Can anyone help with details on this study re sex hormone signalling?

[leyat]

Just wondering if anyone can access this study: academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1210/jc.2018-01105/5104458?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Pink News is reporting it as evidence that trans people have different brains from others who are the same sex: www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/10/04/sex-hormones-transgender-science-genes-cisgender/?utm_source=MOBT&utm_medium=Twittermob&Twittermob&utm_campaign=PNMOBT

As we all know there is no such thing as a distinct male or female brain to begin with, so this means nothing in relation to being more or less female or male. But it'd be interesting to know more about the study itself and to get people's thoughts on it, especially from those of you with a science background.

These kinds of studies are used by men to tell women that sex role stereotypes are not imposed on us but rather just reflect who we are, and of course men like Peter Tatchell started tweeting that this is a basis for innate 'gender identity'. It's frustrating that we can't see more of the details, this stuff is used as propaganda at this point...

Is that the study that did not control for sexual orientation? I cannot open it.

Generally: when it comes to different brains of males and females (and by extension trans people) and attempts to explain our socialization away with it: so far nobody can look at a brain and say: oh, that‘s a male one, ah the other one is male... only when you look at a large number of brains can you find that on average x may be larger in the male brain or y smaller.., we are looking at Gaussian distributions here.
And the same goes for other stuff, like how good we are in something, what we enjoy... just because, say, 30% of males but 50% of females enjoy cooking does not mean that women were born to cook and men weren‘t.
And this is before we factor in socialization and the effect it has on our preferences and on our brain.
Not sure but either the study you linked to or another recent one found differences in trans brains and raised the possibility they are the result of the dysphoria that Stresses the brain and that impacts brain structure, not the cause for the dysphoria/trans feelings.

What do you want to know?
I can access the article.

From what I can understand, most of the sample of transwomen were taking hormones, yes.

The conclusion says the study supports the hypothesis that gender dysphoria has a polygenic basis, involving interactions between multiple genes and polymorphisms which may alter the sexual differentiator the brain in utero and contribute to gender dysphoria in transwomen.

It says that while discordant genes may play a role, it is not the sole determinant of gender identity.

The study says better understanding is needed to know when gender dysphoria will persist into adulthood and when it will remit.

Caveat: I am neither an endocrinologist nor a geneticist. I have just parsed the discussion.

I do think it is clear that the paper focuses on gender dysphoria, which no-one disputes exists.

The point about sexual differentiation of brains is a cited reference, not a finding of this paper. I would need to look up that refernece.

It is a study that compares a group of men against another group of men. I've seen something about it will try looking for it

*sexual difference of the brain in utero, that should have read

Transwomen are compared with Caucasian men

I can’t access the full paper but the fact that it is only looking at people with gender dysphoria, while interesting and important, doesn’t have much relevance to current militant trans activism. The vast majority of them don’t have gender dysphoria and want to have needing a diagnosis of it removed from any criteria for GRC or for being transgender.

The authors are not arguing it makes them the opposite sex - the really interesting point is the need to research more to have a better idea who will continue to display gender dysphoria and who will not. That is, that there are desisters.

The article also says that genetics is not the sole determinant of gender identity.

To be honest, I think one would have to work through the references to see what concept of gender identity they were working with. It says in the introduction that idea of gender identity (ie if you are male or female) is fixed by age 2 - which surely comes from those around you as much as genetic combinations in your brain (which must surely be linked in some way to the reproductive organs you have just as much as the colour of eyes you have)?

I don’t know. But yes, gender dysphoria is distinct from much of the trans umbrella and indeed, is the whole point of self-ID not that a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is unnecessary and pathologising?

The first issue for me is that gender dysphoria as a condition is not equal to gender identity, i.e. dysphoria is just the experience of a type of distress, it is not synonymous with the notion of innate gender, and so far in all studies any differences found in trans identifying groups that have been attributed to gender dysphoria have not been found in pre-adolescent children, suggesting that GD affects the brain, rather than being hardwired.

What I was unclear of here is how they are defining gender dysphoria, and exactly what they were saying the implications are of the sex hormone signalling they were referring to in terms of the effect on the brain, since we know that there is no such thing as a male or female brain to begin with. It seems like they are trying to say that sex hormone signalling can make a transwoman's brain more like a female brain in some way, but there is no such thing in terms of brain features.

Whenever I have been able to access a study, it usually becomes clear that the conclusions of the study don't mean what people are taking them to mean. And they use unhelpful language as well, for eg conflating gender with sex, and referring to sex atypical and sex typical brain features, when there's no such thing as a distinct/typical female or male brain to begin with. So since I can't access htis, I was just looking for more info, so thanks for replying, I am still unclear as to what they are talking about, and are they saying that dysphoria begins at age 2? On what evidence?

Look these studies and reasons completely miss the point.

Yes we don't understand fully why and how the brain develops, and how different personalities arrive.

It's what happens outside of the brain that's the issue, the bit where the brain and body make a personality which likes football and fighting, and then we externally define this as "Male". Or sewing and being submissive and we categorise that personality type as "female".

It's the societally determined categories which are the problem, not how or why the brain arrives at what the person is.

I want to understand these studies, there is no such thing as a male or female brain, but dysphoria likely affects the brain and that is something I find very interesting, and I also want to better challenge the false assertions that are made based on these kinds of studies.

The study uses gender identity as the innate sense of being male or female. It says that most people are able to identify their own gender, which is consistent with their sex, by the age of two. It says a small percentage of people (age unspecified) report significant clinical distress because their sex at birth does not reflect their gender identity; in extreme cases people will be given a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and may undergo treatment to better align their anatomy and physiology with their gender identity.

So, no, they are not saying gender dysphoria is apparent at age two, just that most children know they are male or female (and accept themselves as such) by age two.

The authors appear to accept the concept of gender identity at face value, as something innate.

Gender dysphoria is the diagnosis given to extreme cases where gender identity does not correspond to physical sex (in this study). It says early research suggested it was a psychological condition, or caused by trauma but more recent research shows their may be a biological basis with endocrinological, neurological and genetic factors. There are then references to studies which showed a higher level of gender dysphoria in women exposed to androgens in utero, for example. It says neuroimaging studies of brain scans show areas in transwomens brains closer to female than male brain scans in control groups.
The hypothesis of this study is to do with variants in sex hormone signalling which lead to undermasculinisation in men and/or feminisation of the brain.

I need to go right now, so will come back to your question about sex hormone signalling, as I need to read it more closely.

Note: I am just conveying the content of the paper, not my own views.

And for copyright reasons, I do not want to put too many big chunks of it on here!