Not Flying South

Backyard feeders plus a strange sense of direction may have begun to split one bird species into two.
In southern Germany, some 10 percent of blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla) fly not south, toward warmth, but rather northwest for the winter, says evolutionary biologist H. Martin Schaefer of the University of Freiburg in Germany. This novel journey, on record since the 1960s, probably became survivable thanks to the rise of backyard bird feeding in Britain, he says. Enthusiasts setting out seed and suet have kept the birds from starving until it’s time to wing back to Germany to nest.
The returnees from Britain nest in the same German forests as the more conventional migrators that fly to Spain. Yet the two groups now show subtle but distinct genetic and visible physical differences, Schaefer and his colleagues report online December 3 in Current Biology.
“It’s a good example of how humans can influence evolutionary trajectories,” Schaefer says.“The really cool thing here is that it seems to be driven by migration,” says behavioral ecologist Jeff Podos of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Other researchers have looked for these kinds of genetic differences between populations with different migration destinations, but have not found any, he says.
One or just a few genes are thought to control the migration direction for blackcaps, Schaefer notes. A classic study showed that offspring of parents that flew in divergent directions for winter grew up to migrate in an intermediate direction.
Migratory genes would, of course, differ between differently migrating populations, but Schaefer and his colleagues wanted to look for other genetic differences as well. Northwesters and southwesters varied slightly in parts of their genome that don’t involve migration. Small as that difference was, it was greater than the difference between southwest migrators hailing from far-flung parts of Germany, says Schaefer.
Northwester birds also had slightly rounder wings than the southwesters, the researchers said. Rounder wings improve flight maneuverability but don’t perform as well on long hauls. The northwester birds fly only two-thirds the distance the others do, so the slight shift in wing shape might be the beginning of adaptation to their new route.
Likewise, beaks on Anglophile blackcaps tended to take on a different shape, one more like the narrow beaks on generalist feeders. Schaefer speculates that winter feasting on olives and other big, fruity mouthfuls encourages wider beaks in the Spanish migrators. These blackcaps are more likely to choose mates that have similar winter tastes, thus preserving migratory differences in their offspring. The two bird groups aren’t new species yet, Schaefer says. But they’ve taken a few flights in that direction. More than 50 species that have recently rerouted their migrations may be experiencing similar changes, Schaefer says.

Same-sex behavior nearly universal in animals

Examples of same-sex behavior can be found in almost all species in the animal kingdom — from worms to frogs to birds — making the practice nearly universal among animals, according to a new review of research on the topic.

"It's clear that same-sex sexual behavior extends far beyond the well-known examples that dominate both the scientific and popular literature: for example, bonobos, dolphins, penguins and fruit flies," said Nathan Bailey, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Riverside.

Same-sex behaviors in different species are not all equivalent, the review finds. For instance, male fruit flies sometimes court other male flies, but this behavior is due to a missing gene that gives the flies the ability to distinguish between sexes, said Bailey, a co-author of the review. "That is very different from male bottlenose dolphins, who engage in same-sex interactions to facilitate group bonding, or female Laysan Albatross that can remain pair-bonded for life," he added.

The review also found a gap in the literature: While many studies have tried to understand why same-sex coupling exists and why it might make sense in terms of evolution, few have looked at what the evolutionary consequences of this behavior might be.

"Like any other behavior that doesn't lead directly to reproduction — such as aggression or altruism — same-sex behavior can have evolutionary consequences that are just now beginning to be considered," Bailey said. "For example, male-male copulations in locusts can be costly for the mounted male" and this cost may put evolutionary pressure on the locusts, he said. As a result, a larger number of males may secrete a particular chemical that discourages the mounting behavior, he added.

In their future research, Bailey and Marlene Zuk, a biology professor at UCR, plan to try and address questions about the evolutionary outcomes of same-sex couplings, focusing on the Laysan Albatrosses.

The review article was published in the June 16 issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, and the study was funded by the UCR Academia Senate.

Homosexuality has been documented in almost 500 species of animals, signaling that sexual preference is predetermined. Considered the closest living relative to humans, bonobos are not shy about seeking sexual pleasure. Nearly all of these peace-loving apes are bisexual and often resolve conflict by the "make love, not war" principle. They copulate frequently, scream out in delight while doing so, and often engage in homosexual activities. About two thirds of the homosexual activities are amongst females.

