Boy Or Girl? What’s The Science Behind Transgender?
Please be advised that the following article is about a controversial subject and goes into detail about sexual identity and references sexual organs.
Outspoken second-wave feminist Germaine Greer recently caused controversy by claiming that transgender women “can’t be women” and “just because you lop off your penis…it doesn’t make you a woman”.
Of course in a sense she is absolutely right. Genitals alone do not define your gender. Cancer or severe injury can result in the necessary removal of testes or penises for example. Yet the men that undergo these procedures are no less men afterwards. Medical vaginectomies, or the removal of part or all of the vagina, does not mean that a woman stops being a woman. Obviously surgery alone does not define your sex. But that’s not what Greer meant.
So what does define your gender? The simplest and most common sense answer is the genitals that we are born with. Boys have penises, girls have vaginas. Nature determines your sex.
Except when it doesn’t.
The Problem With Genitals
You may have heard recently about something unusual that happens in a small village in the Dominican Republic. One in 90 children there that are born girls are not destined to stay girls. Once these children start puberty, they grow penises and testicles. They are known locally as guevedoces, literally “penises at age twelve”. Scientists call them pseudohermaphrodites and Dr. Julianne Imperato, one of the first to study the guevedoces, discovered that the startling transformation was due to an enzyme deficiency.
We all start out as female in the womb. At the risk of over-simplifying, boys then get a shot of testosterone that changes the clitoris into a penis and changes the vagina into testicles. Guevedoces don’t have as much of an enzyme called 5-alpha-reductase. It’s this enzyme that converts the testosterone into the male genital building hormone dihydro-testosterone. At puberty, the “girls” undergo another surge of testosterone that belatedly causes the outward change into boys and ultimately men. The phenomenon is not confined to the Dominican Republic and further cases have been reported in Papua New Guinea.
The condition that results in the guevedoces’ late transformation is one of a variety of conditions that come under the umbrella term Intersex. Simply put, an Intersex condition occurs where a person’s sexual anatomy doesn’t fit the typical definition of male or female. It can mean that a person’s genitals look different to the norm for their sex, or that the genitals look like the norm on the outside but the internal anatomy may more closely resemble the opposite gender.
So children are not necessarily defined by the genitals they are born with. Can we find a better definition for gender?
The problem with genitals!Click To TweetThe most fundamentally basic of all is to define gender from our chromosomes. Males have XY chromosomes and females have XX chromosomes. So, even though prepubescent guevedoces don’t have male genitalia they would probably have XY chromosomes. Chromosomes define gender.
Except when they don’t.
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The Problem With Chromosomes
The world-renowned biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins weighed into the Greer controversy on twitter, saying “Is trans woman a woman? Purely semantic. If you define by chromosomes, no. If by self-identification, yes. I call her ‘she’ out of courtesy.”
Is trans woman a woman? Purely semantic. If you define by chromosomes, no. If by self-identification, yes. I call her “she” out of courtesy.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) October 26, 2015
So Dawkins obviously defines gender by chromosomes. However, other scientists think that that’s too simple. For example, some women may have an Intersex condition known as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS) where genetically they have XY chromosomes. Symptoms of the condition vary but a woman may go through her whole life never knowing that she has AIS, identifying as female and undergoing changes at puberty consistent with being female. Similarly, men with an Intersex condition called de la Chapelle Syndrome have XX chromosomes, yet may be ignorant of the fact.
People with AIS and de la Chapelle syndromes are infertile, but infertility can be caused by many things.
“In light of this, sex should be considered not a product of our chromosomes, but rather, a product of our total genetic makeup, and of the functions of these genes during development.” – Dr. Charmian Quigley, Medical Advisory Board member for the Intersex Society for North America.
So becoming male or female is a complicated process that relies on many things happening together. Chromosomal makeup, what genes express and when, the cocktail of hormones and enzymes being released and reacted to. It’s a complicated business.
The Problem With Identity
People with Intersex conditions differ from people who are Transgender. Transgender people generally have hormones, genitals and chromosomes that seem consistent to one sex but they believe themselves to be of the opposite sex. Intersex conditions manifest as some sort of physical mismatch between the genders that shows up in chromosomes, internal sexual anatomy or genitals that may differ from the norm. There is crossover between the groups but they are also distinct.
