Following The Science

[stuckinatrap]

Ok. So I've been down the #superstraight rabbit hole on Twitter and I keep coming across the same comments:

Things like:

'Transwomen are women. Read a science book'

And

'You are scientifically inaccurate. There are more than two biological sexes. Educate yourself'

So I'm attempting educating myself.

What is the science they are referencing? Is it just that DSDs exist (because that isn't evidence of more than 2 sexes as far as I am aware - just that things don't go according to plan sometimes) and clownfish?

Or is there a whole world of science of which I'm ignorant? (Which wouldn't be a surprise as I'm more of a humanities kind of a woman).

This is sort of following on from the whole 'Are we the baddies?' thread. If there is real scientific evidence and I'm wrong, I would like to be educated. It might change my mind.

Does anyone have the studies?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Hibari

Could you break down in your own words why you feel autogynephilia is discredited as a theory about gender identity? As pp said, the existence of males meeting the description is difficult to deny.

In short? It's just...bad science. It's badly sourced, badly researched and generally in bad faith.

To actually break it down would take me a long time...to be frank, I have better things to dedicate my time to.
Especially when Julia Serano has this:
juliaserano.medium.com/making-sense-of-autogynephilia-debates-73d9051e88d3

Ah, I see.

Tenth post in the thread alleges that areas of study have been "captured." This is an attempt to discredit by way of appeal to conspiracy and is a pretty commonly used tactic amongst anti-vaxxers.

Why are so many assuming that I'm here to fight?

So you don't think that comparing people to anti-vaxxers is offensive?

Are you arguing that there is no evidence that many organisations, including some which are involved in scientific work, have been captured by gender ideology?

It's badly sourced, badly researched and generally in bad faith.

And your response is to post an online article by Julia Serano. Who is obviously impartial.

You are scientifically inaccurate. There are more than two biological sexes. Educate yourself

Ask then to name the biological sexes other than female and male. It should be easy for them.

Hibari that wasn't what I asked.

Whatever Blanchard said connecting this behaviour to trans Id is not what I'm talking about.

You said AGP doesn't exist I think.

But men putting on women's lingerie etc and then having a wank is really common.

Men stealing underwear for this purpose is common.

Sissy porn exists doesn't it. I mean it just does.

'In short?
It's just...bad science. It's badly sourced, badly researched and generally in bad faith.'

I can totally understand (and am surprised by) the inclusion of cross dressers under the stonewall trans umbrella. I'm surprised there's not a big push amongst trans people to say wtf stonewall take them out!

But the behaviour, the fetish exists and is very common. You don't dispute that part, do you?

If it's the inclusion of fetishists under stonewall etc then I'm with you 100%.

@TwoBreakingIntoOne

I keep seeing on FB threads that some XY can get pregnant. That isn't true by any stretch of the imagination is it?

It's much easier to understand why that isn't the gotcha people tend to think it is when you remember that sex chromosomes are not the end point of sex differentiation, but the starting point.

The endpoint of sex differentiation are female-bodied and male-bodied people.

So yes, the body of a person with a Y-chromosome can develop along a female pathway, and therefore have a uterus, ovaries and a vagina. Which in a fertile person can result in pregnancy and birth. However, no male-bodied person can get pregnant and give birth.

Regardless of your chromosomes, if your body has developed the reproductive system that produces ova, you are female. If your body has developed the reproductive system that produces sperm, you are male.

We just always assume that a female-bodied person has XX-chromosomes because that assumption is correct in more than 99.99% of cases.

The vast majority of trans people are bog standard xx or XY.

I'm not sure what DSDs has to do with it and nor apparently do many people with DSDs who have said leave us out of this. We're not a gotcha.

It's not scientific by any means, but there is anecdotal evidence of AGP isn't there? I saw a video by a very honest man talking about his struggles with it - he can have sex with women, but only if he imagines their bodies are his and he's effectively shagging himself.

There are many trans widows on their threads who deal with the fall out of it.

So if it isn't a scientifically evidenced paraphilia, what is it? Because it does exist.

I'm not sure if this will help or hinder, but my understanding of science from my social science perspective is that whereas many things are accepted as 'fact' (the Earth is round and suchlike) the door is always left open for someone to do some sort of an experiment (following a rigorous scientific method including that it is replicable and the results are transparent) to show otherwise. So, if a flat Earther can prove themselves and the rest of the scientific community agree after they have verified the results then the paradigm changes (was it Popper who wrote about paradigms?).

