“The being that shines as the essence of our self on the inside is the same being that shines as the essence of things on the outside.“
–Rupert Spira
Rupert Spira (born March 13, 1960) is an English spiritual teacher, philosopher and author of the Direct Path based in Oxford, UK. Wikipedia
(newsletter@rupertspira.com)
In Greek, the word trauma means “a wound” — in this case a psychic wound. Trauma is not the event that caused the wound; it is the wound itself. This good news, because if the trauma is what happened, then there’s nothing you can do about it. But if it is the wound, then it is available to be healed at any time.
The essence of trauma is a disconnection from your wholeness — disconnection from the aspects of yourself where you are wounded.
Healing is becoming whole again.
Or, more accurately, recognizing and re-connecting with all parts of yourself.
Commune + Dr. Gabor Maté (hello@onecommune.com)
PRONUNCIATION: (bi-TWEE-ni-tee)
MEANING: noun: The state of lying in the interval separating two conditions, qualities, extremes, etc.
ETYMOLOGY: From Old English betweonum (between), from be- (by) + tweon (two each). Earliest documented use: 1760.
Kjeragbolten boulder, Norway
Photo: Wouter de Bruijn
Wordsmith (wsmith@wordsmith.org)
The third novel in the science-fiction trilogy by C.S. Lewis. This final story is set on Earth, and tells of a terrifying conspiracy against humanity.
The story surrounds Mark and Jane Studdock, a newly married couple. Mark is a Sociologist who is enticed to join an organisation called N.I.C.E. which aims to control all human life. His wife, meanwhile, has bizarre prophetic dreams about a decapitated scientist, Alcasan. As Mark is drawn inextricably into the sinister organisation, he discovers the truth of his wife’s dreams when he meets the literal head of Alcasan which is being kept alive by infusions of blood.
Jane seeks help concerning her dreams at a community called St Anne’s, where she meets their leader – Dr Ransom (the main character of the previous two titles in the trilogy). The story ends in a final spectacular scene at the N.I.C.E. headquarters where Merlin appears to confront the powers of Hell.
(Goodreads.com)
Actual research shows that sex is anything but binary
Antiscientific sentiment bombards our politics, or so says the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW). Chief among these antiscientific sentiments, the IDW cites the rising visibility of transgender civil rights demands. To the IDW, trans people and their advocates are destroying the pillars of our society with such free-speech–suppressing, postmodern concepts as: “trans women are women,” “gender-neutral pronouns,” or “there are more than two genders.” Asserting “basic biology” will not be ignored, the IDW proclaims. “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”
The irony in all this is that these “protectors of enlightenment” are guilty of the very behavior this phrase derides. Though often dismissed as just a fringe internet movement, they espouse unscientific claims that have infected our politics and culture. Especially alarming is that these “intellectual” assertions are used by nonscientists to claim a scientific basis for the dehumanization of trans people. The real world consequences are stacking up: the trans military ban, bathroom bills, and removal of workplace and medical discrimination protections, a 41-51 percent suicide attempt rate and targeted fatal violence . It’s not just internet trolling anymore.
Contrary to popular belief, scientific research helps us better understand the unique and real transgender experience. Specifically, through three subjects: (1) genetics, (2) neurobiology and (3) endocrinology. So, hold onto your parts, whatever they may be. It’s time for “the talk.”
BIOLOGICAL SEX: HOW YOU GET IT
Nearly everyone in middle school biology learned that if you’ve got XX chromosomes, you’re a female; if you’ve got XY, you’re a male. This tired simplification is great for teaching the importance of chromosomes but betrays the true nature of biological sex. The popular belief that your sex arises only from your chromosomal makeup is wrong. The truth is, your biological sex isn’t carved in stone, but a living system with the potential for change.
Why? Because biological sex is far more complicated than XX or XY (or XXY, or just X). XX individuals could present with male gonads. XY individuals can have ovaries. How? Through a set of complex genetic signals that, in the course of a human’s development, begins with a small group of cells called the bipotential primordium and a gene called SRY.