So, a transgender person may look male, have XY chromosomes, have the same male sex hormones levels and undergo male changes during puberty. Yet all the while the person feels like a girl trapped inside a boy’s body. Similarly, a female may identify as male. Why? Is it all in the head? Possibly, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not real and the head is a great place to start searching for answers.
“Medical care of transgender patients, including surgical and hormonal treatment, has largely been met with resistance by physicians in favor of psychiatric treatment, owing to misconceptions that gender identity can be changed.” – Boston University School of Medicine
Surprisingly, there are not a lot of studies on transgender issues. But those that have been carried point towards actual differences between transgender people and their cisgender peers. Wait, before we get into the science, we need to define a couple of terms. Transgender, or transsexual, can refer to someone who may feel like they’re a member of one sex trapped in the body of another or that their birth gender is just wrong somehow or may refer to someone who has an intense desire to be a member of the opposite sex. Cisgender refers to someone who identifies with the gender that they are assigned by birth.
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A study led by psychologist Kristina Olson looked into gender identification of children using implicit and explicit measures. In other words, the study used self reporting questions as well as techniques designed to test how deeply a thought, feeling or belief is held. Were transgender children lying to themselves and others or did they truly believe that their gender was misaligned? The study consisted of two groups, one had 32 transgender children ranging in age from 5 to 12 years old. The other group had the same number of cisgender children of the same ages.
The study used different measures including the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to explore gender identification. IATs are standard tests that judge the speed in which subjects respond to questions and prompts. The children had to identify themselves with one or other facet of gender, the time taken to answer was noted. How “automatic” the answers are shows how deep the conviction is. Many questions were asked but essentially they were all variants of one over-riding question; “Are you a boy or a girl?”
The results from both groups were indistinguishable. Girls identified as girls and boys identified as boys, it was impossible to discern from the data alone which group was which. The physical gender did not impact at all on the data.
“While future studies are always needed, our results support the notion that transgender children are not confused, delayed, showing gender-atypical responding, pretending, or oppositional — they instead show responses entirely typical and expected for children with their gender identity,” – University of Washington study lead by Kristina Olson.
Of course, the size of the study was small and the transgender children were in supportive families. This may or may not have influence on the study. Olson is planning to repeat the study using larger number of children.
Neuroscience has also studied the brains of transgenders with interesting results. There are physical differences between the brains of males and females, which brains do transgenders align more closely with? A Spanish team of neuroscientists at the National University of Distance Education in Madrid used MRI scans to examine the white matter in four key regions of male, female and transgender brains.
One study involved 18 female-to-male (FTM) transgender people who had had no treatment. They compared them to scans of 24 male and 19 female cisgender people. The brains of the FTM transgender people resembled the male more than the female brains.
In a second study they compared 18 male-to-female (MTF) transgender brains to 19 male and 19 female cisgender brains. The results were surprising in that the transgender people’s brains were halfway between the male and female brains.
So there is conclusive proof that something different is happening in the brains of people with transgender. An Australian study in 2008 found that male-to-female transgender people have a different receptor gene for testosterone or androgen than cisgender males. Testosterone and androgen are hormones which determine maleness. The researchers conclude that this difference in the receptor gene can result in a “more feminised brain”.
A review of the existing studies performed by the Boston University School of Medicine determined that the evidence was strong enough to recommend that medical professionals should no longer regard transgenderism as a psychological condition. Rather the review concluded that “there is increasing evidence of a biological basis for gender identity.”
The Problem With Society
Nearly 80% of Irish transgender people have considered suicide and 40% have attempted suicide at least once. That figure is mirrored in the US where 41% of American transgender people have attempted suicide. One in fifty transgender Americans have been violently assaulted in a doctor’s office.
Germaine Greer accused Caitlyn Jenner of transitioning to a female because “he/she wanted the limelight that the other, female, members of the family were enjoying and has conquered it, just like that.” Caitlyn Jenner claims that she knew from a young age that she felt female. Who should we believe?
