Transgender Documentary on BBC2 Thursday 2100 "Transgender Kids: Who Knows best?"

Hugh
Primidos was withdrawn in 1978, so again has not been used for many years. A review of the collated data from studies following its use was reviewed for government committees in 2014 and 2015 and found that while some studies showed an increase in teratogenicity, others showed no increase in birth defects as would be expected if there was consistent causation. In addition to this, hormonal components of it were much higher than those used in contraceptives so you're using the data from one drug and extrapolating it to people exposed to others simply because they share active agents. There are many drugs we use that can be beneficial in the correct dose but cause problems or toxicity when used at much higher doses. Given that, again, this is historical data it does not explain the surge of GD in young people in the UK in recent years.
Fundamentally though, you have used the data on the effects of one thing, in this case external genitalia and used it to argue that it therefore must have affected another organ system (the brain). Aside from the evidence for this being questionable, there is simply no evidence for this, you might as well argue that because female hormones have had an in utero effect on external genitalia then it must have affected the kidneys or heart too and that is Not supported by evidence and is simply poor science.

I did wonder the relevance of pesto!

might start using that to derailers lol

There was a meta analysis of sex difference in brains that found that the studies that suggested differences have not been able to be replicated.

Here is a recent study on the emotion centre of the brain:

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170117135943.htm

I'm pretty sure hugh has posted before. I recognise the style and POV. Could be wrong though

Hugh, did you join Mumsnet especially to participate in this thread?

Presumably the important sex differences in brain tissue

What are those differences?

Hugh- why are persisting in talking about sex differences in brains when none exist?

What are the important sex differences in brains? How do they manifest themselves in the different behaviour of men and women?

Poppyred85 "...literally thousands of women will have taken some form of hormonal contraception in early pregnancy, before they realised they were pregnant and again there is no evidence to support that this causes any changes to brain function."

The process of sexually dimorphic development doesn't even start until six weeks after conception, when the primordial gonads start to differentiate into ovaries or testicles. With a male baby, by about 8 weeks the testicles will have matured enough to start producing testosterone, and it's then that sexually dimorphic development really gets underway. During week 8 to week 12, the genitals develop their structure. In the presence of high levels of androgens, labioscrotal fusion and penile development take place, and you end up with a scrotum and penis. In the absence of androgens, the labia don't fuse and you end up with a vagina and clitoris instead.

If a woman falls pregnant without realising it and continues to take birth control for the first couple of weeks of her pregnancy, the exposure will occur before the process of sexually dimorphic development has got underway, so it's too early to affect sexual development. However, that doesn't mean it's harmless. In the course of trying to find out what synthetic hormones do to the unborn child, I've found several different groups of people that have been harmed by them in various ways. One of those groups are the Primodos victims. Primodos (sold as Duogynon in Germany) was a high dose combination of norethisterone and ethinylestradiol, two of the exact same synthetic hormones that have seen extensive use in birth control. Basically it caused some of the women given it to miscarry, and others to give birth to babies with a range of disabilities quite similar to the disabilities that were seen with thalidomide. As with the DES feminization of males and the progestin induced virilization of female babies, the whole thing was swept under the carpet.

theconversation.com/is-primodos-the-forgotten-thalidomide-50673

I've also attached a file showing the events associated with brain development. The early stages of brain development involve very rapid cell division to produce the vast numbers of cells needed to form the human brain, and the migration of those cells to where their final place in the brain will be (which is often far distant from where they form). It's not until about 16 weeks after conception that the first permanent connections between cells in the brain start to form, and the permanent structure of the brain to develop (a process which continues for the remainder of the pregnancy). This probably explains why there's a separation of effects from hormone exposure of mainly physical ones in the first trimester, to mainly effects on the brain if exposure occurs later in the pregnancy. Presumably the important sex differences in brain tissue are related in some way to how cells are connected to each other at the microscopic level (although there are also sex-related size differences in certain areas of the brain, and there must be differences in hormone receptor expression too, since male and female brain tissue responds differently to hormones).

I wonder if Gina Robbins fancies a political career?

Yes Bertrand, it is cobblers.

And doesn't current trans doctrine say that associating being trans with dysphoria - or any other condition - is transphobic?

I thought that was all debunked forty plus years ago.

I am right in thinking, aren't I? that the male/female brain thing is cobblers?

FFS, there is no such thing as a "female brain".

And actually, quite strange when you were so up in arms about "beating out the trans"/conversion therapy up thread.

Ok hugh assuming your theory is right, what is your suggestion?
Withdraw synthetic progesterones from women of childbearing age in case they have a transgender child?
Don't treat miscarriage/premature birth with progesterone because a dead baby is better than a trans person?
Describe transgenderism as a birth defect caused by medication?
None of those avenues seem particularly congruent with current feminist/trans activist thinking. In fact they seem quite regressive.

And a lot of these late transitioning transwomen who are so vocal in the movement and who potentially could have been exposed in the right time period don't appear to me to be particularly different to any other men, apart from external presentation. Especially when they have kept their perfectly normal male genitals and have used them to have children with a woman.

What is female brain development? Or male, for that matter?

"Even if we assume the hypothesis regarding the use of DES or progesterone does cause a male fetus to develop a female brain is correct DES has not been used since the 1970s so does not account for children presenting with gender dysphoria now."

DES was used quite extensively in Europe throughout the 1970s, and may have continued to be used for miscarriage prevention in some third world countries right up until the 1990s. However, the point I'm trying to make is that it's just one example of a testosterone-suppressing drug given to pregnant women, where there's evidence of high rates of DSDs and transsexuality in the male offspring. There are plenty of other drugs with testosterone suppressing properties that are still in use during pregnancy, in particular several members of the progestin class of hormones (e.g. dydrogesterone, hydroxyprogesterone caproate and, in many Asian countries, allylestrenol).

Due to the way it's prescribed and the high doses used, I think hydroxyprogesterone caproate is particularly likely to be capable of inducing female brain development in male babies. That particular one was withdrawn from routine use in the UK sometime around 2000 because of a lack of evidence of effectiveness, however it's still prescribed in the US and in most other parts of the world.

poppy it's pretty clear your proofreading skills are better than mine! I need to go slower.....

Sorry, my reply was to Hugh - others posted while I was typing! I should also add, as have the posters above me that again, literally thousands of women will have taken some form of hormonal contraception in early pregnancy, before they realised they were pregnant and again there is no evidence to support that this causes any changes to brain function.