When babies attack: Labor pain is just the start

Jacqueline Stenson

While other moms were enjoying being pampered on Mother’s Day, Hilary Wheeler Miller was nursing a broken nose that she suffered after being headbutted by her 3-year-old son.

“He stood up really fast and just plowed into my nose,” says the 40-year-old mom from Littleton, Colo.

As a result of the accident, Miller’s nose is now broken in two places and she’ll need surgery later this month to straighten it.

After an emergency C-section for her son’s delivery, Miller thought the worst of baby-induced pain was behind her. But childbirth was just the start.

Miller also got a fat, black-and-blue lip when Nicholas bit her as an infant. During a later roller-skating outing, he pulled her down and she shattered her right wrist, requiring a cast for two months. Miller also has been sickened with various illnesses that her son picked up at daycare, including strep throat, three rounds of pink eye, and a severe case of bronchitis that took months to treat.

“Never once did I imagine having a child would be hazardous to my health,” she says. Today, though, there’s an “ongoing saga of danger surrounding my life now that I have a child.”

Advice books, magazines and Web sites for new parents talk at great length about the aches and pains of pregnancy and childbirth, and the subsequent sleep deprivation and exhaustion. But beyond that, parents are more likely to learn the hard way about various other owies that babies and young children can innocently inflict.

Teeny-tiny terrors
Parents who’ve been knocked around a few times by tiny tots quickly find themselves strategizing about how to deflect flailing arms and legs, flying toys and utensils, razor-sharp fingernails and fists that tighten around strands of hair like a Vise-Grip — and then pull! They search for ways to ease the pain of strained backs from endless hours of carrying around youngsters (often only on one hip, which makes matters worse) and strained necks from gazing at baby while feeding (which is widely recommended for promoting parent-infant bonding).

Courtesy of Hilary Wheeler Miller Hilary Wheeler Miller nurses her broken wrist while she watches her son, Nicholas, play in the sandbox. Nicholas broke his mom's wrist when he pulled her down during a roller-skating outing.

And when moms and dads drop their guard and take a finger to the eye, a blow to the head or a kick to the groin, they see stars — and not little twinkling ones.

Kris Cambra was in so much pain in April when her 2-year-old son, Truman, poked her in the eye, that she went to the emergency room.

“Think of having a paper cut on your eye,” says Cambra, 34, of New Bedford, Mass., who was diagnosed with a corneal abrasion.

“The doctor used an ultraviolet light to look at my eye and then she said, ‘Yep, you have a scratch on your cornea and it's shaped just like a fingernail,’" she says.

Thankfully, Cambra doesn’t have any lasting eye damage. But the experience has heightened her awareness of the need to stay on guard with her son, who she says is more physical and prone to tantrums and flailing than her daughter, 7, ever was. “You think, you outweigh them, you’re much bigger than them, so what can they really do to you?” A lot, actually.

Judy Ward, a pediatric nurse at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, says she’s heard about a range of child-induced injuries from parents who’ve called into the hospital’s Answer Line with questions about child health and behavior over the last 12 years that she’s fielded calls.

Her first bit of advice: “They probably didn’t mean it when they headbutted you.”

A Bird-strike

BO

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Olberman/MSNBC coverage of study of Colbert Report, that used Amy Goodman’s appearance on Colbert

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Amy Goodman
colbertnation.com

Keith Olberman reported on May 1, 2009 on an academic study published by researchers from The Ohio State University, entitled “The Irony of Satire: Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report.” The study looked at The Colbert Report, the popular “fake news” program, by asking people to view the Colbert segment from Oct. 5, 2006, when Colbert interviewed Amy about her book, Static.
Among the findings, the researchers concluded that participants who were politically conservative were more likely to assume that Stephen Colbert was actually conservative as well, and was merely using humor and satire to advance his conservative views.

Stephen Colbert finally touches on the drug war issue with guest Ethan Nadelmann

Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle

Limbaugh Lashed By Caller

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

[TRANSCRIPT.]

LIMBAUGH: We're going to go to Chicago. This is Charles. Charles thank you for waiting and for calling. Great to have you here. Hello.