The simple fact of gender is that it’s complex. There are straight, gay, bi- and asexual men who range in attitude and/or appearance from camp to macho. There are straight, gay, bi- and asexual women who range in attitude and/or appearance from butch to princess. There are girls that turn into boys. There are men and women that differ anatomically from the norm. There are people who do not identify with the gender that they are born into.
Surely our society is strong enough to incorporate everyone without forcing people to conform to a simple stereotype? The science is clear, transgender people do not arbitrarily choose one day to switch sex. There is more to it than that. Isn’t it better to have more happy, adjusted people than to stick to over-simplified concepts of gender?
What do you think? I acknowledge that this is a controversial subject and I am open to listening to alternate views. However, as the issue concerns real people with real feelings please refrain from hurtful or derogatory remarks. Thanks!
Sources:
- The Intersex Society of North America
- NCBI – A Case of XX Male Syndrome, Lisker et al. 1970
- Daily Telegraph -The astonishing village where little girls turn into boys aged 12
- ABC News – Cardiff University rejects petition to ban Germaine Greer from lecture over views on transgender people
- Independent, UK – If Germaine Greer’s views were radical, this transgender woman wouldn’t have been sent to a men’s prison
- Boston University – Review article provides evidence on the biological nature of gender identity
- APA – Transgender Kids Show Consistent Gender Identity Across Measures
- Neuroscience News – Sex Hormone Levels Consistent With Birth Gender in Transgender Teens
- Mic.com – Science Just Proved That Being Transgender Is Not a Phase
- ABC Science – Transsexual study reveals genetic link
- Irish Times – Study finds almost 80% of transgender people have considered suicide
- Live Science – High Suicide Risk, Prejudice Plague Transgender People
- Vanity Fair – Caitlyn Jenner: The Full Story
This post has been edited to reflect opinions expressed in the comments.
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I love this article so much. I think part of the problem we have in treating transgender people with… well, dignity and compassion is societal. Even now in our supposedly enlightened modern age it seems the vast majority of us still rigidly adhere to traditional (and, frankly, outmoded) gender roles. Men are supposed to be all butch and macho, the dominant, aggressive breadwinner. Women are supposed to be pretty and quiet and submissive, never thinking of their own wants and needs. If we’re all going to continue to be lumped on this big ol’ planet together then we need to do better than this. Much better. And it’s going to take a lot of gender research and education, and us actively deciding to let go of certain paradigms that perhaps were never really helpful to begin with.
This article was very well written and researched and contained a great deal of information many do not know about. I would like to add to it, if I may.
I very recently (Friday the 23, to be precise) completed and submitted a researched paper for my college English class on this very study. I chose the topic becasue I am transgender myself, and I’m very interested in the subject of ‘what makes me tick’ to use a previously coined phrase.I’d actually been researching this subject off and on for a few years, reading articles and the basics of the scientific studies as I’ve been lucky enough to find them. However, when researching my paper, I really delved into finding sources.
What I learned surprised even me, who thought I knew a fair amount about the situation. Gender Identity and Physical Sex are two entirely different things. Both are developed intrauterine. Both can be partially attributed to a number of things, including chromosomes, genes exposure level to androgen and testosterone while in the womb, as well as reception and absorption levels of both.
Like stated in the article, there have been studies, including but not limited to the one in Spain, that show Transgender brains to be more like their gender identity counterparts(like those of the gender they identify with) or completely unique from both cisgender males and cisgender females.
Dr. Milton Diamond, of the University of Hawaii (prominent researcher into gender and identity especially with regard to Intersex and Transgender people) has stated that due to his own research and those of others, he believes Transgender to be a form of Intersex, in that they are “intersexed in their brains.” Another scientist, Dr Eric Vilain of UCLA, when asked to define intersex in an interview, said the following: “Intersex is an intermediate sexual phenotype. This means that this is a state of being in-between what’s commonly accepted as male or female at all levels, that is an anatomical level, gonadal level, and brain level, and behavioral level.”
