend the unisexual whiptail lizard:
The next few pages draw on the work of David Crews and his colleagues, from “Evolution of Neuroendocrine Mechanisms.”

63
“snapshot of evolution”:
Crews, “Evolution of Neuroendocrine Mechanisms,” 354.

63
“Given that the first ‘sex’ was female”:
B. G. Dias and D. Crews, “Regulation of Pseudosexual Behavior in the Parthenogenetic Whiptail Lizard,
Cnemidophorus uniparens
,”
Endocrinology
149, no. 9 (2008): 4629–30.