Additional Mathematics Project SPM (Form 5) 2009

My past add maths project :) Hope it helps :)

Additional Mathematics Project SPM (Form 5) 2009

SPM Biology Essays Compilation

A compilation of biology essays from various sources for SPM.
This is done for my revision, hope it helps you too :)

Please do not remove the credits, watermark and name. Remember to leave a comment and spread the words out... good luck!

SPM Biology Essays Collection

SPM Chemistry Definition F5

This is done for my revision, hope it helps you too :)

Please do not remove the credits, watermark and name. Remember to leave a comment and spread the words out... good luck!


Definitions for Chemistry SPM F5

SPM Chemistry Definition F4

This is done for my revision, hope it helps you too :)

Please do not remove the credits, watermark and name. Remember to leave a comment and spread the words out... good luck!

*Yeah, I forgotten to put the definition of element which is very important too!

Element : substances which cannot be broken down into simpler substances physically or chemically.


Definitions for Chemistry SPMF4

Survival Chemistry For Us All (Oxidation & Reduction)

This is one of my creation for the past chemistry teaching aid competition, if you are interested, do download to play it and remember to leave a comment.

DO NOT RUB/CANCEL THE CREDITS :)

Survival chemistry For Us All (Oxidation and Reduction)

View more presentations from balletrocks92.

Still Under Construction

Sorry guys, I'm compiling and re-typing my notes and will update this blog on the 24-25th of Dec...hope you guys are patient enough to wait :)

Thanks:)

"Science and Sexuality" Presentation at the LGBT Center of SE Wisconsin

I am honored to be the final speaker of the year in the LGBT Distinguished Speaker Series at the The LGBT Center of SE Wisconsin where I will present an updated version of my presentation on "Science and Sexuality."

Event:  "Science and Sexuality" Presentation

Date:  Sunday, November 15th

Time:  2-5 pm

Location:  The LGBT Center of SE Wisconsin

1456 Junction Avenue

Racine, WI 53403
ph: 262.664.4100
fax: 262.664.4104
info@lgbtsewisc.org

The LGBT Center of SE Wisconsin is relatively new and I am glad to be a part of their activities.  Please visit the Center and attend my presentation if you are in the area.

Picketing Obama & National Equality March for GLBT Civil Rights in All Fifty States - My Photos

Gay Liberation Network's message to Democrats: Don't count on GLBT support anymore!

This video shows members of Chicago's Gay Liberation Network and Dallas's Queer LiberAction who traveled to Washington DC and joined forces to picket President Obama at the Human Rights Campaign fundraiser on the eve of the GLBT National Equality March.  We picketed because President Obama needs to start delivering on his promises to us.  Democrats and Obama should not smugly assume that they will get the ongoing support of GLBT people.  And we will not stop our activism until GLBT people have equal civil rights in all fifty states!

Chicago’s Gay Liberation Network will picket Obama at Human Rights Campaign Fundraiser

The location of this Saturday night’s picketing of President Obama has changed. On September 18th, I posted the reasons why GLN planned to picket Obama at the White House.

But this morning, as a member of GLN, I received the following message from Andy Thayer, GLN's co-founder.

Subject: CHANGE OF LOCATION for Sat. Night Picket of Pres Obama

In reaction to the announcement yesterday that President Obama will address a black tie fundraising gala of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) on Saturday, October 10th, organizers of a pro-LGBT picket originally scheduled for that night at the White House have instead moved the picket to the site of the HRC gala. The picket will begin at 6 PM in of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, on the northeast corner of Mt Vernon Place NW and 9th Street NW, Washington, DC.  Please spread the word widely.

And later today, another email from Andy:

Hi folks,

I thought people would like to know that we will be joined on our picket line at the HRC fundraiser by the people who organized the picket of the DNC fundraiser (and VP Biden) a few months back. They are working hard to russle up more support locally. Since we moved the location of our picket last night, I've gotten inundated with email and Facebook messages from people saying that they'll be there. I think we've really struck a chord. Lots of people and websites are reposting our message.

So this Saturday night I'll be joining other GLN members and a lot of other LGBT activists who will be picketing President Obama at the Human Rights Campaign dinner.  GLBT Americans demand equal rights across the United States!

Call for a Pro-LGBT Picket of the White House

I reported in my September 9th post that I will be going to Washington DC with other members of Chicago's Gay Liberation Network (GLN) to participate in the October 11th National Equality March.

