A queer finding: gender isn’t binary

originally posted by: wasaka
My wife in transgender and just the other day we were
walking into a store and someone yell out, "that's a man."

Ooooh that got my blood boiling. You should have just shouted back "Aaaand that's a giant douche bag!"

Just curious though, what does she think about this report?


ps edit - Removed rest of question because I got the original report confused with other things being discussed in the thread.

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: yuppa

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: yuppa

originally posted by: Gothmog
a reply to: Darth_Prime

No, Gender is not Binary, the West are the ones who created a two Gender Binary systemcreated a two Gender Binary system

Really ? I thought evolution did that .Just damn . You have destroyed all my scientific knowledge with one small post..

Question then. If evolution is perfect what about the intersexed hermaphorites? Woudnt if it was a Evolutionary imperative there would not be any of those?

You , yourself know the answer to that...(if you know anything about genetics) and you misspelled that horribly.

Well if everyone was able to be a breeding pair the world would be over populated and could be natural to reduce breedable pairs. but they are technically a third SEX because they have both organs.

That could be true. Biology has not progressed to the point of the answer . I still believe it is some form of natural change , be it genetic , hormonal. It could be a mixture including environment.But the "third sex" as you call it , has been known to be genetics at work and has probably existed as long as mankind has. It is not new , and does not represent some form of evolution.

Peace

Oh i wasnt implying it was evolution of a new sex. YEha i know hermaphrodites have been around since ever. i used to have a crush on one too lol.

originally posted by: Abysha

originally posted by: wasaka
My wife in transgender and just the other day we were
walking into a store and someone yell out, "that's a man."

Ooooh that got my blood boiling. You should have just shouted back "Aaaand that's a giant douche bag!"

Just curious though, what does she think about this report? I would imagine she believes there are differences in the brain otherwise she would not understand being in a body that is wrong.

We have not discussed this article, yet.

I'm sure she will have some insight that missed, that is what I like so much about her perspective. But speaking from own biased view, I find it odd that I read years ago about that gay men having a different brain structure than straight men. What are to believe, that difference are obvious between gay men and straight but less so between male and female. This makes no sense to me.

www.pinknews.co.uk...

Honestly, I don't know how to take any of this. In my view, our brain under goes physiological changes based on beliefs, attitude, and our behavior. So who is to say why one person brain is different in some small way? Maybe what you think about makes your brain different. In my mind this is all means very little. People are people, we are all the same (and different) at the same time.

This is what happens when society, hands over, the "findings", to mentally ill people, with "Degrees/titles". Funny how that works? This came from "The open university "? I don't doubt it. Open to what?

The motto of this site is: Deny Ignorance, right?

It would be shocking if some opened their minds and actually read the scientific reports.

originally posted by: Darth_Prime
No, Gender is not Binary, the West are the ones who created a two Gender Binary system, as i have stated numerous times Multiple Genders have existed throughout various cultures and were not only recognized but celebrated and seen as Special and Gifted. not "Mental Defects" or ""Illness"


www.nature.com...

Sorry dude, we are a heterosexual species. Our bodies didn't spend all this time developing male and female body parts to warrant mental delusions of ambiguity. Thinking we are anything but male/female is overthinking the issue.

originally posted by: Annee
The motto of this site is: Deny Ignorance, right?

It would be shocking if some opened their minds and actually read the scientific reports.

Researchers have found that many people are more likely to believe a study that starts with 'Researchers have found that...'

a reply to: wasaka
First of all wasaka, thanks for sharing about your wife and the things that some trans people have to deal with. I really hope she doesn't browse ATS because it can be a very ugly place when trans anything is discussed. Not always. Some want to learn and some are supportive but some of the voices here can be very unpleasant and speak from an ill-informed point of view. Best of everything to you both.

Just curious though, what does she think about this report? I would imagine she believes there are differences in the brain otherwise she would not understand being in a body that is wrong.

Some people have a lot of dependence on all this brain science stuff and feel it is important to justify their identity or they can say their brain is female so they feel like a woman. Others simply don't care about their physical brain or even feel the need to seek the cause of why they are the way they are. It just is for some and scientific validation means very little. It's like if you smash your finger with a hammer, you know it hurts but how that signal travels up your arm, through your spine and what it does when it hits your grey matter is of little consequence. The mechanics of how the pain in your finger is registered is irrelevant to the fact that your damn finger hurts.

