• @CreeperODeath
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    231 year ago

    I took a psychology class for collage and one think that I found interesting is how scientist can actually find a difference in brain structure in trans individuals that correlate with their gender identity

    • VoxAdActa
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      111 year ago

      It’s so much more fascinating than just that!

      So the most well-known of these structures is the bed nucleus of the striae terminalis. The size and number of a specific type of neuron in that region is highly predictive of the gender of the individual, with very high reliability. Postmortem, you can count these neurons and be very close to sure what the sex of the dead person was.

      Not only do trans individuals have the structure of the gender they identify as, but there were several interesting controls done to double-check.

      First, they looked both at trans people who had undergone different stages of reassignment and compared them to trans people who had not initiated treatment at all. There was no difference, so HRT, etc, is not the cause of the structural differences.

      Then they went to a sample of men who were sufferers of specific types of penile/testicular cancers that required a large number of feminizing hormones during the treatment process. Still no change in the striae terminalis.

      And then they went back a couple years later and repeated the same experiment, with the same result.

      This was all done close to 20 years ago. We’ve known this for a long time.

      Fun addendum: there are a couple types of penile cancer that, sadly, requires the penis to be excised. In 70% of these cases, the men involved experienced phantom penile sensations (phantom limb syndrome). So what’s the rate of phantom penile sensations in MTF post-operation trans people? Almost 0%.

      • @netwren
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        61 year ago

        Hey can you share some sources on this I’d love to know more.

        • VoxAdActa
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          1 year ago

          Sure! I learned about it from this Harvard neurobiology lecture by Richard Sapolsky.

          INAH: https://youtu.be/LOY3QH_jOtE?t=4412

          Bed nucleus of the stria terminalis: https://youtu.be/LOY3QH_jOtE?t=5035

          These time stamps are from the same video, so you can start at the first one and he’ll just move right into the second one.

          This is the study he refers to by Simon Levay (you might be able to get a copy through an open access site somewhere, I don’t know though): https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1887219

          This is the study he refers to in regard to the stria terminalis is: https://www.nature.com/articles/378068a0

          Here is the replication study for the stria terminalis: https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/85/5/2034/2660626

          And that video is 12 years old. From my quick search to try to find the original sources just now, it seems even more studies have been done on it in the meantime.

          • @netwren
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            11 year ago

            Just managed to skim the paper and watch the video. That is a really interesting lecture and clearly he is interested in the science as he addresses caveats and the political nature of the studies. But that is actually really interesting findings. Thanks a lot for sharing this.

      • wafer
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        21 year ago

        Looks like someone didn’t read the post

    • Nanachi
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      11 year ago

      that is a confirmed phenomenon that I just call “stanford papers”

  • 1bluepixel
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    1 year ago

    The fact we can’t even agree that sex and gender are two different things is the final proof to me that the Right is arguing in bad faith. It’s such a simple concept to grasp.

    One podcaster was suggesting we use male/female/intersex to refer to biological sex, and man/woman/etc. to refer to gender identity. Such an obvious and non-controversial idea, yet it’ll never fly with the transphobes.

    • @randon31415
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      11 year ago

      I remember back when people wanted to use ‘Civil unions’ as the term for gay marriage, and have marriage be reserved for religious unions. Then they realized that they had to ammend 10,000 laws that specifically mentioned marriage. Apparently it was easier to change the definition of marriage then to alter that many laws.

      • @animelivesmatter
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        1 year ago

        In general, conservatives claim that sex and gender are the same thing. It’s probably not true of all conservatives, but when most conservative pundits and influencers have made this claim at some point, it’s fair to say that it is the view of the conservative movement. It’s not a strawman, it’s not made up, it’s a claim regularly made by the conservative movement, and if you think “the right” means “all right-wingers” in this scenario, that’s you’re problem because noone else but you thought that.

      • VoxAdActa
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        41 year ago

        Oh. I see.

        So which party is it that’s passed over 70 anti-trans bills in 15 states? Are you saying the left did that?

        Or are you saying the right has seen the error of their ways and are reversing course?

  • @Cyo
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    51 year ago

    That’s not a biology book. Sex is a biology thing, Gender is a social concept.

  • Nanachi
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    31 year ago

    “don’t you lecture us and uni-grade biology with your mid-school biology 🗿”

  • @TheDemonBuer
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    31 year ago

    This is the part I have a problem with:

    Gender is a category assigned by the individual

    Gender isn’t assigned by the individual. Gender is assigned by parents, doctors, the community, and society broadly. Gender is an inherently social construction. Some people have misconstrued this to mean that gender is an individual construction. It is not. How you see yourself is only part what makes you, you. You are also defined by how others see you. I understand that some people don’t identify with the gender that has been assigned to them, and thus want to change their gender assignment, and I empathize with those people, but whether or not they are able to do this is at least partially out of their control. Just because you see yourself a certain way, doesn’t mean others will see you that way, and, again we are defined not only by how we perceive ourselves, but how others perceive us.

