By D. R. NEWTH

Whot are tacts about
sex transformation ?

sat widely publicized instances of sex reversal, both from male to

female, have aroused considerable interest in the question.

The

first was that of George Jorgenson, who served as a private in the
U.S. Army and beeame Christine Jorgenson after a long series of
hormone and surgical treatments in Denmark. The second, revealed
this month, was that of Bob Cowell, father of two daughters, who
fought the Luftwaffe over Britain as a fighter pilot in the RAF and
became Betty Cowell three years ago after hormone treatments and

plastic surgery completed natural changes.

Here, D. R. Newth, a

British biologist, expresses doubt that there has ever been a case in
-which human sex transformation has ever been functionally complete.

WHEN a baby is born one of
the first questions that its
parents ask is “Is it a boy or a
girl?” They would be shocked,
indeed, if the answer were “I’m
sorry, but we are not sure.”

For the vast majority of us,
our sex has never been in doubt
‘since the moment of our birth.
That is why the occasional cases
of sex-reversal reported in the
press cause such astonishment
and interest.

It is possible to be mistaken
about a baby’s sex, however, and
in backward communities with
poor medical services and where
the parents are unusually ignor-
ant or prudish such a mistake
may not be discovered until the
child grows up. :

The child then “changes its
sex,” or rather adopts its true
sex.

Most cases of “change of sex”
in human beings are of this type,
but from time to time cases are
reported which suggest that true
sex-reversal has occurred. How
these are to be explained we are
not yet quite sure, but biologists
can at least make a reasonable
guess.

Not all animals treat their sex
as seriously as we do! Some,
like the slipper-limpets, normally
change their sex in the middle
_of their lives. Others, some of
the earthworms, for instance, are
both sexes at once, having in
each individual a complete set of
male and female sex organs.

In the higher animals, however,.

the sex of the individual is usual-
ly settled at the very outset of
its life, in our own species at
the moment of conception. This
is because men produce two kinds
ef sperm and according to which
kind meets and enters a human

egg it will develop into a boy.

or girl.

But although the decision is
made at this early stage it is a
long time before the individual
develops the appropriate organs.

Thus if you examine a human
embryo eight weeks after con-
ception it is very difficult to tell
to which sex it belongs.

The embryo, indeed, begins by
laying down organs proper to
both the sexes, and at first there
is no indication of which set is
going to grow most, but at about
the tenth week of pregnancy
either one set or other begins to
grow while the other does not.
There is evidence that hormones,
substances circulating in the em-
bryo’s blood, are ‘responsible for
this.

Some of the male organs in a

female, and some of the female ~

ones in a male, do not disappear
entirely but linger on into adult
life in an under-developed form
as reminders of the time before
we were born when our sex still
hung in the balance.

Now we know that it is some-
times possible to make the em-
bryo of an animal (say a mouse)
change its sex by giving it doses
of hormones when it is still in-
side its mother. In mice it is
easier to turn females into males
than vice versa by this means,
but we have no reason to doubt
that both are in principle pos-
sible. ,

What happens then is that the
“wrong” set of sexual organs de-
velops.

It is reasonable to believe that
even in the adult a hormone up-
set might cause the normal sexual

‘organs of an individual to grow

smaller while the remnants of the
“wrong” ones grew larger.

Such disturbances, in a mild
form, are not uncommon in man,
but cases of transformation from
one sex to the other are so rare
that our knowledge of them is
very slight.

It is to be doubted whether
there ever has been a case in
which the transformation has
been functionally complete and
that a man who was a father has
become a mother, or a mother a
father.

GEORGE JORGENSON who...

became CHRISTINE JORGENSON

‘By MEL SHIPMAN

Duplessis’ new law goes beyond

attack on Jehovah's Witnesses |

-January 19, by unanimous

vote, the Quebec legislature
adopted a series of new amend-
ments to the Freedom of Worship
Act. These amendments were
introduced by the Duplessis gov-
ernment to curb the activities of
the religious group known as the
Witnesses of Jehovah.

Smarting under the adverse de-
cision of the Supreme Court
which declared last fall that un-
der the act it was illegal for Que-
bec municipalities to prevent the
Witnesses from canvassing and

‘ distributing their literature, the

Union Nationale administration
hopes that the new amendments

will undo and nullify the Supreme .-

Court verdict. The Liberal Op-
position and Frank Hanley, sit-
ting as an Independent, voted
with the government on this ques-
tion. : s

A careful reading of the text of
the amendments show that while
the amendments, will undoubted-
ly be used against the Witnesses,
they can also be used at any time
against any religious or other
group that Duplessis wants to at-
tack.

The new amendments make a
mockery of the Freedom of Wor-
ship Act. According to the new
law it is a crime:

A). “To distribute in public
places or from door to door,
books, magazines, tracts, pamph-
lets, or other publications, con-
taining abusive or insulting at-
tacks against the practice of a
religious profession or the relig-
ious beliefs of any portion of the
population of the province, or
remarks of an abusive or insult-
ing nature respecting the mem-
bers, or adherents of a religious
profession.” ‘

B). “To make, in speeches or
lectures delivered in public
places or transmitted to the pub-
lic by means of loudspeakers or
other apparatus, abusive or in-
sulting attacks against the prac-
tice of a religious profession or
the religious beliefs of any por-
tion of the population of the
province, or remarks of an abus-
ive or insulting nature respect-
ing the members or’ adherents
of a religious profession.”