A newly fertilized embryo initially develops without any indication of its sex. At around five weeks, a group of cells clump together to form the bipotential primordium. These cells are neither male nor female but have the potential to turn into testes, ovaries or neither. After the primordium forms, SRY—a gene on the Y chromosome discovered in 1990, thanks to the participation of intersex XX males and XY females—might be activated.*
Though it is still not fully understood, we know SRY plays a role in pushing the primordium toward male gonads. But SRY is not a simple on/off switch, it’s a precisely timed start signal, the first chord of the “male gonad” symphony. A group of cells (instrument sections) must all express SRY (notes of the chord), at the right time (conductor?). Without that first chord, the embryo will play a different symphony: female gonads, or something in between.
And there’s more! While brief and coordinated SRY-activation initiates the process of male-sex differentiation, genes like DMRT1 and FOXL2 maintain certain sexual characteristics during adulthood. If these genes stop functioning, gonads can change and exhibit characteristics of the opposite sex. Without these players constantly active, certain components of your biological sex can change.
There’s still more! SRY, DMRT1, and FOXL2 aren’t directly involved with other aspects of biological sex. Secondary sex characteristics—penis, vagina, appearance, behavior—arise later, from hormones, environment, experience, and genes interacting. To explore this, we move from the body to the brain, where biology becomes behavior.
THE BRAIN: WHERE STUFF GETS “MADE UP”
When the biology gets too complicated, some point to differences between brains of males and females as proof of the sexual binary. But a half century of empirical research has repeatedly challenged the idea that brain biology is simply XY = male brain or XX = female brain. In other words, there is no such thing as “the male brain” or “the female brain.” This is not to say that there are no observable differences. Certain brain characteristics can be sexually dimorphic: observable average differences across males and females. But like biological sex, pointing to “brain sex” as the explanation for these differences is wrong and hinders scientific research.
Let’s just take the most famous example of sexual dimorphism in the brain: the sexually dimorphic nucleus of the preoptic area (sdnPOA). This tiny brain area with a disproportionately sized name is slightly larger in males than in females. But it’s unclear if that size difference indicates distinctly wired sdnPOAs in males versus females, or if—as with the bipotential primordium—the same wiring is functionally weighted toward opposite ends of a spectrum. Throw in the observation that the sdnPOA in gay men is closer to that of straight females than straight males, and the idea of “the male brain” falls apart.
Trying to link sex, sex chromosomes and sexual dimorphism is also useless for understanding other brain properties. The hormone vasopressin is dimorphic but is linked to both behavioral differences and similarities across sex. Simply put, the idea of a sexual binary isn’t scientifically useful, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the brain. It also happens that transgender people have the brains to prove it.
It’s easy to see sexual dimorphisms and conclude that the brain is binary; easy, but wrong. Thanks to the participation of trans people in research, we have expanded our understanding of how brain structure, sex and gender interact. For some properties like brain volume and connectivity, trans people possessed values in between those typical of cisgender males and females, both before and after transitioning. Another study found that for certain brain regions, trans individuals appeared similar to cis-individuals with the same gender identity. In that same study, researchers found specific areas of the brain where trans people seemed closer to those with the same assigned sex at birth. Other researchers discovered that trans people have unique structural differences from cis-individuals.
THE BODY AND THE BRAIN AND THE HORMONES BETWIXT
As if the brain and body weren’t complicated enough, another biological factor influences the expression of biological sex in an individual: hormones. Anyone who has gone through puberty has felt the power of hormones firsthand. But like all things biology, hormones cannot be limited to the pubescent idea of “estrogen = female and testosterone = male.”
For one thing, all humans possess levels of estrogen, progesterone and testosterone with sex differences not as prominent as is popularly thought. During infancy and prepubescence, these hormones sit in a bipotential range, with no marked sex differences. Through puberty, certain sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone and testosterone become weighted toward one end of a spectrum. But in developed adults, estrogen and progesterone levels are on average similar between males and nonpregnant females. And while testosterone exhibits the largest difference between adult males and females, heritability studies have found that genetics (X vs. Y) only explains about 56 percent of an individual’s testosterone, suggesting many other influences on hormones. Furthermore, measurements of sex hormones levels in any one individual wildly vary across the range of “average” values regardless of how close or spread apart you take the measurements. The binary sex model not only insufficiently predicts the presence of hormones but is useless in describing factors that influence them.
