R4 - now: worth a rewind and listen

[toffeebutterpopcorn]

Testosterone, gender, sex etc...

Gosh - she’s going to be getting a hate storm today... brave woman.

Sport! Fair! Science!

Ethics!

Who is it?

It must be Carole Hooven and her book, Testosterone published today?

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08PF8FHWH?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

That couldn’t really have v been clearer! So clear they couldn’t really think of any questions to challenge her with.

It's Today from 08:26. It's about a book called Testosterone by Carol Hooven. She says testosterone is an important part of the explanation for male violence.

"From interviewing transgender people... that plays out in transgender people who change their hormone levels... They have an insight into what it's like to live on the other side of the great testosterone line..."

On sport...

"There's a large male advantage over females... They could block their testosterone but they don't lose the changes that were accrued in a male puberty... The science is clear - there's an advantage on average, a strength and size advantage. But the science can't decide what the policy should be."

DS wandered through when it was on ‘what about all the female to males?’ he says (he missed the title of the book but he gets the gist).

She was so so clear!

www.amazon.co.uk/Testosterone-Story-Hormone-Dominates-Divides/dp/1788402944/ref=monarch_sidesheet?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

She's on Twitter too

mobile.twitter.com/hoovlet?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

It’s on audible to (if you have stuck with those weasels)

But the science can't decide what the policy should be

I must read the book at some point. For me, the science is clear, it's policymakers who don't want to accept the narrative science reveals.

One imagines these discussions will pick up pace before, during and after the Olympics.

One of the advantages for any Transwoman participating this year is that there wont be an audience and MSM companies can decide what they televise. Methinks though, that there's some pushback in the US.

The only thing that needs to happen is that every sportswoman goes on strike because this is unbelievably unfair

This looks interesting!

www.rigb.org/whats-on/events-2021/august/public-testosterone

There's been some very interesting anecdotes from detransitioning transmen about their experiences of taking testosterone, particularly in terms of how they felt it changed their personalities.

Which interestingly poses the question of how one can have felt like a man prior to the ingestion of the hormone regime if said hormone regime changed perceptions to the extent reported.

I was so happy to be hearing this at a peak time on the BBC! She was stating clearly what most of the population believe already, but are
too scared to say because of the TWA inquisition....

I heard this - great interview. The book sounds fascinating and I will get it.

I did find Cordelia Fine's "Testosterone Rex" quite compelling and I wonder if this is the opposite argument?

Ordered the book, looking forward to listening to the interview later.

This is Stella O'Malley's review:

www.standard.co.uk/culture/books/testosteronedr-carole-hooven-review-b941337.html

I do think MRAs may use this research to claim that men can't help their own violence and misogyny, they are slaves to their testosterone.

@Packingsoapandwater

There's been some very interesting anecdotes from detransitioning transmen about their experiences of taking testosterone, particularly in terms of how they felt it changed their personalities.

Which interestingly poses the question of how one can have felt like a man prior to the ingestion of the hormone regime if said hormone regime changed perceptions to the extent reported.

I find it interesting that by and large the dynamics among the sex castes (in Sheila Jeffreys' sense) remain with TW at the apex and TM the lowest.

I've seen remarks from detransitoners that their socialisation either stayed with them so they didn't suddenly acquire the certainty that it was appropriate for them to start talking over others - or that others responded very differently to them in a social setting and this affected their behaviour. And none of this was what they had in mind or had thought would happen.

Certainly an area where there is a need for research and a polyphony of voices.

@Heidi1982

I heard this - great interview. The book sounds fascinating and I will get it.

I did find Cordelia Fine's "Testosterone Rex" quite compelling and I wonder if this is the opposite argument?

It's interesting, isn't it? I think Fine writes about the brain, more than the body, so she talks about the myths of gendered brains (aka ladybrain). Whereas Hooven is thinking more about bodies. She did talk about aggression this morning though. Have you read Gina Rippon's The Gendered Brain? It's fascinating, but doesn't really address male aggression, I don't think.

I think the world is a complex place. I think we have more in common than that which divides us. Male and female babies are born similar, and then diverge as we train them and as their bodies diverge in size and strength. (That's why Alderman's The Power was such an interesting read - imagine you change nothing else, but make women able to kill men easily.) I don't think it's feasible to define a clear, deterministic causal path through that. But I think we'll eventually show, probably with the help of transmen and transwomen who take cross-sex hormones, that most of the differences between men and women are about physical strength and social conditioning, and the way those two factors interact.

And completely ignore the fact that women, in evolutionary terms, are developed to conceive and bear children and look after them until they're independent, with huge knock-on consequences, while men aren't?

Shedbuilder good points. I'm less sure about "look after them until they're independent" though. Brains are plastic. A man left to look after his child until independence will be able to achieve that.

I have the hard copy arrived today. Cannot wait to start reading.

There is a 3 hour long chat with her on Joe Rogan's podcast.

She's interesting, I don't think she's entirely GC. Has come to academia late and overcome a lot to get there.

There was an awful lot of weeping on the podcast, and I couldn't quite figure out why. Maybe Joe Rogan smells of onions, or she is low in testosterone. She does talk about getting emotional in a professional setting and almost laid out a case for that being institutionally sexist. Thought provoking anyway.

Smart woman, clearly got some interesting findings and I'll order the book.