I’m a feminist with a trans son AMA

[Fraida]

I’m a long-standing member of MN (since 2006 when my eldest child was born) but have named changed more recently!

So I have a 14 year old who is FTM trans person and two other younger children. My son came out officially as trans earlier this year but has been exploring his gender identity since he was about eight. This has been an interesting journey for us all as DH and I have always prided ourselves on allowing all of our children to be individuals and trying to help them not get sucked into cultural norms from a gender perspective I.e. a saying in our house is there is no such thing as boys things and girls things just things Like what you like and don’t get bogged down by what society might expect of you. For a while my middle child - a boy - had the longest hair in the house and loves horse riding both things typically associated with girls, for example.

With DS1 coming out as male I have had to rethink and relearn many of my own beliefs about gender and the whole transitioning process as Ill gladly admit I did have preconceived ideas and concerns about, for example, any gender specialists going down the route of affirmation rather than assessment as well as concerns about medication being offered too quickly. However in our experience so far this hasn’t been the case and there seems to be many more barriers and much more in the way of caution than I anticipated.

I will say however that the overwhelming negative impact on his mental health has been devastating for us all to watch with a number of suicide attempts (not uncommon) and chronic anxiety, to say the least. I do feel that whatever your views are on gender health care for children it cannot be right that psychological support and help is not more widespread and readily available.

Anyways I’m being brave because I fundamentally believe that dialogue is important and active listening in order to truly hear what opposing views are is really important in such a sensitive area. So here I am, happy to debate and answer questions but please don’t insult me as I am a sensitive human at the end of the computer

Can we acknowledge that neuroscience is a field where there is much to learn and that our understanding on how gender or gender incongruence makes us feel and behave is still a bit of an unknown but this doesn’t take away from what trans people feel and know

I think we can but not in a connected way. i.e. neuroscience is a very young field but there is unlikely to be anything in it which tells us about gender as gender is socially, not physically constructed.

As an academic (not in anything related to psychology, gender, feminism Incidentally) it’s in my DNA to be a critical thinker and to read things with an open mind.

OP, do you mind if I draw your attention to an interesting literary device you've unconsciously used here?

Your identification as an academic is not literally in your DNA, is it? It is not a tangible physical thing. You were not born with it; you acquired it as a result of your life's experience.

It's a useful way of expressing a concept about who you feel you are, it's mutually meaningful - but if we start thinking it's literally encoded in your genes we are going down a very meandering, potentially damaging, and ultimately futile path.

There's a parallel with your child's understanding of gender. I'd describe him as reifying the concept. Reification is a basic human trait, we all do it all the time, that's just how language works, and it trips us up sometimes.

Just had a quick scan of that paper you referenced OP (without outing myself - I am a scientist by training and have built machine learning systems in the past so have some relevant expertise here).

What it seems to be saying to me is:

• they did MRI scans of 4 different groups - men, women, transwomen and transmen
• they trained machine learning classifiers on that data
• when a random brain scan was taken, their classifier was able to determine which of those groups the brain belonged to with a 48-62% probability (25% would be random chance given there are 4 groups)

The fact that there are some similarities between the brains of people within each of those four groups is not a surprise. However, given that we're talking about a 48-62% accuracy level, even the authors of this paper (who seem to have a very strong agenda given the introduction) have to concede that there is no such thing as a "female brain", "male brain" or "trans brain". They definitely are not saying that transmen have male brains - in fact, if anything, this study is strong evidence that they do not.

i do get confused about people claiming there are male brains and female brains which can be in either male bodies or female bodies.

If you have, let's call it, a 'blue brain' that can be in either sex body, what makes it a male or female brain? Doesn't that just indicate that there are different types of brain that are unrelated to the sex of the body?

To me it would suggest that whatever phenomenon is being categorised by the labels pink/blue, it naturally occurs in both male and female brains.

Because a male brain is a human brain that happens to be part of a male-sexed body.

@FamilyOfAliens I think the ability to change your mind as a parent shows great strength and models to our children that we don’t always get things right and that is ok - as long as that is supported with an explanation about why we are changing tack.

I completely agree. I wasn’t really talking about you not accepting it if you changed your mind. I was talking more about the backlash you could get from the kind of people you find online who encourage children to distance themselves from their families if they don’t validate their beliefs.

I guess if female brains were 99.999999% 'pink' and there were twenty female people in the world who had a clearly defined discrete 'blue' brain that might indicate some sort of phenomenon. But the overlap in types of brain is so large and messy it seems odd to try and ascribe any sex-based characteristics to it with any meaningful purpose. And that's before you throw in plasticity and gendered upbringing.