Environmental, social and behavioral factors also influence hormones in both males and females, complicating the idea that hormones determine sex. Progesterone changes in response to typically male-coded social situations that involve dominance and competition. Estrogen, typically linked to feminine-coded behavior, also plays a role in masculine-coded dominance/power social scenarios. Though testosterone levels are different between males and females on average, many external factors can change these levels, such as whether or not a person is raising a child. Differing testosterone levels in both men and women can predict certain parenting behaviors. Even the content of a sexual fantasy can change testosterone levels. The fact is, behavior and environment—like cultural gender norms and expectations—influence sex-related hormones, and the biology of the body and brain itself.
SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: BETTER TOGETHER
While this is a small overview, the science is clear and conclusive: sex is not binary, transgender people are real. It is time that we acknowledge this. Defining a person’s sex identity using decontextualized “facts” is unscientific and dehumanizing. The trans experience provides essential insights into the science of sex and scientifically demonstrates that uncommon and atypical phenomena are vital for a successful living system. Even the scientific endeavor itself is quantifiably better when it is more inclusive and diverse. So, no matter what a pundit, politician or internet troll may say, trans people are an indispensable part of our living reality.
Transgender humans represent the complexity and diversity that are fundamental features of life, evolution and nature itself. That is a fact.
*Editor’s Note (6/18/19): This sentence was edited after posting. It originally referred to participants as transgender.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
Simón(e) D Sun is a doctoral candidate in the Tsien Lab at New York University’s Neuroscience Institute.
Biologists now think there is a larger spectrum than just binary female and male
As a clinical geneticist, Paul James is accustomed to discussing some of the most delicate issues with his patients. But in early 2010, he found himself having a particularly awkward conversation about sex.
A 46-year-old pregnant woman had visited his clinic at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia to hear the results of an amniocentesis test to screen her baby’s chromosomes for abnormalities. The baby was fine—but follow-up tests had revealed something astonishing about the mother. Her body was built of cells from two individuals, probably from twin embryos that had merged in her own mother’s womb. And there was more. One set of cells carried two X chromosomes, the complement that typically makes a person female; the other had an X and a Y. Halfway through her fifth decade and pregnant with her third child, the woman learned for the first time that a large part of her body was chromosomally male. “That’s kind of science-fiction material for someone who just came in for an amniocentesis,” says James.
Sex can be much more complicated than it at first seems. According to the simple scenario, the presence or absence of a Y chromosome is what counts: with it, you are male, and without it, you are female. But doctors have long known that some people straddle the boundary—their sex chromosomes say one thing, but their gonads (ovaries or testes) or sexual anatomy say another. Parents of children with these kinds of conditions—known as intersex conditions, or differences or disorders of sex development (DSDs)—often face difficult decisions about whether to bring up their child as a boy or a girl. Some researchers now say that as many as 1 person in 100 has some form of DSD.
When genetics is taken into consideration, the boundary between the sexes becomes even blurrier. Scientists have identified many of the genes involved in the main forms of DSD, and have uncovered variations in these genes that have subtle effects on a person’s anatomical or physiological sex. What’s more, new technologies in DNA sequencing and cell biology are revealing that almost everyone is, to varying degrees, a patchwork of genetically distinct cells, some with a sex that might not match that of the rest of their body. Some studies even suggest that the sex of each cell drives its behaviour, through a complicated network of molecular interactions. “I think there’s much greater diversity within male or female, and there is certainly an area of overlap where some people can’t easily define themselves within the binary structure,” says John Achermann, who studies sex development and endocrinology at University College London’s Institute of Child Health.
