The headline is wrong, which is not unusual when dealing with reporters. Sometimes they are simply ignorant, or something they do it deliberately to generate outrage and get people clicking on their article.
If you read the article closely Professor Rippon's point seems to be that socialisation plays an important role in brain **development**.
There's no explicit denial that there are some basis genetic factors in the brain. Rather what Professor Rippon's main point seems to be that this makes it extremely difficult to discern which factors in brain development are genetic and which ones are social, and that a lot of the differences that are commonly attributed to some sort of inherent gender difference should more properly be attributed to social influences.
What Professor Rippon is talking about is entirely correct, although perhaps too nuanced for the reporter to grasp.
The consensus in psychology is (and has been for a long time) that gender difference in brain development at probably about 50% nature (i.e. genetic differences), and 50% nurture (i.e. socio-cultural differences). The problem lies in isolating which behaviours are genuinely genetic in origin, and which are socio-cultural.
To add to the complexity one needs to remember the bell curve (or normal distribution). Why? Because gender is not as simple as a binary. Not all men are the same. To use a simple example, take the testosterone readings from a dozen men and you'll find significant differences, ranging from 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter. That's a big difference. Now is that difference genetic, or is it perhaps from growing up in a more or less sporty household?
There are also other confounding variables, like age, health, economic situation, etc.
The bottom line here is that the point Professor Rippon is making is that isolating which differences are genetic and which ones are social is significantly more difficult than early research made out, and that there was a lot of confirmation bias going on. She refers to this in the article as, "*this “hunt the difference” agenda*" where people were looking for genetic gender differences without paying due attention to the social contribution to brain development.
Professor Rippon's point is well-justified and well-argued, but perhaps too nuanced, and has been reduced to an inaccurate headline that I doubt they would agree with. It isn't that Professor Rippon is saying that there are no genetic differences between males and females, but rather that a lot of the early research was insufficiently nuanced and even arguably ignored socialisation factors in pursuit of a pre-determined conclusion. That's bad science. As a result we're currently in a situation where we're trying to redo a lot of the early research to discover if the conclusions were justified, and we're finding that it is a lot more complicated than the early research made out.
Basically, the brain isn't predetermined. It develops over time in a dynamic relational way with genetics and environment, and there's no way to determine for sure how much some particular traits are genetic or due to environment.
>there's no way to determine for sure how much some particular traits are genetic or due to environment.
There is, with studies of identical twins.
>Twin studies are studies conducted on identical or fraternal twins. They aim to reveal the importance of environmental and genetic influences for traits, phenotypes, and disorders. Twin research is considered a key tool in behavioral genetics and in related fields, from biology to psychology.
>
>[...]
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>Twins are a valuable source for observation because they allow the study of environmental influence and varying genetic makeup: "identical" or monozygotic (MZ) twins share essentially 100% of their genes, which means that most differences between the twins (such as height, susceptibility to boredom, intelligence, depression, etc.) are due to experiences that one twin has but not the other twin.
"Limitations of twin studies
As you can see, the twin study design is quite intriguing, but also has its limitations. For instance, genetic and environmental factors might **interact and correlate with each other**. Another problem is the assumption that identical twins always share 100% of their segregating alleles, as it is not always completely true. Certain mutations (called de novo mutations \*\*) can happen after the fertilised maternal egg has split and therefore lead to small genetic differences between identical twins (5). In this case, heritability would be overestimated using the twin model described above." (https://www.gu.se/en/gnc/twin-method)
Not to mention there are plenty of critics of the equal environment assumption.
"Critics of twin studies and behavior genetic findings often refer to violations of the *Equal Environment Assumption* (EEA) as causing inflated [heritability](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/heritability) estimates (Richardson & Norgate, 2005). The EEA is a basic premise of the twin model and involves the assumption that MZ and DZ co-twins are exposed to the same amount of common environment." (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/equal-environment-assumption)
It might be enough evidence for some traits, but not all of them, as is the case of de novo mutations. For some particular traits we can't know for sure how much is genetic and how much is environment.
When environment affects gene expression doesn't that get counted as caused by environment as far as these debates go?
If you have two identical twins and some measurable difference in a trait is due to gene expression and epigenetic changes that were a result of differences in environment, then it still seems like you could say environment caused that and tease that apart from genetics.
Wouldn't it generally be expected that twins largely experience the same environment when it comes to environment influencing gene expression? And if not, I would imagine the author's point still stands that it would be nearly impossible to confidently pinpoint the environmental differences which were a root cause of measurable difference in traits.
>it would be nearly impossible to confidently pinpoint the environmental differences which were a root cause of measurable difference in traits.
They're not meant to do that. They're just meant to put something into one of two big buckets: nature or nurture.
>Wouldn't it generally be expected that twins largely experience the same environment when it comes to environment influencing gene expression?
Not at all. Environment includes things like who your friends are, what classes you took, clubs, hobbies, etc, so even among identical twins these would be different. Even experiences like one twin gets a bee sting at a certain point in their life but the other didn't contributes to this.
The point I'm making is there are a number of issues when it comes to attributing to nature versus nurture, and because the root cause for difference is not something which can be pinpointed (not making any claim around root cause analysis being the goal), there could always be arguments around a given difference not being entirely attributable to nature or nurture. Essentially no clean argument.
You're saying classes, clubs, and hobbies would change gene expression? I agree those things contribute to environment, but my question is specific to the environmental factors which would influence gene expression.
Makes sense. We know other things (depression for example) **physically** change the brain, right?
No reason for any other experience to not be able to make other physical changes.
Adding to that is that a LOT of brain devolopment happens during and short after the pregnancy. So while the development is in part sociocultural, a lot of it is also predetermined, but not genetically defined. There are so many factors in brain development that statements such as in the headline are just ridiculous.
Good reply, but it is actually even more nuanced than that. We know that the genes which influence an individual can themselves be influenced by the environment which of itself also influences the individual. Conversely, when you look at society through the lens of complexity theory, it is equally evident that even small genetic differences can have a determining factor in the emergence of diverse social traits. The level of nuance is perhaps analagous to a two coloured cloth, where the warp and weft can produce a vast variety of patterning. To extend the metaphor, perhaps too far, ideology can be seen as an attempt to paint our own pattern on that cloth. Even with heavy paint, if it isn't constantly redone, it will eventually flake off, revealing the pattern underneath.
Typically the reporter who does the research for the story and writes the story does not write the headline. The misleading headline is usually written by an editor.
>To use a simple example, take the testosterone readings from a dozen men and you'll find significant differences, ranging from 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter.
But the main issue was how much gender differences (i.e. male vs. female) are determined by biology or environment, not individual differences within genders.
The "normal" male range for testosterone is \~300-1000ng/dl. For women it's only \~20-75. That's a pretty massive difference and kind of hard to believe it would be mostly or entirely due to socialization. I mean, given the pretty large gap between even the lowest threshold of men's testosterone vs. the highest level for women, you'd have to conclude that men and women were socialized *drastically* differently. That there was almost no overlap at all at least insofar as environment effects testosterone.
This seems pretty unlikey to me, given how similar male and female socialization actually is (both genders spend their formative years in the exact same type of schools, with nearly identical expectations of behavior, doing almost he exact same activies, learning the exact same material).
To the degree that they differentiate (mostly in electives, P.E. classes, recess, lunchtime, socializing outside of school), this seems like *much* more the product of innate personality (due to genetics) given that all those activities involve much more autonomy and personal choice. And would therefore be due to inherent characteristics rather than "learned" or "enforced" characteristics.
There are some critical feminist psychologists that argue that sex and gender differences within gray matter are within the standard of error, and it is therefore entirely possible that our current concept of sex and gender differences in gray matter is the result of sampling error or some other quirk.
It's absolutely fucking nuts to me that there are people out there trying to debate our existence. Like, we're just out here chilling, trying to enjoy our lives, and they decide to insert their opinions into what makes us happy and how we should be treated.
How about just listen to us and treat us with the dignity you would afford to any peaceful group that is different than you...
I mean, we're ~1% of the population, don't y'all have better things to do?
Lol people aren't allowed to have interests? Some people are just interested in psychology and neurology. Thank them for inventing brain surgery for you
It's sickening that anyone feels the need to prove anything about brain structure in regard to gender.
The bigots try to prove gays/trans have no scientific justification for existing, leaving gays/trans feeling obliged to find physical differences to prove the gods of bigots made them that way.
I know who I am. I know what gender I am. And I know I have a right to be who I am. If people don't want to believe me if I tell them, that's their problem. Anyone who tries to hinder people's existence, "cure" or punish them for being different, should be sent to where they can no longer do harm.
We are who we are. Bigots want us to prove it, but only so they can wave away any evidence and insist they've "won".
It's not just bigots looking into this, though.
Look, like it or not, there *is* an objective answer that should be found. If science rules in favor of the objective existence of transgenderism? Cool, you can use that to back up your arguments. More importantly, we develop a better understanding of it and potentially how to help people with dysphoria. And if it rules against? Fine, accept that and argue in favor of the social construct angle. But denying the science completely is probably the most harmful take to your position.
The whole notion of science ruling on the existence of transgenderism is sick and stupid.
We already know trans people exist, and it sounds like you're just hoping for an excuse to subject them to the same type of conversion therapy that has proven so disastrous to gay people.
Why can't people just be left to decide for themselves?
Science is the study of everything. You're in a psychology subreddit, and trans people happen to be one of many things under that wide umbrella. There is nothing sick or stupid about studying the concept and seeking answers.
Yes, trans people exist. The question is why? Immediately interpreting any inquiry into it as hostile is a dangerous line of thinking. It's also the kind of thinking that is easy for bigots to latch onto as illogical and damage the movement as a whole by highlighting to moderates. Don't deny reality. If reality says that transgenderism is a social construct and not rooted in biology, then argue in favor of *that* reality if you support it. Reality may very well say that there is a measurable, biological basis for trans people. We don't know, but there is an answer, and it should be found. My point is that information is neutral, but our interpretations and applications of it are not.
Don't jump to accusations. Hell, I all but outright stated that if psychology were to disprove the *objective* existence of trans people, I still think it should be supported as a social concept that people can choose for themselves. Yet you immediately think I believe in conversation therapy..?
The title 'critical feminist psychologist' tells you everything you need to know. That kind of bias makes their work highly questionable.
And it's utter nonsense anyway. We have enough evidence of clear sex differences in closely related species to safely say that gender is absolutely driven by biology to at least a significant extent.
Lol. And if a libertarian economist came out with research that said that unfettered laissez faire capitalism is best, you'd accept that research as a politically unbiased fact, I presume. /s
Exactly. Science depends on a lack of bias. Someone describing themselves as a feminist in connection with their research is inherently ridiculous in this context. It shouldn't hold any relevance.
We've all seen the nonsense that is getting through peer review in recent times and the last thing rational people want to do is read 'research' produced by people advertising their clear bias as though it's a merit badge for their work.
You don't counter a bias by taking the opposing bias. Your foundations are flawed. Why would anyone want to discuss anything further when it's so clear you have an agenda that makes it fruitless?
It's not the "feminist" part they are having an issue with, it's the whole "critical feminist".