@Lightsontbut

Can we acknowledge that neuroscience is a field where there is much to learn and that our understanding on how gender or gender incongruence makes us feel and behave is still a bit of an unknown but this doesn’t take away from what trans people feel and know

I think we can but not in a connected way. i.e. neuroscience is a very young field but there is unlikely to be anything in it which tells us about gender as gender is socially, not physically constructed.

Is it though because undoubtedly sex hormones do have an impact on the brain and behaviour for example a causal link between higher levels of testosterone and aggression. Men that have lower levels of testosterone tend to not be ‘alpha’ males.

So if testosterone is a male sex hormone (I know women have much lower levels of it too) you could argue that some aspects of gender are fundamentally biological.

Could the logical conclusion be that there is some interaction at a neuron level that only occurs in men or women but can due to an allele or some other change be present in the brain either sex?

Pretty much saying what @TyroTerfnis saying but in a less clear fashion probably!

@DeaconBoo

I guess if female brains were 99.999999% 'pink' and there were twenty female people in the world who had a clearly defined discrete 'blue' brain that might indicate some sort of phenomenon. But the overlap in types of brain is so large and messy it seems odd to try and ascribe any sex-based characteristics to it with any meaningful purpose. And that's before you throw in plasticity and gendered upbringing.

The nature nurture argument does add extra layers of complexity I agree, and not going to make the understanding of why some people experience gender dysphoria much easier or resolving this any time soon!

@twoHopes

Just had a quick scan of that paper you referenced OP (without outing myself - I am a scientist by training and have built machine learning systems in the past so have some relevant expertise here).

What it seems to be saying to me is:

• they did MRI scans of 4 different groups - men, women, transwomen and transmen
• they trained machine learning classifiers on that data
• when a random brain scan was taken, their classifier was able to determine which of those groups the brain belonged to with a 48-62% probability (25% would be random chance given there are 4 groups)

The fact that there are some similarities between the brains of people within each of those four groups is not a surprise. However, given that we're talking about a 48-62% accuracy level, even the authors of this paper (who seem to have a very strong agenda given the introduction) have to concede that there is no such thing as a "female brain", "male brain" or "trans brain". They definitely are not saying that transmen have male brains - in fact, if anything, this study is strong evidence that they do not.

Sure but rather a trans brain can be identified... I suspect the study would need to be repeated on numerous occasions to improve the CI.

I suppose the point here was there is possibly a ‘trans brain’ which points to a possible biological explanation rather than purely environmental.

I won’t in order to not out you but I’m intrigued by your job now and want to ask lots of questions

@TyroTerf

As an academic (not in anything related to psychology, gender, feminism Incidentally) it’s in my DNA to be a critical thinker and to read things with an open mind.

OP, do you mind if I draw your attention to an interesting literary device you've unconsciously used here?

Your identification as an academic is not literally in your DNA, is it? It is not a tangible physical thing. You were not born with it; you acquired it as a result of your life's experience.

It's a useful way of expressing a concept about who you feel you are, it's mutually meaningful - but if we start thinking it's literally encoded in your genes we are going down a very meandering, potentially damaging, and ultimately futile path.

There's a parallel with your child's understanding of gender. I'd describe him as reifying the concept. Reification is a basic human trait, we all do it all the time, that's just how language works, and it trips us up sometimes.

Also shows that language is clumsy and there is not always the lexicon for what it is you are trying to say.

Surely brain plasticity means we’d expect to find some statistically significant similarities between adults of different social groups, in the same way that brain changes can be seen in cabbies before and after doing the knowledge. For pink/blue/trans brains to be meaningful we’d need to see differences in new borns before any socialised life experiences. (Haven’t read the study, apologies if that’s dealt with)

Can we acknowledge that neuroscience is a field where there is much to learn and that our understanding on how gender or gender incongruence makes us feel and behave is still a bit of an unknown but this doesn’t take away from what trans people feel and know

People with gender dysphoria whose main focus is on their bodies feeling like they are 'wrong' seem to show some similarity with people who suffer from Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), who feel that one or more of their limbs or other body parts don't belong to them, or shouldn't be there. Some researchers into BIID now think that this disorder is neurological in origin rather than psychological.

So it is possible that gender dysphoria in some people may also be neurological in origin. But it is still a disorder, not a literal 'brain in the wrong body'. So a transgender person looking at their body and 'knowing' it is wrong may be very similar to a BIID sufferer looking at their right arm and 'knowing' that it shouldn't be there.

Random.musings on a rainy afternoon.