But we will also picket the White House during the prior evening!

Why does GLN want to picket the White House?

Here is our statement:

6 PM, Saturday, Oct. 10th

Lafayette Square (on H Street just north of the White House)

Many of us watched in disgust this past January as the homophobic Reverend Rick Warren was given an honored place at the inaugural festivities. It was as if a leader of the White Citizens Council had been invited to the White House.

After indignant complaints to the incoming administration about this homophobic slap in the face, what was our consolation prize? Openly gay Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson was invited to speak at a lesser inaugural event, as if "balancing" a bigot with a non-bigot was good enough. Then, for good measure – at the behest of the White House – Robinson wasn't televised (see http://www.gayliberation.net/opinion/2009/0122chicagod.html).

 This homophobic behavior by the Obama White House has been repeated several times before and since:

 ** During the South Carolina primary, when his campaign featured rabidly anti-gay Gospel performer Donnie McClurkin at a major rally;

 ** With the quiet dropping of most pro-gay promises from the Obama website earlier this year – until a firestorm of protest forced them to return much of it;

** With the failure to rescind President Clinton's ban on HIV+ people traveling to the United States, and his ban on granting green cards and citizenship to HIV+ immigrants;

 ** With the unnecessary administration brief in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), with language worthy of the most vicious anti-gay bigot, making a mockery of his promise to repeal DOMA;

 ** With the statements by Obama that his "Christian beliefs" make him oppose equal marriage rights, as if the former Constitutional law scholar from the University of Chicago doesn't know anything about separation of church and state. Obama's homophobic statements were of course gleefully quoted to great effect by pro-Prop 8 forces in California;

 ** With the failure to blunt "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (DADT) by issuing a stop-loss order. Instead, he authorized surrogates to endlessly delay the junking of DADT, thereby breaking his promise to repeal it;

** While an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act has been reintroduced into Congress, President Obama has expended virtually no political capital in getting it or any other pro-gay measure passed.

 The organizers of the Sunday, October 11th March on Washington have placed almost their entire focus on Congress (which will be out of town) and almost none on the President. Indeed, rather than making demands of the President, the official march website goes out of its way to praise "Obama's Mobile Messaging Team (for) Donating Services To The National Equality March"!

By targeting congressional districts and lobbying Congress in an effort to win legal equality, the organizers' strategy looks suspiciously like a drive to elect and re-elect Democrats in the 2010 bi-elections, rather than make uncompromising demands on this President and his Congress.

Their current focus on cajoling Congress and the President to do the right thing ignores a very basic fact – this approach has never won civil rights gains. While LGBT activists fawned over the last Democratic President, Bill Clinton repaid our love by giving us much of the crap bullet-pointed above. Like today, many of those anti-gay measures came while the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress plus the Presidency.

By contrast, uncompromising street protests led by ACT-UP and others gave us the Ryan White AIDS Care and the Americans With Disabilities Acts – despite a very reactionary political climate during the first Bush administration. An era of such protests – the 1960s – caused the radical change in consciousness among LGBT people which thereby gave birth to our modern LGBT movement.

The last thing we need today is to parrot "yes we can" chants, like we are cheerleading this president and his party. Instead, we must take as our maxim the quote from the great anti-slavery organizer Frederick Douglass: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. Never has, never will."

Therefore on October 10th we will be picketing the White House to demand that the most powerful politician in the world implement the many reforms that the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans community needs. Please join us.

6 PM -- Saturday, October 10th

Lafayette Square (on H Street on the north side of the White House)

We also will be marching in the Sunday, October 11th march. We invite you to join us – just look for the big yellow banner that reads "President Obama – Keep Your #$^! Promises! Repeal DOMA, DADT"

For more information or to endorse this statement, please email the Gay Liberation Network in Chicago (LGBTliberation@aol.com) or Queer Liberaction in Dallas (LGBTliberaction@gmail.com).

British Prime Minister Issues Posthumous Apology To Alan Turing

Alan Turing pioneered computer science, broke the Nazi Enigma code and changed the course of world history.  But he was also gay.  He was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated to “cure” his homosexuality, and took his own life at only 41.

As stated in my August 17th post, there is a campaign in the United Kingdom to recognize Alan Turing as a genius and a hero and to apologize for the horrific discrimination he endured as a British citizen because he was gay.  This petition has been signed by many thousands of British citizens.  Now as the list of petitioners continues to grow, the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has issued a posthumous apology to Alan Turing.  Below is the text of this apology.