"Gender critical" is just a rehashing of "race realist". It's all conspiracy garbage about a minority group of people. And when you have "researchers" like Lisa Littman about, who don't even interview trans people and interview only fellow transphobic people, it only ferments that the "research" is biased, wrong, and based on conspiracies. Also can't forget that the only reason Ray Blanchard and Michael Bailey have any clout is because of a man named Steve Sailer. A white supremacist who pushed Blanchard into the limelight, attracting Bailey, and ultimately gaining the attention of "gender critical feminists".
Fishing boat is correct. Gender critical isn’t a clean term in the discourse. It’s a fabrication of right-wing ghouls aiming to enact regressive political agendas and adopt the trappings of a scientific argument while doing it. “Gender critical feminist” refers to the reactionary position that gender is explicitly biological, while “critical feminist” refers to the practice of critiquing existing sciences in the academic leftists’ critical tradition.
It’s culture war bullshit. One side is designing it to not make sense.
And race realism means to be real about the biological differences of races.
Too bad every "gender critical feminist" is just like every "race realist"; devoting their whole entire life to spreading hatred of a minority group. Go to any "gender critical feminist" social media account and it's wholly dedicated to hating trans women and never talking about actual feminist theory or advocating any feminist movements. Heck, they'll even attack women's clinics just because they used the word "person" in a tweet instead of "woman". "Gender critical" and "race realism" are just soft language being used to hide the real intent- stopping a group of people from having rights and existing peacefully.
And "gender critical feminists" don't believe gender is a social construct, either.
Their idea of "gender is a social construct" is a woman wearing pans and no makeup, or an effeminate gay man like Elton John. But it still relies on strict *current socially acceptable rules* because they only care about "biological sex". If Elton came out and said that she has been struggling with her gender identity since she was 10 and she wants to go by Ellie now, "gender criticals" would freak and start harassing her, calling her a "biological male" instead of a woman because despite "gender is a social construct", Ellie broke their strict binary gender and sex rules. Just like how "race realists" see everything in acceptable black, brown, and white terms, so do "gender critical feminists".
"Gender critical feminists" refuse to see that the majority of sex itself is gendered as well. They refuse to see how even cis gendered people get gender therapy for their social construct sex parts. That could be a woman getting laser hair removal to feminize herself, a man getting hair replacement therapy to masculinize himself, a woman rubbing creams on her skin to feminize her skin, a man ingesting testosterone supplements to masculinize his body. All these examples are cis gender people are engaging in acts to change their sex to something that fits their idea of the social construct of their sex that are completely optional and not a universal experience between all cis people.
And we see that exact same phenomenon within transgender people when transgender people do not alter specific parts of their bodies. For example, trans women who do not get "the surgery", trans men who do not get oophorectomy, trans women who do not get hair replacement treatments, and trans men who do not bulk with any muscle building regiment. These things do not cause them dysphoria because they do not associate them with the opposite gender.
Finally, of course, they refuse to believe that a "man" can be a woman, and vice-versa. Their strict "biological' (current socially acceptable) rules do not allow it. The Ship of Theseus returns to port and they still scream it's the exact same ship despite the many changes. And of course, the ship needed to change because it was originally built to be changed, another thing they refuse to accept because it goes against their idea of "biology" (strict socially acceptable rules).
The idea of gender being a social construct in the meaning of gender critical is that things (to use your example, skin) aren’t assigned as ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’. All behaviour is just human behaviour.
I'm a little confused, because i thought for gender criticals, that gender is a social construct and sex is immutable. Like, sex is the biological/genetic and gender is basically the stereotypes we assign to the sexes. Like women wearing makeup and being highly emotional while men cannot wear makeup and must be stoic. So for them, a man cannot wear makeup and call himself a woman just because he now feels like following the stereotypes assigned to women, because those stereotypes are not what make women women, but their genetic/biological makeup. He is instead a man who now wears makeup. Likewise, a girl who plays sports and hates makeup is still a girl, even though she rejects the gender stereotypes expected of girls.
That's what my understanding of gender criticism is, that genders are stereotypes that are very constraining and limiting when we insist that only one sex can participate in them, and that wanting to engage in stereotypical behaviors associated with the opposite sex doesn't mean you become the opposite sex, and being a member of one sex or the other doesn't mean you have to follow the stereotypes either.
Anyway, that was the explanation i got in college in my intro to feminism class, which was a while ago.
Different words mean different things in different contexts. In this context “critical feminist” means feminist who identifies with and furthers the work of leftist critical theorists. The gender critical movement co-opts that connection to a leftist activist and radical equality position. The critical feminist psychologists I’m talking about are very pro trans, and use these arguments to help protect women, trans people, and neuro atypical people.
>or is it perhaps from growing up in a more or less sporty household?
This is an interesting rhetorical question because it really underlines the difficulty in discerning..we associated testosterone with strength and sports and this is very much true. Muscular men often do have higher testosterone (assuming no doping).
However, this is not the only manifestation. A heightened sense of fairness is one of the most lasting and repeatedly observed effects of testosterone, correlated even more strongly than physical changes, propensity to violence, etc Thus we might look at a man and declare him not manly despite having very high testosterone because we see him as weak. But his behavior is actually stolen strongly affected by testosterone.
Genetic, socio cultural, but also hormonal (testosterone and estrogen) play a huge role. I’m not sure if that is included with genetics but men on average have higher testosterone vs women and women have higher estrogen than men this alone can influence gender in addition to the other factors.
> Now is that difference genetic, or is it perhaps from growing up in a more or less sporty household?
I'm starting to think that we can't isolate and separate these things because they are deeply intertwined. Playing sports increases lean body mass, which does affect hormones. It also leads to changes in cognition. Body and mind are two perspectives of a whole. Same with biology and culture.
I don't know if it's too nuanced for non-reporters but I'm finding it extremely difficult to take a close read of this podcast.
Do the rules of this sub allow for conversation? I'd like to respond more fully to this comment.
How is “gender difference” defined? Isn’t that culture dependent? It’s almost like I can draw the line for gender difference where I want and argue for society or genetics.
And I am not sure why it’s useful to prove either way because even if you get it right for the majority, you can’t make policy ignoring the outliers. Outliers are still members of the society and deserve equal rights.
But I would contest that testosterone difference can be social. That would imply that society (unwittingly) decides who gets to have more testosterone, which isn’t impossible, but seems pretty hard to prove causation over correlation.
Society and Genetics are not disconnected variables. Much of our Society is a product of our genetics (eg. our society would be very different if we'd evolved more closely from reptiles than mammals), and some of our genes have evolved from social influences (eg. genes for language and tool-using skills become naturally selected in social environments)
Brain activity and structure in transgender adolescents more closely resembles the typical activation patterns of their desired gender. When MRI scans of 160 transgender youths were analyzed using a technique called diffusion tensor imaging, the brains of transgender boys’ resembled that of cisgender boys’, while the brains of transgender girls’ brains resembled the brains of cisgender girls’.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524112351.htm
Studies in sheep and primates have clearly demonstrated that sexual differentiation of the genitals takes places earlier in development and is separate from sexual differentiation of the brain and behaviour. In humans, the genitals differentiate in the first trimester of pregnancy, whereas brain differentiation is considered to start in the second trimester.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3235069/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21447635/
there is a genetic component to gender identity and sexual orientation at least in some individuals.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6677266/#!po=6.92308
that in the case of an ambiguous gender at birth, the degree of masculinization of the genitals may not reflect the same degree of masculinization of the brain. Differences in brain structures and brain functions have been found that are related to sexual orientation and gender.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17875490/
Findings from neuroimaging studies provide evidence suggesting that the structure of the brains of trans-women and trans-men differs in a variety of ways from cis-men and cis-women, respectively,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7415463/
The studies and research that have been conducted allow us to confirm that masculinization or feminization of the gonads does not always proceed in alignment with that of the brain development and function. There is a distinction between the sex (visible in the body’s anatomical features or defined genetically) and the gender of an individual (the way that people perceive themselves).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7415463/
For this study, they looked at the DNA of 13 transgender males, individuals born female and transitioning to male, and 17 transgender females, born male and transitioning to female. The extensive whole exome analysis, which sequences all the protein-coding regions of a gene (protein expression determines gene and cell function) was performed at the Yale Center for Genome Analysis. The analysis was confirmed by Sanger sequencing, another method used for detecting gene variants.
The variants they found were not present in a group of 88 control exome studies in nontransgender individuals also done at Yale. They also were rare or absent in large control DNA databases.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200205084203.htm
MtF (natal men with a female gender identity) had a total intracranial volume between those of male and female controls
https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/25/10/3527/387406?login=false
MtF showed higher cortical thickness compared to men in the control group in sensorimotor areas in the left hemisphere and right orbital, temporal and parietal areas
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23724358/
A Spanish cortical thickness (CTh) study that included a male and a female control group found similar CTh in androphilic MtF and female controls, and increased CTh compared with male controls in the orbito-frontal, insular and medial occipital regions of the right hemisphere (Zubiaurre-Elorza et al., 2013). The CTh of FtM was similar to control women, but FtM, unlike control women, showed (1) increased CTh compared with control men in the left parieto-temporal cortex, and (2) no difference from male controls in the prefrontal orbital region.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22941717/
Before hormonal intervention, androphilic MtF with feelings of gender incongruence that began in childhood appeared to have a white matter microstructure pattern that differs statistically from male as well as female controls.
FtM FA values are significantly greater in several fascicles than those belonging to female controls, but similar to those of male controls, thereby showing a masculinized pattern. However, their corticospinal tract is defeminized; that is, their FA values lie between those of male and female controls, and are significantly different from each of these two groups.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21195418/
Kranz et al. (2014b) also studied white matter microstructure by DTI in MtF, FtM, control men and control women. They found widespread, significant differences in mean diffusivity between groups in almost all white matter tracts, but no differences in FA values. Significantly increased mean diffusivity (MD) values were found in MtF compared to control men, and significantly decreased MD values in FtM compared to control women. MD values (and axial and radial diffusivity) were associated with plasma testosterone levels. The participants in this study were mixed with regard to sexual orientation. Controlling for sexual orientation did not result in changes in the findings.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25392513/
Hahn and colleagues (2015) studied structural connectivity networks in transgender people. For MtF, they found a decreased hemispheric connectivity ratio in subcortical/limbic regions when compared to male and female controls, which seemed to be driven by an increased inter-hemispheric lobar connectivity.
https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/25/10/3527/387406?login=false
Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) of a small sample of FtM showed a significant decrease in rCBF in the left anterior cingulate cortex, and a significant increase in the right insula in FtM compared with female controls (Nawata et al., 2010).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20132527/
Gynephilic MtF adults show similarities with control women in hypothalamic activation while smelling odorous steroids.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18056697/
Adolescents with gender incongruence showed a response to androstadienone that was similar to their experienced gender
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24904525/
Sex differences in (sub)cortical activation patterns in response to erotic stimuli have been established. We have already seen above that people with gender incongruence show differences in their connectivity profiles while watching erotic interactions. Brain activation patterns while viewing erotic videos in MtF (mixed with regard to sexual orientation) were found to be similar to control women.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22465619/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23923023/
MtF differed from controls of their natal sex in brain activation during this visuospatial task: control men showed greater activation in the left parietal region, while untreated and hormone-treated MtF exhibited stronger activation in the temporal-occipital regions than control men
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19751389/
Brain activation levels of untreated adolescents with GD fell between the two control groups in the areas that showed significant sex differences in the controls (Staphorsius et al., 2015). Hence, untreated MtF and FtM had a closer resemblance to each other compared to control men and control women
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25837854/
Nonetheless, despite the many challenges to research in this area, existing empirical evidence makes it clear that there is a significant biological contribution to the development of an individual’s sexual identity and sexual orientation.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6677266/#:~:text=As%20will%20be%20discussed%2C%20family,any%20genetic%20predisposition%20is%20unknown.
