The science of transgender / gender identity

Where's the proof that transwomen are women? (Looking at you, Penny Mordaunt)
Speaking as a mathematician, you can't even attempt to prove all A are B until you have defined A and B. Working definition of A seems to be "Anyone who says they are" and B "it's complicated".

It's alright Bowl. I have made a new one and it is better. Time to make tea now

Oh darn melamin! Hope it’s fixable

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3287119-Had-a-reply-from-CRUK-re-cervix-havers

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3236288-Excellent-article-on-the-problem-of-transphobia

There will be more if you use advanced search.

Basically the article goes through some very interesting examples of errors of sexual development and that’s fine - these occur, just like many other developmental syndromes. They’re fascinating. They tell us quite a bit about the things that can go wrong and normal processes.
Where the article goes wrong is by then asserting that the presence of such disorders means that sex is a spectrum. It isn’t. That’s not a logical conclusion.

There are multiple disorders of limb development. There are people born with no limbs, one fused lower limb, duplications of all parts of the structure. That tells us fascinating things about limb fields in the embryo and how limbs develop but it doesn’t imply limb number is a spectrum.

Your post is entirely correct melamin

(There - Officially peer reviewed) ;)

Thank you for that . I am trying to make a dress and read this at the same time and have cut a hole in the sleeve but now I know I have my priorities right

The science ought to be pretty darn compelling before medical intervention. Instead, we learn if doctors fail to affirm then the child will commit suicide. Is it this threat that drives healthcare professionals?

Totally agree. However as we discussed the other day, the lobby groups behind this are actively changing the medical definitions involved and thus changing the standard of care.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3328210-Follow-the-money-who-is-funding-the-US-transborg

georgefaynes comments are excellent

Datun, Bowl

am in awe of your patience

What do psychologists and paediatricians say about the phenomenon?

The memorandum of understanding is what has started the problem. It means affirmation at all costs.

Here’s the thread where neuroscientists take apart the MRI studies

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3196135-Scientists-please-gather-round

Let me see if I can dredge up the one where we developmental scientists/geneticists take the nature oped apart...

LayOfTheLand

The answer to your question to me:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3101834-trans-widows-escape-committee

LayOfTheLand

Being on the left and feeling conflicted is a subject that is raised here almost daily.

Women who have historically championed minorities, LGBT rights, the disabled, people of colour, suddenly finding themselves wrongfooted.

Being called bigots.

You have to remember that feminists have a finely honed radar when it comes to misogyny. They spotted the problem with this a long time ago.

They have drilled down into this issue, read as much about it as they can, including the studies, reports, science, etc. Many of them are scientists themselves, endocrinologists, geneticists, etc.

Feminists are analysts, not bigots.

The reason why women are disadvantaged is because of the inherent power dynamic between men and women. Which is consistently and relentlessly upheld by men.

This new issue is also being upheld by men.

Where are the transmen beating men at sport, clamouring to get into male prisons, campaigning for access to men's toilets? Where are the transmen telling men that prostate cancer is exclusionary? Where are the transmen insisting gay men sleep with them?

This is patriarchy in action. You disagreeing with the trans ideology and being a woman on the left is a perfectly natural position to hold.

Even the entirely odious Riley Dennis has a video laying out that there is no useful evidence to prove the blue/pink brain theory.

Sorry to see this thread go all wobbly. I think it is key to unearthing why healthcare professionals are so keen to affirm beliefs - particularly in children and teenage girls.

Has anyone, for instance, made a study of small boys who are so adamant that they are really a girl?

What do psychologists and paediatricians say about the phenomenon? Do they all agree? (I recall a paediatrition being sacked in Canada for having different views.)

The science ought to be pretty darn compelling before medical intervention. Instead, we learn if doctors fail to affirm then the child will commit suicide. Is it this threat that drives healthcare professionals?

And on another subject: Where's the proof that transwomen are women? (Looking at you, Penny Mordaunt)

Oh for the love of god that bloody nature editorial. Are we going to have the pink and blue brain MRI one next?

Do I have the will to go through this for the twenty third time? I’m not sure I do tbh... it’s hot. I’m not well.