    • @die444die
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      301 year ago

      Umm, people can definitely change how others view them. And if person A refuses to accept person B for who they are, that doesn’t define person B. It defines person A as an asshole.

      • @bighi
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        1 year ago

        And if person A refuses to accept person B for who they are, that doesn’t define person B. It defines person A as an asshole.

        Agree. And that sentence is not only valid for gender, it’s for any other cultural label (like genders are).

        If I say that I’m a gamer, or a fan of star wars, or whatever, and you’re spending your energy trying to convince the world I’m not what I said… it says much more about you than about me.

        • Gull
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          -81 year ago

          that sentence is not only valid for gender, it’s for anything other cultural label (like genders are).

          How about race? Can white people elect to be Black?

          • @Tenthrow
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            151 year ago

            This is a bad faith argument, and at best a whataboutism. They aren’t remotely related.

            • @[email protected]
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              11 year ago

              Are you aware of a good rebuttal to the comment you replied to? It tends to trip me up as even through it’s often presented in bad faith, our concept of race is mostly cultural too isn’t it? It feels like they’re different somehow, but I can’t articulate the reason why and so it’s like I’ve stumbled into a “gotcha”.

              • @STUPIDVIPGUY
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                21 year ago

                gender is a social construct which can change depending on social expectations or the mental feeling of the individual, while race is a biological construct that can’t be changed

          • ziebras
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            61 year ago

            Using the original comment’s delineation as a guide: Nationality and ethnicity are cultural; i.e., akin to gender. Race is phenotypic; i.e., akin to sex. So, no.

        • @die444die
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          1 year ago

          Describing intentionally misgendering someone as “truth” is simply transphobia. Be better.

    • Jables
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      121 year ago

      You’re thinking in the right direction, but you’re not quite there. Yes, gender gets assigned at birth as your biological phenotype (because the overwhelming majority of humans identify as cis gender). Humans become individuals and eventually realize that maybe their assigned gender does not fit them. At this point it becomes their own choice and it overrides any gender assignment given at birth. Depending on the individual, gender changes from something that’s assigned to something you assign yourself.

      • @bighi
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        1 year ago

        Yes, genders are tentatively assigned at birth because most languages are based on gendered pronouns and gendered words. So we need a gender to refer to this new person, and we can’t ask babies for their input.

        But that’s not different than a father saying his baby will like sports. Or, in my case, saying your baby will grow up to play Magic The Gathering with you.

        Because when they’re old enough to decide for themselves, they can change whatever temporary labels you attached to them. And they can say they don’t like Magic. Gender. I meant gender.

        • @blackbelt352
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          31 year ago

          most languages are based on gendered pronouns and gendered words.

          Relevant Tom Scott video: https://youtu.be/46ehrFk-gLk

          First, only about 25% of languages are fully based around everything being gendered.

          Second English has some specifically gendered words as remnants from old English and the languages that blended together to make English.

          Third, of those gendered languages, they don’t necessarily agree on what gender things are. In the video, they mention that “A Key” in German is masculine and in Spanish is feminine.

          • @bighi
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            11 year ago

            First, only about 25% of languages are fully based around everything being gendered.

            Guilty of western bias. But should be a bit obvious that I didn’t mean smaller languages, or languages spoken from people that are usually not here discussing with us. But if it wasn’t obvious before, I am making it explicit now.

            Third, of those gendered languages, they don’t necessarily agree on what gender things are. In the video, they mention that “A Key” in German is masculine and in Spanish is feminine.

            How different languages gender a key (or a chair, or teapot, or whatever object) is not really relevant for a discussion about genders in people.

            And I don’t even mean that to defend anything, just trying to explain why people apply genders to babies. And how people just do that for convenience, and how that’s not relevant as a “permanent” gender.

      • @TheDemonBuer
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        -41 year ago

        At this point it becomes their own choice and it overrides any gender assignment given at birth.

        That’s not true. Your gender assignment is defined by how others treat you, how they interact with you, and that’s not completely under the individual’s control. You can’t choose how other people view you, at least not entirely.

        • Seasoned_Greetings
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          1 year ago

          That’s a pretty absurd notion.

          Let’s do a mental exercise based on your assertion:

          You identify as a man. You were born a man and have always outwardly displayed masculine characteristics. You are in a room with 100 people, and they collectively decide against your will that you are a masculine female and treat you as such.

