A symposium on multidisciplinary approaches to sexuality and gender

On November 24^th, researchers from several institutions came together with over 100 delegates in Darwin College to discuss a variety of perspectives aimed at understanding the biological basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender. Jointly hosted by CISoR and the Biological Anthropology research group in the School of Anthropology and Conservation the workshop considered perspectives from biology, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. The audience was treated to a journey from the chromosome, through a prism of the mind and culture, ending with fully applied perspectives.

Overall it showed a variety of viewpoints on a complicated topic and facilitated conversation and lively debate across disciplines.

Participants in the ‘Born this way’ workshop. Back row (left to right): John Gilmore, Steve Lyon, Jamie Lawson, Oskar Burger, Carin Tunaker. Front row: Marian Duggan, Gerulf Rieger, Diana Fleischman, Peter Goodfellow, and Sarah Johns.

Peter Goodfellow (University of Kent) gave an overview of how chromosomes influence the biology of sex, highlighting decades of his research on the role of how the SRY gene determines sex in mammals, including humans. This was followed by Gerulf Rieger (University of Essex) who has looked for interesting links between childhood gender non-conformity and sexual orientation during adulthood. Diana Fleischman (University of Portsmouth) presented fascinating work about how sexual activity is a form of “making affiliations” among people, suggesting that same-sex sexual contact is no more mysterious than any other form of social bonding or contact. Jamie Lawson (University of Durham) used an innovative ‘Q-step’ methodology to show how problematic gender categories can be in failing to capture actual associations in the terms people use to describe gender. Steve Lyon (University of Durham) then gave a fully ethnographic example from Pakistan, where sex between men is often not linked to homosexuality and a third gender of people (the Khwaja Sara) are often raised apart from their families where they may receive some protection from a social environment that can treat gender non-conformists harshly. Steve’s work also linked to problems of low rates of condom usage and how this affects the spread of HIV. The final speaker of the day, Marian Duggan (University of Kent), showed how attitudes toward same-sex marriage have changed globally and gave a detailed sociological analysis of the recent referendum in Northern Ireland.

After the series of six talks the event concluded with a panel discussion and debate. The expert panel included the six speakers along with John Gilmore (Canterbury Christ’s Church University), Sarah Johns (University of Kent), Carin Tunaker (University of Kent), and Darren Griffin (University of Kent). The discussants, with audience input, addressed challenging topics such as how to understand homophobia, and its causes, as well as what types of research should be prioritized (or avoided) based on concerns of ethics vs. scientific freedom. While difficult topics were certainly addressed, all participants seemed to think that more dialogue of this type should happen in the future.

Wednesday 13 April 2016, Royal College of Physicians, London

A collaboration between British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), Birthrights and the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies. The event is of interest to practitioners, advocates, academics, policy makers, journalists – and anyone else who is concerned about the expansion of risk thinking and its effects for the autonomy and choice-making ability of women.
 
https://www.tickettailor.com/checkout/view-event/id/32028/chk/1c27

Ellie Lee debated the topic ‘Eugenics: myth and reality’ at The Battle of Ideas Festival at the Barbican in October.
 
We now have more understanding of our genes than ever before and the capacity to alter them in order to resolve congenital medical conditions. Other techniques that change our germlines – our heritable characteristics – are also on their way, such as the CRISPR/Cas9 technique recently used by Chinese scientists to ‘edit’ the genes of a human embryo. But such developments often inspire resistance and are described as ‘eugenic’. But do today’s breakthroughs really resemble past horrors or are these simply invoked by those who fear gene manipulation today? This debate filmed at the Battle of Ideas clarifies much, not least the history of eugenics which bears little resemblance to the breakthroughs worth embracing now. The speakers were: Dr Chris Gyngell, Dr Lesley Hall, Dr Ellie Lee, Güneş Taylor and the chair was Sandy Starr communications officer, Progress Educational Trust.’
 
The proceedings can be viewed at   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVkVDWLyoU4

Kirsty Horsey is a co-author of a recently published Surrogacy UK (SUK) Working Group report dealing with Surrogacy Law Reform, specifically to highlight the need for urgent reform of surrogacy law in the UK. The Working Group aimed to give a voice to those involved in surrogacy – either as intended parents, surrogates or professionals in the field – as well as to interrogate and dispel a number of pervasive ‘surrogacy myths’ that have informed debate in recent years.  The report, published in November 2015, concludes that the time is ripe to embark upon reform of surrogacy law and regulation in the UK, and makes a series of recommendations to that effect, all with the underlying aim or protecting the best interests of children born via surrogacy.  Also involved are Natalie Smith and Sarah Jones, trustees of Surrogacy UK; Sarah Norcross, Director of the Progress Educational Trust (PET) and Louisa Ghevaert, an expert in surrogacy, fertility and parenting law at Michelmores LLP. 

The full report can be found here.

The second in the CISoR Cafe Scientifique series built on the success on the first, proving that good things can only get better. Hosted by the Olde Beverlie pub, Kent Law School (KLS) Senior Lecturer Kirsty Horsey and KLS PhD law student Katia Neofytou shared the presentation and animated a discussion on the topic of ‘Surrogacy, Egg Sharing and Reproduction in the 21^st Century’. Kirsty and Katia’s talk involved audience members to determine parentage for some fourteen different surrogate, donor and intended parent ova and sperm combinations. Pamela White, KLS, moderated a lively discussion among about 20 delegates.  The pub management once again came up trumps with a nice buffet and we look forward to Antony Blackburn-Starza challenging us to consider the question: “Should employers pay for egg freezing?” in December.

Developing Kent–Russian connections in April 2015 CISoR’s Dr Michael Romanov and our collaborator Dr Denis Larkin, of the Royal Veterinary College, London visited the All-Russian Research Institute for Farm Animal Genetics and Breeding in Pushkin and St Petersburg State University. They were invited seminar speakers and delivered talks about livestock and avian genetics and genomics. Highlights of the seminar were genomic selection in cattle, genome-wide diversity in sheep, and evolutionary genomics in birds. Their Russian counterparts reported studies on high throughput genome-wide genotyping of a dairy breeding stock and examination of variation in candidate genes for poultry productive and reproductive traits. The parties set up plans for continuing partnership and collaborative research.

Denis (left) and Mike (right) in the Institute’s Hall of Fame:

The Spectre of a return trip

In October 2015, Mike and Denis were re-invited for an extension seminar course followed by an international scientific meeting at the All-Russian Research Institute for Farm Animal Genetics and Breeding in Pushkin. These events coincided with the Institute’s 75th anniversary celebration. The lectures and hands-on sessions were focused on theoretical and practical aspects of contemporary genetics and genomics in livestock and birds. Their topics involved farm animal and avian genomes, genetic variation and markers, economically important genes, novel sequencing and SNP technologies, genome assembling and annotation tools. Reports at the international conference dealt with improvement of livestock (cattle, swine) and poultry species and breeds, their performance and fecundity, using genetic, genomic and transgenesis techniques. The Russian colleagues showed an interest in collaboration with the UK researchers regarding genomic applications in chicken selection.

Reproduction “motifs” in the Animal Genetics Institute interior design