Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sculptor1]

So we are going to ignore neural plasticity?

Only when it is not relevant.
You do know what the Amygdala is?

[Pattern-chaser]

DId you follow up on the Robert Sapolsky Youtube?

"Neuro-biology of trans-sexuality : Prof. Robert Sapolsky"

I'm afraid I don't/won't watch videos on a computer. A personal awkwardness.

Is there anything textual out there? I looked but couldn't find anything...

[Sculptor1]

DId you follow up on the Robert Sapolsky Youtube?

"Neuro-biology of trans-sexuality : Prof. Robert Sapolsky"

I'm afraid I don't/won't watch videos on a computer. A personal awkwardness.

Is there anything textual out there? I looked but couldn't find anything...

OH.

The only thing I could find was this reference he made in the lecture, this does not cover all he talked about, though.

A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality
Jiang-Ning Zhou, Michel A. Hofman, Louis J. G. Gooren & Dick F. Swaab

Abstract...
TRANSSEXUALS have the strong feeling, often from childhood onwards, of having been born the wrong sex. The possible psycho-genie or biological aetiology of transsexuality has been the subject of debate for many years1,2. Here we show that the volume of the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc), a brain area that is essential for sexual behaviour3,4, is larger in men than in women. A female-sized BSTc was found in male-to-female transsexuals. The size of the BSTc was not influenced by sex hormones in adulthood and was independent of sexual orientation. Our study is the first to show a female brain structure in genetically male transsexuals and supports the hypothesis that gender identity develops as a result of an interaction between the developing brain and sex hormones5,6.

Video Transcript follows:


