The Gene - An intimate history - Swyer Syndrome and David Reimer

[LaPeste]

I am currently reading a book called "The Gene - An Intimate History" by Siddhartha Mukherjee. In the book, he has a short section on the genetics of sex and gender identity, and I wanted to share what he says to hear your thoughts.

First, he presents the cases of Swyer Syndrome, where people have XY chromosomes, but present and almost always report a female gender identity. He also presents the famous case of David Reimer, who was brought up as a girl after a botched surgery, realised he was male, changed gender, and eventually killed himself.

He brings these cases to make the point that gender identity in both cases does seem to be some fixed characteristic, that it is not necessarily aligned with our genetics or with how we are externally treated. I certainly know in the Reimer case that there were a great many other compounding factors that affected the poor man, and contributed to his suicide.

He then goes on to make the point that despite the binary nature of sex (XY/XX), or more accurately, the gene(s) in a particular region of the X chromosome (SRY gene region), that there is a mechanism for trans people. What he argues is that while there may be a master gene that turns male sex and female sex on and off, there can be a cascade of genes that create what we are debating as gender identity. I'm explaining it poorly, but as a gender critical person, it does give some pause.

Quoting from an article

"Mukherjee compares the master regulator to an army commander. At top of the hierarchy is gender anatomy; countless variations exist downstream in the composition of the army, each with slightly different components. You might have male identity with differing sexual attractions, or you might have differing aspects of male identity. He continues, The way that these genes—this genetic information percolates down into the individual, the way this hierarchy percolates down into an individual might be very different from one person to another and therefore create the kind of infinite ripples or variations in human identity that we experience in human life."

bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/can-transgenderism-be-explained-with-genetics

I just wondered if you'd come across this, and what you thought of it.

Given that it has only been 19 years since the human gene map was completed it is hardly surprising that the number of scientific "We just don't know yet's" is increasing with every question asked of it!

But Swyer syndrome is a DSD and therefore is not a matter of choice.

We may find that AGP has some genetic predisposition - some have already claimed that pedophilia has - but it won't be the same as DSDs and will necessitate differing approaches. None of which will include declaring a male body to be female, or vice versa.

Environment also includes each other - Identical twins have a huge influence on one another - it is their primary relationship, sometimes more important than their mother...….

To be fair, scientists use self-reported data on a whole load of things that we accept (I've been following social psychology and its travails for a while, but they certainly use self-reported data to study happiness. Erm... they use self reports for anything that is subjective - mainly as such studies want to know how people feel about something. But that is never the only measure in a wider context.

Such studies are usually part of a wider research remit which will include objective measures to show what the feelings are illustrating. I know this as all of my studies included a subjective measure, often identifying areas of further research required.

Quantification, in context, requires an agreed set of terms, or it is meaningless!

But this is all still stereotyping.

There's no actual female identity. Or male identity.

If twins are identical then they are biologically exactly the same. So a generic condition that affects one will affect the other. So not having 100% congruence in trans identity is strong evidence that this doesn’t have a biological root. It does strike me that when Transgender people talk about their childhood there often seems to be abuse there - for example detransitioners such as Walt Heyer or Jamie Schupe first non-binary person to be legally registered in the USA, who says he was suffering from PTSD. So twins brought up together will probably have experienced the same environment.

I'm really not sure what it is the appalling case of David Reimer is supposed to prove about 'gender identities'. All it proves is that sex is innate and even if you remove a small boy's penis and tell him he's a girl he will, eventually realise he is male. It's about sex, not gender.

Furthermore anyone claiming there is a gene for 'gender identity' would need to explain why it is the vast majority of people have no sense of 'gender identity' as opposed to sex at all.

I'd love to engage properly, OP, but to argue for the possible biological existence of a concept, you HAVE to be able to explain the concept, not rely on other people substituting a myriad of their own definitions for it.

You said "it would seem that this doesn't quite match the evidence".

And I don't know what you, or he, mean by either 'it' or 'evidence'.

Can you try to articulate exactly what you think he is trying to argue?

And I'll properly engage, if we can only define all disputed terms so we clearly understand one another

But every argument I see is logically circular, even from geneticists, and they don't examine their own fallacies.

Eg scientist finds evidence for where is described as the inner sense of oneself as .

If you don't define sex/gender/male/female/woman/man and also 'identity' then there is no argument to be made, at all.

I'm up for engaging, if explanations for the concepts behind the claims are forthcoming.

I’ve looked up Swyer syndrome. As you say OP an individual with XY chromosomes develops more female looking external genitalia and is usually brought up as female. This seems to me to be an argument that ‘gender identity’, if it exists, must be socially constructed as it isn’t linked to chromosomes but to to upbringing and environment.