Given this, I believe our societal views on both Intersex and Transgender (as well as “Gender Queer people who do not feel they fall exclusively into male or female) needs to be looked at and really to be completely revised. What makes male and female is not as black and white as is STILL being taught in schools, even at the college level. (My college human biology class still only taught about the chromosomal influence on gender, and said nothing at all about genetics or the role of hormones. I sat, mentally shaking my head the entire time the instructor was lecturing on it, thinking I very likely know more about the subject than she did.)
In fact, this is a main part of why society clings to this outdated view of gender and sex; it is what is still being taught in school. In fact, if we wish to change societal attitudes on sex and gender, then it must begin in the educational system.
Peace, Love, & Understanding
Thank you for this well reasoned analysis.
May I offer one correction? It is not accurate that transgender “refers to someone who feel like they’re a member of one sex trapped in the body of another” as you say above. Many transgender people feel this way, but many do not. Some feel like their gender is “wrong” in some way. Others feel an intense desire to be a member of the opposite sex but may not feel like they are one.
Thanks for the opportunity to set straight something that the media nearly always gets wrong.
Thank you for that Suzi. I tell people that the term “transgender” is an umbrella term that covers all folks with gender dysphoria and more specifically, people who feel trapped in the wrong body are generally referred to as “transsexual”.
A transsexual female is a transgender person who has had her srs surgery and other that completes her journey ..transgender person is a person who is transitioning into who they are inside, adventually it will be outside.
I liked that you covered a wide range of biological evidence (physiological, chromosomal, etc.) that shows how there is a lot of variation in sex and gender. A society that dictates an either/or system of male/female (or even cis/trans) is not based on the reality of the human experience or biology.
I have only one suggestion, which is that I know some people who are transgender would not appreciate the use of the word “transgenders” instead of “people who are transgender” or “transgender people”–they may feel that it is further reinforcing dehumanizing rhetoric in a society where they are frequently dehumanized. I realize that was not your intention and you were probably using the word for more variety in your writing, but I just wanted to offer the alternative viewpoint.
Looking forward to reading more from your blog in the future.
Thanks Hillary! That’s a fair point and I will edit the post when I’ve access to a computer.
WHY?! Do you refer to lesbians as “lesbian people” or “people who are lesbian?”
I find the “Dykes on Bikes” offensive. They should be called “People Who are Lesbians on Bikes” or “Lesbian People on Bikes.”
So true
I’ve read that the transgenderpopulation is somewhere around 1,4 million in the US, with a population of at the very least close to 320 milion people. So if 99% of society identifies itself either as female or male, how is the idea of binary gender not reflecting reality based on human experience?
I absolutely agree that sexuality and gender are a complex topic and that both exist somewhat on a scale. However, one has to accept the fact that the majority of people fall either into the female or male side of the spectrum. That is simply what you usually encounter the most out there. That doesn’t mean that we should shun or disrespect transgenders! But they are, after all a minority and this is a fact.
Thanks for the clarification Suzi! I’m my phone now but next time I’m at my laptop I’ll edit the post to reflect this.
Hi, I posted on this last night but I do not see the post. I am diagnosed with de la chapelle syndrome. Or how my endo said it was “46xx male testicular disorder with sry positive”. I have had many questions that I have asked my endo and my genetics doctor and can never find the answer for it. I am all male inside and outside just do not produce testosterone and unable to have children. I have been doing testosterone injections for almost 3 years now, I am 29 and found out about 4 years ago. Having this genetics did it mess with my puberty or delay it? Is my body suppose to be having estrogen or testosterone to feel better? (I have been chronically fatigued for long time) Is the testosterone injections causing harm to me? Is my brain a male or female brain? (I never really been interested in sex or men or females… I just have a fiance because it is the norm thing to do and I would probably be content alone) Am I suppose to be male or female? I have had brain mri’s done and I am not sure how to tell by the white matter in the brain and can’t find anyone to look at my mri’s to shed light on it and my doctors don’t believe in the whole white matter male female anyways.. Thanks.