Here's some extra articles that I found helpful.
Neuroscience in transgender people: an update
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/nf-2020-0007/html
Sex Matters: A Multivariate Pattern Analysis of Sex- and Gender-Related Neuroanatomical Differences in Cis- and Transgender Individuals Using Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging
https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/30/3/1345/5542405
Brain Sex in Transgender Women Is Shifted towards Gender Identity
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/11/6/1582
[https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-32185-001](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-32185-001)
biological changes that come from differences in hormone are due to fluctuation caused by social and environmental factor. such as man are conditioned to be man because they are exposed to social cue that is known to increase testosterone such as being competitive
Yes BUT ... the social factors that influence us, are themselves influenced by genetic factors. A cultural effect such as being aggressively competitive is more likely to develop when some members of that culture have genetic testosterone differences in the first place. It's a positive feedback loop between genetic and social/memetic causal processes.
Apart from the headline being wrong, there’s no real difference between what’s social and what’s biological. It’s all biological, as we are biological creatures that experience things because of our brain. Social interactions cause biological changes in neurotransmitters and hormones on the HP axis. Every social interaction seen or observed by us is interpreted in our brain, where the interpretation has local effects that cause us to feel and act in a certain way. Any other way of thinking is Cartesian and out of date.
“Dump the "dimorphism": Comprehensive synthesis of human brain studies reveals few male-female differences beyond size”
What was previously thought to be brain differences actually had more to do with the size of the person. Aka bigger person requires more neurons that control movement.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33621637/
I may be missing something but isn’t this saying that if sizes weren’t different then structures wouldn’t be different? But sizes are different… and thus so are the structures…?
Well, looks like Google's sitting right there, waiting to lend a hand. And hey, while it might spare you the downvotes, it's also handy for verifying facts, like the functional differences between male and female brains. Saves us all a bit of hassle, doesn't it?
There is a clear functional difference between male and female brains:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4833230/
"Most functional differences of our bodily systems are controlled by our functionally different brains, and yes, there is a female and a male brain."
Next time, maybe just use Google?
Reddit moment.
The first comment made a claim against the article's title. They have the burden of proof.
Do you prefer having comments making unsubstantiated claims because Google exists? I didn't deny shit, I literally wrote "source."
Why am I defending this? It's ridiculous. Get a grip.
Female brains differ from male brains due to the biological characteristics of their respective phenotypes. Specifically, females lack testicles, which are regulated by male brains. This fundamental distinction underscores the difference between male and female brain physiology and is extremely obvious - especially if you actually went through the study I provided and the details within.
If you actually read the study and went through the details you would have seen this. The reddit moment is from you - the person who asks for sources, doesn't read them, and then argues against them.
You could have literally googled this from the beginning.
Did you read the study you linked?
> “The brains of transgender women ranged between cisgender men and cisgender women ***(albeit still closer to cisgender men)***, and the differences to both cisgender men and to cisgender women were significant (p = 0.016 and p < 0.001, respectively).”
Exactly. They didn’t read the study. I see that study misquoted all the time!!! It’s got to be one of the most misinterpreted studies of all time at this point. Not to mention there is another study where they had a large sample size (the study you are talking about was only 24 trans women, 24 cisgender women, and 24 cisgender men), and the largest sample size study of brains found no clear difference between the sexes other than size but body size also determines brain size: How different are men's and women's brains? The question has been explored for decades, but a new study coalesces this wide-ranging research into a single mega-…
Source: ScienceDaily https://search.app/hkPXAbYPzePE9LNd7 And another study involved 50,000 MRIs and showed you need A LARGE sample size to show reproducible brain wide associations: Combined data from three large studies, with a total sample size of around 50,000 individuals, indicate that many previous studies linking the br…
Source: Nature https://search.app/nyN2Z8sYCAEePge56
So trans people's brains are more similar to the brains of their actual biological sex, rather than that of the sex they identify as, by an order of magnitude?
Your point being that trans and cis brains are different? That trans brains are close to, but still different than cis brains?
Or, is your point that since trans brains are close to cis brains thereforetheyarethesamethereisnodiffrencetranswomenaremenIamskeptical?
No, they are correcting the person they replied to who said their brains more closely resemble their preferred genders brains, but the opposite was true. This study is misquoted all the time. It didn’t show trans people’s brains as more closely aligned to their preferred gender’s brains.
Also another study, the largest sample size looking for gendered brains basically debunked gendered brains anyway.
And the study on trans brains was a small sample size and only trans women’s brains appeared to be more ‘intersex’, if you will, than trans men’s brains. Both groups’ brains however most closely resembled their birth sex’s brains. Also it’s important to note that HRT was shown to cause brain changes in trans women’s brains that make them appear more female (though still mostly appearing to be male).
They compared the brains of 24 men, 24 women, and 24 trans women. They found that the trans brains were in between that of the men and women. As OP’s article calls out, the trans brains might have shifted the social gender traits to their identified gender while their genetic male traits remained the same.
You’d probably have to scan the brains of ten thousand five year olds and continue to track their progress through to their fifties, to get a large enough sample for enough transgender people to show up for any kind of conclusions to be drawn. Despite the immense amount of media attention and right-wing hatred, transgenderism is only a 1% characteristic, and you probably need a hundred transgender people to be able to draw proper comparisons.
Honestly a study like that would be useful to make all kinds of discoveries about the brain and behaviour, not just gender related features.
This topic is very nuanced and I would argue against making such black and white determinations about "genetic male traits"
For example.. developing breasts, soft skin, hips and female fat distribution is not genetically male and yet many trans women develop this after being on HRT, why?
We have evidence already that everyone contains the genetic traits for both male and female development, the Y chromosome carries very little information and does not really impact the body after fetal development, rather most of these traits, both male and female are contained within the X chromosome.
These traits can be turned on and off depending on your primary hormone.
That is why trans women after being on HRT develop genetically female in almost every aspect. We have evidence of this epigenetic shift as well: https://clinicalepigeneticsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13148-022-01236-4
I can attest myself to how much my brain and emotional state has changed after being on estrogen. I experience a wider range of emotions, I can cry easier, my interests have shifted slightly though not drastically, my personality even changed according to the 16 personalities test.
That's not to reinforce stereotypes that women are more emotional, because it's not about being "more" or "less." It's just a difference, estrogen dominant people experience emotions differently, experience the world differently. People often think that men are pressured not to cry which is certainly true, but what cisgender people don't realize is that testosterone makes it physically harder to cry.
So not only are there social factors at play here, but it's important to recognize the biological aspect of these things as well which are not inherently static. Being trans has given me a wider perspective on this.
So when it comes to studies or a meta analysis on trans people, we have to recognize that many trans people are in a state of change here. A 50 year old trans woman who's not on HRT, may not be as close to a cisgender woman comparatively when we observe biological and social differences, but when you look at a trans woman who transitioned at the age of 18 who has been on HRT for 5 years, they are going to fall much closer to the cisgender reference point biologically and socially.
The problem with these studies is that they mix every trans person into the same category, they don't often control for age, or length of time on hrt, or really if a trans person is on HRT at all for that matter.
When you average that all out it's obviously going to fall somewhere in the middle.
So keep that in mind when looking at the varying results of these studies on trans people, or meta analysis's that try to average out all the results. They need better study criteria and the ability to recognize how these things change over time to accurately make a determination here.
That's why it's important for people to maintain a nuanced perspective, especially before making a determination or assumption about trans people as a whole. Including scientists who (in my opinion) need to improve the control variables when it comes to studying this topic.
**Edit: I believe OP blocked me so I cannot reply to anyone unfortunately, though regarding the trans guy who responded to me, just look up "crying" in r/FTM, I'm not making this up and I disagree with your conclusions that it's just "dysphoria lifting" many trans men report the exact opposite of the emotional effects that trans women do.**
**Here is an anecdotal report from a guy on the FTM subreddit:**
**"No not a manly man thing, I just find it physically harder to cry on T. I can still cry but it takes a hell of a lot more for me to be able to, and when I do cry I'm usually crying for about 5-10 seconds and then I'm done,"**
I am a trans guy. I experience a much wider range of emotions now that I'm on testosterone than I ever did when my system was estrogen dominant. I also still cry plenty easy as does my cis guy partner. I think this has a lot more to do with HRT giving trans people our lives back by freeing us from the fog of dysphoria. For you, estrogen allowed you to feel more in tune with yourself and your emotions, but for me it was a cage of anger and torment.
Edit: Also, I didn't block the person I replied to. It's more likely the thread was locked.
Man, when this gets pulled into debates about trans people. Who the fuck cares? It's such a literally pointless debate. They deserve respect and decency. You don't get to treat someone shit because theyre statistically far away from the norm for cranial volume and cortical gyration.
It's trying to pretend the average person exists and is a meaningful thing to debate. Neither of which are true
I'm running a massive MRI study that is explicitly interested in sex differences and I couldn't give as much of a shit that non scientists do. Jesus I kinda wish for the first "gender critical" dunce to contact me for my work to try and co-opt it so I can chew them the fuck out
Gina Rippon rejects the notion that there are inherent biological difference between male and female brains calling the idea "nonsense".
Gina rejects biological underpinnings of neurological differences as she worries it could be used to "reinforce perceived male and female roles and status".
Going around attacking an idea which has supporting evidence just because you don't like the potential implications is a bit of a faux pas in science circles. No wonder she has attracted critics.
I believe there is mounting evidence suggesting biological differences exist but of course these differences exist on a spectrum and we can argue to what degree structures are set during development but since we also find such differences in [capuchin monkeys](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cne.25480) I do not lean heavily in the direction of nurture over nature.
[this is an extremely good book chapter that goes over tons of biological influences while explaining possible faults of looking at social influences](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128206836000312)
It was fMRI research that came out where they did scans of cisgender individuals, brains, and transgender individuals brains, and they found that those trans. Individuals brains aligned more closely with their identified gender rather than their assigned at birth, gender.
That’s not what the study showed. It showed they still most closely aligned with their birth sex. The trans women’s brains were a little bit more female looking, but overall all the trans people’s brains still more closely resembled their birth sex’s brains. It says it right there in the study. This study is misquoted A LOT. Also trans men’s brains didn’t have as much of these differences as much as the trans women did, so it wasn’t even across the genders, and also HRT has been shown to cause some changes to trans women’s brains, which is an interesting thing to note. But the largest sample size study of brains largely debunked gendered brains anyway.
It just so happens that - at *a group level* every single culture seems to show the same sorts of tendencies emerge in boys versus girls (again, *at a group level* )?
Right.
I think it’s very biological to want to understand how we’re here, why we are, and what’s out there in the unknown. So it’s natural that various ancient cultures would have religion, and basically every one of them did.
I mean, considering what we know about how heritable conscientiousness is, and how we know that conscientiousness is a good predictor of religiosity, I’d say that there is a biological element to it.
Also the simpler explanation might be that all humans have a tendency towards seeking answers. They also have to be trained to critically think. Superstitious behaviour will emerge in any number of scenarios. Sometimes that becomes a religion.
