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Original poster

The Gene - An intimate history - Swyer Syndrome and David Reimer

219 replies

LaPeste · 30/09/2019 12:26

I am currently reading a book called "The Gene - An Intimate History" by Siddhartha Mukherjee. In the book, he has a short section on the genetics of sex and gender identity, and I wanted to share what he says to hear your thoughts.

First, he presents the cases of Swyer Syndrome, where people have XY chromosomes, but present and almost always report a female gender identity. He also presents the famous case of David Reimer, who was brought up as a girl after a botched surgery, realised he was male, changed gender, and eventually killed himself.

He brings these cases to make the point that gender identity in both cases does seem to be some fixed characteristic, that it is not necessarily aligned with our genetics or with how we are externally treated. I certainly know in the Reimer case that there were a great many other compounding factors that affected the poor man, and contributed to his suicide.

He then goes on to make the point that despite the binary nature of sex (XY/XX), or more accurately, the gene(s) in a particular region of the X chromosome (SRY gene region), that there is a mechanism for trans people. What he argues is that while there may be a master gene that turns male sex and female sex on and off, there can be a cascade of genes that create what we are debating as gender identity. I'm explaining it poorly, but as a gender critical person, it does give some pause.

Quoting from an article

"Mukherjee compares the master regulator to an army commander. At top of the hierarchy is gender anatomy; countless variations exist downstream in the composition of the army, each with slightly different components. You might have male identity with differing sexual attractions, or you might have differing aspects of male identity. He continues, The way that these genes—this genetic information percolates down into the individual, the way this hierarchy percolates down into an individual might be very different from one person to another and therefore create the kind of infinite ripples or variations in human identity that we experience in human life."

bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/can-transgenderism-be-explained-with-genetics

I just wondered if you'd come across this, and what you thought of it.

OP posts:
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Tyrotoxicity · 04/10/2019 08:52

just give me the top three things that are exploding in his brain to make him think that.

I'll tell you what, let's make it even easier. Give me one thing, just one.

Ooo, oooh, I know this one!

Misogyny?

As for religiosity being heritable - humans are basically born naive and credulous. We all believe whatever shit we're told by parents which is why my favourite game for small children is Plausible Lies. I suspect the 'heritable' part comes in with which story you're told (and how plausible it is within the sociocultural context).

FWRLurker · 04/10/2019 02:06

Personality traits like religiousity are also heritable. Doesn’t mean religion is anything other than a social construction. Just means some people have personalities more prone to choosing to follow a religion.

Gender ID is similar I imagine.

Also many mental illnesses are heritable - most have a higher heritability than this. So I am not following your idea that a trans gender identity being genetically heritable means it can’t be a mental illness. There’s no if-then here.

Anyway of course it’s quite plausible that inheritance of certain personality traits (or heritable mental illness) may increase the likelihood someone identifies as trans. And I already explained why heritability studies that use terms like “a genetic basis” can be misleading because a high heritablity can actually be entirely caused by an environmental mediator (see:race). This is formally called a gene-by-environment effect.

Ereshkigal · 04/10/2019 00:13

Great analogy.

TheProdigalKittensReturn · 04/10/2019 00:12

It's the difference between being allowed to have a religious belief that abortion and contraception are sins and being allowed to ban abortion and contraception for everyone else because you have that belief. The latter scenario is what trans activists are pushing for.

BeMoreMagdalen · 04/10/2019 00:01

Lots of feelings are real. Religious feelings are real. If the suggestion is that gender religionists should be accorded the right to believe in their quirky little faith, then no one on this board has ever said they shouldn't be allowed to believe it.

What we don't agree with is the wholesale imposition of their religion on everyone else, on pain of employment or legal sanction, via the removal of single sex provision for women, or the imposition of the abusive elements of the religion on children with fanciful sexist lies about what is a boy or girl thing, leading to medical and surgical interventions that induce stunted development and sterility.

Whether they really feel this is a good plan is irrelevant. The rest of us think it's fucking nuts.

Ereshkigal · 03/10/2019 23:55

Also comparing it with a belief in god and saying "you don't say religious people are mentally ill" isn't an entirely accurate comparison.

Transgenderism claims that gender (sex) dysphoria is a congenital health condition caused by a variety of proposed factors where a body has a different innate "gender". Its proponents say that identifying with the opposite sex is more natural.

