#brain gender

[myragewillendworlds]

Thoughts on “male” and “female” brains having been debunked?

Nothing has been "debunked".

Brain sex theory doesn't state that brains are fully male or female. It covers the theory that there is a neurological basis for feeling like a man or a woman, based in many findings that show how certain areas in the brain are sexually dimorphic; notably, areas involved in the brain-body connection. Meaning, the brain regions responsible for your ability to recognize your body as being your body, show male and female patterns, like how much of the human body does.

Research into transsexual brains has shown that in their brains, these regions fall within the pattern of the sex they identify themselves with, possibly explaining why transsexualism exists. For this reason, and other well-documented scientific findings, organizations involved with transgender health such as the Endocrine Society have come forward with the statement that gender identity has a biological basis [summary] [full source].

I honestly don't know just how insanely many times I have received this exact question over the years, but I do know none of you actually read any of the research covering the subject of brain sex theory before arriving at these braindead takes.

[deliriums-den]

For a while now, I've been contemplating the idea that trans people fit under the umbrella of intersex, since they have a different gendered brain than their body, and thus have traits from both sexes.

Obviously as a cis person (even one who's detransitioned) I don't know what it's like actually being trans, so I wanted to know if any transgender people have thought about this before, and what your opinion on it is.

[offmyterf]

Gender brain differences are real, but we should interpret them with caution.

In other words, male and female brains are more similar than different.

Nothing here said that brains have a "gender" that can be found in the opposite sex.

Also, brains are plastic and will mould and shape to societal expectations or desires on the part of the individual.

Smaller brain does not equal dumber. They found that women outperformed men in science when the women were not exposed to sexist expectations while growing up.

Men have a larger amygdala, but women who become mothers tend to have an activated amygdala for the rest of their lives. Women have more grey matter. It's possible smaller brains have more grey matter to compensate.

Racists and sexists are just losers. Ignore them. Be confident. Follow your dreams with sense and determination, and be a good person. That's how you do well in life.

[myragewillendworlds]

I'm sure the position statement links to some good research

Heres an example of a good study, a meta analysis that accounts for the observed differences in brain volume between males and females, the results were mostly in an age group of 18 to 45, which im sure u understand is larger

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763413003011

As you can see, males in this study do have slightly larger overall volume, and some regional difference are found with wide 95% cl.

I'm sure given ur neuroscientific understanding that we cannot attribute all those differences solely to sex, as ages is a large bracket, and education, nutrition, stress and other nature factors aren't accounted for

Heres your further reading:

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001253

Dr rippons research has delved further into the intersection of lgbt based neuroscience research and issues with the presentation and interpretation of ns, have fun!

"I'm sure the position statement links to some good research"

I assume this is sarcasm indicating you did not read anything, while fully expecting me to read your links. This is what the very vast majority of people trying to debate me have done over the years, so I expected nothing more from another person who refuses to engage me off anonymous. You're just another biased individual refusing to read anything while claiming to want a debate.

The meta-analysis you provided states the following things:

Sex differences in brain structure are a product of the interaction of biological and environmental influences on brain development (McCarthy and Arnold, 2011). Animal studies have shown that (prenatal) hormones (Arnold and Breedlove, 1985, Phoenix et al., 1959), sex chromosomes (Arnold and Chen, 2009, De Vries et al., 2002), and the immune system (Lenz et al., 2013) all have early roles in the development of neural sexual differentiation. In addition, brain development is also influenced by factors such as sex-biased gene expression (Kang et al., 2011), steroid hormones (Giedd et al., 2012), early life programming such as prenatal nutrition/starvation (DeLong, 1993, Heijmans et al., 2008), stress and maternal infections (Bale et al., 2010), and postnatal factors such as early child care (Center on the Developing Child, 2012, Cicchetti, 2013, Rutter et al., 2003).

We found that across a wide age range, from newborns to individuals over 80 years old, differences in overall brain volumes are sustained between males and females. On average males have larger ICV (12%), TBV (11%), Cb (10%), GM (9%), WM (13%), CSF (11.5%) and Cbl (9%) absolute volumes than females. In addition, the ‘mature’ (18–59 years old) age category is best represented with by far the largest number of studies across all volumes and may thus have skewed the meta-analytic results.

Evidently, brain sex differences can be found between males and females. I'm not particularly shocked to hear that starvation and other medical factors could have an effect on a developing brain. The fact of the matter remains however that many factors do result in brain sex differences. How does this disprove the possibility of a transsexual brain, and how would this prove the possibility of a third sex option existing in human beings, physically or neurologically? At no point did this paper debunk the former, or raise the possibility of the latter.