Will sex/gender ever become redundant as a label and be one less meaningful and does this matter. Does the upcoming generation want for it not to define them and not to have the labels because it feels constraining. For example most forms you have to tick your sex, why? Why does this matter so much?

I do appreciate the wider concerns of feminists that women feel they are becoming less visible and having their spaces invaded but at a micro level and not looking at the macro environment when you look at your child and they say I am a boy I do think ok this is your life and if you want or rather need to be who you are then that is fine it is harmless.

You can tell I lie awake at night quite often mulling these things over!

I suppose my last point is that when you are at home and working through this all the wider implications I.e. concerns about safe spaces are often secondary to the needs of your child at that given point in time. The intention is not to be selfish or to be controversial because I do care about hard won women’s rights for example but the nature of being a parent is you want what is best for your child not necessarily thinking about the broader implications.

@Blibbyblobby

Surely brain plasticity means we’d expect to find some statistically significant similarities between adults of different social groups, in the same way that brain changes can be seen in cabbies before and after doing the knowledge. For pink/blue/trans brains to be meaningful we’d need to see differences in new borns before any socialised life experiences. (Haven’t read the study, apologies if that’s dealt with)

I would be fascinated to know if the wiring for trans people is there at birth. Not sure how you could achieve that beyond scanning every newborn as standard just in case they identified as trans when they were older!

@OldCrone

Can we acknowledge that neuroscience is a field where there is much to learn and that our understanding on how gender or gender incongruence makes us feel and behave is still a bit of an unknown but this doesn’t take away from what trans people feel and know

People with gender dysphoria whose main focus is on their bodies feeling like they are 'wrong' seem to show some similarity with people who suffer from Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), who feel that one or more of their limbs or other body parts don't belong to them, or shouldn't be there. Some researchers into BIID now think that this disorder is neurological in origin rather than psychological.

So it is possible that gender dysphoria in some people may also be neurological in origin. But it is still a disorder, not a literal 'brain in the wrong body'. So a transgender person looking at their body and 'knowing' it is wrong may be very similar to a BIID sufferer looking at their right arm and 'knowing' that it shouldn't be there.

Not heard of that condition before, will look at the link.

Will sex/gender ever become redundant as a label and be one less meaningful and does this matter. Does the upcoming generation want for it not to define them and not to have the labels because it feels constraining. For example most forms you have to tick your sex, why? Why does this matter so much?

I would like to see gender dumped but you can’t ignore biological sex, for so many reasons, not least of which is appropriate healthcare, equality of opportunity for women and girls, sex-segrated services such as rape crisis centres.

So I would say yes to sex being recorded and no to gender.

I do appreciate the wider concerns of feminists that women feel they are becoming less visible and having their spaces invaded but

I think the issue is that whatever comes after the "but" above in any sentence from anyone, it reinforces that those concerns won't be prioritised.

Women feel they are becoming less visible and losing sex based rights, BUT - nothing after but can make what comes before but acceptable.

Women are concerned their safe spaces are becoming invaded BUT - nothing after but can make what comes before but acceptable.

Women are scared BUT they aren't priority. That's the take home from many of these discussions and it's incredibly sad as well as incredibly dangerous.

Not sure how eloquently I've explained that but hopefully it makes sense.

@Fraida I think these are all great questions. I hope gender will become redundant as we realise that our sex does not define our personality/abilities/likes and dislikes. We've come a long way but it seems like we still have a way to go. As a woman who has always worked in a very male dominated field I would desperately like to get rid of the idea of pink and blue brains which, I believe, is anti-scientific and sexist.

But I think our sex will always dominate our lives, especially for women. It would be great if we could all get pregnant and give birth but (until some matrix-esque future) that role will always be one that is done by females. And that will shape our lives, whether we like it or not. Trying to diminish or erase this fact will, I think, hurt women rather than help us as it will lead to our needs being ignored.

*Is it though because undoubtedly sex hormones do have an impact on the brain and behaviour for example a causal link between higher levels of testosterone and aggression. Men that have lower levels of testosterone tend to not be ‘alpha’ males.

So if testosterone is a male sex hormone (I know women have much lower levels of it too) you could argue that some aspects of gender are fundamentally biological.