ask okay well what about the
0:01
neurobiology of sexual orientation in
0:03
women
0:04
vastly smaller literature far far less
0:07
studied what has been shown so far are
0:10
only two endpoints one is the same deal
0:12
with the fourth to second finger ratio
0:15
on the average gay women have the ratio
0:18
more typical of straight men than
0:20
straight women the other thing that's
0:21
been shown is the same auto acoustic
0:24
reflex thingy going on there
0:26
final realm of neurobiology rather than
0:29
issues of gay versus straight what is
0:32
the neurobiology of transsexuality
0:35
and that used to be considered to be
0:37
purely a domain of psychopathology if
0:41
being gay used to be a certifiable
0:44
psychiatric disorder up until the early
0:46
1970s the american psychiatric
0:48
association in their textbook the
0:50
diagnostic statistical manual you could
0:53
be psychiatrically certified as ill a
0:56
psychiatric disorder was being
0:58
homosexual or lesbian and then in what
1:01
had to have been one of the more
1:02
all-time blowout committee meetings ever
1:05
they decided that no actually it's not a
1:08
psychiatric disorder and overnight about
1:10
40 million americans were cured of a
1:12
psychiatric disease the notion of
1:15
transsexuality as a psychiatric disorder
1:17
has had much much longer shelf life
1:20
what's the neurobiology of that
1:23
to date there have been a handful of
1:26
studies and they show essentially the
1:28
same thing
1:29
really really interesting another region
1:32
of the brain that shows a sex difference
1:34
in its average size don't even worry
1:36
about the name of this it's called the
1:38
bed nucleus of the striae terminalis
1:41
it's where the amygdala begins to send
1:43
its projection into the hypothalamus
1:45
another one to those gender differences
1:48
there's one type of neuron in there with
1:50
a certain type of neurotransmitter where
1:54
very very reliably it is about twice the
1:57
size in males than in females
1:59
sufficiently so that even in human
2:00
brains you could pretty confidently
2:02
determine the sex of somebody by seeing
2:04
the number of these neurons you'll see
2:06
i'm not even saying the name of the
2:07
neurotransmitter it's irrelevant it's
2:09
just another one of those differences a
2:11
dimorphism in a region of the brain a
2:14
really really reliable one
2:16
and this was a study
2:18
done by some superb neuroanatomists
2:21
looking at transsexuals
2:24
and what they showed was very
2:26
interesting
2:27
which was
2:28
very very reliably and a very powerful
2:31
effect what you would see in their large
2:34
large sample size of transsexuals brains
2:37
postmortem was people would have this
2:39
part of the brain the size not of their
2:42
sex that they were born with but rather
2:45
of the sex they insisted they always
2:48
actually were
2:50
wow
2:51
immediate questions one must ask
2:54
okay well maybe this is due to the fact
2:56
that when people change gender
2:59
transsexual procedures there's a whole
3:01
lot of hormones involved and maybe
3:04
that's doing something to this part of
3:06
the brain critical control that they had
3:08
was this was looking both the
3:10
transsexuals who had made gender changes
3:13
and those who went to their death bed
3:16
saying this is not the sex that i am i
3:18
got the wrong body but never made the
3:21
change it wasn't a function of having
3:23
actually gone through the transition and
3:25
the endocrine manipulations with it
3:27
another control they had
3:29
which was looking at men who would get a
3:32
certain type of testicular cancer where
3:34
they would have to be treated with
3:35
certain feminizing hormones in other
3:38
words very similar to some of the
3:39
endocrine treatments of male to female
3:41
transgendered individuals and postmortem
3:45
you didn't see the changes there it has
3:46
nothing to do with the hormones it had
3:49
to do with the person insisting from day
3:52
one that they got the wrong body and
3:55
this was a landmark study fabulously
3:58
well done and controlled and replicated
4:00
once since then showing that what
4:03
transsexualism used to be thought of is
4:05
that people who think that they're a
4:07
different gender than they actually are
4:09
what this study suggests is what
4:11
transsexual is about is people who got
4:14
the wrong gendered body
4:16
and these are people who are
4:19
chromosomally of
4:21
one sex in terms of their gonads they're
4:23
of that sex in terms of their hormones
4:25
they're of that sex in terms of their
4:27
genitalia and their secondary sexual
4:29
characteristics they're of that sex but
4:32
they are insisting that's not who i
4:34
really am this part of the brain agrees
4:36
with them
4:38
also very interestingly that study was
4:41
done by the same dutch scientists who
4:43
did this one again this is very complex
4:47
terrain in terms of what these things
4:50
wind up implicating interestingly that
4:52
study was published right around the
4:54
time that the city of san francisco did
4:56
something very cool which was for city
4:59
employees now medical insurance will
5:01
cover transgender operations however
5:04
there's no evidence that the obscure
5:06
endocrine journal published at a latvia
5:08
or something did that like the afternoon
5:10
before you know the san francisco
5:12
commissioners had their meeting on that
5:13
one but nonetheless this is a subject
5:16
with all sorts of realms of implications
5:18
one additional study about
5:20
transsexualism
5:22
okay how many of you know about phantom
5:24
limb syndrome
5:26
okay
5:27
you are a guy with a penis and you get a
5:31
certain type of penile cancer and what's
5:33
often done is your penis is excised that
5:36
is cut off and about 60 percent of men
5:39
who have had to have their penises
5:40
removed because of cancer there wind up
5:43
getting phantom phantom penile
5:45
sensations
5:47
which
5:49
i don't want to know about
5:51
what you see though is when you take
5:54
transgendered individuals who go from
5:56
male to female in other words as part of
5:59
it having their penises removed
6:01
zero percent rate of penile phantom
6:04
sensation
6:05
suggestion being that there is something
6:07
much more
6:09
normal in that case than when a penis is
6:11
being removed for cancer a whole new
6:14
area of research
6:16
very
6:17
novel very challenging okay so this has
6:20
given us a sense now of this bucket and
6:22
we are now ready to move on to what in
6:25
the environment releases some of these
6:28
fixed action patterns of sexual behavior
6:30
what in the environment is doing this or
6:32
that to the medial pre-optic area or the
6:35
amygdala or vasopressin receptor levels
6:38
or any such thing what are the sensory
6:40
triggers for the neural..

I'm afraid it is incomplete and sutogenerated...

Hope this helps.

[Sculptor1]

DId you follow up on the Robert Sapolsky Youtube?

"Neuro-biology of trans-sexuality : Prof. Robert Sapolsky"

I'm afraid I don't/won't watch videos on a computer. A personal awkwardness.

Is there anything textual out there? I looked but couldn't find anything...

PS.
The article of Jiang-Ning Zhou, Michel A. Hofman, Louis J. G. Gooren & Dick F. Swaab was from
Nature
LetterPublished: 02 November 1995

SO way back now.

[Sy Borg]

So we are going to ignore neural plasticity?

Only when it is not relevant.
You do know what the Amygdala is?

Better than you do, certainly. Not that that is any great achievement. Besting you in debate is like doing high jump over an ant mound.