These discoveries do not sit well in a world in which sex is still defined in binary terms. Few legal systems allow for any ambiguity in biological sex, and a person’s legal rights and social status can be heavily influenced by whether their birth certificate says male or female.
“The main problem with a strong dichotomy is that there are intermediate cases that push the limits and ask us to figure out exactly where the dividing line is between males and females,” says Arthur Arnold at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies biological sex differences. “And that’s often a very difficult problem, because sex can be defined a number of ways.”
That the two sexes are physically different is obvious, but at the start of life, it is not. Five weeks into development, a human embryo has the potential to form both male and female anatomy. Next to the developing kidneys, two bulges known as the gonadal ridges emerge alongside two pairs of ducts, one of which can form the uterus and Fallopian tubes, and the other the male internal genital plumbing: the epididymes, vas deferentia and seminal vesicles. At six weeks, the gonad switches on the developmental pathway to become an ovary or a testis. If a testis develops, it secretes testosterone, which supports the development of the male ducts. It also makes other hormones that force the presumptive uterus and Fallopian tubes to shrink away. If the gonad becomes an ovary, it makes oestrogen, and the lack of testosterone causes the male plumbing to wither. The sex hormones also dictate the development of the external genitalia, and they come into play once more at puberty, triggering the development of secondary sexual characteristics such as breasts or facial hair.
Changes to any of these processes can have dramatic effects on an individual’s sex. Gene mutations affecting gonad development can result in a person with XY chromosomes developing typically female characteristics, whereas alterations in hormone signalling can cause XX individuals to develop along male lines.
For many years, scientists believed that female development was the default programme, and that male development was actively switched on by the presence of a particular gene on the Y chromosome. In 1990, researchers made headlines when they uncovered the identity of this gene, which they called SRY. Just by itself, this gene can switch the gonad from ovarian to testicular development. For example, XX individuals who carry a fragment of the Y chromosome that contains SRY develop as males.
By the turn of the millennium, however, the idea of femaleness being a passive default option had been toppled by the discovery of genes that actively promote ovarian development and suppress the testicular programme—such as one called WNT4. XY individuals with extra copies of this gene can develop atypical genitals and gonads, and a rudimentary uterus and Fallopian tubes. In 2011, researchers showed that if another key ovarian gene, RSPO1, is not working normally, it causes XX people to develop an ovotestis—a gonad with areas of both ovarian and testicular development.
These discoveries have pointed to a complex process of sex determination, in which the identity of the gonad emerges from a contest between two opposing networks of gene activity. Changes in the activity or amounts of molecules (such as WNT4) in the networks can tip the balance towards or away from the sex seemingly spelled out by the chromosomes. “It has been, in a sense, a philosophical change in our way of looking at sex; that it’s a balance,” says Eric Vilain, a clinician and the director of the Center for Gender-Based Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It’s more of a systems-biology view of the world of sex.”
According to some scientists, that balance can shift long after development is over. Studies in mice suggest that the gonad teeters between being male and female throughout life, its identity requiring constant maintenance. In 2009, researchers reported deactivating an ovarian gene called Foxl2 in adult female mice; they found that the granulosa cells that support the development of eggs transformed into Sertoli cells, which support sperm development. Two years later, a separate team showed the opposite: that inactivating a gene called Dmrt1 could turn adult testicular cells into ovarian ones. “That was the big shock, the fact that it was going on post-natally,” says Vincent Harley, a geneticist who studies gonad development at the MIMR-PHI Institute for Medical Research in Melbourne.
The gonad is not the only source of diversity in sex. A number of DSDs are caused by changes in the machinery that responds to hormonal signals from the gonads and other glands. Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, or CAIS, for example, arises when a person’s cells are deaf to male sex hormones, usually because the receptors that respond to the hormones are not working. People with CAIS have Y chromosomes and internal testes, but their external genitalia are female, and they develop as females at puberty.
