We Are Our Brains by D. F. Swaab

the
Gay Krant
revised its take on that period with an article tellingly headed “Angry Gays Got It All Wrong.” Even after all that time, however, Rob Tielman refused to relent. His column in the same issue of the
Gay Krant
had the sour headline “Swaab Headstrong.”

    FIGURE 12. A postcard I received after publishing the first findings of a difference between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men, in 1989. Said to be sent on behalf of the COC (gay rights) organization, the text reads, “Nazi. Saw your ugly mug on TV. We homosexuals are going to kill you. As an example. Like the leader of Iran [Khomeini] did to the Englishman. We homosexuals are insulted about our brains.”

    FIGURE 13. Another example of correspondence I received after publishing the first findings of the difference between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men. The text reads, “Bet you regret not having been able to work under Mengele in Auschwitz!”

    FIGURE 14. Cartoon by Peter van Straaten after the publication of the first findings of the difference between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men (1989). The caption read, “Wim’s got a big hypothalamus too, eh, Wim?” Original in possession of the author, a present from the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research, NIH.
    Five years after that first brouhaha, the publication of our discoveryof a sex-reversed pattern in the brains of transsexuals (Zhou et al.,
Nature
378 [1995]: 68–70; see fig. 11 in this book) met with an entirely positive response. Transsexuals immediately seized on the article in order to get sex changes registered in birth certificates or passports in countries where that had not previously been possible. It was used to the same end at the European Court of Justice and played a role in the drafting of legislation on the issue in Britain.
    Nowadays, articles on the differences between male and female or heterosexual and homosexual brains barely cause a ripple (see for instance Swaab, D. F.,
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
105 [2008]: 10273–74), and there’s a great interest in the topic in popular science publications.
CHECKING THE POPE’S SEX
    At the stage when our bodies and brains differentiate along male or female lines, hybrid forms sometimes develop. This can have far-reaching consequences. A controversial example of hybrid sexuality dates back to the Middle Ages, when a woman allegedly became pope, subverting the strict male hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. Measures are said to have been taken to prevent such a “disaster” from occurring again.
    The story of Pope Joan was chronicled by the Dominican monk Jean de Mailly around 1250, and a film was made of it in 1972. Was it a myth or a cover-up? No one knows for sure. The gist of the legend is as follows. Though born in the German town of Mainz in 833, Joan was of English extraction. Having traversed Europe dressed as a monk, she gained so much respect and authority for her great learning that she succeeded Leo IV as pope in 854, taking the name of Johannes Anglicus (John the Englishman) or John VIII. Three years later, however, she became pregnant, suddenly giving birth during the Easter procession, near the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome. This gave the game away, of course, and she was lynched onthe spot. Her successor, Benedict III, is said to have eradicated all trace of her memory. There’s no record of Joan in the Vatican’s pontifical yearbook.
    Although the Catholic Church systematically denies the story, there are indications that there may be some truth in it. In 1276, Pope John XX was said to have changed his name to John XXI in order to account for the female Pope John. What’s more, records indicate that the sculpted head of John VIII, “Femina de Anglica,” stood alongside the busts of all the other popes in the Cathedral of Siena. In 1600, however, her bust was removed by order of Pope Clement