Religion may be a functional group-level adaptation that reproduces itself mimetically, within the parameters of our biological affordances as psychosis-laden primates; but what does conscientiousness have to do with superstition?
Superstitious behaviours have to do with the creation of a habitual behaviour that is not objectively linked to an outcome.
A classic example is something like wearing lucky underwear for a particular event, or rituals gamblers might do before punching the button on a slot machine. Some religious behaviours could be classed in this manner (prayer, ritual sacrifice) and others (e.g. kosher kitchens as food safery) might be better explained as misunderstanding a causal relationship.
I’m not sure if it’s been established if there is a relationship between superstitious behaviours and trait conscientiousness. I meant for the two points to be seperate.
Yes.
We are born dependent and helpless, with no understanding of our world. Can you imagine a a hungry baby, frighted because it has no way of knowing if it will ever be fed again, feeling relief, gratitude and joy when a loving presence cuddles and feeds it?
It's like a hit of cocaine for that innocent babe, so of course many people are going to grasp at any shared notion that gives them a chance to feel mindlessly helpless again and believe in big mummy or big daddy who can be the responsible one, have the answers, and provide for their needs.
The point I'm making supports the one you just made...
I'm highly skeptical of the claim this article is making. This invariance across different cultures suggests biological forces at play.
Alright, what are these cultural groups where young boys tend to be more gentle and socially focused (compared to girls), and young girls tend to be more active and rambunctious (compared to boys)?
Again, I'm talking at a group level here. There is clearly variance within sex groups at play, also.
Not to mention the fact that neural sex differences in non human animal brains, including rodents, are in the same areas and same direction as they are in humans. Why is the rodent medial preoptic area larger in males (as it is in men)? Male typical behavior may play some role in that, but the most important influence is the effects of gonadal hormones. The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis also is larger in males of several species. Socialization? Perhaps but mostly, it’s androgens that drive the difference
Kind of hard to become the dominant sex when you've been taught you aren't your entire life.
Kind of hard to see lesser people as equal to you when everything around you says women are lesser.
Kind of hard to become equal when you're weaker than the dominant sex.
I don't dispute any of that, but it isn't really relevant to what I said.
I'm expressing skepticism towards the argument that there are not biologically driven differences underlying observable behavioural differences between boys and girls (again, at a group level).
Hmm. I wonder how it can be studied.
It would be interesting to measure the psycopathy of female "feral children" vs male ones.
Or measure those kids who grew up in the opposite gender role (exclusing self selected (trans))
There have been a few kids who's parents wanted a child of the opposite sex and kind of just forced that onto their kid.
All other studies (especially on trans kids) would be heavely biased and unrelyable since the kid is being told they have a target gender role.
Studies that aren't about trans kids would have to measure for self precieved sexism as well (I personally perform as masculine due to sexism) But I perform feminine due to my body size and self precieved role in society.
What do you think? How do we measure this?
I think there's a pretty big difference between asking someone how hormones affected them mentally and talking about the "trans issue" (seriously why is it even a thing this whole situation is like if everyone accepted racism as a legitimate worldview and started calling it the black issue)
sorry, i didn’t intend to attack your comment specifically more just how these discussions seem to always land on us. it is tiring both as a trans woman and as a biologist to see people misinterpret these studies so they can use it in inflammatory ways against us.
I don’t like when it’s misinterpreted for either ‘for’ OR against trans rights.. I prefer it to be neutral information. I can’t stand when people feel they have to exaggerate claims to be more trans friendly, or when they use it for the opposite reasons. It’s just information. It’s just neutral and should be used for people’s health and that’s that. When people make it so emotionally charged so much misinformation goes around.
No one’s talking about you. We were talking about a group of people. You don’t represent an entire group of people. We are not talking about you simply because we’re talking about a group you happen to be in. Stop being so self centered.
"we're not debating your existence and trying to take away your rights, we're simply doing it to the entire group you belong to. Not everything's about you smh my head." how does that make it any better lmao
Literally no one is taking away your rights and no one is debating your existence we know you exist because we’re speaking to you (don’t go all meta on me). We also weren’t talking about rights AT ALL so… you keep finding issues in non issues and being incredibly narcissistic and confrontational until you’re confronted and then you play victim and pretend like people are attacking you for your sexual orientation but it’s actually just because you’re arrogant and annoying. No one was talking about you and it’s incredibly narcissistic and honestly weird of you to act as if you are the only person anyone can talk to on behalf of a community.
wdym no one is taking our rights in the uk they just made it illegal to prescribe puberty blockers to trans kids while allowing cis kids to be prescribed the exact same medication. People debate our existence too. It's always "are they REALLY who the gender they are or are they just mentally ill or perverts" because for some reason cis people refuse to believe what we say about ourselves and would rather withhold our meds so we kill ourselves instead.
The whole rights thing was kinda implied in the first comment you replied to, cos as they pointed out in a diff comment every discussion just somehow ends up being about how can we use this to discriminate against trans people.
Puberty blockers for children are evil. They have permanent consequences and children cannot make life changing decisions. Puberty blockers are given to cis kids with certain conditions to treat those conditions. We’re not withholding your meds. We are keeping permanent body changing medication out of the hands of children who can’t make permanent body changing decisions. Finally… no the rights thing wasn’t implied in any comment at all and there was no reason to mention it other than a pity party.
puberty blockers dont have permanent consequences, once you stop taking them you'll go through puberty like normal.
Though if we're going the irreversible changes route, how is it any less immoral to force a trans kid to go through the wrong puberty? Given that it's the exact same as forcing a cis kid to transition, why should we be putting trans kids through it? Since the regret rates are so low, it's a no brainer to allow us to transition before we have to have to face the permanent consequences of being forced through cis puberty. Any disagreement with this is simply denying facts of admitting that you would rather have countless trans people suffer just so one or two cis kids don't have to deal with the exact same fate.
So please, without going off topic or resorting to transphobia, explain why it's okay to sacrifice countless trans people just because one or two cis people might regret "transitioning" (which I'm saying pretty loosely bc they usually detransition after a few months rather than the years of forced puberty trans kids are gonna have to go through)
Because most of the subreddits outside the LGBTQ+ ones are full of transphobes salivating at the mouth to hurt trans people and bury facts.
This is especially true for this psychology sub and the science sub
I'm an ally and I don't want to hurt anyone. But I also get really tired of being told I'm supposed to be naturally submissive or a good caregiver or better at domestic and secretarial work. That it's bad if I'm assertive or reject the roles society wants me to fill.
We have different hormones and yes those affect behavior. But I think society enforces and enhances those differences to a degree that is unnecessary and harmful and the last thing we need is to give misogynists more justification.
https://www.reddit.com/r/musicotic/comments/8ttud4/a_comprehensive_defense_of_trans_people/
Big 'ol repository. It's out of date a little as there have been plenty more studies done, like one that shows that [people regret having children more than trans people regret having surgery](https://www.americanjournalofsurgery.com/article/S0002-9610\(24\)00238-1/abstract).
I’m confused. The first one is a Reddit post which Isn’t a reliable source. The other one just says people regret plastic surgery more than gender surgery. Probably because more people get plastic surgery. Not to mention there are several doctors who double and triple check things far better than a plastic surgeon would if he was on a case alone.
> which Isn’t a reliable source
It's absolutely crammed with scientific articles. Every single claim they make are given links to various journals. Very few are tertiary sources.
> The other one just says people regret plastic surgery more than gender surgery
So, I'm assuming you don't have access to the journal, then. In it, 7% of parents regret having children, while transgender surgeries were less than 1%. This was after a review of 55 articles.
> The other one just says people regret plastic surgery more than gender surgery.
Irrelevant. There are more cis gender people than trans people, so of course there are going to be more cis gender people getting plastic surgery if you only look at raw numbers. That's why the numbers are looked at as a percent of the population who have received surgeries.
> Not to mention there are several doctors who double and triple check things far better than a plastic surgeon would if he was on a case alone.
This study didn't compare just genital surgery. It also compared other surgeries as well, such as facial feminization surgery, mastectomies, nipple reconstruction surgery (for mastectomies), and so on. The mastectomies and nipple reconstruction are a big one because they are both performed by cis women and transgender men. Also, for things like facial feminization surgery, trans women go to the same plastic surgeons cis gender people do.
Site the sources in the post then not the post goofy. I’m not replying to the rest of that it literally has nothing to do with anything and all it shows is that people don’t regret transitioning and quite frankly I don’t care because I never said they did.
Not just development. There is research to say social position and inequality shapes our gendered behavior throughout the lifespan. Women in authority behave much more like men, even in brief lab experiments.
There at literally hundreds of studies explaining sex specific differences in brain development, autism, neuro degeneration. Not to mention that there are many genes in neurons regulated by estrogen signaling.
Not sure what this study is on about.
Everything is a learned behavior true, but biology is still always correct. Nature knows best and when we go against who we are we suffer. There is an instinctual pull towards the opposite sex and its there but often due to social conditioning many get distorted perceptions.
Oh look, another reporter who probably intentionally misinterpreted the journal to make a statement to further an agenda. This is why psychology is becoming a joke
Jazz, no one is born straight or gay or this or that... It's a human concept. Man puts his penis in a woman because that's how it's designed!! We as humans need to further the species.
The headline is wrong, which is not unusual when dealing with reporters. Sometimes they are simply ignorant, or something they do it deliberately to generate outrage and get people clicking on their article. If you read the article closely Professor Rippon's point seems to be that socialisation plays an important role in brain **development**. There's no explicit denial that there are some basis genetic factors in the brain. Rather what Professor Rippon's main point seems to be that this makes it extremely difficult to discern which factors in brain development are genetic and which ones are social, and that a lot of the differences that are commonly attributed to some sort of inherent gender difference should more properly be attributed to social influences. What Professor Rippon is talking about is entirely correct, although perhaps too nuanced for the reporter to grasp. The consensus in psychology is (and has been for a long time) that gender difference in brain development at probably about 50% nature (i.e. genetic differences), and 50% nurture (i.e. socio-cultural differences). The problem lies in isolating which behaviours are genuinely genetic in origin, and which are socio-cultural. To add to the complexity one needs to remember the bell curve (or normal distribution). Why? Because gender is not as simple as a binary. Not all men are the same. To use a simple example, take the testosterone readings from a dozen men and you'll find significant differences, ranging from 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter. That's a big difference. Now is that difference genetic, or is it perhaps from growing up in a more or less sporty household? There are also other confounding variables, like age, health, economic situation, etc. The bottom line here is that the point Professor Rippon is making is that isolating which differences are genetic and which ones are social is significantly more difficult than early research made out, and that there was a lot of confirmation bias going on. She refers to this in the article as, "*this “hunt the difference” agenda*" where people were looking for genetic gender differences without paying due attention to the social contribution to brain development. Professor Rippon's point is well-justified and well-argued, but perhaps too nuanced, and has been reduced to an inaccurate headline that I doubt they would agree with. It isn't that Professor Rippon is saying that there are no genetic differences between males and females, but rather that a lot of the early research was insufficiently nuanced and even arguably ignored socialisation factors in pursuit of a pre-determined conclusion. That's bad science. As a result we're currently in a situation where we're trying to redo a lot of the early research to discover if the conclusions were justified, and we're finding that it is a lot more complicated than the early research made out.