Our neurons are not necessarily our destiny.

To claim that all gender variant people are the same is irrational. There is going to be a continuum. That will range from those who truly cannot function in their biological gender to those who might be able to go either way, to those who are making a grave mistake. An old friend is a drag queen and he was more mentally androgynous than any of the transpeople he introduced me to. Yet he would never dream of being surgically changed.

People on both sides assume that this issue is cut-and-dried but the truth is far messier, which is why the gender variant keep being the subject of debate. That is why I subscribe to MYOB in this issue. Let people just be, without being treated like pariahs or sacred cows - the deserve neither status.

[Fried Egg]

The difference in the responses by the bot is telling, Sy Borg. There should be little difference. But people seem to have this obsession with transexual women and a phobia about them using female bathrooms and invading female sports, etc., but they don't seem to have the same problem with transexual men. There is nothing like the hysteria in respect of transexual men that we see with respect to transexual women.

You call it a "phobia" which suggests that it is irrational and yet it is perfectly rational.

Female only spaces exist in society in order to protect women from men and not the other way around. Separation of male and female sporting categories are to allow women to compete against other people who do not have the male advantage. Men do not have to worry about competition from women in most sports.

So it is clear why there hasn't been a fuss about trans-men entering male toilets or male categories for sports. It is unlikely that trans men would want to use male toilets or compete in male categories for sports anyway, but even if they did, men don't really care because the separation of male/female spaces/categories in society are there to protect women from men and not the other way around.

And to be clear (because someone's bound to mis-interpret what I've said) no one's claiming that trans-women are any more dangerous than other men.

[Sy Borg]

The issue, Mr Egg, is that, as Lagaya said, the definitions should be precisely equivalent. The general definitions should be free of gender politics, just like they were in our biology books.

Imagine a prevaricating answer to the question - "What is a female dog?". It would be absurd, and the same should be the case here. It's a general description, not a prescription. Sporting bodies and DV centres can, and should, make their own rules but the politics should not be infecting science - or philosophy.

[Lagayascienza]

The difference in the responses by the bot is telling, Sy Borg. There should be little difference. But people seem to have this obsession with transexual women and a phobia about them using female bathrooms and invading female sports, etc., but they don't seem to have the same problem with transexual men. There is nothing like the hysteria in respect of transexual men that we see with respect to transexual women.

You call it a "phobia" which suggests that it is irrational and yet it is perfectly rational.

Female only spaces exist in society in order to protect women from men and not the other way around. Separation of male and female sporting categories are to allow women to compete against other people who do not have the male advantage. Men do not have to worry about competition from women in most sports.

So it is clear why there hasn't been a fuss about trans-men entering male toilets or male categories for sports. It is unlikely that trans men would want to use male toilets or compete in male categories for sports anyway, but even if they did, men don't really care because the separation of male/female spaces/categories in society are there to protect women from men and not the other way around.

And to be clear (because someone's bound to mis-interpret what I've said) no one's claiming that trans-women are any more dangerous than other men.

But is it perfectly rational? If I were a woman using a public bathroom, and if there are other women in that bathroom, should I feel the need to ascertain whether any of them are post-operative transwomen? And, if any of them are post operative transwomen, should I feel any threat from them? I don't see why the answer to either of these questions should be in the affirmative.

There is no question of transwomen competing in sport agaist non-transwomen. Our legislation makes an exception in this and other cases. And transwomen make up a tiny proportion of our total population. The world is not about to be invaded by savage transwomen hell-bent on putting an end to civilization as we know it. But the regressive, conservative mindset seems unable to deal with change or difference. And it often seems lacking in empathy and plain old human kindness.

[Lagayascienza]

And to be clear (because someone's bound to mis-interpret what I've said) no one's claiming that trans-women are any more dangerous than other men.

You like to call them men. But are transwomen, especially post-opertive transwommen, men in any sense that matters?

[Sy Borg]

And to be clear (because someone's bound to mis-interpret what I've said) no one's claiming that trans-women are any more dangerous than other men.

You like to call them men. But are transwomen, especially post-opertive transwommen, men in any sense that matters?

Fair point. Many people today speak as if any conceptualisation beyond a simple binary is too complex for the human brain to handle. Yet we know from history that transpeople are not a modern phenomenon. What people struggle to understand is that a continuum does not have to be an even spread.

