just got my comment deleted on the Guardian website

[dangermouseisace]

silly students protesting against Jenni Murray.

All I did was point out, when someone asked how our sex was being erased, that trans women offend with similar patterns to men, and concerns about recent trans women rapists, also violent trans women being housed in female prisons. I said that if these crimes are recorded as female it reduces the argument for separate safe spaces for women.

I also said about sports, and trans women being accepted onto female teams, and funnily enough being better than actual women, and advised people look up the Iran womens football team.

What did I do that was so wrong???

My point was that not having been formally diagnosed as being mentally unwell, does not mean you are not mentally unwell. Just that you haven't either sought help voluntarily or brought yourself to the attention of the authorities by extreme behaviour.

So i drink beer, no makeup, hair products, never wear skirts, etc. I despise soft toys and being given flowers. I am very good at maths. I do not perform femininity at all. According to Stonewall's definition, i am transgender.

Is MY brain more like a man's? So you are saying women who are good at maths etc are actually men ("a different but legimitate way of being a man")?

How offensive. How sexist.

Acceptance and kindness regarding people's preferred gender is one way of doing this.

With no limits? To the point I have to deny my own biology as a female and obfuscate the whole thing thus rendering my (and all other women's) oppression meaningless and invisible?

Man who wants to be girly = ladybrain.

Woman who wants to use a chainsaw = malebrained.

Vanilla you are talking utter shit. Most of your claims are utter nonsense and cannot be backed up by any real statistics. Stone wall is wideley recognized as an organization that has misinformation at its core.

Well yes, you were 'assigned' a gender. Gender is a social construct that is 'assigned

Post-mortem brain examination of individuals who identified as a gender other than that assigned at birth- do show that their brains are more similar to those of the gender they felt more comfortable within

You are attempting to gaslight and have contradicted yourself. How the actual fuck do you expect people to believe what you are saying? You state that gender is a social construct but that somehow there is a part of your brain where gender a social construct resides.

Where is this place in the brain Vanilla? Because in all my years as a Anatomical pathology technician assisting in tens of thousands of post mortem, I have never seen it. Neither have any of my colleagues. Do please educate me to where it is.

If a woman excels at something considered to be the preserve of men, it's ok if she agrees to say she's actually a man?
I see.
No, I don't. It's fucking crazy. (That's a different but legitimate way of being sane, btw. Or should it be the other way round?)

That'll teach you to trust the Grauniad. The Left have an issue - it is similar to PIE in the late 70's - throw everything to the wolves to show how 'right-on' you are.

RogueBiscuit

Just have to congratulate you on that post. It was delish.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26352378 This is trans activism in the late 70's - it will turn when people recognise the danger to women, just will take some time.

I'm keen to hear your response vanilla!

Do all people who behave outside stereotypes have the brain of the other sex?
Or do people who see gender as a culturally specific construct irrelevant to their own life choices (which defy gender) somehow have the brain of their correct sex?

What's my brain please! revs anglegrinder

Vanilla - you have used statistics straight from Stonewall. An organisation with very vested interests and an extremely narrow perspective. I find it very concening that so many companies and people are using information from Stonewall without any other checking or validation.

Vanilla you are clearly here with an agenda. Have you come here to educate us? To manipulate us with your made up stats about suicide? To try to tell us that a social construct is identifiable in the brain?
If so, don't be so fucking arrogant. Stop telling lies and stop your attempts at educating us.

Don't talk to me about differences in brains or fucking post mortems, or suicide for that matter. I'm just so sick of the whole fucking thing. If you want to discuss it, then let's. Let's talk facts, not made up bullshit.

Let's start with the fact that the trans issue affects a mere 0·3 per cent of the population. In that population exists women, who are being killed at a rate of two a week and are sexually assaulted every 90 seconds.There also exists children who are abused, homeless people, people with cancer, people with serious mental health problems.Theres poverty and victims of terrible violent crimes. Each one of these problems occur at a much higher rate than 0·3 per cent. I imagine each person here has been affected by at least one of the above.

Considering that, can you explain why people like yourself feel that our priority should be concerning ourselves with a very small minority of men who have a mental health disorder?

Can you explain why 50% of the population should give up their rights for this 0·3% ?

Can you explain why you consider body dysphoria a more serious problem than say schizophrenia or dementia?

Can we discuss suicide, and why it is much more important to prevent it in these men rather than the population in general?

Regarding the research on brains of people who are transgender: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19341803

No study is without fault though and some of the ongoing research is outlined in the New Scientist article (links to the research journals are in the article too, for anyone interested): www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan/

A similar figure of 40% of such people in the US attempting suicide was also found by a US study, aside from Stonewall, who questioned 27,000 people who are transgender, in the US. No study is perfect, but it helps to look at more than one. www.transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS%20Full%20Report%20-%20FINAL%201.6.17.pdf

Gender as a binary concept is indeed a social construct- really, we are all some place on a continuum, which is why this is such a contentious issue for people and how their personal feelings fit within these social 'norms'.

I have said all that I wish to say on the topic. I try to challenge prejudice where it exists, and I have offered this.

