When Science and Social Justice Collide
In the battles between scientists and social justice activists, sometimes our democracy takes collateral damage.
Alice Dreger
Alice Dreger is an American bioethicist and professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. She is the author of Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science.
Why Isn't Sex Education a Part of Common Core?
Maybe it's not politically feasible, but most kids will need sexual knowledge more than Shakespearean verse to be functioning adults. Here's a sample curriculum.
The Problem With Sexual Arousal Studies
The vagina is not the homologue to the penis. Why do we keep treating it as such?
Why I Refer to My Husband and My Partner as My Mate
Even though I don't identify as a furry.
What If We Admitted to Children That Sex Is About Pleasure?
One mother makes up for the gaps in sex education.
Fraternal Birth Order and Kickstarting Homosexuality in the Womb
Researchers of fraternal birth order effect argue that sexual orientation correlates with an individual’s number of older brothers. Could this help to explain the homophobia of some traditional religious societies?
What's Wrong With Trying to Engineer Your Child's Sexual Orientation?
Or, more specifically, what's wrong with taking a steroid, while you're pregnant, to try to increase the odds that your female fetus will someday grow up to be a straight woman who gives you grandchildren, and not a lesbian daughter more interested in puppies?
Leaning Out: Placing More Emphasis on Life in the Work-Life Balance
By intentionally taking a step back from a career she worked hard to start, Alice Dreger estimates she has cost her family $750,000. Was it worth it?
Why Sex Research Is Worth Funding With Public Money
Sexuality is a fundamental component of the human experience, and it's one we need to have a better understanding of.
The Social Construction of Sex
Many of us probably get our core gender identities as much from our biological origins as we do from our gender educations.
What to Wear?
Feminist scholars aren’t yet liberated from restrictive clothing norms, but at least they think about why they’re wearing what they’re wearing.
Why Circumcise Perfectly Healthy Penises?
There are better ways to protect against the transmission of STDs, and other common sense arguments against some of the most common reasons parents give for circumcising their children.
When Is a Kinky Interest Really Sick?
Of kinks, crimes, and kinds: A look behind the scenes at how the American Psychiatric Association's Paraphilias Sub-Work Group proposed revisions to the DSM for all manner of things relating to sexual arousal brought about by atypical objects, situations, or individuals.
Do You Have to Pee Standing Up to Be a Real Man?
This simple idea, encouraged by medical texts of the past that taught deviation from the norm would lead to confused sexuality and gender identity issues, has put a surprising number of babies under the knife.
Products of Conception: Born With Unusual Bodies
The families of individuals born with socially challenging bodies don't see them as they're portrayed in the medical literature.
Born With Ambiguous Genitalia: There's Nothing to Be Ashamed of
The biggest issue is not surgery, nor hormonal treatments, nor even the criminal lack of psychological support. The biggest issue is shame, and how no one deals with it in a way that lets people know there is nothing to be ashamed of.
Why Gender Dysphoria Should No Longer Be Considered a Medical Disorder
It does more harm than good.
Choosing the Sexual Orientation of Children
Imagine a prenatal test that, like the one for trisomy 21 (Down's syndrome), could show a predisposition to gayness.
The Other Problem With Sex at the Office
Speaking from personal experience, Northwestern University Professor Alice Dreger reminds us that sexual harassment isn't the only issue we should be concerned about.
What Would It Take to Get the Government to Worry Less About Gender?
We don’t need the state to adjudicate who is who, do we?
Why Have All Human Cultures Evolved to Value Sexual Privacy?
Acts of public sex typically represent a reversal of cultural norms.
Straight Life With a Rainbow Flag: Are Allies Discriminated Against?
To be mistaken for the oppressed is to momentarily become the oppressed.
Fetish or Orientation? The Case of Men Wearing Female Masks
The use of latex masks during sex could be an example of autogynephilila, an orientation in which a biological heterosexual male is aroused to the idea of being or becoming a woman.
Embrace Your Small Penis
It's no longer standard in pediatrics to turn a baby with a small penis into a girl, but there are lots of areas of health care where good intentions pave the way for scientifically-questionable medical procedures.
How Being a Gay Boy Is Like Having a Physiological Problem With Milk
Both involve underlying biological states, but it's the cultural setting that determines whether suffering will occur.
The Old Way to Be Gay: Gay Male Couples and Evolution
Are gay male couples a new thing, evolutionarily speaking?
Why It's Critical That Health Agencies Cooperate With Reporters
Federal, state, and local health agencies are shutting down traditional lines of communication in increasing numbers, but public health, history shows, is profoundly affected by mainstream media.
Are We Getting Any Better at Caring for Children With Atypical Sex?
Specialists have moved away from sex-changing baby males with small penises and recommending vaginoplasties in very young children as they become less phobic about sex atypical (but healthy) organs.
Does Monogamy Really Drive Us to Drink?
Another example of how correlation does not equal causation.
Pink Boys: What's the Best Way to Raise Children Who Might Have Gender Identity Issues?
There are three basic approaches: therapeutic, accommodating, and supportive.
Do Gay Men Have More Sexual Interest in Children Than Straight Men Do?
We have solid proof, based on penile blood flow, that it's actually heterosexual men who show greater sexual attraction to underage kids.