If we accept that gender dysphoria exists, which I do (but I think only a tiny fraction of the people claiming it have it), but don't actually believe in the innate gender identity concept, the only other possible suggestion and the one most likely for me is that it is a pathological psychological condition (which I acknowledge causes great distress) with or without a genetic component. How else would you frame it?

TheProdigalKittensReturn · 03/10/2019 23:21

Is transNapoleon then allowed to invade Russia and stable his horses in the cathedral in Moscow that's been restored since the last time he used it as a stable? Where are the people currently using that cathedral for its intended purpose meant to go? Or should they offer to share space with the horses to be kind?

LangCleg · 03/10/2019 23:19

AND IT'S STILL NOTHING TO DO WITH INTERSEX.

Why, OP, did you start a thread about DSDs? Why are you not acknowledging how offensive it is to intersex people to conflate their physical conditions with woke religionist beliefs?

TheProdigalKittensReturn · 03/10/2019 23:19

It doesn't matter whether the feelings are real or not. If a person feels like Napoleon do we pronounce them the newly restored ruler of France? What about if the French aren't very happy about that idea?

LangCleg · 03/10/2019 23:17

the strictly gender critical position, which seems to be saying that gender identity is only socially constructed

You're confusing the queer theory/transgender ideology concept of "gender identity" with the feminist concept of "gender".

The former is a metaphysical belief in an inner sense of being akin to a soul.

The latter is a class analysis of the social imposition of power relations between the sexes.

You don't seem to have even the most basic grasp of the issues at hand here.

BernardBlacksWineIceLolly · 03/10/2019 22:59

then part of the compromise is in recognizing that at very least, these feelings may well be real

I don’t understand why this matters really. Recognise away if it makes you happy. I still don’t want to share toilets/changing rooms etc with men

I’m still no closer to understanding what you’re actually proposing

doesthatmakesense · 03/10/2019 22:51

Sounds like yet another attempt to argue that outliers define everybody.

Ereshkigal · 03/10/2019 22:42

or an alternative gender

Also what on earth does this mean?

Datun · 03/10/2019 22:26

"A person’s deeply-felt, inherent sense of being a boy, a man, or a male; a girl, a woman, or a female; or an alternative gender"

With all the words in the English language at your disposal, every single word in the dictionary, give me, let's make it easy, just the top three things that would make a man believe he was a woman. Since it must be on his mind 24/7, just give me the top three things that are exploding in his brain to make him think that. Take a random stab.

I'll tell you what, let's make it even easier. Give me one thing, just one.

Give me one single, solitary thing that any man, anywhere, at any time could ever, in the history of the world, and the universe make him think that he was actually a woman. One, single, solitary, material example.

OldCrone · 03/10/2019 21:21

It seems to accord with what I was saying, about gender identity being a belief or a feeling.

these feelings may well be real and those who have those feelings are not necessarily ill. This seems to be at odds with the strictly gender critical position, which seems to be saying that gender identity is only socially constructed.

So we agree that 'gender identity' is a belief or a feeling. In that case, it could be treated like a religion, which is also a belief. A belief in 'gender identity' can be treated exactly the same as a belief in Christianity, Islam or any other religion.

We don't have any legislation based on 'feelings' as far as I know, so although people who have a 'feeling' that they have a 'gender identity' may not be mentally ill, this feeling shouldn't be treated any differently in law to the way the law treats any other feelings.

DuMondeB · 03/10/2019 21:09

The GC position is that gender identity doesn’t exist at all.

We are gender atheists.

Original poster
LaPeste · 03/10/2019 20:52

At the risk of coming back to the thread, I wanted to clarify a few things. First of all, the definition for gender identity that some have asked for. The broadly standard definition in the medical literature goes along the following lines.

"A person’s deeply-felt, inherent sense of being a boy, a man, or a male; a girl, a woman, or a female; or an alternative gender".

It seems to accord with what I was saying, about gender identity being a belief or a feeling.

Second, I wanted to go back to my original point. Leaving aside the issue of DSD (which I didn't think I was conflating with the trans issue), I came across this paper.

"The Biological Contributions to Gender Identity and Gender Diversity: Bringing Data to the Table"

link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10519-018-9889-z

It concludes the following.

This review of existing family and twin studies summarizes significant and consistent evidence for the role of innate genetic factors in the development of both cisgender and transgender identities, a negligible role for shared environmental factors, and a small potential role for unique environmental factors. Heritability estimates are consistent with other behavioral and personality traits, which generally fall in the range of 30−60%

This brings me back to my compromise. If (and this is an if) there is scientific evidence that genetics does play a significant role in determining someone's gender identity, then part of the compromise is in recognizing that at very least, these feelings may well be real and those who have those feelings are not necessarily ill. This seems to be at odds with the strictly gender critical position, which seems to be saying that gender identity is only socially constructed.

