So Owen Jones is as full of shit as ever he was...

[CallaLilli]

Here's his latest output for the Guardian. Note the penultimate paragraph where he claims to have been victimised by various Twitter feminists and has a very selective memory of what really happened.

The ideas presented are that we did initially believe that we were one gender and women were inferior (malformed) men who didn't have the heat in the womb to "pop" put or penis - this has now been proven false.

This was how long ago? There have been centuries where this was not believed to be the case and knowing that it is false is not evidence that sex is socially constructed. That seems to me to be very shoddy thinking. It's worrying that is being taught to students.

Many intersex people do not consider themselves a third sex.

sacredheart do the students challenge these ideas or is that not allowed?

Cordelia Fine's "Delusions of Gender" does not accept differences between male and female brains.

I think there are differences in parts of the brain which are formed by hormones when in utero and during puberty which affect part of it and form a structure which is the type found in a person of the opposite sex.

This is speculation, isn't it? There's no evidence for it. Twins are exposed to the same environment in utero but there are twins where one is transgender and the other is not.

The presence of a different structure in males and females should not mean men and women should be treated differently.

In the 19th and early 20th century, when it was believed female and male brains were different, women certainly were treated differently and as a direct result of this theory. It is very naive to think that a view of female brains being different from male brains would not result in women being treated worse than men.

I thought it was a bit of a myth that people generally believed the earth was flat.

Young people do generally get taught that biological sex is a real thing, and almost entirely binary. Can anyone think of anything in humans that actually is more binary than biological sex?

I think there are a lot of medical problems, including but not limited to infertility, that are are a consequence of various intersex conditions. So I do think it is not just some neutral social category; it is a medical issue often.

And yes, Owen Jones is an idiot half the time, but he's pretty.

At some point we need to talk frankly about misogyny within the gay community. Agreed.

And yes, Owen Jones is an idiot half the time, but he's pretty. And that made me choke on my revel

Florafox, thank you for your post.

I have recently left a feminist group page on Facebook because of all the sniping and bickering about transphobia, women being called transphobic etc. I haven't been able to make head nor tail of it or understand what my own view point was but what you say makes absolute sense to me re the difference between sex and gender and a person who has transitioned.

At some point we need to talk frankly about misogyny within the gay community. Agreed.

I have been told authoritatively by a gay man at college, that lesbianism isn't real, and that all lesbians need is a bit of cock to turn them heterosexual. He said that this is a common view within the gay community he's part of. It seems that my suggestion that gay men probably just need a good woman is homophobic, but, because there's no such thing as lesbians, he isn't lesbophobic. This was said without a trace of irony. or self awareness

So yes, it might be an idea to have that discussion at some point.....

trouble is though OP is that he didn't say he had been 'victimised' by rad fems - he said he had received a backlash - he wasn't claiming a victimhood at all.
and overall pointing out his sexual orientation as a factor, or indeed how pretty he may or may not be, doesn't really advance anything. I don't think he is 'full of shit' - he's made numerous contributions to the anti-austerity movement which affects large swathes, if not all in most ways, of the population.

His sexual orientation is a factor. It informs his perspective on LGBT issues. I don't think he would claim otherwise.

I wasn't claiming to be advancing anything by saying he was pretty.

He's a gay man who feels he can dictate to lesbians how they should behave. Of course his sexual orientation matters. There is a long history of eradication of lesbianism and of minimising lesbian experiences in the LGBT community.

He's also left wing. There's a long history of misogyny and eradication of lesbianism in left wing politics.

There's a theme. He's following it.

I think that there are probably a lot of interesting things to discover from neuroscience and identity might be one of them, but as a science it's still pretty crude because of significant limitations to imaging (and major ethical obstacles too of course). It is also tricky and probably incorrect to try and draw strong opinions because of the effect of environment and brain plasticity.