2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison - was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices – that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.

Gordon Brown

See The Alan Turing Home Page for a wealth of information about this great genius and Geoffrey Wansell's article for a good synopsis of this unsung World War II hero's life story .

The GLBT March On Washington for Equality Across America

     I'm so excited because I will be taking part in the historic GLBT Equal Rights March on Washington this October.  I will be taking a van to Washington with other members of Chicago's Gay Liberation Network.  In fact, GLN will be teaming up with another group to picket the White House on the Saturday evening before the big march.  That's right!  It would be awful to be in Washington DC and not picket the White House, wouldn't it?

Ending Professional Bigotry Against Transsexual People

In this video I present the scientific evidence showing that transsexuality is a natural variation and that transsexual people are simply different, not disordered. Consequently, the American Psychiatric Association should remove "gender identity disorder" from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. My thanks to Chicago's Gay Liberation Network . This video of the cable television broadcast is in FOUR PARTS.
PART 1


PART 2


PART 3


PART 4


References specifically referred to in this video are (in order of mention):

• Zhou, J.N., Hofman, M.A., Gooren, L.J. and Swaab, D.F.. A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Transsexuality. NATURE, 378: 68-70 (1995)
• Kruijver, Frank P. M., Zhou, J., Pool, Chris W., Hofman, Michel A., Gooren, Louis J. G and Swaab, Dick F. Male-To-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers In A Limbic Nucleus. J CLIN ENDOCRINOL METAB, 85: 2034-2041 (2000)
• Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia and Swaab, Dick F. A Sex Difference In The Hypothalamic Uncinate Nucleus: Relationship To Gender Identity. BRAIN, (Nov 2, 2008)

Surveying

Sorry but can you guys help me on it?

I'm presently doing a short period survey on the following:

1. Which chapter is most difficult in chemistry Form 5?
2, Which chapter is most difficult in chemistry Form 4?
3. Which are the subtopics you feel hard to cope?

Please comment on it.
If possible, in detail as I need it for a project.
Your help is much appreciated.
Thank you.

Chapters in Chemistry SPM

Form 4

1. Introduction to Chemistry
2. The Structure of the Atom
3. Chemical Formulae and Equations
4. Periodic Table of Elements
5. Chemical Bonds
6. Electrochemistry
7. Acid and Bases
8. Salts
9. Manufactured Substances in Industry

Form 5

1. Rate of Reactions
2. Carbon Compounds
3. Oxidation and Reduction
4. Thermochemistry
5. Chemicals for Consumers

Alan Turing - Gay Genius Who Changed the Course of History Was Hounded to His Death

Alan Turing, “father of computer science,” mathematician, philosopher, visionary and hero who helped win World War II by breaking the Nazi code, has been a major and positive force in shaping our modern life and the future; yet few people know of his enormous and rightful place in history. Why? Because Alan Turing was a homosexual (androphilic) man and he died young by suicide. Now there is a campaign in the United Kingdom to recognize Alan Turing as a genius and a hero and to apologize for the horrific discrimination he endured as a British citizen because he was gay and that no doubt contributed to his suicide.

But Alan Turing deserves to be celebrated around the planet, not just in the United Kingdom. Alan Turing’s accomplishments as a scientist, great thinker, and military hero have benefited all of humanity; thus he is a global hero and should be known and celebrated around the world. Over the years that I have been in American academia, I have observed to my dismay that many computer science students don’t know anything about Alan Turing. This is like a physics student not knowing about Isaac Newton! American students should be taught about Alan Turing in their computer science, math, philosophy and history classes. And they should be taught how Alan Turing died and how all humanity has lost so much due to prejudice.

We will never know what other incredible achievements Alan Turing would have given the world had he been celebrated rather than persecuted for being gay. The same innate brain difference that made Alan Turing a gay man may well have been a factor leading to his genius. We suffer when we punish diversity. The world destroyed a genius and a hero. The whole world lost. Homophobia is a cultural disorder!

Intersex People – Disordered or Different? The DSD Debate

Curtis Hinkle – founder of OII

Should intersex people be regarded as having a disorder that needs to be fixed or should they be viewed as natural variations and simply different? Robert Davidson has traced the framing processes executed in a debate over the reshaping of a code among three groups of the intersex social movement in order to understand how the groups engage with the medical discourse on intersex. His paper entitled “DSD Debates: Social Movement Organizations’ Framing Disputes Surrounding the Term ‘Disorders of Sex Development’” is an ongoing PhD research project that summarizes the history surrounding the medical community’s treatment of intersex people. It also includes discussion of the influence of John Money and his nemesis Milton Diamond.