The same tone of comments on this thread, made about a person with black skin, someone with a disability, someone of a particular religion or indeed someone who is gay, would be deemed completely unacceptable. It is the attitude, demonstrated on this thread, that makes life so difficult for people who are transgender. It is for similar reasons that other forms of discrimination have gradually improved (though not completely) as the years have progressed and people have become more accustomed to difference, and educated regarding it.

I will be leaving this thread, as I have said all I wish to on this topic.

In view of the above, I have also reported this thread.

Trans rights activists wades in, misunderstands science, avoids answering all questions then tries to silence women.

Arf.

Also it's utterly hilarious that the link directly contradicts what Vanilla claimed.

What Vanilla said
Post-mortem brain examination of individuals who identified as a gender other than that assigned at birth- do show that their brains are more similar to those of the gender they felt more comfortable within.

Quote from the article directly contradicting what they said.

Results revealed that regional gray matter variation in MTF transsexuals is more similar to the pattern found in men than in women.

I mean, it was 7 lines in to a 10 line abstract. Would it really be that hard to read it?

What a copout. I wanted to know about MY (trans) manbrain...

From the article: "today’s student feminist activists encompass a group of compassionate and critical individuals who are challenging existing views"

However the existing views are that transgenders are the thing that trump everything, so where is the challenging?

Also it's utterly hilarious that the link directly contradicts what Vanilla claimed.

And the link Vanilla provided (I presume) as a response to my post deals with nothing I raised in my post.

Though, it did lead me to dig through to formfinder.hmctsformfinder.justice.gov.uk/t455-eng-2016.04.01.pdf, which talks of an 'acquired' gender only - rather implying that it is not at all based on the idea of someone actually being their preferred gender and that they have been 'falsely assigned' a gender at birth. Thank fuck for that, at least.

We analyzed MRI data of 24 male-to-female (MTF) transsexuals not yet treated with cross-sex hormones in order to determine whether gray matter volumes in MTF transsexuals more closely resemble people who share their biological sex (30 control men), or people who share their gender identity (30 control women). Results revealed that regional gray matter variation in MTF transsexuals is more similar to the pattern found in men than in women However, MTF transsexuals show a significantly larger volume of regional gray matter in the right putamen compared to men

So 24 men had their brains scanned and the results were normal but they claim they have more grey matter than other men. Were the men dead or alive at the time of the scan? How old were they? How old were the people in the control group? Were the men in the control group older or drinkers, both things that shrink your brain? Did they take other medications or use alcohol? We're they healthy? Suffering from stress?

It's incredibly easy to influence a study to show whatever you want.And not one of these studies is showing me where social construct is in the brain.

There have been studies done to see if Mri scans can replace post mortems. They absolutely cannot. And like all tests there is a risk of false positives.

Statistics From Clinical Studies
Error existed in 47% of breast MRI studies.
Radiologist Emmanuelle Bouic Pagès, MD, and colleagues at CHU Lapeyronie, Montpellier, France, reported in the magazine Radiology that potential observer error existed in 47% of breast MRI studies performed from January 2005 to December 2010. Medscape clarifies that the many critics who came to the defense of the equipment may not have paid attention to the report content. "Machines don't make diagnoses; people do," Herbert Y. Kressel, MD, editor of Radiology, explained to Medscape.

I will be leaving this thread, as I have said all I wish to on this topic

Yes, I thought you might. Its a shame as we have similar compassion and concern for other disadvantaged groups, like the 12·9 million disabled people in the uk. The discrimination they suffer is horrific. Maybe I'll see you over at Disability Rights Uk?

I have also reported this thread

Snitch! What a grasser!
People are allowed to question your statistics. And they're allowed to decide which social issues they want to get emotionally involved in.

All of our brains change over time as both chemicals (including hormones) and experiences (even the act of remembering) affect it's shape and composition you'd need to look at newborn babies brains and then follow them for life in order to be able to truly compare the brains of trans people (and which category of trans are we talking about here in any case?) with 'ordinary' male and female brains.

In any case given that it hasn't been established that males and females have distinctly different brains how can it possibly be established that a subcategory of male brains look like female brains?

www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468.abstract

I cannot possibly take anyone who uses made up facts to bolster their arguments seriously. Particularly when they then flounce off. Pathetic.

well I'm glad that the tone changed in the comments- it was all very "old feminists are bigots" when I made my comment!

Yes I am increasingly disappointed in the Guardian…even though Hadley Freeman wrote a good piece re trans/identity politics the other week (which she got some stick for, of course).

vanilla we use the dictionary definition of woman, which is adult human female HTH.

oops didn't see that there were 3 pages...

vanilla if you do come back…relying on single scientific studies with very small sample sizes is not reliable. You are better of looking at meta analyses (analysis of many studies), as these can use far larger data sets. Meta analyses have not found reliable, replicable evidence for a structurally 'male' or 'female' brain .

If you go on to BBC podcasts there is a particularly good Infinite Monkey Brain called Battle of the Sexes in which this is discussed (trans issues are not discussed, its just science on male/female brains).

infinite monkey cage not brain, got brains on the brain...