Hi Sandor, sorry I’ve been remiss at checking & replying to comments of late. I’ve been struggling with vertigo and fatigue and left things slide a bit… I can well imagine the many questions your condition causes. Unfortunately I don’t think there are answers for many of them yet. There are many areas of the human body that are not understood by science yet. I hope you can work out the answers you need in time. All the best
Bear in mind I’m not a qualified medic. I do get called in sometimes by professors of medicine and psychology to teach 3rd yr med students and postgrads about this though.
Sandor – you’re supposed to be you. No-one else gets a vote. Only you can tell whether you’re F,M, both or neither. Genetically, you have the same masculinising SrY gene that most men do. However, most men have it on their Y chromosomes. You apparently don’t have those, the SrY is on another one, there’s a few places it sometimes ends up on.
You’re far closer in most respects in a biological sense to standard model males than standard model females. You may have anomalous responses to some medications, but that’s almost it.
All this means exactly nothing regarding your gender identity. Our imaging techniques are nowhere near as accurate as just asking someone what sex they are, and believing them.
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For some people, it’s not an easy question to answer, especially if they’re Intersex. But even if they’re not. The binary model of sex is a good approximation for most purposes – but so is the Flat Earth model, when walking to a corner store, and it’s just as wrong.
A good Gender Specialist can help you determine who you are, but at the end, help is all they can do. You are who you are, not what anyone says you are or should be.
I fit pretty well into the standard sterotype of Frumpy Female Academic. But biologically, I’m far more unusual than you are, the 3BHSD form of CAH can cause either an MtoF change or like 5ARD or 17BHSD, an FtoM one.
I’m sorry you haven’t had too much help from your medical team. This is a specialised area, and not taught too well – if at all – in med schools. Hence the need to call in medically unqualified scientists like me to do remedial training.
This is a very interesting article. Can you further explain the differences between a psychological condition and a biological basis for gender identity? For example, do people with diagnosed mental illnesses like schizophrenia or even depression have physical differences in their brains that could be identified with an MRI scan?
The more scientists look into mental illness the more physiological symptoms they find. For example, depression can cause a shrinking of the hippocampus which is involved in regulating emotion.
Other mental illnesses do show up in brain scans. However, every brain is unique and the strength of the connections vary from person to person. Chronic video-gamers show some structures in the brain that resemble people with shizophrenia, autism and autism (you can read more about here https://brainspongeblog.com/2016/01/14/fascinating-rewiring-gamers-brain/ ), but they generally have not been diagnosed with those conditions. Psychological conditions typically refer to abnormal functioning of the brain, just like physical illnesses refer to abnormal functioning of the rest of the body. Examples would be anxiety, phobias, eating disorders etc. While everyone feels anxious at times, when it negatively impacts on a person’s daily life it becomes a psychological condition.
The MRI scans of people with transgender seem to suggest that their brains can resemble healthy individuals of the opposite sex. So it seems to be more complex.
“seem to suggest…”
“can resemble…”
What does this mean, exactly? Thanks.
It means that things are complicated E!
It means it’s science. Where all things are contingent and subject to later falsification if better evidence comes in.
Hence “the experimental results support the hypothesis that the Earth’s shape is approximately spheroidal” rather than the bald statement that “the Earth is Round”.
The first is true. The second,, well, we’re pretty sure at this point it’s true, but may be incomplete or even wrong in light of better data.
I greatly appreciated this article and have recommended it to those who are locked into an anti-transgender bigotry thinking model. Interestingly enough, some will see these data and then tell me that, “If the Bible says something different (their interpretation) then the science is wrong.”
As a transgender woman and advocate I enjoyed the succinct but comprehensive nature of this article. Well done.
Thank you very much Karen
Hello there,
Recently I have the same diagnosis 46XX male with sry positive. And i have the same question as Sandor, is my mind male or female? I’m married and the diagnosis was made because of azoospermy. After a long time with health problems, depressions and other problems with work and fired I’m finally a married men now. Sometimes i hope that all my problems will stop. Now I’m a hospital visitor who is told not more then this diagnosis and I may all found out by myself what 46XX male means.
Recently I read some of blog of Zoe Brain and compliments there for.
Greats,
Eric
Hi Eric, I can only guess what you are going through. I hope you can find the answers that you seek.