Davidson does a good job of explaining the history of the term Disorders of Sex Development (DSD) and analyzing the different perspectives of the three intersex organizations on the issue of terminology: disorder versus difference/variation. Here is an excerpt from the introduction of his paper:

“In the last 15 years discussions around ‘intersex’ have increasingly moved beyond the medical/biological realm and taken growing prominence in gender studies, within social movements, and in the socio-cultural realm. This shift was highly promoted by social movement organizations (SMOs) that have arisen to address various issues related to intersex and was also encouraged by some academics in the social sciences and the humanities. Social movement research is only beginning to address intersex advocacy in social movement terms (Turner, 1999; Preves, 2005; Greenberg, 2006). Research regarding social movements in the last two decades has paid increasing attention, however, to discourse (Steinberg, 1998) and how social movements engage with cultural institutions and use frames (Snow & Benford, 2000) to reshape cultural codes (Melucci, 1985, 1996). This article traces the framing processes executed in a debate over the reshaping of a code among three groups of the intersex social movement in order to understand how the groups engage with the medical discourse on intersex. A medical discourse on intersex is traced based on a Foucauldian perspective. A textual framing analysis of the websites of three intersex SMOs is then presented to examine the internal frame disputes between them over the proposed terminology ‘Disorders of Sex Development,’ or ‘DSD’. The SMOs included are the Intersex Society of North America/Accord Alliance (ISNA/Accord)1, Organization Intersex International (OII), and Androgen Insensitivity Support Group UK (AISSGUK).”

While it is a minor point in the paper, I wish to inform the reader that Davidson mischaracterizes Milton Diamond when describing Diamond’s role in discovering the John/Joan hoax, when he says: “This discovery led to the critical reevaluation of the Money Protocol but has had other problematic side effects, as Diamond and Sigmundson have used this case to re-institute a binary view of sexuality (emphasis mine) based on prenatal influences of androgens on the brain.” Untrue! Diamond would be among the very last to advocate a binary view. Milton Diamond has an evolutionary perspective (like any good biologist) and has repeatedly demonstrated how he values diversity. Diamond is widely quoted for saying: "Nature loves diversity, society hates it."

Dr. Milton Diamond

This controversy over whether intersexuality per se is a disorder was addressed in 2006 in the journal, the Archives of Diseases of Childhood. Here is the letter that Dr. Milton Diamond sent to the editor. In this letter, Dr. Diamond chides the medical profession for its arrogance: “What medicine observes are variations in human sex development, it does not know the biological purpose of such variations, and there remains great controversy about how, whether or when to intervene. Terms such as error or disorders reveal an unwelcome arrogance in light of medicine's limited vantage. Medicine can do better. One way is to, instead, use the term Variation in Sex Development (VSD), a term that is without judgment and neither prohibits or ordains medical intervention”

And here is what Dr. Diamond had to say about this issue in a footnote of his recent historical review of the science on sexual development: “It has been recommended that intersex conditions be referred to as Disorders of Sex Development (DSD) (Hughes et al., 2006. Consensus statement on management of intersex disorders. Archives of Disease in Childhood. 91, 554-563.). This I refuse to do. I consider using the adjective disorder to be demeaning and pejorative to the individuals so identified. And so too does it seem insulting to members of the Organisation Intersex International, the largest intersex organization in the world (http://oii-usa.blogspot.com/2006/08/three-intersex-activists-defend.html). I use the abbreviation but with the meaning of Differences of Sex Development Diamond and Beh, 2008. Changes In Management Of Children With Differences Of Sex Development (Nature Clinical Practice: Endocrinology & Metabolism. 4, 4-5).”

So Milton Diamond refuses to refer to intersex people as disordered and likes to turn the acronym DSD into "Differences of Sexual Development". He also favors “Variations in Sex Development” that is advocated by Organization Intersex International and its founder Curtis Hinkle.

I agree with Milton Diamond and Curtis Hinkle that intersex persons are natural variations and are not disordered. In my presentation of “Science and Sexuality”, I discuss the different perspectives of biologist versus medical doctor. A dominant theme of my presentation is “Difference does not equal disorder.” Biologists see differences or variations. Medical people are predisposed to see disorders or anomalies or aberrations or faults or pathologies that they can “rectify” (for a fee of course). Medical professionals want to “fix” people even when the people are simply different.