The conclusion of this study should meet previous studies and the resulting anti-matter matter collision will hopefully wipe out all the studies and we can get on with our lives and cancel all funding related to studies like these.

No really this is good. I expect non-men to be able to take it like a man in social situations now. same brain, just must be a lack of self control. this means women can actually learn to tame their emotions and not breakdown or tear up in similar situations men face. It's been a con all along lol.

originally posted by: Freija

Some people have a lot of dependence on all this brain science stuff and feel it is important to justify their identity or they can say their brain is female so they feel like a woman. Others simply don't care about their physical brain or even feel the need to seek the cause of why they are the way they are. It just is for some and scientific validation means very little.

Personally, I take the word of those who are.

And there is history of those who came before - - - even without the term Transgender.

But, validation is nice, not so much a need - - but still nice.

I hope with awareness, more funding for studies will come.

originally posted by: Freija
a reply to: wasaka
First of all wasaka, thanks for sharing about your wife and the things that some trans people have to deal with. I really hope she doesn't browse ATS because it can be a very ugly place when trans anything is discussed. Not always. Some want to learn and some are supportive but some of the voices here can be very unpleasant and speak from an ill-informed point of view. Best of everything to you both.

Just curious though, what does she think about this report? I would imagine she believes there are differences in the brain otherwise she would not understand being in a body that is wrong.

Some people have a lot of dependence on all this brain science stuff and feel it is important to justify their identity or they can say their brain is female so they feel like a woman. Others simply don't care about their physical brain or even feel the need to seek the cause of why they are the way they are. It just is for some and scientific validation means very little. It's like if you smash your finger with a hammer, you know it hurts but how that signal travels up your arm, through your spine and what it does when it hits your grey matter is of little consequence. The mechanics of how the pain in your finger is registered is irrelevant to the fact that your damn finger hurts.

Unless you were only one in a few thousand people who actually felt the pain in your thumb. You would want to know why it hurts you but not anybody else you know. And to top it off, people discriminated against you for being able to feel pain in your thumb or they insisted there was no such thing as pain or that only your toes can feel pain and you must have a mental illness. Wouldn't you want there to be something you could point to and say "See? This thumb pain is an actual thing".

There is already enough evidence for me to know there is a difference. Does it truly matter? No. But lacking something simpler people can point at and say "ooooh, I get it" puts most transpeople at risk.

The progression of enlightenment has not been linear through history. It has gone back and forth a few times and simply trusting that society will "get better" with these issues isn't very comforting to me. Actual undisputed science is the only thing that has a predictable impact on those who refuse to allow their world view to adapt to new findings.

originally posted by: Abysha

The progression of enlightenment has not been linear through history. It has gone back and forth a few times and simply trusting that society will "get better" with these issues isn't very comforting to me. Actual undisputed science is the only thing that has a predictable impact on those who refuse to allow their world view to adapt to new findings.

THAT is an interesting point.

And very true.

originally posted by: Abysha

Unless you were only one in a few thousand people who actually felt the pain in your thumb. You would want to know why it hurts you but not anybody else you know. And to top it off, people discriminated against you for being able to feel pain in your thumb or they insisted there was no such thing as pain or that only your toes can feel pain and you must have a mental illness. Wouldn't you want there to be something you could point to and say "See? This thumb pain is an actual thing".

Point taken but you'd have to know me a little better to say how I'd react or be from a time before any of this science. More likely my response would not be to point to a paper about my thumb pain but to use my middle finger to help with the explanation or to remove those from my life that didn't believe me when I said my thumb hurt.

There is already enough evidence for me to know there is a difference. Does it truly matter? No. But lacking something simpler people can point at and say "ooooh, I get it" puts most transpeople at risk.

Again, I'll say this science is for cisgender people to have a way to try and understand something they simply can't. The article states they have identified 29 brain regions that generally seem to be different sizes in self-identified males and females. Would you like this to be a diagnostic indicator of your gender? If you were trans would you like to hear something like we're sorry, you're not really transgender because 17 points of your brain scan indicate you're A and 12 say B so you really must be A even if you feel like B?