          Are you now a girl because the collective has decided that? Or are you still a man because that’s what you have always identified as?

          Before you say “100 people does not make a society,” the number of people who decide that is irrelevant. Additionally, the reason ‘why’ they decide you are female is also, according to your logic, irrelevant. It just matters that they all agree.

          You still think that gender is imposed on you by society?

        • Jables
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          11 year ago

          Well, sometimes people are wrong and you seem to be wrong right now. I think you have some misconceptions about the definition of gender and biological sex.

    • @OtakuAltair
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      101 year ago

      That doesn’t change much; just means people should place more value in what a person themself identifies with. Some people being inconsiderate doesn’t mean others should be too.

    • @bighi
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      1 year ago

      Gender isn’t assigned by the individual. Gender is assigned by parents, doctors, the community, and society broadly. Gender is an inherently social construction.

      Social/cultural construction doesn’t mean that it has to be a collective construction.

      Your gender is not different from something like… being a nerd, or being a fan of star wars. Someone might call you a nerd, but ultimately it’s up to you to embrace that label or not.

      And anyway, cultural things like gender, being a nerd, etc is absolutely unrelated to biology.

      • @TheDemonBuer
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        -51 year ago

        Social/cultural construction doesn’t mean that it has to be a collective construction.

        It absolutely does mean that. We just live in this age of hyper individualism, where people attempt to atomize the individual from the collective, as though the individual is something wholly its own, but it isn’t. It’s not possible to separate the individual from the collective.

        • @bighi
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          1 year ago

          It’s not possible to separate the individual from the collective

          Maybe you have a hard time having your opinion.

          But it’s not fair to pin that on everywhere else in the world just because it’s like that for you. Lots of people have their own opinions, their own identities.

          Just like, for example… EVERY SINGLE TRANS PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. They have a majority of the collective saying they’re of the genre they don’t identify with at all, and they have their own individual opinion separate from the collective anyway.

          So you either:

          a) have an extreme case of social anxiety and can’t muster the courage to have an opinion that differs from the collective, and thinks everyone else in the world is like you (having a hard time understanding that different people have different opinions is also a psychological problem that is not rare).

          or

          b) your prejudice/homophobia/genderphobia is leaking.

        • VoxAdActa
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          51 year ago

          It’s not possible to separate the individual from the collective.

          What’s it like, being from a planet with a hive mind?

        • Maeve
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          11 year ago

          It would be interesting to hear that argument with say, a CRISPR dev.

    • subignition
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      51 year ago

      This is such a weird take. You’re sort of conflating gender assignment with gender perception, while sort of denying gender identity exists, while sort of asserting that gender perception should be authoritative (here lies the bigotry, IMO)

      Firstly, the half-denial of gender identity existing / gender applying to individuals

      I understand that some people don’t identify with the gender that has been assigned to them[…]
      Unless your intended tone was mocking and there are some heavy use of air quotes that you did not write, you already accept that a person has their own perception of their gender.

      Gender is an inherently social construction. Some people have misconstrued this to mean that gender is an individual construction. It is not. How you see yourself is only part what makes you, you. You are also defined by how others see you.
      But how others see you is not “gender assignment”. How the community sees you is not “gender assignment”. It is gender perception.

      The purpose of gender assignment is equally for recordkeeping and for practical purposes in early childhood. Gender is typically assigned by the doctor attending to childbirth, and it’s done in accordance to biological sex characteristics because as another commenter mentioned, the majority of individuals are cisgender so it’s a sensible default. There are some differences in how you might use the bathroom depending on your genitalia, and (for better or for worse) many social norms, like modesty, are imposed/reflected through gender as well. I think parents of a child also have the authority to choose how they present their child’s gender to the world, but this is not something to be done trivially or without the child’s best interests in mind, e.g. for attention. It’s important to note that one’s understanding of their own gender identity is something that develops over time, and will develop differently for everyone.

      Just because you see yourself a certain way, doesn’t mean others will see you that way, and, again we are defined not only by how we perceive ourselves, but how others perceive us.
      Not really. It is more accurate to say that the importance of the balance of others’ vs. our own perception is itself a spectrum that will be different for everyone and can change fluidly over time. The battle between how much to value each is in fact a core component of many trans experiences.