So yes there have been studies (mostly very small and with some issues of bias) that appear to show that there are differences in male and female people's brains, gay and straight people's brains and transexual's brains. However they are all studies on adults and we know that people's experiences have significant affects on our brains. Male and female differences in particular (apart from the general size thing) may be entirely due to socialisation and there would be no way to tell unless someone got funding and ethical approval to scan newborns, using non invasive imaging that showed the activity of the whole brain, and then did follow up over a significant period of time, and then retrospectively but objectively ran analysis on differences (would need a huge and incredibly expensive study).

I think that when looking at issues of gender identity studies should look at the differences between the brains of those who consider they have strong gender identities and those who feel they don't really have gender identities as well as those who have such strong dysphoria they have transitioned to living as the opposite gender. And perhaps also look at the brains of other people with other dysphorias too. Oh and control somehow for all sorts of cultural and experiential factors.

In the end though do you want to be defined purely by your brain structure? Neuroeconomics suggest that none of us even have free will. That's not a very palatable idea to me!

Daphna Joel, neuroscientist, explaining there being no such thing as female and male brain structures.

And also explaining what scientists mean by sex as a binary.

Yes, but many have been shown to be untrue too. And an awful lot were playing on conscious and unconscious bias. Leaving aside our concerns about women's brains previously being 'proven' to be inferior, what about similar studies showing that non Caucasians were inferior? It's an area with a really dodgy history and although the study of the brain a fascinating area I think we should be incredibly careful when inferences are drawn from small and very imperfect studies.

My brain is the product of my environment, experience and genetics and it changes every day, as does the rest of me. It's not separate to 'me', it is me. The me I am is much bigger and more complex than my sex, although that's obviously a component of who I am.

But of course I come from this as someone who is gender critical. I think it's more important to bust gender stereotypes than reinforce them because that would constrain who I am (and limit my children's lives and other people near and dear to me) so I think that's a problem. If I approached the issue from a different direction I might well have a totally different opinion.

Plenty of bits of the body don't show sexual diamorphism - why should the brain?

DP's body and mine are actually, largely speaking the same - we have a couple of divergences, but eyes, ears, hands, feet, most of my internal organs, many of my bones - the only way you'd tell I was a woman and he was a man definitively would be finding one of the bits that differ, or testing the chromosomes.

Otherwise you'd just be looking at size/composition and guessing.

Why do we have to have these ridiculous arguments?

We know for certain that the earth is not the centre of the universe and have done for a very long time. There is a scientific consensus on it.

That is not remotely like the belief that male and female brains exist in the sense of having structures that impact on behaviour. They have different average weights and different average amounts of white and grey matter.

Of course there are more elements of sexual dimorphism in the body than you just listed, but a lot of the body isn't dimorphic beyond average size. Again, that is a scientific consensus.

Did the odious Owen mention ladybrain? Because if he didn't, I'm not sure what relevance that conversation has to this thread, unless it's just a derail?

Sue Perkins recently said she had a prolactinoma, i.e. a small non malignant tumour on the Pituitary gland. I have the same. Fortunately mine was caught early (20s) and regressed naturally so I didn't have to take medication to get pregnant. This tumour effects both males and females and takes a similar course of action on the gonads and breast tissue and in some cases eyesight. What the tumour does is over produce prolactin. In both sexes this will reduce fertility (sperm and egg production) and also produce breast milk in both - the bigger the tumour, usually above a mm, the greater the effect.

So while there may well be outward physical signs of dimorphism, the basic tissues are similar in make up. Certain testicular and ovarian tumours are also similar.

I'm glad things turned out well for you Elendon. It must have been a very worrying experience to go through.

Apologies for sharing in the derail, but just one other thing re my post.

There was a slight resurgence in my prolactin level, which was a concern (thankfully, not long lived). My endocrinologist said 'I don't say this often, but thank your lucky stars you're not a man with this condition.' I asked why, naturally, and he replied that it was purely down to social conditioning that men tend to leave matters too late and are too embarrassed to go to their GP to explain that milk is coming from their breasts.'