So, if someone can actually show that there are 'more than two sexes' in a biological sense (i.e we have one that produced eggs, one sperm and one that does something else) and the scientific community agrees with them then there would be a paradigm shift.

As far as I know, there hasn't been. There has been some mumbling about gender, but this is not the same as biological sex.

About other things there is debate. I put 'AGP' into this category and of course, this is about behavioural science which is a little murkier than the physical sciences.

There is debate about whether AGP exists. There is debate about the DSM and what is included in it and what is not in each edition. This is because that area of science (in my view) is not always about experiment, but about observation and also about treatment.

There is capacity here for groups to lobby and to say that x treatment for y condition is harmful and anyway y isn't a condition that needs treatment.

This is rightly how 'fixing the gay' stopped.

But that area has now been intensely lobbied by those who believe in pink and blue brains and that men who dress in what are perceived to be women's clothes are 'the other gender' or 'another gender' and not getting sexually aroused from it. There is disagreement here form some men (Grayson Perry) who say they do as well as from women who have lived with men who have become aroused and ejaculated from wearing women's clothes. Roughly speaking, there is big money invested in lobbying against AGP being included and little money able to be invested to say that it should be.

But AGP remains a theory and an approach to understanding human behaviour still upheld by some in the scientific community. It hasn't been disproven. It is the site of debate, just as there was once debate between Darwin and others and there is currently debate about whether the universe is finite or infinite.

Thing is, it is a debate, it is still being waged and up for debate.

A problem is that research is conducted in universities who are pretty much corporatised these days. They won't encourage research in areas that might make them look bad. I won't use the word 'captured' because I don't think it is helpful or useful, but the playing field clearly is not even.

In my area, I'd love to do research with young people about subjects inc. how they came across trans issues, how young lesbian women understand their place in the world and so on (so, social science) - but I could not do this because my colleagues would shun me and I'd never get it published because the journals would be harassed by lobbyists to retract it (as has happened with some gender critical research). That does not create an environment for good science/research.

To Hibari - As for posting a list of articles that support your POV this is not good science either and it does not show an understanding of what science is about. I could easily post a list of articles that show the opposite - or send you to anatomy books that clearly talk about two sexes - the accepted orthodoxy as it happens. Without commentary and an explanation of why you think these are 'good science' and how they all fit together and refute the orthodox view, the list is meaningless. And, you have to accept that those who might disagree with you are equal partners in debate and not 'skeptics' - I don't think I have met a skeptic of science on FWR. We do have posters who are very invested in science because they are doctors, psychologists, biologists, engineers and physicists though - and we also have social scientists. So when we disagree please do respect that we disagree - please do not try to discredit us - I think you might find we are actually more experienced and qualified than you.

And this goes back to my earlier point. About bias in science/ doing studies to find proof for the preferred outcome.

The fact that people with DSDs exist is not a reason to accept fully functional standard males into female spaces.

I can't see why anyone would think it is.

Another question.

Given that some people who support the idea that due to DSDs sex is not binary. I assume those people are aware of the various issues that the group have been though historically, almost certainly are in some parts of the world. The specific things people may have to face up to.

What support or activism is being led by trans groups to raise awareness in parts of the world where babies are still operated on at birth/ or for groups that exist in the UK etc?

Genuinely interested.

It's just...bad science. It's badly sourced, badly researched and generally in bad faith.

This is not an unbiased assessment of the available literature, but a political one.

Autogynephilia is one of the, if not the most widely researched paraphilia, with empirical data available from tens of thousands of those affected, of whom four in five freely admit to experiencing it. Far from being discredited, disproven or debunked, it continues to be widely researched in an effort to better understand and support those who suffer from it. The theory is not a judgement of those affected, and it does not frame them or what they experience as objectionable in any way. It is an explanation of a form of transsexualism that is markedly different from that experienced by early-onset, homosexual transsexuals.

For anyone who is interested in reading more, I recommend Anne Lawrence's book Men trapped in Men's Bodies: Narratives of Autogynephilic Transsexualism

Anne Lawrence is trans, just like Julia Serrano, and if the latter's perspective is worth referring to as a rebuttal of the theory, then the former's very readable introduction to and exploration of the theory should be worth checking out, too.

Yet another Spartacus on the first bit of your post. So absolutely.

The commonly accepted scientific truth is always (or should be) open to new evidence.