Conditions such as these meet the medical definition of DSDs, in which an individual’s anatomical sex seems to be at odds with their chromosomal or gonadal sex. But they are rare—affecting about 1 in 4,500 people. Some researchers now say that the definition should be widened to include subtle variations of anatomy such as mild hypospadias, in which a man’s urethral opening is on the underside of his penis rather than at the tip. The most inclusive definitions point to the figure of 1 in 100 people having some form of DSD, says Vilain.
But beyond this, there could be even more variation. Since the 1990s, researchers have identified more than 25 genes involved in DSDs, and next-generation DNA sequencing in the past few years has uncovered a wide range of variations in these genes that have mild effects on individuals, rather than causing DSDs. “Biologically, it’s a spectrum,” says Vilain.
A DSD called congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), for example, causes the body to produce excessive amounts of male sex hormones; XX individuals with this condition are born with ambiguous genitalia (an enlarged clitoris and fused labia that resemble a scrotum). It is usually caused by a severe deficiency in an enzyme called 21-hydroxylase. But women carrying mutations that result in a milder deficiency develop a ‘non-classical’ form of CAH, which affects about 1 in 1,000 individuals; they may have male-like facial and body hair, irregular periods or fertility problems—or they might have no obvious symptoms at all. Another gene, NR5A1, is currently fascinating researchers because variations in it cause a wide range of effects, from underdeveloped gonads to mild hypospadias in men, and premature menopause in women.
Many people never discover their condition unless they seek help for infertility, or discover it through some other brush with medicine. Last year, for example, surgeons reported that they had been operating on a hernia in a man, when they discovered that he had a womb. The man was 70, and had fathered four children.
Studies of DSDs have shown that sex is no simple dichotomy. But things become even more complex when scientists zoom in to look at individual cells. The common assumption that every cell contains the same set of genes is untrue. Some people have mosaicism: they develop from a single fertilized egg but become a patchwork of cells with different genetic make-ups. This can happen when sex chromosomes are doled out unevenly between dividing cells during early embryonic development. For example, an embryo that starts off as XY can lose a Y chromosome from a subset of its cells. If most cells end up as XY, the result is a physically typical male, but if most cells are X, the result is a female with a condition called Turner’s syndrome, which tends to result in restricted height and underdeveloped ovaries. This kind of mosaicism is rare, affecting about 1 in 15,000 people.
The effects of sex-chromosome mosaicism range from the prosaic to the extraordinary. A few cases have been documented in which a mosaic XXY embryo became a mix of two cell types—some with two X chromosomes and some with two Xs and a Y—and then split early in development. This results in ‘identical’ twins of different sexes.
There is a second way in which a person can end up with cells of different chromosomal sexes. James’s patient was a chimaera: a person who develops from a mixture of two fertilized eggs, usually owing to a merger between embryonic twins in the womb. This kind of chimaerism resulting in a DSD is extremely rare, representing about 1% of all DSD cases.
Another form of chimaerism, however, is now known to be widespread. Termed microchimaerism, it happens when stem cells from a fetus cross the placenta into the mother’s body, and vice versa. It was first identified in the early 1970s—but the big surprise came more than two decades later, when researchers discovered how long these crossover cells survive, even though they are foreign tissue that the body should, in theory, reject. A study in 1996 recorded women with fetal cells in their blood as many as 27 years after giving birth; another found that maternal cells remain in children up to adulthood. This type of work has further blurred the sex divide, because it means that men often carry cells from their mothers, and women who have been pregnant with a male fetus can carry a smattering of its discarded cells.
Microchimaeric cells have been found in many tissues. In 2012, for example, immunologist Lee Nelson and her team at the University of Washington in Seattle found XY cells in post-mortem samples of women’s brains. The oldest woman carrying male DNA was 94 years old. Other studies have shown that these immigrant cells are not idle; they integrate into their new environment and acquire specialized functions, including (in mice at least) forming neurons in the brain. But what is not known is how a peppering of male cells in a female, or vice versa, affects the health or characteristics of a tissue—for example, whether it makes the tissue more susceptible to diseases more common in the opposite sex. “I think that’s a great question,” says Nelson, “and it is essentially entirely unaddressed.” In terms of human behaviour, the consensus is that a few male microchimaeric cells in the brain seem unlikely to have a major effect on a woman.