The cultural taboo nature of sexual matters has allowed untold thousands of sexually-different people to be grossly mistreated by the medical profession and to suffer in secrecy and shame. Three sexual groups have been medicalized and pathologized by the medical professions: gay/lesbian people, transsexual people, and intersex people. (Note that intersex people have sexual identity and sexual orientation issues also.)

Gay and lesbian people were mentally-disordered in the United States until the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) was revised in 1973 and remained mentally ill elsewhere in the world according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) until 1992. Some quacks (e.g., Exodus International) still purport to do “reparative therapy” on gay people. Now reputable psychologists and psychiatrists do not treat gay or lesbian people for their sexual orientation but do treat other problems caused by the culture’s treatment of homosexual people. The culture is disordered, not gay or lesbian people!

As for transsexuals, who are currently regarded as mentally disordered in the DSM and ICD, any medical concern (e.g., gender dysphoria) can be treated without considering transsexuality per se as a disorder. (This is my position in my letter to the American Psychiatric Association regarding the revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual).

The same logic applies to intersex people. Treat any problems the patient presents and wants treated but do not consider the intersex condition itself as a disorder – consider it as a natural variation, one of the many differences to be expected in any normal population. The stigma of the label “disorder” should be replaced with “difference” or “variation”.

People do not need surgery just because their genitalia are ambiguous. Many intersex people have an “intersex identity” and their anatomy feels appropriate to them. I know of intersex persons who would gladly identify as “intersex” if the culture permitted. (Of course, intersex persons should be able to decide what surgery, if any, they require. Only they can know that - because only they can know their sexual identity, their unique sensibility which is something else again and is an issue some intersex people share with transsexual persons.)

Intersexuality is natural. Intersex people should come out of the closet. There should be no secrecy or shame. Intersex is beautiful! Intersex people do not need to change; the culture needs to change. Society needs to be enlightened, and the culture should change to acknowledge and accommodate intersex people.

Milton Diamond Reviews A Half Century Of Science On Sexual Development

Clinical Implications Of The Organizational And Activational Effects Of Hormones

Milton Diamond, who I regard as the most important figure in modern sexology, has reviewed the scientific history of the nature-nurture debate about sexual behavior. This is a wonderful summary of the science, the theories, and the medical controversies regarding intersexuality and transsexuality written by a leader in the field. Below is the abstract of Dr. Diamond’s article, “Clinical implications of the organizational and activational effects of hormones” which was published in the journal Hormones and Behavior in March 2009.

"Debate on the relative contributions of nature and nurture to an individual's gender patterns, sexual orientation and gender identity are reviewed as they appeared to this observer starting from the middle of the last century. Particular attention is given to the organization-activation theory in comparison to what might be called a theory of psychosexual neutrality at birth or rearing consistency theory. The organization-activation theory posits that the nervous system of a developing fetus responds to prenatal androgens so that, at a postnatal time, it will determine how sexual behavior is manifest. How organization-activation was or was not considered among different groups and under which circumstances it is considered is basically understood from the research and comments of different investigators and clinicians. The preponderance of evidence seems to indicate that the theory of organization-activation for the development of sexual behavior is certain for non-human mammals and almost certain for humans. This article also follows up on previous clinical critiques and recommendations and makes some new suggestions."

This is the paper to read if you are looking for a quick way to be brought up to date on the evidence for the “organization-activation theory” of sexual development and an understanding of the controversies on “core sexuality”. Here is the complete article entitled Clinical Implications Of The Organizational And Activational Effects Of Hormones.

"Gender Puzzle" - What is a female? a male?

Here is the summary of the documentary "Gender Puzzle".

"Are we on the cusp of discovering what determines gender? The old mantra - all girls have XX chromosomes and all boys have XY - is no longer reliable. Scientists are now looking beyond chromosomes to "brain sex" and the role of newly discovered genes. By studying transsexuals and people on the gender extremes, they believe they can unlock the gender puzzle. This high-quality documentary looks at the new and challenging science of gender.