CALLER: Thanks Rush. Rush listen, I voted Republican and I really didn't want to see Obama get in office. But you know Rush, you're one reason to blame for this election, for the Republicans losing. First of all, you kept harping about voting for Hillary. The second big issue was the torture issue. I'm a veteran. We're not supposed to be torturing these people. This is not Nazi Germany, Red China, North Korea. There's other ways of interrogating people, and you just kept harping about, it's okay, or it's not really torture. And it was just more than waterboarding. Some of these prisoners will killed under torture.

And it was crazy for you to go on and on like Levin and Hannity and Hewitt. It's like you're all brainwashed. And my last comment is, no matter what Obama does, you will still criticize him because I believe you are brainwashed. You're just -- and I hate to say it -- but I think you're a brainwashed Nazi. Anyone who can believe in torture has got to be -- there has got to be something wrong with them.

LIMBAUGH: You know --

CALLER: And I know Bush wanted to keep us safe and all of that but we're not supposed to be torturing these people.

LIMBAUGH: Charles, if anybody is admitting that they are brainwashed it would be you.

CALLER: No, no, Rush. I don't think so. You, Hannity, and Levin are all brainwashed --

LIMBAUGH: Charles, you said at the beginning of your phone call that you didn't want Obama in there. But you voted for him because of me.

CALLER: I didn't vote for him. I voted for McCain. I voted Republican.

LIMBAUGH: Oh, so you're saying I turned people off --

CALLER: You turned people off with all this vote for Hillary and all this BS.

LIMBAUGH: That was Operation Chaos. That was to keep the chaos in the Democrat primaries --

CALLER: It didn't work and what we have with you Hannity Levin and Hewitt is sour grapes. That's all we have. And believe me, I'm not -- I'm more to the right than I am to the left.

LIMBAUGH: Oh, of course you are.

CALLER: I am.

LIMBAUGH: Of course you are. You wouldn't be calling here with all of these sour grapes if you weren't.

CALLER: Well I'm tired of listening to go on and on with this --

LIMBAUGH: I don't know of anybody who died from torture.

CALLER: We're not supposed to torture people. Do you remember World War II, the Nazis? The Nuremburg trials?

LIMBAUGH: Charles, Barack Obama --

CALLER: What's the matter with you? You never even served in the military. I served in the Marine Corps and the Army.

LIMBAUGH: Charles, Barack Obama is president of the United States today because of stupid, ignorant people who think like you do. You pose - you and your ignorance are the most expensive commodity this country has. You think you know everything. You don't know diddly squat. You call me a Nazi? You call me someone who supports torture and you want credibility on this program? You're just plan embarrassing and ludicrous. But it doesn't surprise me that you're the kind of Republican that our last candidate attracted. Because you're no Republican at all based on what the hell you just said right here.

Triple Toppled Traffic

A German woman was involved in three car accidents in less than an hour that left a total of seven vehicles damaged but she suffered only slight injuries from the series of mishaps, police said Tuesday.

The 69-year-old woman from Berlin first crashed into three cars while trying to pull out of a supermarket car park on the Baltic resort island of Usedom.

Then, she accidentally stepped on the accelerator and sped across a lawn before crashing into a nearby house, police said. She was taken to hospital in an ambulance but that vehicle was then hit by a truck.

"She was actually fortunate that no one was seriously hurt in any of the accidents," said Zinnowitz police spokesman Axel Falkenberg. "The accidents were a little bit like dominoes toppling."

Yukon Fishtrap

Heaven for the Godless?

crusade

Pointer can't help it. Op-Ed Columnist CHARLES M. BLOW wrote publicly about what he had read from others, yes those catholic PEW-guys who wrote about it and so do I. They want to scare me?
Well, take a look out of my atheist window.
You are dead and in heaven?
That will never end because you can't die twice!
You have to live there for ever and ever, so, what do you have to do?

• Can you produce something;
• can you improve something;
• can you extend your knowledge;
• can you practice your skills
• or can fulfill your lifelong desire to f**k your first teacher?

That's not gonna happen, my friends. Heaven is perfect, isn't it? It's all done.
So, there is nothing to do for you. It's your duty to be wallpaper for the boss, decoration and you even can't order the choir of angels to shut up and you also can't safe your loved ones who you can see burning in hell because the boss gave them that destiny before they were born. If you ask why? The answer is: Thát's why! So, heaven is a cruelty and the really jolly nice message is: It doesn't exist! The whole religious crap is a fabulous fraud!
So after your death you are as unaware of something anything as before your birth.

