Mandyland

If you want to sit in on a class presentation on the research related to bisexuality please listen to this podcast! Vanessa is a MicroMasters student (part of the Centre for Applied Neuroscience MicroDegree in Psychological Neuroscience) supervised by me, Mandy Wintink. This week’s seminar class was on Sex and Gender and Vanessa’s topic was “Bisexuality” and she presents on the topic according to the guiding questions that provoked the research (see below). The other voices you can hear are that of the other MicroDegree students.

Vanessa chose to do bisexuality because it is often considered a hidden sexuality because those who are bisexual are often seen as heterosexual if they are in a monogamous opposite-sex relationship or gay if they are in a same-sex relationship, neither of which can feel complete for someone who is bisexual. Through her research, Vanessa discovered that bisexual erasure is prevalent and so is bisexuality as well. In fact, some statistics show that bisexuality is the majority of the LGTB2QS community.

Word of wise: You may want to slow this episode down to .75 speed because Vanessa and her brain present very fast…

Resources:

Kinsey Scale

Rosa Diaz’s Comes Out on Brooklyn Nine-Nine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDGkCeElzhM

Guiding Questions for the MicroDegree Topic of Sex & Gender:

Choose a topic within the realm of sex, gender, or any sex-linked behaviour and learn about some aspect of neuroscience related to it. Some examples may include: sex, gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, gendered toys/clothes/behaviours, gender identity, gender expression, transgender, development, sex roles, gender/sex stereotypes, etc.

Answer These Questions to the Best of Your Ability:

Describe the topic that you chose in general terms.

Why did you choose this topic and/or what interested you about this topic?

Can you describe the public's general understanding or thinking associated with this topic?

[How] does this topic relate to the concept of binary/non-binary categorization.

Choose Whichever Of The Following Apply To Your Topic:

What are the neuroscience issues surrounding this topic?

Is there a neuroscience explanation/description for the phenomenon you are talking about?

What brain mechanisms or neurochemicals are associated with your topic?

Has your topic ever been considered a "disorder" or "disease"?

Are there known sex differences related to your topic?

How might our understanding of this topic change if we took a non-binary understanding approach to it?

Answer These Too Please:

What do you think is important information that the general public should know about this topic, as far as you can tell?

What was the most important thing you learned about this topic?

What was the most random/novel thing that you learned about this topic?

Now that you have done your research... and hopefully come out of the custard... choose any 5 of these questions to answer for your presentation.

I reflect on two examples of people asking for money, one good, one not-so good.

Dawn has spoken before about her sever mental health issues (e.g., Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, and Major Depressive Disorder). She works with a psychiatrist, is on medication, and is on permanent disability and unable to work. Today, she shares with an acute stress reaction she recently had and aims to get some perspective on it. She had approached me to do a live coaching session. The video associated with this session will also be released soon.

If you have benefited in anyway from this conversation, please consider saying thank you with a donation to Dawn’s fundraising campaign, available here: https://paypal.me/pools/c/8gwKm78eZx. Dawn is under serious financial stress and would appreciate any help she can get. It took a lot of creativity and courage for her to launch this campaign. Please consider a donation of any amount. Nothing is too small and the more people contribute the more we can keep her sharing her story.

Truth be told, Mandyland is not my main gig. I actually run a company on the side. ;) The Centre for Applied Neuroscience is where I do most of my work as a life coach, life coach trainer, and a neuroscience workshop leader in organizations. I founded the company in 2010 and now have 7-8 people working for me part-time. During this team meeting, we brainstormed our mission and corporate philosophy and present it to our clients, potential clients, and friends of Mandyland as part of our “openness” mandate.

To read what we came up with based on that conversation head to our About Us page here: http://www.knowyourbrain.ca/about.

Just a little recap of my experience with season two and forecasting what to expect for season 3.

In case it interests you, look into the MicroDegree mentioned in this episode: http://www.knowyourbrain.ca/microdegree

A year ago Mike was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma, a cancer of the kidneys. He had surgery 6 months later. His experience was, on paper, great because everything went medically well. But his patient experience made him think very deeply about how to improve the cancer patient experience. Mike is the Design Director at Healthcare Human Factors, a consultancy through University Health Network in Toronto. He is fortunate to be in a position to rethink and design cancer care and he’s doing that now. Here we talk about his experience, which laid a foundation for rethinking cancer care!

We spoke earlier this season about getting the diagnosis. You can listen to that episode here: http://www.mandyland.ca/the-podcast/2018/8/28/mike-has-cancer-s2e1

Vanessa, who recently came out as Polyamorous, is questioning whether identifying a sexual orientation is enough to really capture all the nuances of romantic relationships. So we discuss… and that obviously brings up a discussion about gay versus bisexual and gender and labels in general.

Resources:

Living Apart Together: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/child-poverty-john-cleese-mail-paid-sick-leave-revolution-baby-living-arrangements-episode-3-1.2905289/living-apart-together-1.2905290

Chosen Family: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcasts/chosen-family/

The MicroDegree that Vanessa is doing (with Me!): http://www.knowyourbrain.ca/microdegree

Pets: We love them dearly, oftentimes more than the humans in our life. When they leave us it is one of the hardest things to experience. It’s been 2 days since we said goodbye to our amazing dog Jett. It hurts like hell. I miss her dearly. I will love her forever. I want her to come back.

Sarah just got news that one of her tumours (a liver tumour) shrunk! Yay! It appears to be from the radiation she had back in March, which is welcomed news after being a bit confused as to what the initial report meant. She shares this with us today in context with the past 5 days of the perpetual roller coaster she is on. We end with a little life coachey-rest officer discussion about how she is planning to manage her energy for an upcoming trip to Australia.

Tackling the science of [heterosexual] love is an interesting endeavour indeed. Lauren starts us off with the idea of three phases of love (lust, attraction, and attachment), the hormones and neurotransmitters associated with some of these phases, differences between men and women* and an evolutionary perspective on love. We then spend a good deal of time talking about attachment and what that kind of love means in parenting and with pet animals. We even talk about how the brain is affected by a break-up. Unfortunately, all we covered was heterosexual love. 

*although I (Mandy) believe in the non-binary nature to sex and gender, the scientific literature lags behind and often discusses sex differences exclusively between men and women.