I'm sure that Mukherjee is a brilliant scientist. But he is also quite keen on theories which don't have much basis in science but are hunches he's yet to prove or that are not actually right. Have a look at his Wikipedia page.

Incidentally, he is not a ' specialist on genetics', he is an oncologist. Most of the criticism of this book come from geneticists.

If twins are identical then they are biologically exactly the same. So a generic condition that affects one will affect the other. So not having 100% congruence in trans identity is strong evidence that this doesn’t have a biological root.

I'm not sure that follows from a scientific perspective. I think it were the case if we were talking about something like colour-blindness which is controlled by a single mutation, but we're not talking about that here.

All it proves is that sex is innate and even if you remove a small boy's penis and tell him he's a girl he will, eventually realise he is male. It's about sex, not gender.

In the review article I posted, it suggested that most XY's who had been brought up as girls identified as women and yet some did transition back to male later on. Which suggests that neither sex nor gender identities are entirely innate - that there is some scope for grey areas, and social construction.

Furthermore anyone claiming there is a gene for 'gender identity'

I don't think anyone is claiming there is a gene for gender identity in this book.

I'd love to engage properly, OP, but to argue for the possible biological existence of a concept, you HAVE to be able to explain the concept, not rely on other people substituting a myriad of their own definitions for it.

I totally get you - I don't understand gender identity, personally, having never directly experienced it, and I get it is often tied up in circular arguments. I'm open to the idea that people may have a subjective sense of gender (I'm not suggesting for a second that TWAW).

I shared a review article earlier about 388 cases of XY cases where there had been a series of genital problems (Penile Agenesis, Cloacal Exstrophy of the Bladder, or Penile Ablation). faced by David Reimer.

Of these, 311 had been brought up as male. Not a single one ever transitioned to women. Of 77 brought up as girls, 17 transitioned to male.

What does that, and the Swyer cases suggest? Even if we're sloppy with the terms sex and gender, it would seem that sex/gender identity is more than 0% innate, and not 100% socially constructed.

Even if we're sloppy with the terms sex and gender, it would seem that sex/gender identity is more than 0% innate, and not 100% socially constructed.

I don't think it's possible to argue for or against this without a definition of 'sex/gender identity'.

I don't think it's possible to argue for or against this without a definition of 'sex/gender identity'.

I think on this thread, we've used "sex identity" when one's subjective identity matches one's biological sex, and gender identity when it doesn't.

I would be the first to recognise that if gender is anything, it is a subjective "feeling" of one's relative maleness or femaleness, relative to the broader norm. Which I recognise is blurry and vague and ill-defined.

Without knowing all the individual cases if the syndrome we can't judge why some changed back to Male. They may have discovered their actual sex via investigations for lack of periods etc.

Here’s my opinion as a geneticist

How much one identifies with masculine or feminine interests/ways of being has genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences.

How much one likes or dislikes the sexed parts of ones body has genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences.

How much one is willing to force others to lie to you has genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences.

How much one gets sexually aroused by thinking of oneself as the opposite sex has genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences.

How androgynous ones body appears has genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences.

Even if it somehow turned out that we determined all of the above had large well defined genetic components, how would it be useful to redefine sex as one of the above things rather than the definition that is already apparent to everyone and has a specific known genetic cause and trigger, apart from a handful of well defined and understood intersex conditions?

Also, the scientist in the original post is implying in their work that intersex individuals are “less female” or “less male” than individuals without intersex conditions. It is insulting and actually dehumanizing to these people to imply that the fact their development has gone awry means they are somehow unsexed.

I have had a look through the reviews, and it would seem that the book is a bit long winded and dull (who knew!) and not the best introduction to genetics.

Which is a shame because he won the Pulitser Prize for the last book.

Of these, 311 had been brought up as male. Not a single one ever transitioned to women. Of 77 brought up as girls, 17 transitioned to male.

This is because the ones “brought up as female” later experienced a masculinizing puberty, thus realizing they are male. Or they got tested after not menstruating as expected and found out they are male.

Realizing that one is actually male would be a reason to “transition” in fact it is not transition. It is detransition after a forced childhood transition if anything.

Meanwhile the ones “raised as boys” there is no truth about actually being female to discover.

This is because the ones “brought up as female” later experienced a masculinizing puberty, thus realizing they are male. Or they got tested after not menstruating as expected and found out they are male.