The second link is a discussion article, that makes some solid points about a few studies, but is not in and of itself proof that brain sex theory is entirely false. It's also not irrelevant to mention that three of the four authors have written books actively speaking out against brain sex theory in name of feminism, interestingly including D. Joel, the head researcher of the "mosaic brain" paper that essentially claimed to disprove brain sex theory, a claim that has been debunked and criticized [1] [2] [3] [4]. As you said: remember to read the response papers!

At what point will you be providing evidence for a human third sex?

[terflies]

On Transmedicalism, and its Lack of Support from Brain Sex.

Says @the-defiant-pupil​, before blocking me:

All of your conclusions are wrong because you don’t understand transexuality. I’m tired of constantly typing this out so I’m just going to copypaste this:

Transexuality is caused by the wrong brain sex (which is the biological shape of one’s brain). All human brains have a map of the body - it tells the brain how many limbs it has, how many fingers and toes, how many eyes, where your nose and mouth are, et cetera. It also tells it about other parts of your body such as what primary and secondary sex characteristics you should have. In 99.4% of the population, there’s no problem here.

In 0.6% however since the wrong brain sex developed, the brain expects the sex characteristics of the other gender. For example, a FtM expects a penis, testicles, broad shoulders, a deep voice, more body hair, et cetera. However when the brain realizes it doesn’t have these things, it gets distressed and causes a disconnect - this is what gender dysphoria is. This means that being trans and having gender dysphoria goes hand-in-hand: you can’t have one without the other.

Additionally the sources that don’t specifically mention trans people are about brain sex as a whole. They are provided because tucutes do not believe in the proven scientific fact that brain sex exists. Therefore the sources are provided in order to prove the fact that brain sex exists to begin with. That’s where the studies proving the wrong brain sex is what causes transexuality then come in.

Blocking me is fair enough, but this blog is about dishonesty so here we go:

Transsexuality is possibly caused by a wrong brain sex. Science has yet to reach a consensus on this or on brain sex (or brain gender) in general. It’s a controversial topic, and presenting this as “proven scientific fact” is a outright lie—even some of the sources @the-defiant-pupil​ cites in (alleged) support of transmedicalism admit that brain sex/gender and the aetiology of being trans are far from conclusively known.

Even assuming brain sex is real, determines gender, and causes someone to be trans, whether this “disconnect” (which is not, by any medical definition, dysphoria) causes distress (which is dysphoria) directly and in all cases is precisely the point of contention. It is dishonest to conclude this a priori to support the claim “you can’t have one without the other”. That is precisely the claim transmedicalism must prove.

Notwithstanding that brain sex is not conclusively proven or understood, the evidence and arguments for and against the notion (or somewhere in between) are not denied by “tucutes” or non-dysphoric, trans people, nor does this group have a homogenous opinion on the matter at all.

That the “wrong brain sex is what causes transsexuality” is a moot point unless that gender dysphoria is a necessary consequence of having the “wrong” brain sex can be demonstrated.

This argument is either utterly dishonest or scientifically illiterate. Not only does it present brain sex as a proxy for a causation between being trans and gender dysphoria (the actual point of contention) but it mischaracterises the opposition to transmedicalism (“tucutes”) as opposed to this proxy.

No amount of evidence for a biological basis of gender can support transmedicalism (“dysphoria is a necessary consequent of being trans”) without establishing a necessary connection between biological basis and dysphoria.

[myragewillendworlds]

(about the brain sex thing) imagine someone who identifies as male, but with what would be called a "female brain" (or a brain with a female pattern). He identifies as male but wouldn't the pattern determine that his gender is female? Is the "power" of that pattern so big that it always determines the gender? Sorry and thanks in advance

These sort of hypotheticals don’t really make sense.

The simplified version of these brain sex studies is that they’ve found there to be clear male and female ranges in certain brain structures, from male and female test subjects. Now in (untreated) transsexual brains, they find some of these structures to fall within the range of the gender they identify with – transsexual women’s brains falling within female ranges and vice versa for transsexual men.

There have been no findings of a person having X ‘brain sex’ and Y ‘identity’. By what we know, this is a nonsensical “what if” to ask. It’s a bit like someone explaining how PTSD affects the brain and then asking “what if someone had a PTSD brain but no PTSD?” They have the “PTSD brain” because they developed PTSD. It’s inherently linked.

(though mind you that in the PTSD analogy it’d work the other way around – PTSD causing neurological changes, versus neurological differences presumably causing the transsexual identity)

You probably need to let go of how social media has defined “identifying as male/female” and think of it as “feels ‘normal’ in a male/female body” (normal meaning: acceptance of the sex of one’s body, no painful discomfort or feelings of dissociation). You can then more clearly see the link between those brain bits related to the connection with your body, and the actual physical sex of your body.

[karen-marie-world]

(via TEDxJaffa -- Daphna Joel -- Are brains male or female? - YouTube)