This is a bit of a retcon but another thing that indirectly got me interested in deCODEme was this episode of This American Life (Why yes, I have been listening to a lot of podcasts at work..) entitled “Testosterone”.
The episode uses testosterone as a thread to tie together stories of uncomfortable encounters with masculinity at the workplace, in the home, and in the mind.
The entire episode is worth listening to, but two chapters stick out. One is the story of Griffin, who was born a woman and during college started taking enough testosterone for “two linebackers” and started living as a man. He narrates the changes that take place in his mind and body, and feeling suddenly uncomfortable with the unfamiliar experience of being aroused by everything, even a photocopier.
The other chapter I want to highlight is an experiment done by Ira Glass and the other staff at the show. They each agree to have their testosterone levels measured, they talk about who they think will have the highest levels, and give personal reactions to finding out their own levels, and who ‘won’. “This whole thing is going to lead to heartbreak, somehow”, says one of the producers. The chapter is built around the predictions of testosterone rankings based on the social knowledge that the staffers had of each other, and the data extracted from their hormone measurements.
Personal genomics sites like deCODEme emphasize that more self-knowledge is better. Whether it is eye color or Alcohol Flush Reaction or ancestry, the marketability of the service depends on being able to make the case that total genetic self-knowledge is possible, at least in theory, and that having this knowledge can improve quality of life and make us all happier. But there is another dimension to this, which can be seen in how the This American Life staff react to the testing results.
The man who comes out with the highest testosterone levels is “a gay Canadian Jew living in Manhattan” which messes with a lot of preconceptions that the staffers had, and inspires the women in the room to cheer, which both mocks the test’s claim to truth and pokes fun at the damaged masculinity of the male contingent.
While the self-knowledge of personal genomics is undoubtedly a large part of its appeal, I think that, like the TAL staff and the testosterone tests, the attraction and the freeplay in gene testing is in the way that knowing something ‘for sure’ simultaneously opens up a space where anything could happen. The interplay of gene and circumstance, of molecular biology and molar ecology make one only crudely and artificially separable and distinguishable from the other. The gene or the hormone are like foils to the “real I” in a narrative of identity, in that their power and meaning lie in the way they define what could or perhaps should have been. The idea of the gene can only ‘ring true’ because it is the truth that can never be completely contained within itself, but only with reference to the “real I”, and because it troubles the “I” as it resonates.