Scientists are now finding that XX and XY cells behave in different ways, and that this can be independent of the action of sex hormones. “To tell you the truth, it’s actually kind of surprising how big an effect of sex chromosomes we’ve been able to see,” says Arnold. He and his colleagues have shown that the dose of X chromosomes in a mouse’s body can affect its metabolism, and studies in a lab dish suggest that XX and XY cells behave differently on a molecular level, for example with different metabolic responses to stress. The next challenge, says Arnold, is to uncover the mechanisms. His team is studying the handful of X-chromosome genes now known to be more active in females than in males. “I actually think that there are more sex differences than we know of,” says Arnold.
Biologists may have been building a more nuanced view of sex, but society has yet to catch up. True, more than half a century of activism from members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community has softened social attitudes to sexual orientation and gender. Many societies are now comfortable with men and women crossing conventional societal boundaries in their choice of appearance, career and sexual partner. But when it comes to sex, there is still intense social pressure to conform to the binary model.
This pressure has meant that people born with clear DSDs often undergo surgery to ‘normalize’ their genitals. Such surgery is controversial because it is usually performed on babies, who are too young to consent, and risks assigning a sex at odds with the child’s ultimate gender identity—their sense of their own gender. Intersex advocacy groups have therefore argued that doctors and parents should at least wait until a child is old enough to communicate their gender identity, which typically manifests around the age of three, or old enough to decide whether they want surgery at all.
This issue was brought into focus by a lawsuit filed in South Carolina in May 2013 by the adoptive parents of a child known as MC, who was born with ovotesticular DSD, a condition that produces ambiguous genitalia and gonads with both ovarian and testicular tissue. When MC was 16 months old, doctors performed surgery to assign the child as female—but MC, who is now eight years old, went on to develop a male gender identity. Because he was in state care at the time of his treatment, the lawsuit alleged not only that the surgery constituted medical malpractice, but also that the state denied him his constitutional right to bodily integrity and his right to reproduce. Last month, a court decision prevented the federal case from going to trial, but a state case is ongoing.
“This is potentially a critically important decision for children born with intersex traits,” says Julie Greenberg, a specialist in legal issues relating to gender and sex at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, California. The suit will hopefully encourage doctors in the United States to refrain from performing operations on infants with DSDs when there are questions about their medical necessity, she says. It could raise awareness about “the emotional and physical struggles intersex people are forced to endure because doctors wanted to ‘help’ us fit in,” says Georgiann Davis, a sociologist who studies issues surrounding intersex traits and gender at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who was born with CAIS.
Doctors and scientists are sympathetic to these concerns, but the MC case also makes some uneasy—because they know how much is still to be learned about the biology of sex. They think that changing medical practice by legal ruling is not ideal, and would like to see more data collected on outcomes such as quality of life and sexual function to help decide the best course of action for people with DSDs—something that researchers are starting to do.
Diagnoses of DSDs once relied on hormone tests, anatomical inspections and imaging, followed by painstaking tests of one gene at a time. Now, advances in genetic techniques mean that teams can analyse multiple genes at once, aiming straight for a genetic diagnosis and making the process less stressful for families. Vilain, for example, is using whole-exome sequencing—which sequences the protein-coding regions of a person’s entire genome—on XY people with DSDs. Last year, his team showed that exome sequencing could offer a probable diagnosis in 35% of the study participants whose genetic cause had been unknown.
Vilain, Harley and Achermann say that doctors are taking an increasingly circumspect attitude to genital surgery. Children with DSDs are treated by multidisciplinary teams that aim to tailor management and support to each individual and their family, but this usually involves raising a child as male or female even if no surgery is done. Scientists and advocacy groups mostly agree on this, says Vilain: “It might be difficult for children to be raised in a gender that just does not exist out there.” In most countries, it is legally impossible to be anything but male or female.
