Asked my Lib Dem candidate what a woman is

I'm highly sceptical of the idea that male and female brains are near-identical, and that any differences are purely down to socialisation. The two sexes have evolved for different reproductive purposes; if women had the same childrearing, fighting or danger sensitive instincts as men then we'd have been extinct out of the gate.

A parent friend's anecdote led me to this article implying potential sex differences in neonatal attention. Another one here showing subtle sex-based differences. And cognitive differences in rats, which don't experience gendered socialisation in the same way as adults.

I don't see a contradiction between acknowledging a biological role in cognition (however limited) and rejecting the "male brain in female body" narrative. One has more evidence than the other.

Is it only me that fears that this new study using AI to analyse brain features that can tell in 9/10 cases what sex the brain is, will be used by people to justify poorer treatment for women in all kinds of situations? Or just simply to justify their misogyny. Not just be TRAs to try to insist that you can get a "female" brain jn a "male" body, which is more important than their sexed body.

I thought that was an AI response. The last line just sounds odd and like a ChatGpt answer. But turns out ChatGPT has a better answer that while not ideal, he should have cut and pasted!

Our brains are different. A male brain isn't going to regulate pregnancy hormones now is it

No, a ‘male brain’ would not - not even if its owner believed its ‘male brain’ was in fact a female brain ‘in the wrong body’.

(Is it the brain itself that regulates hormones, by the way, anybody?)

Sometimes I'm absolutely flummoxed by the 'direction of travel' in gender politics and wonder if I've missed something. There's a corruption of definitions and bending of the truth, delusion and warped thinking plus the likes of politicians/activists etc dancing on the head of a pin. Those saying TWAW are simplistic at best. How's it come to this??!

‘A woman is someone who defines themselves as a women…’

But the material reality is that women are disadvantaged largely because of reasons to do with their biology. And patriarchal ideas that still exist in society and its institutions.

You can’t ‘define yourself’ as something you’re not. I can’t define myself as a dining table and chairs for example, or a non-shoplifter if I was caught for shoplifting. Just ‘defining yourself’ is not a robust test of anything, especially something that gives you access to vulnerable and non consenting females.

I’m not sure who it was, but a TRA got incredibly excited on TwiX about some kind of medical test for transness that was almost ready. They thought this was brilliant because it would provide objective proof that people were trans.

The rest of them reacted with utter horror & once the original TRA understood why, they shut up.

Can only see abstract.

Doesn't seem to suggest an inherently female brain can develop inside a male body though? Or visa versa.

Our findings underscore the crucial role of sex as a biological determinant in human brain organization

suggests the neuroplasticity element that effects the way the brain develops in the sexed body - rather than that a certain kind of brain determines whether someone is actually male or female - and that sometimes nature gets this wrong and the wrong body develops in relation to the brain?

Ffs what an illiterate reply!

Neuroplasticity! The brain adapts and changes to what it experiences, so gender stereotyping will result in some differences, but that's socialisation. And girls like me who always played with boys' toys may have some differences - the famous spatial awareness, ability to refold OS maps etc..
Which undermines the male/female brain thing.

Just jumping in to say a recent study indicates that there are detectable differences between male and female brains.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2310012121

From the abstract "Our results demonstrate that sex differences in functional brain dynamics are not only highly replicable and generalizable but also behaviorally relevant, challenging the notion of a continuum in male-female brain organization."

Thank you, though trying to cram my 5'6" true self into my inconveniently 5'3" false body does mean I have to stoop a bit. On the plus side it is roomy around the middle.

I asked my Labour Party candidate out canvassing for local by-election if he could tell me what % of women have a cervix. He was speechless. I helped him out by asking if he agreed with his beloved leader etc. He hung his head, and said “that’s not the first time I’ve been asked that today”

It depends on the gender you were assigned at birth.

People are segregated, when necessary, by sex because of their sexed bodies not their brains.

Abso-fucking-lutely.

Gawd. That's so much more succinct than mine😂

I would ask him if this is his own view, the party line or reflective of his constituents opinions.

I believe I should have been born into the body of a billionaire.. how do I get that on the nhs

So what if he's right? What difference would it make to anything?

Are they going to scan everyone's brains to find out whether they have a pink one or a blue one and then give everyone an appropriate toilet pass?

excellent

My Lib Dem MP started banging on about race when I raised concerns about women's rights in relation to the trans issue. All very odd! Needless to say, I won't be voting for the absolute loon! I'm tempted to write her the same email now in light of the Cass review.

I would ask, "can you tell me how I can live as a man please as I would like the higher salary, not to be sexually harassed, and for people not to assume that I'm going to make the tea in meetings at work, thank you".

I've seen some dismissive remarks about the 'What is a woman?' question - 'it's not the gotcha question stupid TERFs think it is'.

Although we know that actually, it is the gotcha question, I agree with using unsettling approaches like cheeriness, broken record, escalating 'so does that mean that you ....', or my fave which is a chummy 'Ah come on now, you don't really believe people can change sex, do you?'

I think "live as a woman" just means "live in female presentation", but that doesn't sound so affirming.

I can see a certain logic in "proving" you're serious about say a legal gender change, by making cosmetic changes to try and imitate the "I woke up one morning in a woman's body" fantasy.

But you could still pick so many holes in that - - a woman doesn't have to put in effort to look like a woman, and society is very likely to perceive and treat you as a male person dressed in feminine clothing. Female presentation is only slightly less subjective than "living as female".