Now let's see what others think about it. In June, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a controversial survey in which 70 percent of Americans said that they believed religions other than theirs could lead to eternal life. This threw evangelicals into a tizzy. After all, the Bible makes it clear that heaven is a velvet-roped V.I.P. area reserved for Christians. Jesus said so: “I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” But the survey suggested that Americans just weren’t buying that. The evangelicals complained that people must not have understood the question. The respondents couldn’t actually believe what they were saying, could they? So in August, Pew asked the question again. (They released the results last week.) Sixty-five percent of respondents said — again — that other religions could lead to eternal life. But this time, to clear up any confusion, Pew asked them to specify which religions. The respondents essentially said all of them. And they didn’t stop there. Nearly half also thought that atheists could go to heaven — dragged there kicking and screaming, no doubt — and most thought that people with no religious faith also could go. What on earth does this mean? One very plausible explanation is that Americans just want good things to come to good people, regardless of their faith. As Alan Segal, a professor of religion at Barnard College told me: “We are a multicultural society, and people expect this American life to continue the same way in heaven.” He explained that in our society, we meet so many good people of different faiths that it’s hard for us to imagine God letting them go to hell. In fact, in the most recent survey, Pew asked people what they thought determined whether a person would achieve eternal life. Nearly as many Christians said you could achieve eternal life by just being a good person as said that you had to believe in Jesus. Also, many Christians apparently view their didactic text as flexible. According to Pew’s August survey, only 39 percent of Christians believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, and 18 percent think that it’s just a book written by men and not the word of God at all. In fact, on the question in the Pew survey about what it would take to achieve eternal life, only 1 percent of Christians said living life in accordance with the Bible. Now, there remains the possibility that some of those polled may not have understood the implications of their answers. As John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum, said, “The capacity of ignorance to influence survey outcomes should never be underestimated.” But I don’t think that they are ignorant about this most basic tenet of their faith. I think that they are choosing to ignore it ... for goodness sake.
It's really the bloody limit of all human stupdity, Heaven, that eternal life without duties, is a curse of unthinkable cruelty. If there should be a living god who invented it he/she/it should have to be prosecuted and hastily punished to death.
But who am I...?
The answer is blown in the wind.

George Tenet, Drunk in Bandar's Pool, Screaming about Jews

George John Tenet (born January 5, 1953) was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. Tenet held the position as the DCI from July 1997 to July 2004, making him the second-longest serving director in the agency's history — behind Allen Welsh Dulles — as well as one of the few DCIs to serve under two U.S. presidents of opposing political parties. In February 2008 he became the managing director of the secretive investment bank Allen & Company.
That's him!
I just picked up Patrick Tyler's forthcoming book, A World of Trouble, about America's tortured relations with the Middle East, and the prologue contains this whopper of a scene, one that is quite devastating, if true: An enraged George Tenet, drunk on scotch, flailing about Prince Bandar's Riyadh pool, screaming about the Bush Administration officials who were just then trying to pin the Iraq WMD fiasco on him:

A servant appeared with a bottle. Tenet knocked back some of the scotch. Then some more. They watched with concern. He drained half the bottle in a few minutes.
"They're setting me up. The bastards are setting me up," Tenet said, but "I am not going to take the hit."

And then this:

"According to one witness, he mocked the neoconservatives in the Bush administration and their alignment with the rlght wing of Israel's political establishment, referring to them with exaxperation as, "the Jews."

Tyler reports in a footnote that, when asked, Tenet initially denied staying at Prince Bandar's palace, then denied that he had said anything in the pool. "He disputed the remarks attributed to him and denied that his memory might have been affected by the amount of alcohol he was reported to have consumed on top of a sleeping pill," Tyler reports.
I'll ask around about this and post any responses I get.

White House's LAST "Barney Christmas Video"

Given this week's events, I did not think it was possible to find a video more excruciating to watch or more embarrassing to the United States than the footage of an Iraqi journalist shot putting his shoes at George W. Bush. Oh...wait...I found one: The 2008 Barney Christmas Video from the White House.
My question: How much of this White House Christmas video mit Hund can you watch before your fight-or-flight reflex kicks in and have to stand up and run--not walk, but run? I made it through about 30 seconds.
OK, here we go:Be honest: How long did you last?