I studied a hard science. I'm an atheist. If the Hindu gods appeared in the sky tomorrow and worked a load of inexplicable miracles. I'd be really fucking excited! And keen to see can we understand how they appeared like that? Was it galaxy wide or just earth? Etc etc

A good scientist is always open to the possibility they are very wrong.

Of course scientists are people and through the ages they have had their own axe to grind, ego etc etc

Look at what happened to poor old Galileo when he said the earth went around the sun. It was a bad scene.

The fact that unless there is definitive proof things are referred to as theories have given creationists etc what they think is a good argument. It's only a theory! Ok whatever :D

This argument for me has two points. (Argument used in the scientific sense).

1. When it comes to male female. (But not any other human characteristics). Some men can have brains that make them female from a brain point of view. Ok. That's a huge and complicated topic. By all means research should continue if people are interested
2. The oppression on women and girls around the world forever is to do with our sexed bodies not our brains. So we need single sex things, for our own safety and dignity. Whatever the brains science says. I don't know what it will say. Human brains are little understood.

All this brains/ DSD stuff. I know why it's raised but it's all irrelevant. Women and girls are the most oppressed group through human history and across the world. Because of our sex. And that's it really.

Trans aside.

I am really interested to hear if Hibari is saying that men wearing womens clothes (esp underwear) for sexual kicks is not a thing

Or if it is a thing but shouldn't be associated with trans. On this point I agree totally. Trans people who feel this way need to take it up with stonewall etc. Not women.

I remember in the 80s and 90s when the sexed brain stuff took off. This was a response (I think) to feminism. I can't remember the books, but I remember that it was strongly argued by some in the (possibly pop-science) community that brains were sexually differentiated and that women had some characteristics (that made them better homemakers) and men had others (that made them better physicists). That's a simplification but I do remember these books.

In response, a number of female/feminist biologists refuted some or all of the claims (i.e. there was a debate) and as part of this, they raised questions about whether science was always objective. I do have these books and can find the titles if anyone is interested. The names Hubbard and Longino come to mind. They argued that sometimes we find what we look for, and sometimes we look for what we expect to find. It was a very powerful moment.

Unfortunately, the silly pomos got hold of it and corrupted it to 'see objectivity is impossible, let's PARTY, and make all sorts of claims and then argue that they cannot be refuted because objectivity does not exist and nor does truth'.

It was a very sad moment indeed and we are still suffering from it.

was it Popper who wrote about paradigms?

Paradigm shifts was Kuhn. Popper was falsification.

Why are so many assuming that I'm here to fight?

You're comparing people to anti-vaxxers and COVID deniers, and accusing pp of posting in bad faith. I don't think it's an assumption.

Does anyone have the studies?

I think the gist of it, OP, is that there isn't any science. Sure, there are some true believers who are also scientists, but they just tend to engage in a higher quality gish gallop compared to non-scientist TRAs. It's still the same "DSDs plus gender dysphoria, therefore TWAW" in the end.

That said, there is that Fausto-Sterling paper and it's followup - those count (although they aren't seriously suggesting that there are five sexes).

Spartacus that's interesting.

I was a teen in the late 80s/ early 90s.

Ok I lived in NW london which may not be representative.

But in my world, back then. 13- 25 maybe.

It was all very different. Girls who said they were feminists were fairly common. Some girls and boys were not keen but there wasn't this total hate thing, amongst the young people at least.

When it came to sex. Yes of course some blokes pushed for this that on their list (which was thankfully shorter then) but a lot of blokes actively were putting you first. Which could be annoying sometimes (!) but on the whole was a good thing.

I went to clubs- alternative clubs, goth clubs, gay clubs. Men in amazing clobber. Make up etc etc.

Then came oasis and. Boom. Boring clothes. Girls are awful. Blah blah.

It was a backlash.

To the 70s and 80s, the freedom. Went into the early 90s in some areas (Manchester rave scene ) and then it was. Reversed. Removed. Beige clothes. Men are men. Women are for fucking or irrelevant.

I lived through that and it was proper SHIT.

sexed brain has been around forever.

It's comeback was part of the backlash against (more genuine) female empowerment, and the decades that preceded my time.

It really gets on my tits that some people are oooh boy in makeup shocker! Erm. No.

And while the pushback may have started then, it didn't get traction till the 90s. And 'lad culture'. Lads mags. Girls! If you like a drink you're copying the blokes.

