The Glinner thing

[JohnnyW2001]

Hello! Yes, I'm a dreaded new user, and I registered here just to reply to @glinner's post. I don't wish to gloat or insult. I just wanted to reply to one specific point:

"a dangerous ideology that tells children it's possible to be born into the wrong body"

Unfortunately it seems I cannot reply to that thread? So I'll write what I have to say here. Hopefully it will be taken in the spirit it's intended: Non confrontational sharing of science.

The problem with the sentence I quoted is that it's scientifically unsound. Female and male brains are biologically different in ways that have been observed and studied, again and again. There are certain physical traits that identify a female brain and a male brain.

What's especially interesting is that when you put people who claim to feel in the "wrong body" (as you put it) into brain imaging, they do indeed appear to have the wrong gendered brain for their body. There are observable unique characteristics that indicate a difference. This has been repeatedly demonstrated in studies for decades, and as our imaging technology has improved, it's only become more supported by science.

There are so many studies supporting this from the last 40 years, that it's difficult to pick one. Here's a few for you to Google (I can't seem to post links):

"Neuroimaging studies in people with gender incongruence", Kreukels, Baudewijntje, et al
"Grey and white matter volumes either in treatment-naïve or hormone-treated transgender women: a voxel-based morphometry study",
Giancarlo Spizzirri, et al

(Also, before anybody brings this up, I'm aware there are some scientists - namely Gina Rippon - who believe there is no biological brain gender, and that the entire brain is blank-slate shaped from birth. For those who are unaware, her argument is that society is what shapes female and male brains, due to the sheer elasticity of that organ, and that is why we see differences. One of the many problems with this argument is that the same gendered biological differences are also seen in animals. The exact same differences we see in humans. Society isn't playing role in rhesus monkeys.

Another is that there is measurable differences in male and female brains just 24 hours after birth.

To be brief: Scientists like Rippon, who claim there zero biological differences between male and female brains are, to put it mildly, are very much on the fringe and not the mainstream, despite the incredible amount of press they get.

Mainstream science says that when it comes to the gendered differences between our brains, biology plays a role and society plays a role -- not exactly controversial or difficult to believe.

Here's an article from Stanford Medicine which goes through the countless ways in which we have demonstrated biological gendered differences between brains over the decades, and how it cannot just be society as Rippon insists: "Two minds: The cognitive differences between men and women", Bruce Goldman at StanMed. Many of the falsehoods in Rippon's work are pointed out in Professor Simon Baron-Cohen's review of her book in The Times (March 2019), too.)

Just to be clear, I'm not making a political statement, I'm just sharing the science. And all mainstream science indicates that it is indeed biologically possible to have a female traited brain in a male traited body, and vise versa.

I will add one personal note: I have to say that this doesn't surprise me at all. Our genes are programmed to be occasionally random: Some people are born without a sense of smell, or missing limbs, or extra limbs, or whatever. So if there is such a thing as a female brain and a male brain then it makes perfect sense to me that occasionally someone would get a male brain in a female body, or vise versa.

And history has also repeatedly shown us that people who claim to be suffering from something that ultimately complicates their life in ways that anyone would rather avoid (like being gay, for example, which opens you up to persecution and complications and which historically was seen as a malady to be "cured") are usually right. These people really ARE suffering, and today we even have the science to prove that their complaint appears to be true.

Again, just to be clear, I'm not pushing any political agenda, or even suggesting the best way to address this situation, I'm just sharing the science, and hopefully appealing to your higher self. Pointing out that those who listen with compassion and empathy tend to sit on the right side of history.

Thanks.

And also you weren't trying to engage in a reasoned conversation. You came here as a male, in a forum for women, to lecture us all on "the science" and why we're not on "the right side of history". Many of us have read these studies (and the rebuttals) and many of us are scientists. That's why your post went down like a fart in a lift my friend

This.

Also, if there are 'numerous studies' showing that a significant number of female brain characteristics are present in males, surely just proves that those characteristics aren't exclusively female?

I don't get it.

for every study that finds a difference between male and female baby brains, there are two more finding no differences at all. Some of us have actually researched this stuff - we're not just idiots wittering on. You're way out of your depth here and I'd recommend you do a bit more reading yourself.

I'd guess that's why he flounced, TwoHopes. Utterly out of his depth, when he only popped in to give a quick lecture to the silly pinkbrains. He didn't see that coming, because he doesn't respect women and our abilities in the face of his manly knowledge and debating skills, but we all did!

I simply followed Glinner here. That is all.

I doubt he even read your dull TL/DR screed. This is Mumsnet, not Glinnernet. How pompous to think that you have anything of value to offer with that nonsense.

From a quick google, colour blindness is passed on the X chromosome, so as with other conditions related to the X chromosome, males are more likely to be affected than females because they only have one X chromosome.

No idea whether this would affect infant gaze tests.

About 1 in 12 men are colour blind and about 1 in 200 women are colour blind.

@Datun

Also, if there are 'numerous studies' showing that a significant number of female brain characteristics are present in males, surely just proves that those characteristics aren't exclusively female?

I don't get it.

So true. If anything it just proves there definitely aren’t boy and girl brains 🙈

I haven't read all the thread so this may have come up before, but what I would really like would be a large study (or several)in which images of male and female subjects' brains were recorded in some appropriate way, several hundred of each, and then people who know there is a difference between the male brain and the female brain were asked to put them into two heaps: male to one side, female to the other.

This with no way for the subjects of the study to tell which was which apart from the images of the brains, and random numbers on each image which could then be used to find out whether they were right about which each brain was actually from a male or a female body, and whether the result of any given researcher was more accurate than random chance.

(As when than there was research into psychics and it was established that it was as significant if the psychic's results were a lot worse than random, as if they were better.)

I would very much like to know whether someone (anyone) could tell just by looking at the scan of a brain whether the body it was in was a male body or a female body, if they had no other evidence to judge it by.

If they could then I might want to look into this "male and female brains are different" matter more rigorously.

I can without difficulty discard the "men have bigger brains than women so they are more intelligent than women" theory, and the "Caucasians have bigger brains than their African slaves so they are more intelligent" theory which was rife for a while in some parts of America; if blind testing showed a difference that could be discerned when the sex was not already known, I would not be able to discard this "men and women have measurably different brains" theory without further research to establish the exact differences, and whether they were universal.

As it is, I can't say it's complete bollox, because I don't know for sure -- my gut says it is, but it seems just possible that it might not be.

Okay, so transwomen supposedly have 'female brains'. But even after transition they often show a strong preference for stereotypically male careers and hobbies. What does that mean? If a preference for certain careers and hobbies is embedded in brain structure, then TWs have male brains. If the preference is down to socialisation, then gender comes from without, not within, and 'gender identity' is mystical nonsense.