C.. “To broadcast or reproduce
such attacks or remarks by
means of radio, television or the
press.”

The key words are of course
“abusive”. and “insulting.” As
with the word “communist” con-
tained in several of Duplessis’
new labor laws and in the Pad-

' lock Law, the key terms of the

amendments to the Freedom of

_ Worship Act are not defined.

It will be the Premier Maurice
Duplessis, in his dual capacity as
- attorney general, who will decide
at what point normal religious
practice’ becomes “abusive” or
“insulting” to some other relig-

Oh, what a lovely bunch

ENATOR Joseph McCarthy, Dr.
© Konrad Adenauer of West Ger-
many, Chiang Kai-shek and Syng-
man Rhee have all been invited
to Ceylon to attend a conference
to form a world organization

against Communists, the Times of

Ceylon reported recently.

The paper said that the confer- -

ence would be inaugurated next
December by Sir John Kotelawela,
prime minister of Ceylon.

MAURICE DU PLESSIS

ioun or person of some other
faith. There is nothing in this
type of legislation which in any
way limits the attorney-general

to taking action against the Wit-
nesses.

As with the film Martin Luther,
it is clear that Duplessis’ concept
of what is ‘abusive’ or “insult-
ing” is very broad. Under the
new law, every religious minority
will. continue to practise its re-
ligion by grace of the attorney-
general.

Not only religious groups will

be subject to the new law. News-
papers, individuals, political par-
ties, even unions could face pro-
secution any time Duplessis takes

it into his head to use the act, |

if the opinions they express on a
subject connected with religion
do not suit him. Freedom of
speech, as well as freedom of

worship, will depend on the
whims and fancies of a reaction-
ary government.

e:
But why the unanimous sup-
port in the legislature?

First, it has become clear that
the Liberals have abandoned any

policy of real opposition: to Du-
plessis’ policies. ;

Their conduct on anti-union
Bills 19 and 20 was scandalous.
They went through the motions
of opposition but put up no fight
whatsoever. They collaborated
with Duplessis in making it easy
for him to railroad through these
laws. They participated i
amending the Election Act to give
special advantages on the ballot
to the two old-line parties.

Second, Duplessis and the daily
press made it appear that the
amendments to the Freedom of
Worship Act were directed solely
against the Witnesses.

In a strongly Catholic province
it is logical that the Witnesses
are not very popular. With this
unpopularity as a base, the public
was largely disarmed into quies-
cence.

Even the Protestants who re-
acted quickly to the ban on Martin
‘Luther said nothing on _ the
amendments. George Marler, who .
represents largely English-speak- ~
ing and Protestant Westmount,
voted with the rest of the Lib-
erals. ;

It is clear that a major hoax
has been pullled on the Quebec
electorate and another vicious
and undemocratic law written in--
to the statute books. —

FROM THE PROPAGANDA MILLS

ganda mills.

to the first.

BERLIN, March 5—(BUP)—
West German anti-Communists
betieved today they may know
who’s responsible for a recent
wave of sabotage aboard Brit-
ish warships.

Their guess is that it may be
the work of Ernst Wollweber,
chief of the Communist East
German secret -police.

Wollweber, East Germany’s

minister of security, is describ-
ed by the West German sources
as an expert in marine sabo-
tage.
His name was mentioned in
the investigation of a fire
which burned out the 20,000-
ton Empress of Canada in
Liverpool harbor in January
1953. :

Analyzing recent sabotage
acts aboard British vessels,
West German anti-Communists
said they bear striking resem-
blance to a widespread . ship
sabotage campaign before the
war in which Italian, Japan-
ese and German ships were
mysteriously damaged by fire
and explosions while carrying
arms to Franco in Spain. |

Wollweber, they said, had a
hand in arranging those inci-
dents — VANCOUVER SUN,
March 5, 1954.

Was it ‘Red’ cigarette ?

d bares two items appeared in the Vancouver Sun a little more
than a week apart. The first, from undisclosed sources and
entirely unsubstantiated, originated in the West German. propa-
The fact that it was anti-Communist was all the
verification the British United Press or the Vancouver. Sun

needed. The second item, of course, contained no reference

‘been provided.

LIVERPOOL, March 13 —
(Reuters) — A cigarette butt
probably caused the fire which
gutted the 20,000-ton Canadian
Pacific liner Empress of Can-
ada in dock here January 25,
1954, a court of inquiry said
today. :

The government - appointed
court which sat for 18 days
last December concluded that
the probable cause of the fire
was a lighted cigarette butt in
one of the cabins. If also list-
ed several discrepancies be-
tween the routine. in force at
the port and the principles re-
commended. These were:

No liaison existed between
the owners and the fire brig-
ade in relation to the ship.-

Fire-patrol frequency was
below the recommended stand-
ard, :

A direct telephone line from
ship to fire brigade was not
available.

The fire main was uncharg-
ed and no alternatives had

Fire doors and watertight
doors were not closed. ;

Gas cylinders would not ap-
pear to have been as wisely
disposed as possible... . . —
VANCOUVER SUN, March 13,
1954.

H

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MARCH 26, 1954 — PAGE 4