Blokes blokes blokes.

Arrrgh fuck off.

I suspect all those nice alternative chaps from my youth, would have a trans ID now. ' I'm not really a bloke! I'm nice really! Please sleep with me... '

Re science

How it works.

I have a physics background not social sciences, so don't know much about that. How it works in physics and I would assume other sciences.

Either have a hypothesis (usually based on something tangible but not always eg multiverse) and try to prove OR disprove it, experimentally

OR observe something unusual that goes against prevailing understanding, and look into it to try and see what's going on

The fact that male and female exist in mammals as discrete reproductive categories is very old. Not just humans but all mammals.

To the point we are OMG at seahorses and duck billed platypuses and etc. Mammalian reproduction and the male/ female characteristics are. What they are. Accepted. The male gorillas chase the other male gorillas away, to keep the females. Even their own children.The first instinct of cat or pig babies is to seek the nipple. Female tigers are harder than male tigers and will kill the fuck out of anything that threatens their young.

We are mammals. Too big brained upright opposing thumb mammals.

The idea is. That in humans but no other mammals. Observed sex at birth is irrelevant. The physical differences between male and female are irrelevant. The whole reproductive thing in humans- the risks of physical strength, pregnancy etc etc are irrelevant.

But only in humans, yes?

What of the other mammals? Are we longer mammals? Or are the other mammals behind the times?

Again: Not trying to defend a position. Information was requested. Information was provided.

Literally: Studies I have come across that are relevant to this subject.

I'm really not interested in discussing the AGP theory here. It's been done to absolute death by people far more qualified than (I assume) any of us here are. I'm aware this is an appeal to authority but, honestly...it's rather dull.
If you actually desperate to see someone debunk it...IDK, go read Serano or Mosler's disseminations of the theory. I'm sure a bunch of youtubers have videos on it too but I honestly wouldn't know which to recommend.

I'm really not interested in discussing the AGP theory here. It's been done to absolute death by people far more qualified than (I assume) any of us here are. I'm aware this is an appeal to authority but, honestly...it's rather dull.
If you actually desperate to see someone debunk it...IDK, go read Serano or Mosler's disseminations of the theory. I'm sure a bunch of youtubers have videos on it too but I honestly wouldn't know which to recommend.

I've read the Serano "debunking". I'm not convinced. Interesting to see you can only dismiss it via people's YouTube videos and biased thinkpieces, you don't have a coherent explanation of why it's false because that's too "dull" for you.

And please don't assume how qualified or not people on FWR are. It seems you came here to drop some links to "educate" us but you don't know enough about what you're talking about to be able to discuss it.

Also it's Moser, not Mosler.

This is really well-written and also free to read

link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-1420-y

Bailey, J.M. How to Ruin Sex Research. Arch Sex Behav 48, 1007–1011 (2019). doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-1420-y

I found it when doing a search for AGP. What I found is that this is a hotly debated topic. It isn't about 'debunking Blanchard' - it is a debate between a range of scholars over whether AGP exists, what its characteristics are and how it should be considered in clinical settings. All important stuff.

The article that I have linked talks about what good science is, how it can be corrupted and why it must be preserved.

The core issue at stake is a graduate student receiving a prize for an essay, Christine Milrod heckling him and the organisation apologising for 'hurt'. The author explains why this is problematic and how it leads to bad (sex) science.

Well worth reading if you have not done so already.

I've always found it weird that the trans lobby try to use science to argue their point. You'd think they'd say "look the science doesn't back us up but it's not about science, we think people's feelings are valid despite that."

I think it's all bollocks but I'd understand their rational better if they took that line of thinking.

Because they need a gotcha argument. They realise how flimsy the ideology is and that most people don't really buy it.

Yes, from what I can see, AGP is still very much ‘up for debate’, not debunked at all. As these studies tend to rely on self reports it’s a tricky area to conclusively prove or disprove.
Serano distinguishes between cross gender arousal and autogynephilia, acknowledging the former exists but believing the latter does not. As I say, I think the jury is still out personally, looking at the evidence. But what concerns me more than this argument is the acceptance of organisations such as stonewall of ‘cross-dressing’ as being trans in itself. If, as serano states, “nobody seriously doubts the existence of cross-gender arousal”, then there must be acknowledgment that cross-dressing as a route to arousal should not be termed ‘trans’ in and of itself. As a previous poster said, lgbt activism has historically sought to remove associations with fetishism.