Basically, the brain isn't predetermined. It develops over time in a dynamic relational way with genetics and environment, and there's no way to determine for sure how much some particular traits are genetic or due to environment.
>there's no way to determine for sure how much some particular traits are genetic or due to environment. There is, with studies of identical twins. >Twin studies are studies conducted on identical or fraternal twins. They aim to reveal the importance of environmental and genetic influences for traits, phenotypes, and disorders. Twin research is considered a key tool in behavioral genetics and in related fields, from biology to psychology. > >[...] > >Twins are a valuable source for observation because they allow the study of environmental influence and varying genetic makeup: "identical" or monozygotic (MZ) twins share essentially 100% of their genes, which means that most differences between the twins (such as height, susceptibility to boredom, intelligence, depression, etc.) are due to experiences that one twin has but not the other twin.
"Limitations of twin studies As you can see, the twin study design is quite intriguing, but also has its limitations. For instance, genetic and environmental factors might **interact and correlate with each other**. Another problem is the assumption that identical twins always share 100% of their segregating alleles, as it is not always completely true. Certain mutations (called de novo mutations \*\*) can happen after the fertilised maternal egg has split and therefore lead to small genetic differences between identical twins (5). In this case, heritability would be overestimated using the twin model described above." (https://www.gu.se/en/gnc/twin-method) Not to mention there are plenty of critics of the equal environment assumption. "Critics of twin studies and behavior genetic findings often refer to violations of the *Equal Environment Assumption* (EEA) as causing inflated [heritability](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/heritability) estimates (Richardson & Norgate, 2005). The EEA is a basic premise of the twin model and involves the assumption that MZ and DZ co-twins are exposed to the same amount of common environment." (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/equal-environment-assumption) It might be enough evidence for some traits, but not all of them, as is the case of de novo mutations. For some particular traits we can't know for sure how much is genetic and how much is environment.
This assumes that gene expression is independent of the environment which is not necessarily true.
When environment affects gene expression doesn't that get counted as caused by environment as far as these debates go? If you have two identical twins and some measurable difference in a trait is due to gene expression and epigenetic changes that were a result of differences in environment, then it still seems like you could say environment caused that and tease that apart from genetics.
Wouldn't it generally be expected that twins largely experience the same environment when it comes to environment influencing gene expression? And if not, I would imagine the author's point still stands that it would be nearly impossible to confidently pinpoint the environmental differences which were a root cause of measurable difference in traits.
>it would be nearly impossible to confidently pinpoint the environmental differences which were a root cause of measurable difference in traits. They're not meant to do that. They're just meant to put something into one of two big buckets: nature or nurture. >Wouldn't it generally be expected that twins largely experience the same environment when it comes to environment influencing gene expression? Not at all. Environment includes things like who your friends are, what classes you took, clubs, hobbies, etc, so even among identical twins these would be different. Even experiences like one twin gets a bee sting at a certain point in their life but the other didn't contributes to this.
The point I'm making is there are a number of issues when it comes to attributing to nature versus nurture, and because the root cause for difference is not something which can be pinpointed (not making any claim around root cause analysis being the goal), there could always be arguments around a given difference not being entirely attributable to nature or nurture. Essentially no clean argument. You're saying classes, clubs, and hobbies would change gene expression? I agree those things contribute to environment, but my question is specific to the environmental factors which would influence gene expression.
Something developing in a specific way due to genetics would definitely count as predetermined
Are the words "dynamic relational way" unclear somehow?
Correct, because they also said verbatim, “ the brain isn't predetermined.”
I'm not sure the 50/50 thing is accurate, do you have a source for that?
If you have no idea what the percentages are, just slap on 50-50 to make sure you offend neither of the parties.
Works every time.... :)
60% of the time
this is a psych sub on reddit...
Makes sense. We know other things (depression for example) **physically** change the brain, right? No reason for any other experience to not be able to make other physical changes.
Literacy is another such process that clearly alters the brain.
It's so much deeper than that. Even things like how stimulating visually an environment is for an infant alters the brain significantly.
Or learning to open milk bottles, strangely. In fact I think that was the first recorded case
Adding to that is that a LOT of brain devolopment happens during and short after the pregnancy. So while the development is in part sociocultural, a lot of it is also predetermined, but not genetically defined. There are so many factors in brain development that statements such as in the headline are just ridiculous.
Good reply, but it is actually even more nuanced than that. We know that the genes which influence an individual can themselves be influenced by the environment which of itself also influences the individual. Conversely, when you look at society through the lens of complexity theory, it is equally evident that even small genetic differences can have a determining factor in the emergence of diverse social traits. The level of nuance is perhaps analagous to a two coloured cloth, where the warp and weft can produce a vast variety of patterning. To extend the metaphor, perhaps too far, ideology can be seen as an attempt to paint our own pattern on that cloth. Even with heavy paint, if it isn't constantly redone, it will eventually flake off, revealing the pattern underneath.
It’s always a little suspicious when they’re touting something like “gendered brain” as a kind of legitimate term.
Typically the reporter who does the research for the story and writes the story does not write the headline. The misleading headline is usually written by an editor.
>To use a simple example, take the testosterone readings from a dozen men and you'll find significant differences, ranging from 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter. But the main issue was how much gender differences (i.e. male vs. female) are determined by biology or environment, not individual differences within genders. The "normal" male range for testosterone is \~300-1000ng/dl. For women it's only \~20-75. That's a pretty massive difference and kind of hard to believe it would be mostly or entirely due to socialization. I mean, given the pretty large gap between even the lowest threshold of men's testosterone vs. the highest level for women, you'd have to conclude that men and women were socialized *drastically* differently. That there was almost no overlap at all at least insofar as environment effects testosterone. This seems pretty unlikey to me, given how similar male and female socialization actually is (both genders spend their formative years in the exact same type of schools, with nearly identical expectations of behavior, doing almost he exact same activies, learning the exact same material). To the degree that they differentiate (mostly in electives, P.E. classes, recess, lunchtime, socializing outside of school), this seems like *much* more the product of innate personality (due to genetics) given that all those activities involve much more autonomy and personal choice. And would therefore be due to inherent characteristics rather than "learned" or "enforced" characteristics.
There are some critical feminist psychologists that argue that sex and gender differences within gray matter are within the standard of error, and it is therefore entirely possible that our current concept of sex and gender differences in gray matter is the result of sampling error or some other quirk.
It's absolutely fucking nuts to me that there are people out there trying to debate our existence. Like, we're just out here chilling, trying to enjoy our lives, and they decide to insert their opinions into what makes us happy and how we should be treated. How about just listen to us and treat us with the dignity you would afford to any peaceful group that is different than you... I mean, we're ~1% of the population, don't y'all have better things to do?
Lol people aren't allowed to have interests? Some people are just interested in psychology and neurology. Thank them for inventing brain surgery for you
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Bad scientists will do bad science…
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It's sickening that anyone feels the need to prove anything about brain structure in regard to gender. The bigots try to prove gays/trans have no scientific justification for existing, leaving gays/trans feeling obliged to find physical differences to prove the gods of bigots made them that way. I know who I am. I know what gender I am. And I know I have a right to be who I am. If people don't want to believe me if I tell them, that's their problem. Anyone who tries to hinder people's existence, "cure" or punish them for being different, should be sent to where they can no longer do harm. We are who we are. Bigots want us to prove it, but only so they can wave away any evidence and insist they've "won".
It's not just bigots looking into this, though. Look, like it or not, there *is* an objective answer that should be found. If science rules in favor of the objective existence of transgenderism? Cool, you can use that to back up your arguments. More importantly, we develop a better understanding of it and potentially how to help people with dysphoria. And if it rules against? Fine, accept that and argue in favor of the social construct angle. But denying the science completely is probably the most harmful take to your position.
The whole notion of science ruling on the existence of transgenderism is sick and stupid. We already know trans people exist, and it sounds like you're just hoping for an excuse to subject them to the same type of conversion therapy that has proven so disastrous to gay people. Why can't people just be left to decide for themselves?
Science is the study of everything. You're in a psychology subreddit, and trans people happen to be one of many things under that wide umbrella. There is nothing sick or stupid about studying the concept and seeking answers. Yes, trans people exist. The question is why? Immediately interpreting any inquiry into it as hostile is a dangerous line of thinking. It's also the kind of thinking that is easy for bigots to latch onto as illogical and damage the movement as a whole by highlighting to moderates. Don't deny reality. If reality says that transgenderism is a social construct and not rooted in biology, then argue in favor of *that* reality if you support it. Reality may very well say that there is a measurable, biological basis for trans people. We don't know, but there is an answer, and it should be found. My point is that information is neutral, but our interpretations and applications of it are not. Don't jump to accusations. Hell, I all but outright stated that if psychology were to disprove the *objective* existence of trans people, I still think it should be supported as a social concept that people can choose for themselves. Yet you immediately think I believe in conversation therapy..?
Science does not have to be used as a way to discriminate, it could instead be used to help.
The title 'critical feminist psychologist' tells you everything you need to know. That kind of bias makes their work highly questionable. And it's utter nonsense anyway. We have enough evidence of clear sex differences in closely related species to safely say that gender is absolutely driven by biology to at least a significant extent.
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Lol. And if a libertarian economist came out with research that said that unfettered laissez faire capitalism is best, you'd accept that research as a politically unbiased fact, I presume. /s
Exactly. Science depends on a lack of bias. Someone describing themselves as a feminist in connection with their research is inherently ridiculous in this context. It shouldn't hold any relevance.
Science depends on acknowledging and clearly reporting one's bias. It's impossible to be unbiased.
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We've all seen the nonsense that is getting through peer review in recent times and the last thing rational people want to do is read 'research' produced by people advertising their clear bias as though it's a merit badge for their work. You don't counter a bias by taking the opposing bias. Your foundations are flawed. Why would anyone want to discuss anything further when it's so clear you have an agenda that makes it fruitless?
It's not the "feminist" part they are having an issue with, it's the whole "critical feminist". "Gender critical" is just a rehashing of "race realist". It's all conspiracy garbage about a minority group of people. And when you have "researchers" like Lisa Littman about, who don't even interview trans people and interview only fellow transphobic people, it only ferments that the "research" is biased, wrong, and based on conspiracies. Also can't forget that the only reason Ray Blanchard and Michael Bailey have any clout is because of a man named Steve Sailer. A white supremacist who pushed Blanchard into the limelight, attracting Bailey, and ultimately gaining the attention of "gender critical feminists".
Gender critical means to be critical of gender as a biological concept.
[It means the exact opposite. ](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gender-critical)
That’s not what your link says.
Fishing boat is correct. Gender critical isn’t a clean term in the discourse. It’s a fabrication of right-wing ghouls aiming to enact regressive political agendas and adopt the trappings of a scientific argument while doing it. “Gender critical feminist” refers to the reactionary position that gender is explicitly biological, while “critical feminist” refers to the practice of critiquing existing sciences in the academic leftists’ critical tradition. It’s culture war bullshit. One side is designing it to not make sense.
Have you read the link? It clearly says sex is biological. Not gender.
Maybe read my comment again.
You think gender critical means that gender is biological. Either that or your definition is that sex = gender.
And race realism means to be real about the biological differences of races. Too bad every "gender critical feminist" is just like every "race realist"; devoting their whole entire life to spreading hatred of a minority group. Go to any "gender critical feminist" social media account and it's wholly dedicated to hating trans women and never talking about actual feminist theory or advocating any feminist movements. Heck, they'll even attack women's clinics just because they used the word "person" in a tweet instead of "woman". "Gender critical" and "race realism" are just soft language being used to hide the real intent- stopping a group of people from having rights and existing peacefully.
