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Just when you thought science couldn’t get any better, a new article in Nature is about to shake up our ideas of sex and biology.

Contrary to an old view of sexual development, Michael Clinton and his colleagues at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh say in the March 11 Nature, individual chicken cells can maintain their own strong male or female identities during development instead of being directed by hormones.

Clinton says his research group ended up considering hormones and sexual identity in the course of studying three peculiar chickens donated to the Roslin Institute. Each bird looked like a rooster on one side, with a long wattle jiggling under its chin, robust legs and bulging muscles. The other half of the same bird — the right side on two birds and the left on the third — had the darker plumage, reduced wattle and dainty ankles of a hen.

Such male-female mashups, called gynandromorphs, have turned up spontaneously in zebra finches, pigeons and parrots as well as in other kinds of animals, Clinton says. These cases challenge the traditional view that genetics takes a back seat to hormonal signals in guiding vertebrate sexual differentiation.

Holy chicken nuggets, Batman! Are the chickens intersex, transgender, or what? Maybe they’re “two-spirit.” But whatever word you want to use, that’s pretty freakin’ awesome that the chickens have both male and female parts, and they’re literally split down the middle of the chromosomal line.

I once saw some fish at an aquarium that could change their sex in order to perpetuate the species. Females could become male if there was a sex imbalance in the group, in order to reproduce and perpetuate the species. Transsexual fish.

You might be wondering what the heck does this has to do with anything. Well, I think the chickens and the fish show that transgender identities exist throughout nature. Kind of cool if you ask me.

(Hat tip to the Shanman for the story link.)

Good news– a study has found that Gardasil protects two other groups, than those it was originally intended for. First, the drug has shown to be 90% effective at protecting older women, ages 24-45, against the cancer-causing HPV virus. Secondly, the drug has promising results for gay men as well, as a trial found that Gardasil was 78% effective for men who have sex with men.

It’s an important finding, especially because when Gardasil was first introduced, it was marketed solely towards young girls and teens, with an emphasis on girls who have “not yet engaged in sexual activity.” I was always suspicious of this line, and I think it’s promising that the drug may be expanded for both older women as well as men.

The Sexual and Reproductive Rights Situation Report is a  monthly column exploring policy and political issues around the world.  This month, we’re focusing on a recently floated anti-gay law in Uganda which has ties to ultra-fundamentalists in the U.S. A “trans-man” in Uganda. Image: NY Times The extreme anti-gay legislation was introduced in Uganda by the ruling party in the Parliament, [...]

I definitely called it on this one. I knew that gay couples were going to flood the statehouse this morning at 12:01am in New Hampshire! It was a historic moment for gay and lesbian couples in the United States, as New Hampshire’s move to legalize same-sex marriage was officiated with dozens of couples tying the knot in 20 degree weather. Reuters reports,

Gay and lesbian couples rushed to marry in New Hampshire on Friday when at the stroke of midnight it became the fifth U.S. state to allow same-sex marriage, reversing some setbacks for the polarizing national movement.

“I feel fabulous. It was wonderful, and it was historic,” said Linda Murphy, 50, a college administrator from southern New Hampshire who married Donna Swartwout, her partner of 19 years.

They were among 150 people gathered in the state capital of Concord, in temperatures of about 21 degrees Fahrenheit (-6 Celsius), to witness the marriages of about a dozen gay or lesbian couples by a justice of the peace as the New Year dawned.

New Hampshire passed its law in June amid an emotional national debate. President Barack Obama opposes gay marriage while supporting other gay rights.

The New England state joins Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut and Iowa in permitting full marriage equality for same-sex couples. Washington, D.C., is also on track for approval.

New York state lawmakers voted against gay marriage last month. In Maine, where a state law that would have allowed the nuptials, was turned back in a referendum in November. A same-sex marriage bill is foundering in New Jersey, and in California, gay marriage was overturned in a popular vote in 2008.

“People focus on the setbacks, but last year there was one state and now there are five states,” said Mo Baxley, executive director of the New Hampshire Freedom to Marry Coalition.

Murphy and Swartwout, who met in graduate school, had a commitment ceremony 11 years ago, but said the official marriage carried far more meaning.

“It was a reaffirmation of our love and our commitment, and for us, for the first time, a legal acknowledgment from our home state,” said Murphy. “Some day this will not even be a news story. It will just be a part of life.”

I’m overwhelmed with joy for the gay and lesbian couples of New Hampshire who had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ring in the new year in such a special way! Definitely a new years victory for equality.

On an 11-to-2 vote, the D.C. city council passed a measure today legalizing same-sex marriage. However monumental this decision may prove to be, there is unfortunately some opposition ahead. Opponents have vowed to overturn the bill through referendum or by interfering with the 30 day review process in Congress. “The City Council’s action today is not the final word,” said Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville.

Same-sex couples could potentially be getting married by March if the bill gets a stamp of approval from Congress in its 30 day legislative review period. Mike DeBonis highlights some of the possible drama to come,

King et al. are making the rounds of congressional offices hoping to drum up interest in Capitoll Hill intervention into the council vote. King boasts a full schedule of meetings, and says the refrain he’s hearing is this: “Let the people vote!”

