Transgender brains are more like their desired gender.

[tallyfive]

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524112351.htm

Just wondering what people think about this? (I know it's a relatively old article, but I just wanted opinions)

This is also a good article, from someone who knows what they're talking about.

It would be interesting if there was a test that could determine whether someone was transgender though. I somehow doubt that the self-id ideologues would be entirely happy with it...

Most of these transgender brain studies don't control for sexual orientation. The studies that do, find that these (minor!) brain differences that show up are related to homosexuality, not gender identity.

www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17352-8

To have a test for transgender, you first need a test for gender.

Good luck with that.
There isn't even a coherent non circular definition for it, let alone criteria, or a test.

It's like announcing you've found evidence for incarnated souls, although you haven't yet defined soul, or proved it exists, or that everyone has one, or that they can jump from one body to another.

Ah yes! The study of the affect of Triptorelin on adolescent brains (you know - the drug that creates a ‘harmless pause’). They had a control group (pre-adolescent so not ideal) who had not been taking triptorelin and found no difference in that group.

Also having a brain pattern that “more closely resembled that of non-transgender boys and girls of their desired gender” after taking triptorelin than non-transgender children of their same sex, or preadolescent transgender children who had not taken triptorelin, does not mean they are the same or even similar to ‘non-transgender boys and girls of their desired gender’.

Why does this keep cropping up like some sort of gotya?

So what would happen if Shon, or Paris, or Jane, or Joss, or Stephanie or anyone elss had a brain scan and it showed they weren't transgender after all? That their brain was just bog standard male? What would they do?

I feel like I'm writing in crayon here so apologies that nothing that I am saying is very profound, but I don't see how there could ever be a definitive physiological test for transgenderism because 'gender' is a load of stereotypical bollocks that relates to how society sees sex differences and different people will perceive that in different ways.

Rip up the report and storm out shouting that it was all ‘junk science’ anyway?

Possibly kick over a display on the way out?

If gender was real, it would be consistent across cultures and time.
It isn't. So its socially constructed.
If gender was real there would be a definitive test, such as a chromosome test or brain scan. It isn't.

Our brains are plastic, we are an adaptive species. Unfortunately we are also prone to bias. If a researcher has been socialised to believe that being kind is a female trait, then men who are kind will rate highly on their constructed feminine scale.

Now do you see the problem?

A 6ft woman is in the 97th quartile of women for height. It doesn't make her a man.

I read this report a while ago: what occurred to me was that if they were testing pheromones then, yes, a lot of homosexual transexuals would respond in a similar way to a lot of women, but that would be true of gay men as well. This study didn't seem to test out middle-aged, blonde-wig wearing high/over achievers who transition, most of whom seem to be heterosexual men with a wife (transwidow) and three children. I rather suspect their brains respond to different pheromones than most women.

The article linked to in the OP isn't a research study. Was the study published anywhere? I'm not sure they can make any claims without providing the details - and the little information they have provided doesn't substantiate the claims they are making.

I'd be curious to know what the 'pheromone known to produce gender-specific activity' is and how it was shown to produce gender-specific activity in the first place.

I don't think that a test would be proof of anything (but it could be interesting to research, if done properly, but the chances of that happening...) I just find it amusing that TRAs are using these sort of articles as 'proof' of transgender being real, whilst simultaneously saying that self-id is king.

This is an oldie

All that has ever been proven is that some men who feel like women have brains that are more 'like most women's brains'* than most men who do not feel like women, whilst still being definitely men's brains.

*unproven and unquantifiable term

Wait, I thought that trans women were women. So how can their brains be "more like" women's brains than men's brains. By definition, they must be 100 percent women's brains just like their penises are 100 percent lady penises. Otherwise how is this Science.

Men's brains are slightly larger than womens, so if a man has a ladybrain, wouldn't it rattle around in his cranium? I can see how that would be distressing tbf.

The cognitive bias is built right into the study with the words “gender-specific activity.”

