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My phone’s running out of battery and I should go to bed. But hey, how about I jump into a giant discussion instead?
So here’s two things you may or may not know about the brain: 1) there are sorta kinda somewhat reliable gender differences in brain structure. Not terribly 1/9
So here’s two things you may or may not know about the brain: 1) there are sorta kinda somewhat reliable gender differences in brain structure. Not terribly 1/9
pronounced, but just like men are taller on average, they will also have higher gray matter volume or lower cortical thickness. Still, it’s fuzzy (just like there are tall women and short men).
And 2) your brain matches your experience. What do I mean by that? 2/9
And 2) your brain matches your experience. What do I mean by that? 2/9
E.g.: I can induce an illusion that makes you feel something on your skin that isn’t there. But for your brain it’s there: there will be a measurable response on your cortex, just like there would be for a real touch. (I did an entire TEDx thing on this phenomenon). 3/9
Alright, so your brain kind of reflects your sex/gender (to a certain degree) and it also reflects your own perspective or experience.
(Can you see where I’m going with this yet)
Given these facts, I’m surprised this isn’t a bigger topic in the whole transgender discussion. 4/9
(Can you see where I’m going with this yet)
Given these facts, I’m surprised this isn’t a bigger topic in the whole transgender discussion. 4/9
Does your brain side with gender identity or with birth sex? Not many have looked into this topic. But we have a handful of studies looking at brain structure in people who don’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth and who haven’t started hormone therapy yet. 5/9
Two studies on cortical thickness found that this measure follows the pattern of the gender that participants identify with, not with the one assigned at birth. 6/9
https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/23/12/2855/464986?view=extract
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3665407/
https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/23/12/2855/464986?view=extract
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3665407/
Next measure: gray matter volume (GM): “in several brain areas, regarding their GM volume, transsexual subjects did not differ significantly from controls sharing their gender identity but were different from those sharing their biological gender” 7/9 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0083947
Next: white matter. Sometimes ignored, yet just as important. White matter structure in trans participants is “closer to the pattern of subjects who share their gender identity than those who share their biological sex“ 8/9 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022395610001585?casa_token=cQY8pTElTu4AAAAA:uk7HBeLiKXcJpFVVg-YK1u748CQBNBj8PKHzbT8gg0CaZh9pM_O0YrnuPEdjDyZNQJpDRXWfrw
There’s some other papers out there, and sometimes the results are less clear cut (only showing that trans participants are somehow different form cis ones).
But if you’re ever stuck in a discussion with one of those “BUT BIOLOGY” types you might find these studies useful. 9/9
But if you’re ever stuck in a discussion with one of those “BUT BIOLOGY” types you might find these studies useful. 9/9
