Sexual Dimorphism and Transgenderism

[IndigoChild5559]

I have often brought up (based on my memory of reading studies) two points on this topic.


The first is that our brains are sexually dimorphic, meaning that there are differences between men and women in terms of size, number of neurons (especially related to white matter), the difference in size for various brain structures (in particular, the amygdala, hippocampus, and corpus callosum), and differences of where particular thoughts are in men versus women.


The second is that the brains of transgender individuals incline towards the sex they identify with, rather than the sex assigned at birth. These studies control for different things such as making sure not to use brains that may have been altered by hormone therapy, and some studies looking at sex differences that occur in the fetus, before the subjects are conscious enough to express their preferred gender.


The following peer reviewed journal article looks the results of a great many studies on this topic, and then summarizes the conclusions. I think this is called a meta study.

Brain Sex Differences Related to Gender Identity Development: Genes or Hormones?

The complex process of sexual differentiation is known to be influenced by biological and environmental determinants. The present review has the aim of summarizing the most relevant studies on the biological basis of sexual development, and in particular, ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Pogo]

I have often brought up (based on my memory of reading studies) two points on this topic.


The first is that our brains are sexually dimorphic, meaning that there are differences between men and women in terms of size, number of neurons (especially related to white matter), the difference in size for various brain structures (in particular, the amygdala, hippocampus, and corpus callosum), and differences of where particular thoughts are in men versus women.


The second is that the brains of transgender individuals incline towards the sex they identify with, rather than the sex assigned at birth. These studies control for different things such as making sure not to use brains that may have been altered by hormone therapy, and some studies looking at sex differences that occur in the fetus, before the subjects are conscious enough to express their preferred gender.


The following peer reviewed journal article looks the results of a great many studies on this topic, and then summarizes the conclusions. I think this is called a meta study.

Brain Sex Differences Related to Gender Identity Development: Genes or Hormones?

The complex process of sexual differentiation is known to be influenced by biological and environmental determinants. The present review has the aim of summarizing the most relevant studies on the biological basis of sexual development, and in particular, ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Oh boy, I can't wait till certain people get a hold of this and start arguing for immutable sex roles and whatever they come up with to "correct the deviants"

 

[Quintessence]

It's almost like biological sex is a complicated and messy spectrum rather than a rigid binary, which means our way of thinking about it is also in part a social construct just like gender is . . .

Sorry, I shouldn't get flippant on this topic. It's just old hat to me as someone who is both a biologist and has done sensitivity trainings. All categories and labels humans put on stuff - doesn't actually matter what it is we are talking about - are constructs. The raw data isn't, but the moment one starts organizing things into categories and labels there's an element of subjectivity and judgement put into play there. Since doing this is more or less inevitable, what one wants to do is mindfully construct the buckets so they make sense for a specific purpose or intention (while realizing these buckets will not work or make sense for other purposes).

When it comes to biological sex in humans, there's a heck of a lot more overlap than not. Biology in general is just messy, complicated, and will defy human attempts to confine it to rigid categories. For better or worse, when students learn biology in high school or earlier, this is not what is taught. Students get a simplified presentation of how biology works because that makes it easier to understand and learn when new to the discipline. One could say that we are lied to, but that's perhaps a crude way of putting it. Once you start learning about how sex works in other organisms, and how complicated it actually is in humans as well... haha. Hahahah! Yeah.

You stop believing the "baby's first biology lesson" that biological sex is a binary real quick.

 

[Heyo]

One could say that we are lied to, but that's perhaps a crude way of putting it.

It's the simple and short form for beginners. Teachers lie constantly. Take maths. First you learn that you can't take away from something that isn't there. Then you are introduced to negative numbers, and now you can take away from something that isn't there. Then you learn division, but some numbers can't be divided, so you get a rest. Then you are introduced to fractions, and now you can divide all numbers. Then you learn taking roots, but you can't take roots from negative numbers ...

 

[Pogo]

It's the simple and short form for beginners. Teachers lie constantly. Take maths. First you learn that you can't take away from something that isn't there. Then you are introduced to negative numbers, and now you can take away from something that isn't there. Then you learn division, but some numbers can't be divided, so you get a rest. Then you are introduced to fractions, and now you can divide all numbers. Then you learn taking roots, but you can't take roots from negative numbers ...

i ...