Male/female brain evidence

It's fascinating that lowering testosterone helps gender dysphoria in trans identifying males.

I'm also thinking about how perhaps young women who identify as men may feel stronger with added testosterone, (obviously there are huge health risks) and indeed how some menopausal women need small amounts to deal with menopause.

Many young women (and women of all ages) and teens deal with horrific menstrual hormonal issues and imbalances that aren't adequately looked at and dealt with.

www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02089-2

Brain injuries in women, they're at the start of the research.

Woman's hour segment

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000d1z1

He also discusses how oestrogen 'feminizes' the brain and completely dismisses it. What it appears to do is change blood flow, reduce the size of the brain, interfere with executive function, cause dangerously high builds up of glutamate and lead to early on-set dementia and high risk of stroke.

Yes I've read the same piece and it's quite concerning.

www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2020/02/13/exclusive-chelsea-become-first-club-tailor-training-menstrual/

The key question here, as others have, I think, alluded to, is, 'So what?'. Not in a defensive way but in a genuine way. What would we do with this information? For example, if it really were true that trans people have more similar brains / brain activity / whatever to the sex they are transing to, when, if ever, might that be relevant? If I were definitively 'born in the wrong body', does it follow that hormones and surgery are the best way to manage that? Does it follow that I should be treated as though I were 'born in' the opposite sex body even though I wasn't? In all circumstances? Does it follow that people who feel discomfort with their sexed body should only receive support following the correct brain scan result, or should everyone who feels they need support get it? Do we believe that everyone who identifies as trans has the same underlying reasons or do we believe there could be multiple causes? If a brain scan can identify a male or female brain, should that impact on how we design services? If my brain is 'more male' does this equip me to use a urinal? Should it mean I can wear trunks at the pool instead of a swimming costume? Should it mean I should go to a special school for 'male' subjects or should I be allowed to develop my own interests and skills? Should different standards of acceptable behaviour be applied to me, because of my 'maleness'?

@Packingsoapandwater look at the fitr woman app (free) which Chelsea woman's football club used to help them be excellent (don't follow football so I don't know the details of their success.)

www.bbc.com/news/business-49426349

I've not read trans by Helen Joyce but I've watched her interview with Boyce this week and read some excerpts.

She starts from mathematical principles of certainty. And every thing expands from there, including reasons behind how we are as males and females and cultures etc.

I do find rooting reasoning in science, maths and biology the best way to work through things.

Huge amounts of oestrogen isn't great for a young healthy woman either. Hrt is replacing a deficit.

Btw, the info Lisa discussed about the impact of pregnancy on the brain is fascinating (it grows!)

This is all v simplistic though and easily misconstrued as explained by Rippon and Fine.

Lots of recent research shows that women who play contact sports are at higher risk of brain injury at certain points of the menstrual cycle even if on the pill. Thought to be linked to oestrogen

Thanks :) - so what is that quote actually about then?

This is a good listen and her book is excellent

thedoctorskitchen.com/lifestyle/the-doctors-kitchen-podcast-59-how-to-reverse-ageing-part-3-of-4-the-female-ageing-brain-with-dr-lisa-mosconi

We need oestrogen to protect against dementia.

(Basically the two authors/ researchers JustWaking linked to writing together in one paper.)

He also discusses how oestrogen 'feminizes' the brain and completely dismisses it. What it appears to do is change blood flow, reduce the size of the brain, interfere with executive function, cause dangerously high builds up of glutamate and lead to early on-set dementia and high risk of stroke

Sorry, is this in women generally (what oestrogen does to all of us) or just to males who take Oestrogen as part of hormone therapy (you've got me a bit worried).

This is where you need to read Gina Rippon's book, the gendered brain.

That's an example of neurotrash.

It's a nuanced area as there clearly are some mild sex differences in a few areas - but it's how statistics play into this.

This is a good, but neuro challenging, summary:

sfonline.barnard.edu/neurogenderings/eight-things-you-need-to-know-about-sex-gender-brains-and-behavior-a-guide-for-academics-journalists-parents-gender-diversity-advocates-social-justice-warriors-tweeters-facebookers-and-ever/

I've just spent a good 10 mins searching google-scholar for all likely combinations of words that could find a paper on binaural listening in transgender participants and I've found nothing. There are a few with basic sex diffs in binaural listening but even there results are mixed.

This one suggests that transmen improve on spatial memory tests when they take hormones but no other changes
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453020301402#fig0010

It could be quite interesting if it were true that male trans-identifying subjects performed more like women on linguistic tests. I'd tend to wonder if the same would be true of gay male subjects.

I think the underlying good faith use of looking for such brain differences would be to find a medical explanation for sex dysphoria. Though that is not why activists are interested in general.

But I've never heard of the particular test and I would want a reference before taking it too seriously.

And:

amzn.to/3ljVTia

The experiments that show that being reminded of our gender changes our behaviour is one of the reasons I'm against giving pronouns. It's not harmless: it reinforces gender stereotypes.

(The other reason is that as a woman in a non-gender-conforming career, I don't want to emphasise something which is frequently held against me)

Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences is a fantastic book, which is well worth reading for a wider perspective on experiments showing gender differences.

The author (a neuroscientist scientist herself) looks at various experiments and analyses them using her own expertise. Spoiler: mostly when you look at multiple experiments together rather than just looking at one in isolation, you find flaws in many of those experiments which seem to show gender differences .

Sometimes it's quite subtly reminding someone of their gender (eg telling them you are testing for something stereotypically gendered, or even just getting them to write their name!). Repeated experiments have shown that these significantly change the experiment's results.

There do seem to be some genuine differences in men and women's behaviours which experiments show robustly, and seem to be rooted in biology not upbringing, but it's not necessarily the differences you would expect.

Some of these experiments show people self-editing - not even aware they are doing it - so I think it's conceivable that sometimes experiments might seem to show Trans people performing similarly to the gender they have switched to... But that might not be due to genuine brain differences.

Was anyone else a bit creeped out by that article? I couldn't help but feel I was being educated to lower my boundaries and to ignore my gut.

I read an article today (Rise of the Trans Medical Taliban) via Genspect. As a scientist, the father of a boy who felt he could be trans, wanted to understand, from a medical and scientific perspective, what was going on with his son. He has found a lot of data (which it appears many researchers seem to be ignoring - no surprise there) that show a variety of treatments that could help, rather than the typical ones used at the moment. For example, there was one where it was observed that if they reduced the patient's testosterone levels, the desire to identify as the opposite sex completely went away! He states, "the brain is clearly impacted by hormonal changes in the body and that the brain is an endocrine organ".

He also discusses how oestrogen 'feminizes' the brain and completely dismisses it. What it appears to do is change blood flow, reduce the size of the brain, interfere with executive function, cause dangerously high builds up of glutamate and lead to early on-set dementia and high risk of stroke.

I read the comments on the article you linked and yes the commentator does seem to feel she is some sort of neuro researcher. However she is also a keen advocate of 'transmen are men' etc and seems to be a person (in other threads) who knows everything there is to know about everything. I am not saying that she isn't but at the same time I think if you want something to be true you go looking for it. I would also question how she dismisses another comment about 'hormones' considering they play such an important role in brain development and function.

I know this doesn't answer your query but thought it may be useful.

Interesting that people who deny the very obvious differences between male and female heart, lungs, liver, gut and all other vital organs in the torso are so keen on finding a difference in the one vital organ that is indistinguishable by sex.