      On gender perception:

      How you see yourself is only part what makes you, you. You are also defined by how others see you.
      Have you ever heard the expression “we are not our thoughts, we are our reaction to our thoughts?” The simplest way to put it is that mere perception is not enough to be a definition. The only authority on someone’s gender identity is that person. Gender expression is a cognitive shortcut. Sometimes gendered expressions are intentional, sometimes not. There are also agender people who place little or no value on gendered expression in general. If you’re interacting with someone in good faith and you are genuinely unsure how you should refer to them, it takes no time at all to simply ask if they have preferred pronouns. It should go without saying that it’s not your business to dispute anyone’s gender identity, whether they’re strangers or otherwise. You are free to think however you want, the problem is expressing those thoughts in ways that cause harm. Like, just don’t be a dick?

    • kitonthenet
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      1 year ago

      Unless it’s reasonable for me to address you in business dealings as “smegma John” it seems we might put more emphasis on how someone identifies and wants to be called than what anyone else wants to impose on them

    • Th4tGuyII
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      11 year ago

      The social construct part of Gender is that the terms were constructed by society - they represented the stereotypes of how different sexes would express themselves. It’s in modern times that these are more explicitly detached due to our better understanding of Gender and sex.

      People perceive themselves based on their Gender as much as other people do, and it is not necessarily true that a person’s perception of themselves (their gender) lines up with their sex - hence Gender dysphoria.

      It is one thing to accidentally misgender someone because gender affirmation isn’t always outwardly obvious (particularly for non-binary folks), but refusing to make that consideration at all, even when aware of it, would say more about you than it would them.

  • @CaptnSeraph
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    21 year ago

    Seems about right… Your body has its biology, and then there’s the societal bits on top.

    A black man with Namibian heritage found in Birmingham talking with a Brummie accent and liking tea… Biology is only half the equation.

    Now, the problem I have, and it’s only with certain people, are the ones who try to change language to another ambiguous one, and rather than calmly and rationally discuss the difference between biological sex and societal gender, just scream “A mAn CaN HaVe BabIeS!!”

    Also things like male to female trans people being invited for cervical screening or female to male being invited for prostate checks… It’s a waste of resources and a problem, if your male to female patient stops thinking about their prostate as a thing that they have and cancer’s go under detected.

    But beyond your doctor, and sports separated by biological sex, your status as male/female/robot/attack helicopter/undecided is arbitrary and you should feel comfortable being whatever.

    • Seasoned_Greetings
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      31 year ago

      Do you understand how ridiculous it sounds when you say “a gender dysphoria concept that has been around for hundreds of years is fake because colleges need to reprint books”?

      This is the very essence of a disingenuous argument. A book does not dictate the absolute meaning of a concept, and likewise the motivation of printing a book does not invalidate the information therein.

        • VoxAdActa
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          31 year ago

          So you’re having a problem with clearer, more specific language?

          Here’s a fun game: Define “woman” in such a way as to include only the people you believe should count as women that also excludes anyone else. I’ll even give you some hints—

          1. Going with “people who menstruate” means post-menopausal women, women on birth control, and women with certain types of infertilities are now “men”.

          2. Going with “people with XX chromosomes” means men born 46,XX (de la Chapelle syndrome) are now “women”. It’ll be news to them; most of them never know unless they have some other occasion to look at their chromosomes! I guess that big biker-looking beared motherfucker is going to the women’s room. 5-alpha-reductase deficiency causes a lot of problems for this definition, too… they’re XY, but all their external sex characteristics are female, which may or may not change with the onset of puberty. Oh, and XY complete androgen insensitivity is going to cause an issue with this one, too. No secondary male sex characteristics at all, but you’re sending them over to the dangerous men’s bathroom after finding a micropenis on the Mandatory Small-Goverment Pre-Bathroom Crotch Check.

          3. “People who were born with vaginas” means every intersex person ever born is a “woman”, regardless of what call the doctors made at birth. Including, again, those with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, who are now “women”, when, under the above definition, they were “men”.

          4. “People with female brain structures” isn’t one I’ve heard often, but it’s come up, and the problem with that is the sexually dimorphic nucleus (the INAH) is “female” in gay men and “male” in lesbians, and the bed nucleus of the striae terminalis is “male” in trans men and “female” in trans women. So a lot of big, burly, hairy dudes are now going into the women’s bathroom. And it’s not like we just noticed this; we’ve known about the INAH for almost 40 years, and the striae terminalis for close to 20.

          5. “It’s just obvious! Women are women! Stop making it complicated!” Ok, but we’re talking about both science and policy, both of which have to be written very specifically. You can’t pass a bill that says “Only women are allowed to do X” and then define “women” as “you know what we’re talking about”. It’s not the rest of the world’s fault that this shit is too complicated to fit on a bumper sticker.

          • @MetaCubed
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            11 year ago

            Bravo! This is one of the most well written, thorough rebuttals I have ever read to this specific appeal to definition. I’m most certainly going to be mentally bookmarking this for reference and further research.