What exactly is a gender-specific activity? How do they determine which are women’s activities and which are men’s?

Men's brains are slightly larger than womens, so if a man has a ladybrain, wouldn't it rattle around in his cranium?

Some men's brains seem to be in their dicks. Probably quite a snug fit.

Rubbish. Trans women are men. They will never have any the benefits nature gives females (even longevity only improves if a man is castrated before puberty).

I think there probably is some truth that stereotypically feminine preferences and 'feminine gender' feelings cluster somewhat.

I can't quite articulate this (fuzzy brain today) but we often say of girls with 'boyish' interests and clothing preferences that they would probably just turn out to be lesbian if left be.

So we do assume there that two things that on the face of it have no connection sexual preference, and preferred clothing/interests are linked. Does that half-thought make sense to anyone or shall I go and drink some stronger coffee?

The cognitive bias is built right into the study with the words “gender-specific activity.”

Precisely. And even if it's true that girls are more likely to do X, it most definitely is not true that all girls do X or that all boys do Y, regardless of how they identify. And, we will never know just how much of an impact socialisation has had on the girls and boys who do/don't do X and Y. Despite the amount of parents who say things like, "it's all nature because I bought my dd a truck once yet she still loves pink", their dd did not grow up in a social vacuum.

Urgh. I realise I've just described lesbianism as a 'preference' there rather than an orientation and protected characteristic. Don't eat me while I input some caffeine.

I think you have to be very careful because your brain wants to see patterns...like lesbian and none conforming where it may not really exist, and society may also tend to push lesbians into a gender none conforming role , because being lesbian is already outside of norms?

Very difficult to untangle even with the possibility of controlled experiments

"I realise I've just described lesbianism as a 'preference' there rather than an orientation and protected characteristic. Don't eat me while I input some caffeine."

I'll wait 'til after, you'll be tastier with some caffeine inside you!

Why are many lesbians gnc (if they are?) My thought was always that at some point during girlhood, I realised that for whatever reason, I wasn't that interested in boys in the way other girls seemed to be. So the whole social thing going on as regards appearance/pass-times/preferences that the other girls seemed to be going through aimed at formation of their personality which was supposed to end up at an adult female who liked chaps nope, not interested. Better things to do like just getting on doing the stuff that I liked doing. Rather than perhaps any positive inclination towards gnc behaviour, possibly just that the overtly feminine stuff passed me by, hence it was the failure of the feminine socialisation as regards allowed activities and allowed appearance to stick, rather than necessarily turning towards masculine things because they were seen as masculine. But perhaps also meant that I was more used to be being seen as different, and hence not the same prohibitions on doing masculine things because they were masculine, if they looked like fun to me. Although I will admit to feeling that the things that fascinated the other girls just seemed rather boring and pointless to me...........

“more closely resembled that of non-transgender boys and girls of their desired gender”

I've looked into lots of studies like this. And when you dig into the details, the picture painted is like this:

Draw a line representing whatever particular sex difference in the brain they are attempting to measure. At one end, the male brain, at the other the female brain like this:

100__0

With male at 100 and female at 0

The male study subjects who identify as trans are positioned at 90. They've moved in the direction of the female end of the line. (Usually with the help of opposite sex hormones and/or by blocking their own.)

One can now claim that those positioned at 90 more closely resemble the result of the opposite sex than those positioned at 100.

Well, yes they do. What is not accurate is the claim that those at 90 are more similar to those at 0 than they are to those at 100. However, that's the claim often made. It's hard to spot, because the differences tend to be minute (the ends of the line aren't really 100 and 0 but at something like 56.7823 and 56.7896 with the subjects who identify as trans situated .0005 or so away from their own sex average).

Add to that the lack of controlling for sexuality, the tiny number of study subjects, and the rather hyperbolic way of presenting artificially produced minute shifts towards the opposite sex in people identifying as trans as evidence of well, anything, really, makes this an even more ludicrous claim than it already is.