Could the logical conclusion be that there is some interaction at a neuron level that only occurs in men or women but can due to an allele or some other change be present in the brain either sex*

I don't see that as a logical conclusion really. It's a massive leap from testoterone being weakly linked with aggression (it is v. weak no?) to suggest that we can have a simple causal link between biological factors and our current societies interpretation of 'gender' which is culturally and historically specific. There is too much cross-over (women can be aggressive, low testosterone males can be aggressive, high testosterone males are not always aggressive) to draw simple cause/ effect conclusions not least due to the impact of socialisation on any expression of our biology. I wonder if this is cherry picking the evidence? It looks like you are looking for some way to biologise what your child is saying in order to understand them. I would totally get that as the things you've reported about what your child says are very wafty and have little meaning to many of us. You, of course, are having to try and understand them in a way we're not and of course you'll be wanting to explore whether there really is any biological correlates of what your son believes to be true. I don't think you've found any though as there aren't any. That's not to say that they will never be found but my best guess is that they won't and that it's a mistake to look for biological correlates of poorly defined concepts such as 'gender'. And even if they were they would not prove that 'feeling male' means you need a penis. I'm sure people who had penises and lost them don't suddenly feel female. I don't mean that in a off-hand way, losing your genitals is obviously huge and to adjust to that would be massive, but it does not change your gender identity. Hence your son changing their body does not either. They feel 'like a male' and perhaps this means it's helpful to explore what 'a male' feels like and what being 'a male' allows (in their head) that being female does not and whether those constructed barriers can be deconstructed so that your child can come to see that their body does not define them.

Will sex/gender ever become redundant as a label and be one less meaningful and does this matter.

Gender is already redundant for many of us. Sex should not be IMHO as ignoring it is why women are more likely to die in car crashes or of heart attacks. We should not ignore biological realities but should ignore the societal overlay on that do you think?

@youvegottenminuteslynn

I do appreciate the wider concerns of feminists that women feel they are becoming less visible and having their spaces invaded but

I think the issue is that whatever comes after the "but" above in any sentence from anyone, it reinforces that those concerns won't be prioritised.

Women feel they are becoming less visible and losing sex based rights, BUT - nothing after but can make what comes before but acceptable.

Women are concerned their safe spaces are becoming invaded BUT - nothing after but can make what comes before but acceptable.

Women are scared BUT they aren't priority. That's the take home from many of these discussions and it's incredibly sad as well as incredibly dangerous.

Not sure how eloquently I've explained that but hopefully it makes sense.

Perfect sense - I can see that the but acknowledges and then dismisses the point in essence.

I guess what I often see is why don’t parents of trans kids look at the bigger picture, why don’t they understand that they are making it harder for us to make more headway in women’s rights etc etc. The answer to this was after my but - because we are concerned at a micro level because many of us are dealing with a crisis and (to use a Maslow style model) we are in survival mode and not thinking necessarily altruistically. It’s not that we don’t care... hence the title of this thread I am a feminist and I have a trans child... but we are fighting a system that is scared to help us help our children because it doesn’t want to upset either gender critical groups or trans rights groups. The system is paralysed as a result and distressed youngsters are paying the price.

@Fraida

Random.musings on a rainy afternoon.

Will sex/gender ever become redundant as a label and be one less meaningful and does this matter. Does the upcoming generation want for it not to define them and not to have the labels because it feels constraining. For example most forms you have to tick your sex, why? Why does this matter so much?

I do appreciate the wider concerns of feminists that women feel they are becoming less visible and having their spaces invaded but at a micro level and not looking at the macro environment when you look at your child and they say I am a boy I do think ok this is your life and if you want or rather need to be who you are then that is fine it is harmless.

You can tell I lie awake at night quite often mulling these things over!

I think about this sometimes OP, and I conclude that gender could cease to matter, but sex never will. Imagine a society where people all wear the same shapeless grey boiler suit. Everyone has a shaved head. Names are complete neutral. Jobs, social activities and household tasks are performed by anyone. I.e. there is no gender. This is actually my feminist utopia.

But we would still know who is male and female. Women would still bear children and, as a gay woman, I would still be attracted to women rather than men. Men would still be (on average) taller and stronger than women. I wonder what someone like your son would do in a world like this? In some ways it might be more difficult, because he couldn't adopt the signifiers of "maleness" that help people to read him as a boy. To me, this way of thinking about it illustrates the reason why feminists and some transgender people conflict on this issue. For some transgender people, gender signifiers (hair, clothes, names etc) are actually helpful to them in the process of transitioning. Whereas radical feminists want to get rid of them altogether.

Gosh, anorexia, ASD, and lesbian.
So many reasons to want to escape her sexed body.
It might be lovely for your child if she could but I'm really concerned that you think this is possible.
On the issue of the brains, that's a tiny study but in any study of older teens or adults, the brain of a human changes in response to the experiences they have. Transitioning is a major life change so it's bound to change the brain. But the brain is male in men, female in women, it's a biological organ.