Hi Eric,
I too was recently diagnosed 46xx with SRY positive. I also was recently diagnosed as being azoospermia. Because of our 46xx karyotype, we are genetically female. It is the SRY gene that made us phenotype male.
I thought this article was well-written and also that it contained a fair amount of scientific support for its claims. With this being said, there are some issues woven into the transgender discussion relating to inconsistency. Regardless of where one stands on the issue, consistency is one area in which proponents from either side (or anywhere in between) of the argument may input objectively. Here is one looming issue:
1. As stated above in this article, the gender of an individual is influenced by many factors. However, I would claim that the primary cause of a desire to change one’s sex is the feeling that one does not identify with the sex of his/her current body.
2. In order to affirm that one’s internal behavior does not conform to an outer biological sex implies a standard of internal behavior for each biological sex.
a. For example, in order for a biological male to claim that he feels as if he is internally a women implies a difference between the internal structure of a biological male and the internal structure of a biological female.
3. However, this directly contradicts the very idea that gender and biological sex are separate spectrums of a human’s identity.
a. For example, the pervading societal view of the day states that a woman may participate in activities that are stereotypically male activities and yet remain a woman.
4. So ultimately, the question is… Why should I care to change my biological sex if I feel like the opposite gender internally? If gender and biological sex truly are unrelated, if a woman really can grow up playing football and a man can play with barbies, why is there any tension between gender identity and biological sex.
5. In order to affirm transgender ideology, one must therefore affirm the fundamental differences between the internal structure of a man and woman. This is not necessarily an issue, but it does pose a serious tension between the feminist and the transgender movements.
6. More simply put, if transgender advocates are proposing that one may be possess a gender identity differing from their sex, why do so many transgender people seek to reconcile their internal identity to their biological sex? Shouldn’t they exist independent of one another?
As Dermont states a few times: It’s complicated. But there’s a few things you read into a little too heavily here. It is a side-effect of us bundling multiple things into “gender”. Things such as behavior, expression, identity, and biology.
As a society, those of us in the US consider something like needlepoint to be feminine. Yet, it is a behavior. There is nothing inherently feminine about it beyond the implicit association we make between the two. Same with playing football, or playing with dolls, as you suggest. And you are right that these behaviors are varied. You can point to correlations and stereotypes, but it is hard to disentangle those correlations and state if there is something innate or if it is part of upbringing that we encourage and develop stereotypical behaviors.
But I think it’s important to stress again that behavior, expression, identity, and biology are all aspects at play here. A person is something where all these come together to help describe them as a whole, but they are also disconnected in the sense that you cannot use correlations or stereotypes to describe where they land in terms of these. The best you can do is learn from them where they land. In this way, there is no right way to be male or female (or anything in between). And this is where feminism and transgender activism are actually in many ways in agreement.
Where things get messy is that this can lead some to assume that gender doesn’t actually exist. That the behavior and expression parts of it are more social training than inbuilt traits. And I would actually agree that upbringing and social training do influence these a lot. So again, the disagreement is smaller than it maybe seems.
Where I disagree with some of the thinking that gender doesn’t exist, is that it completely ignores the biology side that does exist. We grow in the womb, and SRY (or the lack of it) triggers other changes in the body, differentiating us. Hormone production starts. Puberty further differentiates the sexes in terms of hormones and physiology. And those hormones do have effects. They can be used to build muscle mass (testosterone is a steroid), and regulate reproductive urges and fertility (birth control). Give a man enough estrogen, and he will grow breasts. Give a woman enough testosterone and she will grow a beard. And the long list of physiological effects are well documented, so there are definitely differences on how the bodies of men and women operate. But again, because the variance in the sexes, you can’t assume someone fits the correlations or stereotypes.
So where does this get us with identity though? Well, this is probably the murkiest part, because it is the least tangible of all of it. But instead I might pose a few questions in turn. Why do cisgender men and women simply accept their genitals? Why do they overwhelmingly tend to pick those of their same sex as role models and idols to look up to an emulate? Why do sex acts involve males penetrating females with a few exceptions? I would argue that if you could demonstrate the mechanisms behind these things in any definitive manner, you would be closer to understanding the biological part of gender identity than anyone else in history.