Summing up: In the same week that a reporter calls George W. Bush a dog ( ! ) the aforementioned head of state issues a holiday greeting in which he and his family converse openly with (ehem...) a dog.
When the going gets tough, the tough talk to the dog.
The existential issue that emerges here should be obvious to everyone. Maybe we were all wrong about the shoe throwing incident in Iraq. Maybe it was not a protest so much as an announcement--an inter-species human rights declaration of sorts. Rather than insulting George W. Bush by calling him a dog, maybe the reporter was loudly and proudly stating his acceptance of the fact that George W. Bush is a man who talks to dogs. "You are a dog--whisperer!" Maybe the Iraqi reporter was not throwing the shoe at Bush, but throwing the shoe to Bush so he could in turn throw it for Barney to fetch?

Meanwhile, working communities collapse with layoffs not seen in almost a century.

Meanwhile, the United States military descends deeper into the Iraqi meat grinder.
Meanwhile, 2008 Yuletide retail sales sink like a gingersnap in bowl of sour eggnog.
Meanwhile, parents across the country stare at their bank statements and wonder how they are going to weave the few pennies that remain into a season of joy for their children.
While America descends into the morass of fear and uncertainty caused by our current President, the White House invites us to steal away with a few warm and fuzzy dog-cam shots taken from the eye-level of America's Presidential pup--a canine, who, while not fantasizing about winning golf tournaments and Olympic medals, proposes and carries out a jingoistic holiday interior decorating scheme as a final tribute to the George W. Bush era of government. The blend of shock, incredulity, and stomach cramps I felt when I watched the first 30 seconds of the Barney Christmas video I will not soon forget.

By comparison, come to think of it, that sour eggnog is sounding better and better.

The USA writes rules of ideal GOP-stupidity.

How stupid do you have to be to vote Republican after 8 years of Bush43?
The bailout has been killed by Republicans in the Senate because of a disagreement over worker wages. Are these Republicans taking a cue from the ideas of President Herbert Hoover, who put us in the Great Depression in the first place? Is Gods Own Party also the Hoover Party?

Some 37% of the Americans vote for the Republicans and the same real Americans don't know where the USA is on the map. According to a Gallup/Harris poll released Monday, the full 37 percent are incapable of identifying their home country on a map of the United States.
Of the 1,400 residents surveyed, the most common incorrect responses placed the more than 230-year-old territory in the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans (19 percent), the space where Mexico would appear were it in fact included on the map (10 percent), and inside the word "America" written just above the northernmost states (6 percent).
This is the map of America with erroneous America located in red.

"On the whole, these figures should be construed as somewhat disappointing," Gallup spokesman Keith Ventner said. "Especially the two percent that believed the United States was located on the map's color-coded inset legend. I think we as a nation likely could have done without seeing that." Disappointing? That is the understatement of the year or the man is totally disillusioned by earlier polls about the intellect of real Americans.
When asked to reveal the identity of the giant America-shaped landmass found on the map, several of those polled were decidedly varied in their answers. So they know nothing and even that they don't know.
"That thing definitely looked familiar," said autoworker and father of three Ed McConnell. "And my gut told me there were probably a whole bunch of Americans there. So I had to go with 'Iraq.'" Imagine, that man has to raise three kids!
Other guesses as to the nature of the mystery country included "Hollywood," "Palestine," "The Shire," and "Club Med Punta Cana."
It is the same stupidity you find with Stuart Weiss, senior sociology professor at Boston College. He said although these findings may be surprising to some, they're by no means atypical. "The sentiment of many Americans is that there's little intrinsic value in studying a map of a place you're already at," noted Weiss. "It'd be like driving to Graceland and then asking for directions once you've arrived. Not much point." What this professor not understands is that the real Americans who are driving to Graceland don't know where they are at the moment of arrival if they don't ask a stranger or a Democrat. Well, it's not a very difficult study, sociology and if you are graduated at the wanted level, you don't need brains anymore, but Shirley Matheson, a part-time Arby's employee, residing in Dayton, Ohio, agreed with Weiss's assessment. "I live in the USA, so why would I need to know where America is? Or the United States for that matter? As long as there's still room on that map for all three of those countries, I'm sure everyone will keep getting along just fine."