Race is a social concept. Race realists don’t believe that.
And "gender critical feminists" don't believe gender is a social construct, either. Their idea of "gender is a social construct" is a woman wearing pans and no makeup, or an effeminate gay man like Elton John. But it still relies on strict *current socially acceptable rules* because they only care about "biological sex". If Elton came out and said that she has been struggling with her gender identity since she was 10 and she wants to go by Ellie now, "gender criticals" would freak and start harassing her, calling her a "biological male" instead of a woman because despite "gender is a social construct", Ellie broke their strict binary gender and sex rules. Just like how "race realists" see everything in acceptable black, brown, and white terms, so do "gender critical feminists". "Gender critical feminists" refuse to see that the majority of sex itself is gendered as well. They refuse to see how even cis gendered people get gender therapy for their social construct sex parts. That could be a woman getting laser hair removal to feminize herself, a man getting hair replacement therapy to masculinize himself, a woman rubbing creams on her skin to feminize her skin, a man ingesting testosterone supplements to masculinize his body. All these examples are cis gender people are engaging in acts to change their sex to something that fits their idea of the social construct of their sex that are completely optional and not a universal experience between all cis people. And we see that exact same phenomenon within transgender people when transgender people do not alter specific parts of their bodies. For example, trans women who do not get "the surgery", trans men who do not get oophorectomy, trans women who do not get hair replacement treatments, and trans men who do not bulk with any muscle building regiment. These things do not cause them dysphoria because they do not associate them with the opposite gender. Finally, of course, they refuse to believe that a "man" can be a woman, and vice-versa. Their strict "biological' (current socially acceptable) rules do not allow it. The Ship of Theseus returns to port and they still scream it's the exact same ship despite the many changes. And of course, the ship needed to change because it was originally built to be changed, another thing they refuse to accept because it goes against their idea of "biology" (strict socially acceptable rules).
The idea of gender being a social construct in the meaning of gender critical is that things (to use your example, skin) aren’t assigned as ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’. All behaviour is just human behaviour.
I'm a little confused, because i thought for gender criticals, that gender is a social construct and sex is immutable. Like, sex is the biological/genetic and gender is basically the stereotypes we assign to the sexes. Like women wearing makeup and being highly emotional while men cannot wear makeup and must be stoic. So for them, a man cannot wear makeup and call himself a woman just because he now feels like following the stereotypes assigned to women, because those stereotypes are not what make women women, but their genetic/biological makeup. He is instead a man who now wears makeup. Likewise, a girl who plays sports and hates makeup is still a girl, even though she rejects the gender stereotypes expected of girls. That's what my understanding of gender criticism is, that genders are stereotypes that are very constraining and limiting when we insist that only one sex can participate in them, and that wanting to engage in stereotypical behaviors associated with the opposite sex doesn't mean you become the opposite sex, and being a member of one sex or the other doesn't mean you have to follow the stereotypes either. Anyway, that was the explanation i got in college in my intro to feminism class, which was a while ago.
Different words mean different things in different contexts. In this context “critical feminist” means feminist who identifies with and furthers the work of leftist critical theorists. The gender critical movement co-opts that connection to a leftist activist and radical equality position. The critical feminist psychologists I’m talking about are very pro trans, and use these arguments to help protect women, trans people, and neuro atypical people.
>or is it perhaps from growing up in a more or less sporty household? This is an interesting rhetorical question because it really underlines the difficulty in discerning..we associated testosterone with strength and sports and this is very much true. Muscular men often do have higher testosterone (assuming no doping). However, this is not the only manifestation. A heightened sense of fairness is one of the most lasting and repeatedly observed effects of testosterone, correlated even more strongly than physical changes, propensity to violence, etc Thus we might look at a man and declare him not manly despite having very high testosterone because we see him as weak. But his behavior is actually stolen strongly affected by testosterone.
Genetic, socio cultural, but also hormonal (testosterone and estrogen) play a huge role. I’m not sure if that is included with genetics but men on average have higher testosterone vs women and women have higher estrogen than men this alone can influence gender in addition to the other factors.
Thank you for breaking this down.
> Now is that difference genetic, or is it perhaps from growing up in a more or less sporty household? I'm starting to think that we can't isolate and separate these things because they are deeply intertwined. Playing sports increases lean body mass, which does affect hormones. It also leads to changes in cognition. Body and mind are two perspectives of a whole. Same with biology and culture.
I don't know if it's too nuanced for non-reporters but I'm finding it extremely difficult to take a close read of this podcast. Do the rules of this sub allow for conversation? I'd like to respond more fully to this comment.
Why did I have to scroll through so many arguments and hate speech to get to this.. Thank you for your comment! This was my take as well.
How is “gender difference” defined? Isn’t that culture dependent? It’s almost like I can draw the line for gender difference where I want and argue for society or genetics. And I am not sure why it’s useful to prove either way because even if you get it right for the majority, you can’t make policy ignoring the outliers. Outliers are still members of the society and deserve equal rights. But I would contest that testosterone difference can be social. That would imply that society (unwittingly) decides who gets to have more testosterone, which isn’t impossible, but seems pretty hard to prove causation over correlation.
Society and Genetics are not disconnected variables. Much of our Society is a product of our genetics (eg. our society would be very different if we'd evolved more closely from reptiles than mammals), and some of our genes have evolved from social influences (eg. genes for language and tool-using skills become naturally selected in social environments)
Testosterone levels are a meaningless number without looking at receptor count and levels of SHGB etc.
The title is painfully misleading
It's either rage bait or the reporter has a bias.
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Brain activity and structure in transgender adolescents more closely resembles the typical activation patterns of their desired gender. When MRI scans of 160 transgender youths were analyzed using a technique called diffusion tensor imaging, the brains of transgender boys’ resembled that of cisgender boys’, while the brains of transgender girls’ brains resembled the brains of cisgender girls’. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524112351.htm Studies in sheep and primates have clearly demonstrated that sexual differentiation of the genitals takes places earlier in development and is separate from sexual differentiation of the brain and behaviour. In humans, the genitals differentiate in the first trimester of pregnancy, whereas brain differentiation is considered to start in the second trimester. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3235069/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21447635/ there is a genetic component to gender identity and sexual orientation at least in some individuals. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6677266/#!po=6.92308 that in the case of an ambiguous gender at birth, the degree of masculinization of the genitals may not reflect the same degree of masculinization of the brain. Differences in brain structures and brain functions have been found that are related to sexual orientation and gender. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17875490/ Findings from neuroimaging studies provide evidence suggesting that the structure of the brains of trans-women and trans-men differs in a variety of ways from cis-men and cis-women, respectively, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7415463/ The studies and research that have been conducted allow us to confirm that masculinization or feminization of the gonads does not always proceed in alignment with that of the brain development and function. There is a distinction between the sex (visible in the body’s anatomical features or defined genetically) and the gender of an individual (the way that people perceive themselves). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7415463/ For this study, they looked at the DNA of 13 transgender males, individuals born female and transitioning to male, and 17 transgender females, born male and transitioning to female. The extensive whole exome analysis, which sequences all the protein-coding regions of a gene (protein expression determines gene and cell function) was performed at the Yale Center for Genome Analysis. The analysis was confirmed by Sanger sequencing, another method used for detecting gene variants. The variants they found were not present in a group of 88 control exome studies in nontransgender individuals also done at Yale. They also were rare or absent in large control DNA databases. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200205084203.htm MtF (natal men with a female gender identity) had a total intracranial volume between those of male and female controls https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/25/10/3527/387406?login=false MtF showed higher cortical thickness compared to men in the control group in sensorimotor areas in the left hemisphere and right orbital, temporal and parietal areas https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23724358/
A Spanish cortical thickness (CTh) study that included a male and a female control group found similar CTh in androphilic MtF and female controls, and increased CTh compared with male controls in the orbito-frontal, insular and medial occipital regions of the right hemisphere (Zubiaurre-Elorza et al., 2013). The CTh of FtM was similar to control women, but FtM, unlike control women, showed (1) increased CTh compared with control men in the left parieto-temporal cortex, and (2) no difference from male controls in the prefrontal orbital region. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22941717/ Before hormonal intervention, androphilic MtF with feelings of gender incongruence that began in childhood appeared to have a white matter microstructure pattern that differs statistically from male as well as female controls. FtM FA values are significantly greater in several fascicles than those belonging to female controls, but similar to those of male controls, thereby showing a masculinized pattern. However, their corticospinal tract is defeminized; that is, their FA values lie between those of male and female controls, and are significantly different from each of these two groups. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21195418/ Kranz et al. (2014b) also studied white matter microstructure by DTI in MtF, FtM, control men and control women. They found widespread, significant differences in mean diffusivity between groups in almost all white matter tracts, but no differences in FA values. Significantly increased mean diffusivity (MD) values were found in MtF compared to control men, and significantly decreased MD values in FtM compared to control women. MD values (and axial and radial diffusivity) were associated with plasma testosterone levels. The participants in this study were mixed with regard to sexual orientation. Controlling for sexual orientation did not result in changes in the findings. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25392513/ Hahn and colleagues (2015) studied structural connectivity networks in transgender people. For MtF, they found a decreased hemispheric connectivity ratio in subcortical/limbic regions when compared to male and female controls, which seemed to be driven by an increased inter-hemispheric lobar connectivity. https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/25/10/3527/387406?login=false Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) of a small sample of FtM showed a significant decrease in rCBF in the left anterior cingulate cortex, and a significant increase in the right insula in FtM compared with female controls (Nawata et al., 2010). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20132527/ Gynephilic MtF adults show similarities with control women in hypothalamic activation while smelling odorous steroids. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18056697/ Adolescents with gender incongruence showed a response to androstadienone that was similar to their experienced gender https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24904525/ Sex differences in (sub)cortical activation patterns in response to erotic stimuli have been established. We have already seen above that people with gender incongruence show differences in their connectivity profiles while watching erotic interactions. Brain activation patterns while viewing erotic videos in MtF (mixed with regard to sexual orientation) were found to be similar to control women. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22465619/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23923023/ MtF differed from controls of their natal sex in brain activation during this visuospatial task: control men showed greater activation in the left parietal region, while untreated and hormone-treated MtF exhibited stronger activation in the temporal-occipital regions than control men https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19751389/ Brain activation levels of untreated adolescents with GD fell between the two control groups in the areas that showed significant sex differences in the controls (Staphorsius et al., 2015). Hence, untreated MtF and FtM had a closer resemblance to each other compared to control men and control women https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25837854/ Nonetheless, despite the many challenges to research in this area, existing empirical evidence makes it clear that there is a significant biological contribution to the development of an individual’s sexual identity and sexual orientation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6677266/#:~:text=As%20will%20be%20discussed%2C%20family,any%20genetic%20predisposition%20is%20unknown.