It’s an OP ED piece. Like you get in the Mail. It’s not a peer reviewed bit of science. It’s someones opinion, and like many Op-Ed’s it’s clickbaity.

There are two sexes. I’m actually not sure I can be arsed going through it all again - a swift advanced search on it and these boards will show you one of the other 22 times I and others have gone through this.

Sex isn’t a spectrum. There are no pink and blue brains. Everyone with an intersex condition is Male or female with some developmental errors.

This is GCSE and pre GCSE level stuff.

I'd be interested to read what any pro-transgender evolutionary biologists think about:

(1) what is the evolutionary benefit of gender identity?
(2) what is the evolutionary benefit of gender dysphoria?
(2) what is the evolutionary benefit if sex is a spectrum rather than a binary?

Does anyone know of any articles that analyse these questions?

Your post is entirely correct melamin :)

(There - Officially peer reviewed) ;)

The article linked in the OP uses the term "assigned biological sex". I think this shows that the author of that blog article is biased in favour of transgender ideology and it shows that she has accepted the idea that biology is a social construct. She is entitled to her opinion, but I don't agree with the writer.

In past decades, intersex people have often had their sex assigned at birth. In recent years, with improvements in medical technology, even the sex of intersex people is increasingly often observed at birth not assigned at birth.

Everyone else is not assigned a sex at birth, their sex is observed.

Almost no intersex people are transgender.
Almost all transgender people are not intersex.
The overlap between transgender people and intersex people is tiny. People who are both intersex and transgender are members of one of the smallest categories of humans.

Gender identity and attempts to change a transgender person's body to what that person believes is that person's "true" biological sex will not change the biological outcome of sexual intercourse. Only an egg fertilised by a sperm will create human life.

Pregnancy can occur when sexual intercourse permits the biological process of fertilisation.

Contraception can interfere with the biological outcome of sexual intercourse, but even contraception is based on putting up barriers against actual biological processes. Contraception is not about barriers against gender identity.

It feels surreal to me that I feel that I have to write such things on a parenting forum. We know how babies are made, don't we?

LayOfTheLand

Talking about it all as a concept might be interesting, I agree, but it's red herring, in my opinion.

Because the fact remains that women's rights are not based on the way an individual thinks. They're based on the class analysis of behaviour (in terms of sex segregation). And biological reality (in terms of maternity rights, abortion etc.)

Men transitioning does not alter their male pattern behaviour, nor their male pattern criminality.

The problem has arisen because there are two types of transwomen. Homosexual transsexuals and AGP individuals.

Not only are they completely different, it has increased the cohort massively. Far larger than anyone had imagined when they wrote the laws.

And, in turn, that has reduced the criteria necessary. Which is why you now get any number of predators, men's rights activists, etc, flocking to the movement.

If you don't have to have any kind of surgery, no kind of diagnosis and can wear a three-piece suit, hobnail boots and sport a beard, there are obviously going to be problems.

Here is a thread that explains it and points to resources.

It's a little out of date, because even in the last few months, things have moved on.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

It's interesting that you say you're on the left politically OP. One of the problems in this area is that science is expected to comply with political beliefs. For example "transwomen are women" is a political standpoint and accordingly the science must follow.

This reminds me of Soviet science and Nazi science.

No snidey-ness intended. Just a pointer of what happens when people start using political thought to control scientific understanding.

Read Bowl's posts over mine - my biology is rusty and Bowl is an expert.

There is no way of telling from someone's brain whether they are male or female. There are differences in sizes brain and parts of the brain of adults, like there are differences in heights and size of muscle. These fall within the normal range for each sex and overlap a long way. Just like height does. They work the same way.

There is no way of telling someone's sexuality from the brain. Most gay people and probably everyone else, would prefer it to stay that way, given attempts in the past to identify and annihilate gay people.

Disorders of sexual development are like other disorders. Some come from chromosomal mix ups like huntingdons and downs, and affect the parts that the chromosome contain information for. Some from incomplete development as the fetus grows. Like people who have fingers that are 'missing'

There are plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong from conception onwards. It is amazing that we make it as far as we do.