For my part, my thoughts (since there isn’t really any data supporting this idea) are that there are aspects of our brain that do help us manage and deal with our bodies in a way that accounts for our different sexes. These aren’t parts of the brain that say “you like Barbies”. These are the parts of the brain that are meant to help you with the biological reality of having a certain set of genitals, identifying possible sex partners, etc. Possibly even intertwined with the parts that make us the social animals we are. The need to form social groups, have role models to emulate and so on. So in that way, it’s easy to consider a biological reason for someone not being heterosexual. But it’s also possible to start considering how someone might have a, complicated, relationship both with their body and how society perceives them as a result. And that complicated relationship can be orthogonal to their complicated relationship with gender stereotypes and expectations.
It’s also not surprising that if you don’t experience the incongruous feeling, that it is difficult if not impossible to understand it. At times it does feel like I’m trying to explain what a “car” is to a society who has never seen one, has no words I can use to accurately describe it, but instead has a concept that equally covers horses, pets, and for some bizarre reason, boats. And to make things more fun, assume I don’t even fully know what a “car” is, beyond having seen one drive by, and never having the chance to inspect it in person. I know what I saw, but we lack the common language and context to communicate effectively about it. And that’s a bit what it feels like to be asked questions like yours.
Why do cisgender men and women simply accept their genitals? Why do they overwhelmingly tend to pick those of their same sex as role models and idols to look up to an emulate? Why do sex acts involve males penetrating females with a few exceptions? I would argue that if you could demonstrate the mechanisms behind these things in any definitive manner, you would be closer to understanding the biological part of gender identity than anyone else in history.
Alexis I think your comments are interesting, but I don’t think cisgender people do just accept their genitals, nor their breasts, nor their genders, but constantly negotiate their identities. I actually think this is rather obvious. And I don’t know what children do these days but when I was growing up “Doctor” was a pretty normal game for elementary school kids in my neighborhood, so there was a lot of fascination and imaginative play around sex experimentation and swapping genitals.
I agree when it comes to roles and expression, there is certainly gender play when growing up. And there’s definitely the process of exploration and learning about how we “work”. But I don’t think we are talking about identity at that point. Instead, it is an exploration of the gender roles we perform, how we express ourselves (gendered or not), and even an exploration of the sexual aspects of our bodies. As kids, we did play with gender norms, but “swapping gentials” is new to me. But I’m also thinking of experiments that have shown if you take someone and forcibly raise them as the opposite sex, so far, they will figure it out sooner or later on their own. Even if you leave no physical evidence that they were the sex they were born as. That itself tends to hint at an actual identity component beyond gender norms and behaviors.
I mention “accept their genitals” as that is a line commonly used against the transgender community. That the community is sick, and just needs to be taught to accept their genitals and all will be right with the world. But I can demonstrate that a cisgender individual can go through the same dysphoria if you assign them to the opposite sex at birth. I can also demonstrate that CAIS individuals tend to follow their phenotype (female), rather than their karotype (XY). It’s just effing complicated.
But I’d also suggest that as complicated as sex differentiation is, it leaves a lot of leeway for your examples. And there’s probably a lot more in common with a woman who is at odds with the existence of her breasts and a transgender person looking to transition than you might expect. And the severity of a transgender person’s dysphoria varies, making me expect that there’s enough moving parts here that you really do have a spectrum of gender identity rather than a couple specific identities. And that cisgender itself is a wider array of experiences than we tend to give credit to, as well.
But I think it is also fair to point out that norms and roles must be separated from identity. At least in the experiences I’m aware of, the examples you cite tend to skew towards exploration of bodies, along with gender norms and roles. And because gender and sex are so tightly combined in the English language, it can perhaps be easy to confuse swapping gender roles (or gender performances as Judith Butler describes it), with swapping sexual identities? At the end of the day, I merely suggest there may be a seed or kernel during differentiation that steers us one way or another when it comes to this sort of identification (and there are plenty of examples that hint at such a thing despite not having observed it directly). And if we were to have a better grip on the growth of that seed, while stripping away as much of the social aspect as possible, we might understand the source of “feeling female” or “feeling male” better than we do now.