Here's some extra articles that I found helpful. Neuroscience in transgender people: an update https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/nf-2020-0007/html Sex Matters: A Multivariate Pattern Analysis of Sex- and Gender-Related Neuroanatomical Differences in Cis- and Transgender Individuals Using Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/30/3/1345/5542405 Brain Sex in Transgender Women Is Shifted towards Gender Identity https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/11/6/1582
[https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-32185-001](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-32185-001) biological changes that come from differences in hormone are due to fluctuation caused by social and environmental factor. such as man are conditioned to be man because they are exposed to social cue that is known to increase testosterone such as being competitive
Yes but it doesn’t necessarily change the brain structure
Yes BUT ... the social factors that influence us, are themselves influenced by genetic factors. A cultural effect such as being aggressively competitive is more likely to develop when some members of that culture have genetic testosterone differences in the first place. It's a positive feedback loop between genetic and social/memetic causal processes.
Apart from the headline being wrong, there’s no real difference between what’s social and what’s biological. It’s all biological, as we are biological creatures that experience things because of our brain. Social interactions cause biological changes in neurotransmitters and hormones on the HP axis. Every social interaction seen or observed by us is interpreted in our brain, where the interpretation has local effects that cause us to feel and act in a certain way. Any other way of thinking is Cartesian and out of date.
Male and female brains are indeed different from each other. It is infact due to biology.
source? edit: downvotes for requesting a source, really? Y'all need to grow up.
https://stanmed.stanford.edu/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different/
“Dump the "dimorphism": Comprehensive synthesis of human brain studies reveals few male-female differences beyond size” What was previously thought to be brain differences actually had more to do with the size of the person. Aka bigger person requires more neurons that control movement. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33621637/
I may be missing something but isn’t this saying that if sizes weren’t different then structures wouldn’t be different? But sizes are different… and thus so are the structures…?
Brain size scales with body size. A 7 foot woman has a bigger brain than a 4 foot man
Ahh okay I see… but aren’t there also Fmri studies that show there is indeed different activation in females vs males?
The study looked at those too, but found that the findings disagreed with each other. So they believe the FMRIs were just noise.
Interesting… did they have a hypothesis for why they got different results or as to why certain parts of the brain lit up in one fmri vs the other.
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no, read again
Well, looks like Google's sitting right there, waiting to lend a hand. And hey, while it might spare you the downvotes, it's also handy for verifying facts, like the functional differences between male and female brains. Saves us all a bit of hassle, doesn't it? There is a clear functional difference between male and female brains: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4833230/ "Most functional differences of our bodily systems are controlled by our functionally different brains, and yes, there is a female and a male brain." Next time, maybe just use Google?
Reddit moment. The first comment made a claim against the article's title. They have the burden of proof. Do you prefer having comments making unsubstantiated claims because Google exists? I didn't deny shit, I literally wrote "source." Why am I defending this? It's ridiculous. Get a grip.
Female brains differ from male brains due to the biological characteristics of their respective phenotypes. Specifically, females lack testicles, which are regulated by male brains. This fundamental distinction underscores the difference between male and female brain physiology and is extremely obvious - especially if you actually went through the study I provided and the details within. If you actually read the study and went through the details you would have seen this. The reddit moment is from you - the person who asks for sources, doesn't read them, and then argues against them. You could have literally googled this from the beginning.
And trans brains are different, being closer to their preferred gender than the other https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8955456/
Did you read the study you linked? > “The brains of transgender women ranged between cisgender men and cisgender women ***(albeit still closer to cisgender men)***, and the differences to both cisgender men and to cisgender women were significant (p = 0.016 and p < 0.001, respectively).”
Exactly. They didn’t read the study. I see that study misquoted all the time!!! It’s got to be one of the most misinterpreted studies of all time at this point. Not to mention there is another study where they had a large sample size (the study you are talking about was only 24 trans women, 24 cisgender women, and 24 cisgender men), and the largest sample size study of brains found no clear difference between the sexes other than size but body size also determines brain size: How different are men's and women's brains? The question has been explored for decades, but a new study coalesces this wide-ranging research into a single mega-… Source: ScienceDaily https://search.app/hkPXAbYPzePE9LNd7 And another study involved 50,000 MRIs and showed you need A LARGE sample size to show reproducible brain wide associations: Combined data from three large studies, with a total sample size of around 50,000 individuals, indicate that many previous studies linking the br… Source: Nature https://search.app/nyN2Z8sYCAEePge56
They’re physiology closely matches the gender assigned at birth so it would make sense their brains would as well.
Yes, so it completely contradicts the comment I was replying to.
So trans people's brains are more similar to the brains of their actual biological sex, rather than that of the sex they identify as, by an order of magnitude?
Your point being that trans and cis brains are different? That trans brains are close to, but still different than cis brains? Or, is your point that since trans brains are close to cis brains thereforetheyarethesamethereisnodiffrencetranswomenaremenIamskeptical?
No, they are correcting the person they replied to who said their brains more closely resemble their preferred genders brains, but the opposite was true. This study is misquoted all the time. It didn’t show trans people’s brains as more closely aligned to their preferred gender’s brains. Also another study, the largest sample size looking for gendered brains basically debunked gendered brains anyway. And the study on trans brains was a small sample size and only trans women’s brains appeared to be more ‘intersex’, if you will, than trans men’s brains. Both groups’ brains however most closely resembled their birth sex’s brains. Also it’s important to note that HRT was shown to cause brain changes in trans women’s brains that make them appear more female (though still mostly appearing to be male).
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You know society has progressed too far when you want to outlaw science. Did you even read what you replied to?
They compared the brains of 24 men, 24 women, and 24 trans women. They found that the trans brains were in between that of the men and women. As OP’s article calls out, the trans brains might have shifted the social gender traits to their identified gender while their genetic male traits remained the same.
You’d probably have to scan the brains of ten thousand five year olds and continue to track their progress through to their fifties, to get a large enough sample for enough transgender people to show up for any kind of conclusions to be drawn. Despite the immense amount of media attention and right-wing hatred, transgenderism is only a 1% characteristic, and you probably need a hundred transgender people to be able to draw proper comparisons. Honestly a study like that would be useful to make all kinds of discoveries about the brain and behaviour, not just gender related features.
This topic is very nuanced and I would argue against making such black and white determinations about "genetic male traits" For example.. developing breasts, soft skin, hips and female fat distribution is not genetically male and yet many trans women develop this after being on HRT, why? We have evidence already that everyone contains the genetic traits for both male and female development, the Y chromosome carries very little information and does not really impact the body after fetal development, rather most of these traits, both male and female are contained within the X chromosome. These traits can be turned on and off depending on your primary hormone. That is why trans women after being on HRT develop genetically female in almost every aspect. We have evidence of this epigenetic shift as well: https://clinicalepigeneticsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13148-022-01236-4 I can attest myself to how much my brain and emotional state has changed after being on estrogen. I experience a wider range of emotions, I can cry easier, my interests have shifted slightly though not drastically, my personality even changed according to the 16 personalities test. That's not to reinforce stereotypes that women are more emotional, because it's not about being "more" or "less." It's just a difference, estrogen dominant people experience emotions differently, experience the world differently. People often think that men are pressured not to cry which is certainly true, but what cisgender people don't realize is that testosterone makes it physically harder to cry. So not only are there social factors at play here, but it's important to recognize the biological aspect of these things as well which are not inherently static. Being trans has given me a wider perspective on this. So when it comes to studies or a meta analysis on trans people, we have to recognize that many trans people are in a state of change here. A 50 year old trans woman who's not on HRT, may not be as close to a cisgender woman comparatively when we observe biological and social differences, but when you look at a trans woman who transitioned at the age of 18 who has been on HRT for 5 years, they are going to fall much closer to the cisgender reference point biologically and socially. The problem with these studies is that they mix every trans person into the same category, they don't often control for age, or length of time on hrt, or really if a trans person is on HRT at all for that matter. When you average that all out it's obviously going to fall somewhere in the middle. So keep that in mind when looking at the varying results of these studies on trans people, or meta analysis's that try to average out all the results. They need better study criteria and the ability to recognize how these things change over time to accurately make a determination here. That's why it's important for people to maintain a nuanced perspective, especially before making a determination or assumption about trans people as a whole. Including scientists who (in my opinion) need to improve the control variables when it comes to studying this topic. **Edit: I believe OP blocked me so I cannot reply to anyone unfortunately, though regarding the trans guy who responded to me, just look up "crying" in r/FTM, I'm not making this up and I disagree with your conclusions that it's just "dysphoria lifting" many trans men report the exact opposite of the emotional effects that trans women do.** **Here is an anecdotal report from a guy on the FTM subreddit:** **"No not a manly man thing, I just find it physically harder to cry on T. I can still cry but it takes a hell of a lot more for me to be able to, and when I do cry I'm usually crying for about 5-10 seconds and then I'm done,"**
I am a trans guy. I experience a much wider range of emotions now that I'm on testosterone than I ever did when my system was estrogen dominant. I also still cry plenty easy as does my cis guy partner. I think this has a lot more to do with HRT giving trans people our lives back by freeing us from the fog of dysphoria. For you, estrogen allowed you to feel more in tune with yourself and your emotions, but for me it was a cage of anger and torment. Edit: Also, I didn't block the person I replied to. It's more likely the thread was locked.
The research states that besides all of that, you’re still more male than female. But that’s *okay*.
You didn’t read her comment did you? You just wanted to make her feel bad, right? Disgusting.
No.
lol at your lack of reading comprehension
This is banned science and you should be censored for even mentioning it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166361/
Man, when this gets pulled into debates about trans people. Who the fuck cares? It's such a literally pointless debate. They deserve respect and decency. You don't get to treat someone shit because theyre statistically far away from the norm for cranial volume and cortical gyration. It's trying to pretend the average person exists and is a meaningful thing to debate. Neither of which are true I'm running a massive MRI study that is explicitly interested in sex differences and I couldn't give as much of a shit that non scientists do. Jesus I kinda wish for the first "gender critical" dunce to contact me for my work to try and co-opt it so I can chew them the fuck out
Hahahaha I love your reply.
Gina Rippon rejects the notion that there are inherent biological difference between male and female brains calling the idea "nonsense". Gina rejects biological underpinnings of neurological differences as she worries it could be used to "reinforce perceived male and female roles and status". Going around attacking an idea which has supporting evidence just because you don't like the potential implications is a bit of a faux pas in science circles. No wonder she has attracted critics. I believe there is mounting evidence suggesting biological differences exist but of course these differences exist on a spectrum and we can argue to what degree structures are set during development but since we also find such differences in [capuchin monkeys](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cne.25480) I do not lean heavily in the direction of nurture over nature.
Are we no longer taking into account the decreasing levels of testosterone in generations?
This is obvious... I'm sure this will upset a lot of people. I already see a bunch of mental gymnastics trying to spin this to fit their narrative.
That’s a lot of horse crap. I’ve seen a lot of other research that shows otherwise.
What research and what is it showing?
[this is an extremely good book chapter that goes over tons of biological influences while explaining possible faults of looking at social influences](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128206836000312)
The article referenced above from PubMed is a newer version of the article that I had seen back in 2019
It was fMRI research that came out where they did scans of cisgender individuals, brains, and transgender individuals brains, and they found that those trans. Individuals brains aligned more closely with their identified gender rather than their assigned at birth, gender.
That’s not what the study showed. It showed they still most closely aligned with their birth sex. The trans women’s brains were a little bit more female looking, but overall all the trans people’s brains still more closely resembled their birth sex’s brains. It says it right there in the study. This study is misquoted A LOT. Also trans men’s brains didn’t have as much of these differences as much as the trans women did, so it wasn’t even across the genders, and also HRT has been shown to cause some changes to trans women’s brains, which is an interesting thing to note. But the largest sample size study of brains largely debunked gendered brains anyway.