At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania, prime supporter of the marriage bill, says he’s got strategy of his own. “I was on the Hill last week,” he says. “I’m not going to telegraph to the world what our plans are….Rest assured we are working very diligently to defend this victory on the Hill. in the worst case scenario….we’ll get up the next day and begin pushing the boulder up the hill.”

As for the legal side, King and Jackson put a lot of faith in their attorneys, from the Alliance Defense Fund: “I believe that we have the best legal team in America,” King says. A hearing is set for Jan. 6 before a Superior Court judge on one suit to force a popular vote on marriage.

For his part, Catania notes that anti-marriage forces have already been dealt an early loss in Superior Court, and that the lawyers tasked with defending the city’s decision are no slouches. “You never know when you go before an independent judiciary; nothing is assured,” he says. “But I think our arguments are sound, and we’re working were hard to put an architecture in place of legal justifications for our actions. We’ve had a good track record so far, and I expect that to continue.”

In fact, Catania says he’s less scared of the lawsuits than of the prospect of a “nongermane amendment” getting added to some random congressional measure—and that’s a threat that will continue indefinitely. “There’s no question were going to be defending this, and defending it and defending it, until the other side realizes it’s costing them more votes than gaining them,” he says.

In the best-case scenario, same-sex couples can expect to get married by early-to-mid-March, after Congress’ 30-legislative-day review period expires. Or it might take much longer. In any case, expect a surfeit of quasi-apocalyptic rhetoric as the debate proceeds.

“I’m going to use the full power of the black church to kill this bill,” says the Rev. Anthony Evans of Mount Zion Baptist Church. “I feel pity for those who voted for this because they have defied the will of God. We have warned them.”

Adds King: “The battle may have been won here today, but the war is on, and we intend to win God’s war.”

This would be a historic move in the effort to legalize same-sex marriage in the United States, making D.C. the 6th U.S. jurisdiction to do so. In addition, this assimilation of gay and lesbian couples into the institution of marriage would benefit the local economy as well. The Washington Business Journal reports that

The city could reap between $15,000 and $1 million in annual tax revenue during the first three years of nuptials, according to an analysis by the office of Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi, performed at the request of the bill’s sponsor, Councilman David Catania, I-At large.

Gandhi’s office estimates that between 2,000 and 21,000 couples will marry in D.C. during that span, including half of the roughly 3,900 same-sex couples in D.C. and one-quarter of the same-sex couples in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs.

I was stoked to hear the news this weekend that Houston elected an openly gay woman as their mayor. Saturday’s election of Annise Parker marks a historic moment for the gay and lesbian community, particularly in such a conservative state like Texas. Increased representation of gay and lesbian identity within the political sphere obviously carries with it a tremendous amount of benefits. Nevertheless, I found it pretty darn interesting that one of the largest cities in the country, with a not-so-excellent voting record on the legal rights of gay and lesbian couples, voted to elect a lesbian woman as the mayor of Houston. Don’t get me wrong; I’d like to think that her sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity played no role in the minds of Houston voters, but I think we all know better.

A Houston Chronicle poll found that 77 percent of respondents didn’t care about Parker’s sexual orientation. This seems slightly inconsistent with previous sentiments about gay marriage. In fact, Houston voters stood vehemently against extending benefits to same-sex couples in the past. Mark Sappenfield, staff writer at the Christian Science Monitor, claims that this conflicted stance on gay and lesbian rights is indicative of Americans’ position on the gay and lesbian community. He writes,

The distinction neatly sums up the American mood. As gays and lesbians become broadly accepted in society and politics, that acceptance is marked by a firm boundary beyond which voters do not yet appear willing to cross: same-sex marriage.

He continues,

Yet the victory for the gay and lesbian community is a victory only of degree. Other large cities – such as Providence, R.I., and Portland, Ore. – have elected gay mayors. Houston is merely the most populous.

In no state, however, have voters ever sanctioned gay marriage. In some cases, there have been victories of degrees. Most recently, Washington State in November voted to extend benefits to same-sex couples. Yet on the same day – in a far more symbolic vote – Maine defeated a ballot to allow same-sex marriage.

The defeat was particularly chastening because New England includes four of the five states where gay marriage is legal (Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut – the fifth is Iowa). In each of those states, though, gay marriage has been instituted by legislative vote or legal decree. Maine was expected to be the first to establish legal gay marriage by popular vote.

I think Mark brings up a very interesting question about gay and lesbian political representation in the United States. To what degree is inclusion a form of tokenism? I don’t mean to insinuate that the election of Ms. Parker was in any way a form of blanket tokenism. In fact, I’m quite fond of the idea that a smart lesbian woman will be running the show in Houston. Annise Parker is a thoughtful policy wonk, community activist, and experienced politician. With that being said, however, the election of an openly gay politician in one of the largest cities in the country does seem to highlight America’s willingness to include a gay and lesbian identity to the extent that it doesn’t threaten compulsive heterosexuality.