Yet if biologists continue to show that sex is a spectrum, then society and state will have to grapple with the consequences, and work out where and how to draw the line. Many transgender and intersex activists dream of a world where a person’s sex or gender is irrelevant. Although some governments are moving in this direction, Greenberg is pessimistic about the prospects of realizing this dream—in the United States, at least. “I think to get rid of gender markers altogether or to allow a third, indeterminate marker, is going to be difficult.”
So if the law requires that a person is male or female, should that sex be assigned by anatomy, hormones, cells or chromosomes, and what should be done if they clash? “My feeling is that since there is not one biological parameter that takes over every other parameter, at the end of the day, gender identity seems to be the most reasonable parameter,” says Vilain. In other words, if you want to know whether someone is male or female, it may be best just to ask.
This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on February 18, 2015.
“It takes a wise man to discover a wise man.”
― Diogenes
Diogenes, also known as Diogenes the Cynic or Diogenes of Sinope (413 B.C. – 323 B.C.), was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynicism. He was born in Sinope, an Ionian colony on the Black Sea coast of Anatolia in 412 or 404 BC and died at Corinth in 323 BC. Diogenes was a controversial figure. Wikipedia
Apple TV • June 25, 2021 Love leads to the strangest places. Watch Schmigadoon! now on Apple TV+ https://apple.co/_Schmigadoon This new musical comedy series is executive produced by Lorne Michaels and stars Cecily Strong, Keegan-Michael Key, Fred Armisen, Dove Cameron, Jaime Camil, Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming, Ariana DeBose, Ann Harada, Jane Krakowski, and Aaron Tveit. Hailing from Broadway Video and Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, Schmigadoon! is co-created by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio. Paul serves as showrunner, and wrote all of the original songs for the series. Barry Sonnenfeld directs and executive produces. In addition to starring, Strong serves as producer, and Daurio serves as consulting producer and writer. Andrew Singer executive produces with Lorne Michaels on behalf of Broadway Video.
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove • Apr 7, 2023 This video is a special release from the original Thinking Allowed series that ran on public television from 1986 until 2002. It was recorded in about 2001. Gay Gaer Luce is author of several books including Sleep, Body Time, and Longer Life, More Joy. Here she proposes that the aging process need not occur in the manner prescribed by cultural stereotypes. She suggests that if we look to other cultures we can find models in which old age is a time for great spiritual opening. Simple breathing, sensory awareness and stretching exercises can awaken the body and counteract stiffness. Now you can watch all of the programs from the original Thinking Allowed Video Collection, hosted by Jeffrey Mishlove. Subscribe to the new Streaming Channel (https://thinkingallowed.vhx.tv/) and watch more than 350 programs now, with more, previously unreleased titles added weekly. New!! Free month of the classic Thinking Allowed streaming channel for New Thinking Allowed subscribers only. Use code THINKFREELY. Check out our new website for the New Thinking Allowed Foundation at http://www.newthinkingallowed.org. There you will find our incredible, searchable database as well as our new, FREE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE. Also, opportunities to shop and to support our video productions. There, you can also subscribe to our FREE, WEEKLY NEWSLETTER!
The people’s veto dates back to the Canton of St. Gallen, pictured above. Political economist Stephan Kyburz shares how this democratic tool evolved into the modern referendum. Courtesy of Hellebardius/Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
by STEPHAN KYBURZ | APRIL 5, 2023 (ZocaloPublicSquare.org)
What are the obstacles and opportunities facing democracy today? Zócalo is publishing a series of letters to highlight how the world’s democratic ideals are faring in practice. From Switzerland: Political economist Stephan Kyburz shares how the “people’s veto” and the inclusive consultation process that it has inspired make for potent citizen-led politics.
Switzerland’s direct democracy is powerful and well-known. But there are two pieces of it that I think are too obscure: the referendum, or “people’s veto,” and the inclusive consultation process that it has inspired over time.
Here, on the national and local levels, citizens can collect signatures and qualify a referendum to reject a law passed by a legislature. Our experience is that this check on lawmaking actually makes parliaments more thoughtful and considerate when drafting a law.