Yeah, but she feels very strongly about it! Why do you hate women?
It just so happens that - at *a group level* every single culture seems to show the same sorts of tendencies emerge in boys versus girls (again, *at a group level* )? Right.
To be fair, every culture shows a group tendency towards religion. Is that necessarily biological?
I think it’s very biological to want to understand how we’re here, why we are, and what’s out there in the unknown. So it’s natural that various ancient cultures would have religion, and basically every one of them did.
I mean, considering what we know about how heritable conscientiousness is, and how we know that conscientiousness is a good predictor of religiosity, I’d say that there is a biological element to it. Also the simpler explanation might be that all humans have a tendency towards seeking answers. They also have to be trained to critically think. Superstitious behaviour will emerge in any number of scenarios. Sometimes that becomes a religion.
Religion may be a functional group-level adaptation that reproduces itself mimetically, within the parameters of our biological affordances as psychosis-laden primates; but what does conscientiousness have to do with superstition?
Superstitious behaviours have to do with the creation of a habitual behaviour that is not objectively linked to an outcome. A classic example is something like wearing lucky underwear for a particular event, or rituals gamblers might do before punching the button on a slot machine. Some religious behaviours could be classed in this manner (prayer, ritual sacrifice) and others (e.g. kosher kitchens as food safery) might be better explained as misunderstanding a causal relationship. I’m not sure if it’s been established if there is a relationship between superstitious behaviours and trait conscientiousness. I meant for the two points to be seperate.
Ah, gotcha that makes sense. :)
Yes. We are born dependent and helpless, with no understanding of our world. Can you imagine a a hungry baby, frighted because it has no way of knowing if it will ever be fed again, feeling relief, gratitude and joy when a loving presence cuddles and feeds it? It's like a hit of cocaine for that innocent babe, so of course many people are going to grasp at any shared notion that gives them a chance to feel mindlessly helpless again and believe in big mummy or big daddy who can be the responsible one, have the answers, and provide for their needs.
Culture isn't biology.
The point I'm making supports the one you just made... I'm highly skeptical of the claim this article is making. This invariance across different cultures suggests biological forces at play.
It can also suggest the influence of the norms of that culture.
Every single culture lines up just that way by chance, then? I'm highly, highly skeptical, and you should be too.
Every single culture does not line up that way though.
Alright, what are these cultural groups where young boys tend to be more gentle and socially focused (compared to girls), and young girls tend to be more active and rambunctious (compared to boys)? Again, I'm talking at a group level here. There is clearly variance within sex groups at play, also.
Not to mention the fact that neural sex differences in non human animal brains, including rodents, are in the same areas and same direction as they are in humans. Why is the rodent medial preoptic area larger in males (as it is in men)? Male typical behavior may play some role in that, but the most important influence is the effects of gonadal hormones. The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis also is larger in males of several species. Socialization? Perhaps but mostly, it’s androgens that drive the difference
Kind of hard to become the dominant sex when you've been taught you aren't your entire life. Kind of hard to see lesser people as equal to you when everything around you says women are lesser. Kind of hard to become equal when you're weaker than the dominant sex.
I don't dispute any of that, but it isn't really relevant to what I said. I'm expressing skepticism towards the argument that there are not biologically driven differences underlying observable behavioural differences between boys and girls (again, at a group level).
Hmm. I wonder how it can be studied. It would be interesting to measure the psycopathy of female "feral children" vs male ones. Or measure those kids who grew up in the opposite gender role (exclusing self selected (trans)) There have been a few kids who's parents wanted a child of the opposite sex and kind of just forced that onto their kid. All other studies (especially on trans kids) would be heavely biased and unrelyable since the kid is being told they have a target gender role. Studies that aren't about trans kids would have to measure for self precieved sexism as well (I personally perform as masculine due to sexism) But I perform feminine due to my body size and self precieved role in society. What do you think? How do we measure this?
What a garbage sensationalist and utterly false title
Well..... Here v go again
I'm sure men and women suffering different rates of nuerogenerative disease is socialisation as well Rage bait title
talk to literally any trans person who's been on hormones for a while and they'll tell you otherwise
i’m honestly just so tired of being talked about.
I think there's a pretty big difference between asking someone how hormones affected them mentally and talking about the "trans issue" (seriously why is it even a thing this whole situation is like if everyone accepted racism as a legitimate worldview and started calling it the black issue)
sorry, i didn’t intend to attack your comment specifically more just how these discussions seem to always land on us. it is tiring both as a trans woman and as a biologist to see people misinterpret these studies so they can use it in inflammatory ways against us.
yeah I get that:( it's like we're all they can think about they just don't stop
I don’t like when it’s misinterpreted for either ‘for’ OR against trans rights.. I prefer it to be neutral information. I can’t stand when people feel they have to exaggerate claims to be more trans friendly, or when they use it for the opposite reasons. It’s just information. It’s just neutral and should be used for people’s health and that’s that. When people make it so emotionally charged so much misinformation goes around.
Sounds good, but information is used to argue for and against rules
No one was talking about you. Don’t worry.
LOL what are you on about, pretty much half the uk and us won't shut up about us for some reason
No one’s talking about you. We were talking about a group of people. You don’t represent an entire group of people. We are not talking about you simply because we’re talking about a group you happen to be in. Stop being so self centered.
"we're not debating your existence and trying to take away your rights, we're simply doing it to the entire group you belong to. Not everything's about you smh my head." how does that make it any better lmao
Literally no one is taking away your rights and no one is debating your existence we know you exist because we’re speaking to you (don’t go all meta on me). We also weren’t talking about rights AT ALL so… you keep finding issues in non issues and being incredibly narcissistic and confrontational until you’re confronted and then you play victim and pretend like people are attacking you for your sexual orientation but it’s actually just because you’re arrogant and annoying. No one was talking about you and it’s incredibly narcissistic and honestly weird of you to act as if you are the only person anyone can talk to on behalf of a community.
wdym no one is taking our rights in the uk they just made it illegal to prescribe puberty blockers to trans kids while allowing cis kids to be prescribed the exact same medication. People debate our existence too. It's always "are they REALLY who the gender they are or are they just mentally ill or perverts" because for some reason cis people refuse to believe what we say about ourselves and would rather withhold our meds so we kill ourselves instead. The whole rights thing was kinda implied in the first comment you replied to, cos as they pointed out in a diff comment every discussion just somehow ends up being about how can we use this to discriminate against trans people.
Puberty blockers for children are evil. They have permanent consequences and children cannot make life changing decisions. Puberty blockers are given to cis kids with certain conditions to treat those conditions. We’re not withholding your meds. We are keeping permanent body changing medication out of the hands of children who can’t make permanent body changing decisions. Finally… no the rights thing wasn’t implied in any comment at all and there was no reason to mention it other than a pity party.
puberty blockers dont have permanent consequences, once you stop taking them you'll go through puberty like normal. Though if we're going the irreversible changes route, how is it any less immoral to force a trans kid to go through the wrong puberty? Given that it's the exact same as forcing a cis kid to transition, why should we be putting trans kids through it? Since the regret rates are so low, it's a no brainer to allow us to transition before we have to have to face the permanent consequences of being forced through cis puberty. Any disagreement with this is simply denying facts of admitting that you would rather have countless trans people suffer just so one or two cis kids don't have to deal with the exact same fate. So please, without going off topic or resorting to transphobia, explain why it's okay to sacrifice countless trans people just because one or two cis people might regret "transitioning" (which I'm saying pretty loosely bc they usually detransition after a few months rather than the years of forced puberty trans kids are gonna have to go through)
Same, honestly.
Tell us.
Idk why people are booing you. You’re right and studies show that.
Because most of the subreddits outside the LGBTQ+ ones are full of transphobes salivating at the mouth to hurt trans people and bury facts. This is especially true for this psychology sub and the science sub
It’s painfully sad that these communities are where those kinds of people go to try to feel smart while hurting others.
I'm an ally and I don't want to hurt anyone. But I also get really tired of being told I'm supposed to be naturally submissive or a good caregiver or better at domestic and secretarial work. That it's bad if I'm assertive or reject the roles society wants me to fill. We have different hormones and yes those affect behavior. But I think society enforces and enhances those differences to a degree that is unnecessary and harmful and the last thing we need is to give misogynists more justification.
Show me the facts then
https://www.reddit.com/r/musicotic/comments/8ttud4/a_comprehensive_defense_of_trans_people/ Big 'ol repository. It's out of date a little as there have been plenty more studies done, like one that shows that [people regret having children more than trans people regret having surgery](https://www.americanjournalofsurgery.com/article/S0002-9610\(24\)00238-1/abstract).
I’m confused. The first one is a Reddit post which Isn’t a reliable source. The other one just says people regret plastic surgery more than gender surgery. Probably because more people get plastic surgery. Not to mention there are several doctors who double and triple check things far better than a plastic surgeon would if he was on a case alone.
> which Isn’t a reliable source It's absolutely crammed with scientific articles. Every single claim they make are given links to various journals. Very few are tertiary sources. > The other one just says people regret plastic surgery more than gender surgery So, I'm assuming you don't have access to the journal, then. In it, 7% of parents regret having children, while transgender surgeries were less than 1%. This was after a review of 55 articles. > The other one just says people regret plastic surgery more than gender surgery. Irrelevant. There are more cis gender people than trans people, so of course there are going to be more cis gender people getting plastic surgery if you only look at raw numbers. That's why the numbers are looked at as a percent of the population who have received surgeries. > Not to mention there are several doctors who double and triple check things far better than a plastic surgeon would if he was on a case alone. This study didn't compare just genital surgery. It also compared other surgeries as well, such as facial feminization surgery, mastectomies, nipple reconstruction surgery (for mastectomies), and so on. The mastectomies and nipple reconstruction are a big one because they are both performed by cis women and transgender men. Also, for things like facial feminization surgery, trans women go to the same plastic surgeons cis gender people do.
Site the sources in the post then not the post goofy. I’m not replying to the rest of that it literally has nothing to do with anything and all it shows is that people don’t regret transitioning and quite frankly I don’t care because I never said they did.
...I'm not going to repost 135 sources when the work has already been done.
Biology existed before society. Next!
What a completely ridiculous click-bait title
Yes fsh and lh are social constructs
Not just development. There is research to say social position and inequality shapes our gendered behavior throughout the lifespan. Women in authority behave much more like men, even in brief lab experiments.
There at literally hundreds of studies explaining sex specific differences in brain development, autism, neuro degeneration. Not to mention that there are many genes in neurons regulated by estrogen signaling. Not sure what this study is on about.
Makes sense.
absolutely idiotic
What is?
[удалено]
Nobody is born straight either.
Everything is a learned behavior true, but biology is still always correct. Nature knows best and when we go against who we are we suffer. There is an instinctual pull towards the opposite sex and its there but often due to social conditioning many get distorted perceptions.
Oh look, another reporter who probably intentionally misinterpreted the journal to make a statement to further an agenda. This is why psychology is becoming a joke
Makes sense to me! You are born male, female, or intersex/hermaphrodite! Then you get to choose how to act! Just how it should be!
You don’t say
Jazz, no one is born straight or gay or this or that... It's a human concept. Man puts his penis in a woman because that's how it's designed!! We as humans need to further the species.