Tall, thin and strikingly beautiful, model Christie North always felt female. But when she was 15, she discovered she’d been born with male chromosomes. “There was no mention at school that there can be mix ups with your chromosomes”, she complains. “Many people have the same problem – more than you think.” As well as girls with XY chromosomes, one in 500 born with a double XX as well as a Y. Most only find out about their condition when they try to father children and discover they’re infertile. Until the 1990s, gender was largely about chromosomes. But this principle was challenged when a new gene was discovered which is needed to start the process of ‘maleness’. “I think we’re starting to understand how the brain is hard-wired differently between males and females”, explains Prof. Vince Harley. Scientists are now looking at a further 54 genes which are turned on differently in males and females. They may help to explain why people identify as one gender or the other, regardless of chromosomes. There is a small but growing body of evidence that transsexuals’ brains are hard-wired in the uterus to be either male or female. A Dutch study found that male-to-female transsexuals have the same brain features as other women instead of being identical to men’s. “There is a public perception that transsexualism is a lifestyle choice”, states Prof Vince Harley. “To reaffirm a biological basis is quite empowering for them.” These discoveries are starting to redefine the gender debate. In the 60s and 70s, it was believed the nature of a child’s upbring had such a strong influence that an intersex condition could be corrected through the right upbringing. The child was allocated a sex, underwent genital surgery and was then raised in its assigned sex. But many of these children had a traumatic childhood, unable to reconcile their identity with their bodies. For them, the ‘brain sex’ theory makes perfect sense. The theory of brain sex is also challenging the law. ‘Kevin’, a transsexual, was threatened with imprisonment if he married his female partner. He successfully contested this by providing the court with evidence suggesting a biological basis to his transsexualism. In his verdict, Justice Richard Chisolm concluded: “In view of all the evidence, the things that characterise transsexuals are as much biological as mental.” Far more controversial than adults changing gender, is the issue of teenagers who want to. “All the medical evidence indicates that the earlier children with transsexualism receive treatment, the better their lives are”, reasons lawyer and transsexual Rachel Wallbank. But others disagree. “You’re wondering all the time whether the young person actually has enough life experience to make that judgement”, states Craig Andrews. He runs a support group helping transsexuals and is concerned about the increasing number of young people who want treatment. As science discovers more about what determines gender, making these decisions may become a little easier. But for now, we are only just starting to understand just how complex the biology is."

And here is the complete transcript of this video.

See my PowerPoint slides for more information on intersexuality and transsexuality.

"Science and Sexuality" Presentation at Michigan Womyn's Music Festival

My presentation entitled "Science and Sexuality" will be given as a workshop at the National Womyn's Music Festival (aka MichFest) which runs from August 4th through the 9th in the woods near Walhalla, Michigan.
The evidence presented in my PowerPoint slides will be thoroughly discussed and additional information not in the slides will be woven into the talk. As always, questions and discussion will follow the presentation.

Here are the details:
Event: Workshop entitled "Science and Sexuality"
Day: Thursday, August 6th
Time: 3-5pm
Location: MichFest near Walhalla, Michigan
Site: Media Tent

MichFest is the first and the biggest of all women's music festivals and is attended by thousands of women from all over the United States who will coalesce in a tent city that pops up overnight in the woods of northern Michigan for the thirty-fourth year this August. As a largely lesbian event, this is a great venue for reaching a large number of women who already know the pains of being sexually different in a binary gender culture. If the MichFest audience receives the scientific information about intersex and transsexual persons as sympathetically as the audience at the National Women's Music Festival in Wisconsin did just a few weeks ago, then I will be very pleased.

Five Genders of Indonesia

Sex is biological. Gender is defined by culture. There are five genders in Indonesia. These Indonesian transsexuals seem comfortable with their somatic selves. Is this because the culture "welcomes" them and they are not forced to fit themselves into one of only two categories?

Welcome to the world of Short Square

First of all, I would like to thank my friends from SMK Cyberjaya for giving me such a unique nickname, Short square.This name had given me an idea to create this blog.

Well, you might wonder what is this blog about, but let me tell you...This blog will tell you all about what I've learn in class.I will highlight on the following subjects as they are my all time favourites.
-Chemistry-
-Physics-
-Biology-
-Additional Mathematics-
-Mathematics-
-English-
-Ballet-

I hope that you will learn something from here.I will not be too active this year, however, I will be more active next year due to the impending SPM examination.

For those who have any personal requests, questions, comments or messages that you would like to share or discuss on, please email me ( yvonnechoo_sl@hotmail.com) or by simply leaving your words in the cbox.

Thank you.