• turdas@suppo.fi
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      5 days ago

      Like any good conspiracy theory, it has a grain of truth in it.

      We really do live in a world full of unnatural endocrine disruptors and their use has drastically increased over the past several decades (though it’s unlikely there’s a conspiracy to deliberately poison people, or frogs, with them), and endocrine disruptors really do fuck the body up in all sorts of fascinating ways.

      That article says so too:

      In contrast to claims about chemicals in the water, the effects of hormones on sexual orientation appear to occur at the prenatal stage, during organization of the brain.[16] Endocrine disruptor exposure during fetal development has been shown to affect sexual differentiation of the brain in animals,[4] however any effect on human sexual orientation or gender identity requires further research.[4][3]

      • jaybone@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        5 days ago

        There is definitely a grain of truth behind this, which is actually even funnier than whatever Alex Dumbass Jones spun it into.

        On my phone so I can’t look this up, but it was the CIA or the pentagon, who found some researchers who were studying this in frogs. They gave them a very small grant. Something like $100,000 which is pretty fucking small for a military research grant. They thought they could use this in Iraq to make the enemy gay, and like stop them from fighting by having gay sex with eachother.

        • SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          5 days ago

          It still baffles me that they thought being gay would render the opponent completely helpless because obviously “gay men can’t help but fuck each other constantly”.

      • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        5 days ago

        huh, i just read an NIEHS report on endocrine disruptors. (this is very much not my field, this question probably exposes that). I wonder why they include phytoestrogens but not corticosteroids. pretty sure corticosteroids fuck up the endocrine system (very badly), just they’re generally administered by doctors, not the environment or in your food.

        • turdas@suppo.fi
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          5 days ago

          No idea, but if I had to guess, corticosteroids break down so quickly that it’s rare to be exposed to them inadvertedly.

          • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            5 days ago

            well i mean NIEHS is the national institute of Environmental health science, so it makes sense why they’d focus on environmental causes rather than MD causes. just, it feels like an intentional oversight.

  • baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    5 days ago

    atrazine is an endocrine disruptor and has caused frogs to become hermaphroditic, at least according to the researcher who was witch hunted by syngenta

    it’s also banned in many other countries

      • iocase@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 days ago

        The very word “conspiracy theory” lends credence to your theory

        (Conspiracy theory is a word made up by the CIA to make legitimate and well reasoned ideas critical of the government sound ridiculous, and be grouped in with flat earthers or vaccine deniers)