The people’s veto, the predecessor of the modern referendum, dates to 1831, when the Canton of St. Gallen adopted a new constitution that introduced the first legal referendum that allowed male citizens to reject a law that already had been approved by the cantonal parliament. The idea was to forge a compromise between advocates of representative democracy and supporters of direct democracy, who threatened to abandon the constitutional assembly if direct democracy was not included in the constitution.
Under that first people’s veto, 50 citizens of any municipality in the canton had 45 days after a law or a treaty was passed by parliament to request the convening of a municipal assembly (similar to a town hall meeting) to deliberate on whether there should be a people’s veto against that law.
In the assembly, members would vote to figure out whether the citizens were in favor or against the law. Absent citizens were counted as against the law.
It was not easy to reject a law in this manner—in part because in municipalities where there had been no veto position, all citizens were counted as being in favor of it. Finally, all votes for and against the proposed law were added up to the cantonal level to find out whether the people’s veto was successful. Still, despite the high bar, municipalities in St. Gallen used the people’s veto frequently, and many other cantons subsequently implemented the procedure.
Consultation is a Swiss answer to a global problem.
The new tool evolved into the modern referendum we now know, and often use. The referendum was first introduced in the Canton of Vaud in 1845 and then in the Canton of Grisons in 1854. Different versions of referendums followed in the various cantons. Most cantons hence moved from a purely representative democracy to a semi-direct democracy (a mix of representative and direct democracy). In fact, in the 1870s, only three cantons remained pure representative systems.
Today’s referendum does not rely on citizens in any municipality to request an assembly and vote on a proposed law; instead, it involves collecting signatures. If opponents of a law succeed in collecting enough citizens’ signatures within a certain period of time, the proposed law will be accepted or rejected by a simple majority popular vote.
Today Switzerland’s national constitution requires every canton to have a legal referendum procedure. Besides legal referendums, many cantons also employ the financial referendum, which requires voter approval for large state expenditures. Lawmakers first introduced a national legal referendum in 1874, allowing male citizens (Swiss women didn’t gain voting rights on the national level until 1971) to vote via simple majority to reject federal laws, too.
Why is the legal referendum such an important democratic institution? Because it completely changes the political process of crafting and negotiating laws. The most important aspect of the people’s veto right is its indirect effect on the work of parliament. Knowing that citizens may reject a law that doesn’t meet expectations, parliament works to find large majorities—to make the law acceptable to all major parties and interest groups. If one of the larger parties in parliament rejects a proposed law, that party is likely to have the political power and financial means to collect the 50,000 signatures in 100 days that is required to call for a popular decision on the matter.
This brings me back to Switzerland’s consultation procedure, or Vernehmlassungsverfahren, which emerged because of the pressure that a possible referendum puts on lawmakers.
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First installed in 1874, the consultation is a preparatory step in the writing of laws and allows the government and parliament to receive feedback and check the chances of passing and implementing any proposed law. Cantons, political parties, economic associations, trade unions, municipalities, and cities are invited to provide assessments on a proposed law. In fact, anybody who wants to provide feedback on a proposed law can do so.
The consultation procedure checks a law on its accuracy, enforceability, and acceptability. Implicitly, the consultation tries to encourage political parties and interest groups to register their problems with a law during its drafting, instead of waiting for a referendum after.
Consultation is a Swiss answer to a global problem. Around the world, many people feel parliaments are disconnected from constituents, and that politicians pursue their own agendas once elected. Citizens feel powerless to influence the legislative process, and thus rarely follow discussions in parliament. The only way to disagree with politicians is to not re-elect them. There’s no avenue to engage with lawmaking as it happens.
The legal referendum brings accountability back to the legislative process and reconnects citizens with politicians, via processes like Switzerland’s consultation system. Politicians become the agents of the citizens. The citizens become the real sovereign of democracy.
STEPHAN KYBURZis the host of “Rules of the Game,” a podcast that discusses and compares democratic systems around the world. He was a research fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development.