Thank you for eloquently stating the circular and illogical premise that underlies gender affirming therapy/treatment. I love the idea of being gender-subversive and -expansive and -creative and -challenging, etc., but as soon as you have to change your biochemical makeup and anatomy, you lose me.
Here is the problem with the studies that claim a difference in the brain pattern of those who think they are MTF or FTM. You need to first study each individual as to how their parent raised that child, which in turn would assist in developing the brain of the individual to think a certain way. This would create changes within the brain that a test would not immediately recognize. In addition, the current tests mentioned above were said to have been done by Spanish scientist. Question is were their subjects all of Spanish background or of several different nationalities? Of these subjects that were studied, how did their parents or guardians raise that subject? Did they allow their boy to play with girl things, giving that boy a mentality of feminine thoughts? Did they allow their girl to do boy things, giving her brain the concept of being a boy? The brain tests are too vague and not conclusive.
I’m a Christian and will never be able to accept homosexuality/lesbian/transgender as being normal. Men born men are men. Women born women are women.
The activity that was mentioned in the Dominican republic is truly an unusual situation that I’ve never heard of until today and I’m 54. To say a child grows a penis during puberty years after their birth is quite unsettling. Surely there are studies up determine sooner what organs are within the child born that determines which would function as a reproduction organ. Example, when the child is born, x-rays would show a uterus and ovaries within that would be the reproductive organs of a female. This is something that can’t be hidden. Without that, the child would be labeled a male, based on them growing genital during puberty.
I found this to be very interesting. I have one question. My child, who is 22 years old, is on the high spectrum of ausbugers syndrome. seems to identify as male however born female. Has never LOVED the color pink, dolls and so on. Could ausbugers have any bearing on this.
Not as far as I am aware Emma. At least I haven’t seen any research that links the two conditions. I must admit that I am no expert however.
Yes, autism spectrum disorder is linked to gender dysphoria. There is a lot of research on the matter. (Starks, Edwards Leeper, Hudson, Nahata, Dietz, Quinn,Tishelmann, Kaufman).
Pretty well done. I am a post op transwoman. I struggled with my dysphoria from the very moment I realized I was a boy. Since being this different back in the early ’50’s, I tried to be normal as possible, still struggling more and more as the years went on. Finally I had no choice but to transition. I began slowly and took about 10 years before I went through my RLE. Still, my dysphoria persisted until I had my GRS. Suddenly…. nothing. I am just me and I no longer give it a second thought. The question is…… as long as I had to struggle before I completed my journey (at 61) would it be likely there would be some physiological changes in my brain in the order of someone addicted to video games? I mean, not the exact same but some other changes?
I am not an expert, I’m afraid. Here is my opinion as an informed layman.
It was once thought that our brains were static but now we know that they change to an astonishing degree. We are constantly breaking, making and reinforcing connections just by living day to day.
So, physiological changes in the brain are the norm, rather than the exception. Your brain before your treatment would have been different to what it is now. But that is the same for all of us to varying degrees.
Luckily it sounds like your brain is now in a better place than it was before and I wish you all the best. I’m glad that you were able to get rid of your dysphoria.
Love your last paragraph. Yes, we are infinitely variable as humans — that is what makes life interesting, joyous, painful, perilous, lucky, etc. The one thing I cannot bear is giving kids puberty blockers followed by hormones. Why why why? Let them become the people they were meant to be! Let them discover themselves. Medicalizing gender non conformity in children so that they conform to the sex binary is a problem. It will sterilize them, and retrospective surveys of transgender adults show that transgender people desire children at the same rates as cisgender people, and would have chosen fertility preservation if given the option. Also, hormone suppression and cross hormones can mess up young peoples’ sexual identity so that they may reject their own sexual orientation later in life. It limits the range of intimate partner choices later in life. Kids are too young to know if they really want to deal with the consequences of changing their sexual identity for a lifetime. Medical transitioning implicates important questions of autonomy; no child or adolescent is equipped to make decisions about these matters, and it is no one’s right to make such decisions for them.