Is being trans heritable? Article in Psychology Today suggests it is

[IwantToRetire]

... It is also important to note that throughout history, and in nearly all cultures, some people have adopted gender-atypical states, such as men (XY) behaving like the cultural stereotypes of women, and women (XX) behaving like the cultural stereotypes of men. It is important to emphasize here that gender-atypical states (or gender nonconformity) are not synonymous with gender dysphoria, as not all gender-atypical states result in distress or dysphoria.

... The scientific fact that gender preference is genetically heritable has either been ignored, disregarded, or politically misconstrued. Certainly, gender preference, to some extent, can be influenced by one’s culture and even popular social media, as attested by the increasing numbers of people over the past decade who identify as transgender.

However, the latter influence does not negate the scientific evidence for the heritability of gender preference. There is a firm consensus that intelligence is a highly heritable trait, and approximately 40 percent to 50 percent of its variability is attributed to genetic influences.

Note that this does not mean that there is a single gene or single gene location for intelligence, as multiple genes (a condition known as polygenic) contribute to one’s intelligence. It is interesting to note that gender preference has been shown to be more genetically heritable than intelligence and polygenic, as one twin study found gender preference up to 62 percent heritable.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/how-to-think-like-a-neandertal/202308/an-introduction-to-gender-sex-and-sexual-preference

I have no idea how influentila Psychology Today is, but came across this by accident, and wonder what they are trying to say. Or why.

Also note that the article says it is the 2nd of 3 and cant find 1 or 2.

Slight side track but I am still getting to grips with realising research isn't what it says on the tin!

But in fact research is often a construct to confirm an existing belief. (There was another thread about research into abortion in the US that from the beginning had been queried as to its validity, but still years later was being quoted in court cases.)

In fact a well known women's group that still exists was given funding by a funder to get research to prove that funding women's groups was worthwhile because it led to women taking up local council services. (Dont ask). And the researcher agreed to do it because it was at a time that securing your position in a university was linked to how much cash (sorry "funding") you could bring into your department.

This research is still used and quoted.

There is a short reference list which includes a couple of his own papers. He's obviously been looking for evidence of the heritability of gender dysphoria for a long time. This one is from 2002

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1019724712983

Neurodiversity is heritable. Neurodiverse people are more likely to identify as trans due to a sense of not fitting in. See autistic girls who frequently do not fit into gender stereotypes - the make up a large percentage of f to m trans.

All sorts of traits, both desirable and undesirable, are heritable. Schizophrenia is heritable, for example.

Obviously the problem with saying that a trans identity is heritable is that you have to define trans, and this is much harder to pin down. Is there a workable definition of trans that includes, for example, both Isla Bryson and a 14-year old girl who wants to cut off her breasts because she hates her developing body?

The thing about being pro-trans in our society is discovering you can tell a massive obvious lie and get away with it. All subsequent claims from such people must therefore be treated with added caution.

Thanks, OldCrone - your researching skills are superior to mine. Just imagine, referencing your own output to support your own output.

I believe you can inherit behaviours etc from relatives, I certainly have, so why not?

Doesn't change your actual sex. You can inherit mental illness for example.

It is difficult to distinguish between environmental/social and biological determinants of something when people who are genetically closely related (such as twins) are also brought up together in the same family.

Psychology Today is not the most reliable of sites, at least based on something unrelated to this topic I once studied there. It's not a peer reviewed academic publication, but closer to the way newspapers or magazines might cover the issues. It has also in the past given column space to some rather iffy theories and arguments, so I'd take this with a big scoop of salt.

Quite! Do you think they extrapolated all of this from the single factual premise that babies receive X and sometimes Y chromosomes from their parents?

There is a short reference list which includes a couple of his own papers.

Thanks for digging that out.

And going back to my reference to the abortion research that keeps being used, in fact this was one of the early criticism of that paper.

But maybe this "research" is less likely to be quoted in the publication is not itself given much weight.