Since none of these differences have been identified as the center of gender in the brain anyway, what do they really say? Until they can definitively state the brains of trans people are different and is there is consensus in the scientific and medical fields, this research is going to be attacked as it has been here for being politically motivated or propaganda for some nebulous agenda. It's nice to use as an informational tool but unless a transgender person submits to the multitude of different scanning techniques, technologies and quantitative measurements, can't be used for self-justification. I'm not denying that brain structures or chemical factors aren't or can't be a part of all this but by the same token, a transgender person can't say I feel like I'm a man/woman because I have a male/female brain because that simply hasn't been proven to be a universal truth. Hinted at, yes. Incontrovertibly factually proven? Not so much.

The progression of enlightenment has not been linear through history. It has gone back and forth a few times and simply trusting that society will "get better" with these issues isn't very comforting to me. Actual undisputed science is the only thing that has a predictable impact on those who refuse to allow their world view to adapt to new findings.

This science, even if it was "undisputed" may be still helpful in some things or provide a probable cause explanation when needed but has it really been a big factor in the social changes or of making things "get better" as they seem to have in some respects in recent years? "Better" is also a matter of perspective as some of the attitudes and comments I read here don't show much improvement even with the science. If it helps some in this meme obsessed, simplified way of thinking that's great. If it is used as an unfounded self-justification for transgender people's own acceptance of themselves, then I think that is somewhat less than great.

You know me. I have a bad attitude but just like genitals aren't necessarily the source of a person's gender, I also don't necessarily feel the structure of the brain fully accounts for it either. It could just as well be magic or voodoo or luck of the draw as far as I'm concerned but if the scientific angle helps transgender people to make cisgender understand better, then more power to it.

ETA: The OP is about research that suggests that male and female brain differences aren't maybe what was once thought. Does this help or hurt a transgender person's explanation of their identity?

a reply to: Annee

As if "science" ain't "ignorant"? Psychiatric "science" untill 1973, thought gay (happy people) were "mentally ill". Strange how science works. Kind of to "progressive", wishy washy, to be absolutely true.

originally posted by: murphy22

As if "science" ain't "ignorant"? Psychiatric "science" untill 1973, thought gay (happy people) were "mentally ill". Strange how science works. Kind of to "progressive", wishy washy, to be absolutely true.

"Science" used to think the world was flat. Now they don't.

"Wishy washy"?

a reply to: Freija

Yes, you are correct! Science did believe that the world was flat. Science also treated physical ailments, according to "physical humors". But good! You get it! Maybe in our lifetime, the world will be square?..As long as you understand "science". Yep! Wishy washy.

originally posted by: Freija

originally posted by: murphy22

As if "science" ain't "ignorant"? Psychiatric "science" untill 1973, thought gay (happy people) were "mentally ill". Strange how science works. Kind of to "progressive", wishy washy, to be absolutely true.

"Science" used to think the world was flat. Now they don't.

"Wishy washy"?

Not to support the previous poster, but there is a VERY strong trend of many folks in those programs becoming increasingly engaged in activism.

The whole "new insights from neuroscience" nonsense is a result of this. Most of the studies do not support the "journalism" about the subject and far too many of the studies that undergo peer review receive the same criticisms of being biased from the beginning.

I would suggest taking some time (probably a few hours depending on how you browse the webs) to investigate the organizations involved in politicizing science. I am not saying all of it is bad, but it is rife with conflicts of interest, poor methodology and have strong ties with activist organizations. These sorts of things usually corrupt the actual science (which stands by itself without opinion). An example of the politicization ruining the science would be the Piltdown Man.

Always be skeptical, most good science will still be standing afterwards.

-FBB

//edit
If you want to compare the level rhetoric that comes out of the various "journalism," I would recommend phys.org (which usually covers these studies).
//edit

a reply to: FriedBabelBroccoli

What FriedBabelBroccoli said.👍 "Science" (a search for truth) depends on who's "dog is in the fight". There's actual, legitimate "science". Then there's "trying to hard, to validate belief". "Peer review" is a stupid concept. 1 idiot, being "peer" reviewed by 50 idiots, doesn't make "truth".

a reply to: FriedBabelBroccoli

Thanks FBB. I'm well aware of what you're saying. I once read a study that said 50% of studies were wrong or contained bad facts. Taking that to heart, I only believe about 25% of what I read. I figure that gives me maybe about 10% credibility when discussing the studies I've studied.

I am Scottish and like my s̶k̶i̶r̶t̶ kilt.

What is the difference.