Really officials think that this stupidity makes the USA more safe. The Department of Homeland Security sees the Gallup/Harris poll results as a blessing in disguise. According to Secretary Michael Chertoff, the nation would be better off if these numbers skewed even higher. "Personally, I believe if fewer people in this world could spot America on a map, we'd have a much better chance of avoiding national tragedies like 9/11," said Chertoff. "You can't attack a country you can't find." Yes, but that's counting for real Americans, bur strangers know better. The terrorists in Mumbai knew where they wanted to be and how to come around being there and do the job. Of course Michael Chertoff is also a Republican, so he doesn't know the problem and doesn't know that.
Of the respondents who actually were capable of pinpointing America on the map of America, their accuracy decreased considerably with each additional query about the country. Asked for the name of the capital of the USA, those polled placed Washington DC, fifth behind "Minneapolis-St.Paul," "Mount Rushmore," "America City," and "Whitewater."

Despite Americans' seemingly underdeveloped sense of their own geography, history and domestic policy, they did score high points on the issue of patriotism, calling America "the greatest country in the world" (47%), "the best state of all the Unites States" (31%), and "a place definitely to explore when I finally get my passport" (22%).
Is there a border, perhaps over the horizon to Gods Own Party's stupidity?
Cruel, cruel readers. Everyone is sending their favorite blogger links to this recent episode of The View, in which four women babble inanely about something or other. In this case, it's evolution. Do you like to see me suffer? This was horrible.

OK, Whoopi Goldberg is wishy-washy, rather than stupid: she argues for some vague kind of deistic intervention at the big bang, then evolution is the mechanism for creating life. Elisabeth Hasselbeck, though - allow me to paraphrase - 'really cool handbags and shoes have, like, designers, so really cool people must have a designer too, even greater than Gucci and Prada.'
Oh wait, that's not new. That's the same old argument the ID creationists have made all along. Here. The rest of you can suffer and despair of humanity now, too.
Elizabeth Hasselbeck Uses Handbags to Prove God's Existence (Seriously)

Do It Your Way: Muxes of Mexico

Mexico can be intolerant of homosexuality; it can also be quite liberal. Gay-bashing incidents are not uncommon in the countryside, where many Mexicans consider homosexuality a sin. In Mexico City, meanwhile, same-sex domestic partnerships are legally recognized — and often celebrated lavishly in government offices as if they were marriages.
But nowhere are attitudes toward sex and gender quite as elastic as in the far reaches of the southern state of Oaxaca. There, in the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán, the world is not divided simply into gay and straight. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, which they call “muxes” (pronounced MOO-shays) — men who consider themselves women and live in a socially sanctioned netherworld between the two genders.

“Muxe” is a Zapotec word derived from the Spanish “mujer,” or woman; it is reserved for males who, from boyhood, have felt themselves drawn to living as a woman, anticipating roles set out for them by the community.

Anthropologists trace the acceptance of people of mixed gender to pre-Colombian Mexico, pointing to accounts of cross-dressing Aztec priests and Mayan gods who were male and female at the same time. Spanish colonizers wiped out most of those attitudes in the 1500s by forcing conversion to Catholicism. But mixed-gender identities managed to survive in the area around Juchitán, a place so traditional that many people speak ancient Zapotec instead of Spanish.
Not all muxes express their identities the same way. Some dress as women and take hormones to change their bodies. Others favor male clothes. What they share is that the community accepts them; many in it believe that muxes have special intellectual and artistic gifts.

Every November, muxes inundate the town for a grand ball that attracts local men, women and children as well as outsiders. A queen is selected; the mayor crowns her. “I don’t care what people say,” said Sebastian Sarmienta, the boyfriend of a muxe, Ninel Castillejo García. “There are some people who get uncomfortable. I don’t see a problem. What is so bad about it?”
Muxes are found in all walks of life in Juchitán, but most take on traditional female roles — selling in the market, embroidering traditional garments, cooking at home. Some also become sex workers, selling their services to men. .
Acceptance of a child who feels he is a muxe is not unanimous; some parents force such children to fend for themselves. But the far more common sentiment appears to be that of a woman who takes care of her grandson, Carmelo, 13.

“It is how God sent him,” she said.

More:

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