I think it is a legal or philosophical question whether transwomen are women and transmen are men (I personally don't think they are, and I still believe that sex is binary), and I think this is where we get into terminology.

Anyway, thanks for the discussion.

OP posts:
Datun · 03/10/2019 14:17

But absolutely none of this has any bearing on the gender identity of an individual who has undisrupted sexual development.

Exactly. It's such a derailment.

LangCleg · 03/10/2019 12:57

But absolutely none of this has any bearing on the gender identity of an individual who has undisrupted sexual development.

Quite.

FWRLurker · 03/10/2019 12:54

he seems to ignore the many cases where they didn't change it - so how does he explain that?

Actually he doesn’t ignore it. Instead he uses these cases as further proof for the thesis that gender is NOT “solely due to chromosomes”.

The problem here is that he’s entirely discounting the much more obvious cause which is that other people tell you what sex you are based on your phenotype / sexed physical characteristics, and that these vary WILDLY among the XY DSD conditions.

Swyer women will never look anything except 100% female. They are for all intents and purposes women who are sterile. They even have Fallopian tubes and a uterus.

Meanwhile there are XY boys/men who have ambiguous genetalia at birth who in the past the doctor basically flipped a coin and said “hmm... their penis is not big enough, you should raise them as a girl and we’ll give them lots of surgery and keep everything secret from them” but then puberty makes it clear they are and always were male when they develop all the typical features of male puberty. Then There are cases of penile disgenesys and androgen insensitivities which go the other way - the body still remains phenotypically female Similar to swyer. These individuals will remain female because they will continue to be seen as female because they have a body that everyone recognizes as female.

Ultimately what happens is that people will reidentify as their chromosomal sex (or not) in the vast, vast majority of cases depending on the information they later learn and how their body develops. It is genetic to the extent that the conditions which caused the confusion to the first place are themselves genetic, which of course they are.

But absolutely none of this has any bearing on the gender identity of an individual who has undisrupted sexual development.

kesstrel · 03/10/2019 11:48

Is gender, or identity described in terms of the actual behaviour?

The book seems unduly vague on this. That's one reason why his thesis comes across as unconvincing.

And talking about the DSD cases where the XY individuals changed their sex identity to male when they found out about their DSD is all very well, but he seems to ignore the many cases where they didn't change it - so how does he explain that? I still think the most logical thing is that individuals' personalities are likely to make them more or less comfortable with what society expects of each sex. So whether they want to switch to their chromosomal sex is probably dependent at least partly on their personality, and partly on practicality.

Tyrotoxicity · 03/10/2019 11:15

OldCrone it was, by Datun.

"Gender identity is a person's attitude to the damaging society imposed roles which they feel they cannot abide by."

Next time I get a blank text box to fill in my "gender identity" I'm putting 'oppositional defiance'.

TheProdigalKittensReturn · 03/10/2019 10:56

Nothing has been defined, we're just meant to hope in the promise of the kernals.

(Butter and salt on mine when they're ready, please.)

OldCrone · 03/10/2019 10:53

Has 'gender identity' been defined yet?

Tyrotoxicity · 03/10/2019 10:40

He brings these cases to make the point that gender identity in both cases does seem to be some fixed characteristic, that it is not necessarily aligned with our genetics or with how we are externally treated.

He's bringing his own bias into it.

Swyer involves a female-typical external body. People with bodies that are to all appearances female at birth do tend to be raised in the understanding that they're female ie girls/women.

This says nothing about "gender identity."

It's evidence that we don't routinely use chromosomes to determine whether someone is male or female. We go by phenotype, rather than genotype. Because no one's got built-in gene-detectors in their eyes.

It's about firstly, whether a gender identity can differ from one's chromosomes, and it would seem that is the case.

You're bringing in the same bias here, OP. You're assuming there's something innate within the body that determines "gender identity".

Identities are socially constructed over time. They emerge. They're not genetically encoded.

What they mean when they talk about "gender identity" is whether their mindset, inclinations and proclivities are coded-masculine or coded-feminine. Whether personality is innate is irrelevant here; the fact that certain personalities are designated by other people as 'manly' or 'girly' is culturally-dependent and not genetic.

You say you're GC, OP - assuming gender is biological and innate is the opposite of GC.