It's true that we don't know why. But in that case, 60 didn't transition. And the opposite seems to the case with Swyer sydrome, where genetical males who don't go through puberty, seem to (as I understand) retain a female gender identity.

It's true that we don't know why. But in that case, 60 didn't transition. And the opposite seems to the case with Swyer sydrome, where genetical males who don't go through puberty, seem to (as I understand) retain a female gender identity

Yes, because unlike the other condition, swyer syndrome individuals cannot and do not experience a masculinizing puberty because their SRY gene does not work. Thus they are and will always be female phenotypically there is no “transition” needed.

Meanwhile for the penile disgenesis they often have active testes and a testosterone fueled puberty so it becomes

All of this makes Sense if you view it through the lens of people accepting their physical bodies as they are for each individual condition rather than the lens of gender woo feelings.

There are so many more convincing explanations for why a boy, brought up with the restrictive social rules applied to girls, might at puberty decide to cease the playacting and the conforming to a set of social rules designed for the opposite sex to him.

Why might a boy choose to exit the girl box ? We know why! Sexism makes performing those roles unbearable. If you can escape, and have the opportunity and will, you do.

Why might a boy stay in the girl box? The same reasons, with different outside pressures. "I'll never be accepted as a true man/I've learned to see myself as belonging with girls/ I'm a compliant personality"

I'd say the biggest factors are homophobia/sexism/pliable personalities/family support.

There was a point in history when the zeitgeist amongst doctors was 'inadequate penis? Might as well be a girl'. Medicine is not immune to sexism.

Even now, you see cases of DSDs where a biological male who will respond to testosterone from his testes at puberty is put in the girl box because of a small penis at birth.

Because the female box is just for defective men, isn't it?

We are pattern seeking animals. We are able to distinguish male from female and place ourselves accordingly by understanding the fundamental characteristics of each group.

But we are prone to faulty thinking. And some will observe superfluous characteristics and incorrectly designate them critical identifiers of a group.

I have a female body. I menstruate, get pregnant. I place myself in the group of people that I match because we share those bodies.
A man who places himself, incorrectly, in my group does so because he falsely decides that long hair/prettiness/fondness of pink sparkles is a designator of my group. He calls this gender identity.

But it's nothing more than faulty reasoning plus desire.

Meanwhile for the penile disgenesis they often have active testes and a testosterone fueled puberty so it becomes

Oops cut off.

It becomes obvious at some point to them or medical professionals that they are in fact male and therefore will be seen as male. Meanwhlle the ones that don’t desist likely have only partial or weak masculinization occur so are likely to continue to believe they are female. For some getting very little health care they may never even know there’s anything going on and will continue to believe they are female.

Yes, because unlike the other condition, swyer syndrome individuals cannot and do not experience a masculinizing puberty because their SRY gene does not work. Thus they are and will always be female phenotypically there is no “transition” needed.

I know it’s not what you mean but it sounds as if you’re saying that women are just men who haven’t gone through male puberty. The absence of periods will surely be as confusing as the actual growth of stubble, no?

I’m not suggesting here that TW are actually women, but I am trying to understand how gender identity might develop biologically

FWRLurker

Thank you for your explanations, particularly of Swyer Syndrome.

In amongst all the propaganda (not having a pop at the OP but generally) it had completely passed me by that this condition was down to a non-functional SRY gene. Now it makes clear sense in my head.

LaPeste

Sex (meaning the cluster of characteristics all of us recognize as male or female such as male or female genitals, etc) is determined in mammals by way of a “trigger” gene, called SRY. This gene is Y linked so those who inherit a Y will nearly always be male, no matter how many X chromosomes they have. This gene sets off a cascade of signals to turn on “male genes” or if not present, not to do so.

So in effect yes, in mammals the “default” is to develop as a female. In order to develop as a male one must have the SRY trigger, which is why Swyer syndrome is technically a disorder of male sex development.

Another point at which phenotypic female can result from a male karyotype is CAIS in which an individual cannot use testosterone. A lot of the male phenotype is set based on the use of testosterone. In this case SRY is properly signaling to produce testosterone but because the body can’t use it, the body remains phenotypically female.

Ultimately I don’t see how the biological mechanism has much to do with identity. Women are adult human females. Our Gender “identity” is determined by how others see us, IMO. If we appear female and are told as much that is how we see ourselves.

All of the intersex “transition” cases you discuss are ones wherein people realize later in life that they’ve been lied to about their sex or were mistaken due to abnormal development. It makes perfect sense in this context that they might “reidentify”. None of this supports gendered souls.

Arnold

no problem! I cover a lot of this in my classes so happy to share. Some of it I only took the time to learn after being on this board though!