There can be a vast majority of (speaking generally) entities at either pole with a small minority filling the continuum. That's one dynamic that happen in life and nature. To pretend that the small minority is somehow not valid or real is irrational.

That is not to say that the current obsession with gender identity is not wildly neurotic - because it is - but, as is so often the case, it appears that the baby of moderation is being tossed out with the bathwater.

[Belinda]

So we are going to ignore neural plasticity?

Only when it is not relevant.
You do know what the Amygdala is?

Better than you do, certainly. Not that that is any great achievement. Besting you in debate is like doing high jump over an ant mound.

Our neurons are not necessarily our destiny.

To claim that all gender variant people are the same is irrational. There is going to be a continuum. That will range from those who truly cannot function in their biological gender to those who might be able to go either way, to those who are making a grave mistake. An old friend is a drag queen and he was more mentally androgynous than any of the transpeople he introduced me to. Yet he would never dream of being surgically changed.

People on both sides assume that this issue is cut-and-dried but the truth is far messier, which is why the gender variant keep being the subject of debate. That is why I subscribe to MYOB in this issue. Let people just be, without being treated like pariahs or sacred cows - the deserve neither status.

A continuum, possibly; but a continuum in the shape of a bell curve.

I thank Sculptor for his precis. I did not watch the You tube as I am very deaf so I don't do You tube as it seldom has subtitles. I seek proper scientific peer reviews, or at least good journalistic commentaries of peer reviews, as the claim is too important to be ignored.

Are trans people treated like pariahs or sacred cows?Is that fear perhaps Quixotic? They deserve at least that the explanation be treated as a black box and and trans peoples' feelings be respected, especially regarding employment opportunities.

[Fried Egg]

The difference in the responses by the bot is telling, Sy Borg. There should be little difference. But people seem to have this obsession with transexual women and a phobia about them using female bathrooms and invading female sports, etc., but they don't seem to have the same problem with transexual men. There is nothing like the hysteria in respect of transexual men that we see with respect to transexual women.

You call it a "phobia" which suggests that it is irrational and yet it is perfectly rational.

Female only spaces exist in society in order to protect women from men and not the other way around. Separation of male and female sporting categories are to allow women to compete against other people who do not have the male advantage. Men do not have to worry about competition from women in most sports.

So it is clear why there hasn't been a fuss about trans-men entering male toilets or male categories for sports. It is unlikely that trans men would want to use male toilets or compete in male categories for sports anyway, but even if they did, men don't really care because the separation of male/female spaces/categories in society are there to protect women from men and not the other way around.

And to be clear (because someone's bound to mis-interpret what I've said) no one's claiming that trans-women are any more dangerous than other men.

But is it perfectly rational? If I were a woman using a public bathroom, and if there are other women in that bathroom, should I feel the need to ascertain whether any of them are post-operative transwomen? And, if any of them are post operative transwomen, should I feel any threat from them? I don't see why the answer to either of these questions should be in the affirmative.

Clearly I'm not suggesting that bathrooms should be policed. But it should continue to remain socially unacceptable for males to use female only bathrooms. If they have undergone such extensive transitional treatment that they are not recognizably male, so be it.

I imagine women are more concerned about those who merely choose to self-identify as a women without any medical intervention (which Australian legislation allows men to do) who then expect to use female only bathrooms.

There is no question of transwomen competing in sport agaist non-transwomen. Our legislation makes an exception in this and other cases.

It is already happening. Sporting bodies each form their own rules about this and they often international bodies. Just take the International Olympic Committee with their policy in the recent Olympics. If it says 'female' on your passport, you can enter the female category and compete. (Note, in Australia it is possible to have your gender on your passport changed).

Anyhow, sounds like you agree that trans-women shouldn't be able to compete in female sporting categories anyway. I was just making the point that it is rational for female sports competitors to only want to compete against other women and prevent trans-men from entering those categories.

[Lagayascienza]

Sporting bodies can coose to allow transwomen to compete in women's sport. They are not forced to do so and many don't.

[Sy Borg]

A continuum, possibly; but a continuum in the shape of a bell curve.

An inverse Bell Curve, actually - and Bell Curves, of course, represent continua.

[Belinda]

A continuum, possibly; but a continuum in the shape of a bell curve.

An inverse Bell Curve, actually - and Bell Curves, of course, represent continua.

An inverse bell curve.