The news media are often slow on adopting correct terminology for phenomena with which they have insufficient experience.

Case in point:

Male fish are turning into females thanks to chemicals from birth control pills and makeup being flushed down drains, according to a new study.

The study of freshwater fish in Britain found a fifth of males are now showing feminine traits — including producing eggs, a reduced sperm count and less aggressive behavior — due to gender-bending chemicals found in the contraceptive pill, cleaning agents, plastics and cosmetics, the Telegraph reports.

The chemicals causing these effects include ingredients in the contraceptive pill, by-products of cleaning agents, plastics and cosmetics, according to the findings.

Or, you know, they might just be ungodly perverts, as many right-wing Christianist may opine.

Professor Charles Tyler, of the University of Exeter, presented his findings in a key-note lecture at a symposium in early June. He will explain that the offspring of such "transgender" or "intersex" fish can also be more sensitive to the effects of these chemicals in subsequent exposures.

We are showing that some of these chemicals can have much wider health effects on fish that we expected.

Using specially created transgenic fish that allow us to see responses to these chemicals in the bodies of fish in real time, for example, we have shown that oestrogens found in some plastics affect the valves in the heart.

--Professor Tyler

More than 200 chemicals from sewage plants have been identified with oestrogen-like effects and drugs such as antidepressants are also altering fish's natural behaviour, his study found.

Other research has shown that many other chemicals that are discharged through sewage treatment works can affect fish, including antidepressant drugs that reduce the natural shyness of some fish species, including the way they react to predators.

--Professor Tyler