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

[Lagayascienza]

Fried Egg, I'm still waiting on an explanation for why you misquoted me. It seems like a deliberate attempt to smear my character. I have searched back through my posts but cannot find the quote you attributed to me and I do not remember writing it. Please explain.

The brain studies I mentioned, and one of which Sy Borg linked to, indicate that there is something biological going on with the brains of trans-people. You don't want to accept that and instead focus on genitalia. The vast majority of trans-people just want to live mind their own business and their lives in peace and security like everyone else. But you cannot live and let live and would rather force trans-people suffer so as not to upset your black and white conservative religious categorization of the world. But in terms of the truth about natural variation in our species, science will always trump religion.

[Fried Egg]

Fried Egg, I'm still waiting on an explanation for why you misquoted me. It seems like a deliberate attempt to smear my character. I have searched back through my posts but cannot find the quote you attributed to me and I do not remember writing it. Please explain.

Oh, you're being serious?

Clearly, I wasn't quoting you literally. It was just me being snide and making reference to the fact that many of the posts you've made in this thread end with a similar rant against the religious right. I was being facetious.

The brain studies I mentioned, and one of which Sy Borg linked to, indicate that there is something biological going on with the brains of trans-people. You don't want to accept that and instead focus on genitalia.

It's not just the genitalia, but the other physical differences between the sexes. And frankly, I think most people will acknowledge (if they're being honest) that it is the physical attributes of the opposite sex that attract them. i.e. if you are a heterosexual male (or a lesbian) you are attracted to women that look like women. The masculine/feminine configuration of the brain has little to do with it.

Which reminds me of another recent decision in Australia in which the Australian Human Rights Commission ruled that the Lesbian Action Group was not allowed to exclude trans-women from a lesbian event they organised. Indeed, many lesbians have been accused of transphobia for refusing to date trans-women. An insane outcome that has followed from the legal conflation of sex and gender in Australian law.

As for the study that Sy Borg posted, I will have a read. At first glance, it appears to be looking at the effects of cross sex hormones on the brain but I will take a deeper look.

[Lagayascienza]

DO NOT attribute quotes to me that I have not made. To do so is not being facetious. It is being dishonest.

[Pattern-chaser]

If one's chromosomal / hormonal development were awry, we might indeed expect to see anomalies in one's sexual development with visible manifestations of such abnormal development (i.e. as with intersex people). The brain is just one of the many parts of the body that is subject to sexual dimorphic development so it seems quite strange that every other part of the body develops along perfectly typical sexual lines but the brain doesn't. We might expect a more random distribution of anomalous development, other correlating evidence of it. Not saying that it's completely impossible, just highly unlikely. Certainly not likely enough to explain the burgeoning numbers of trans identifying people we see today.

Therefore, I conclude that it's likely that many people who experience gender dysphoria are doing so for other reasons than happening to have a brain that is "configured" for the opposite sex that the rest of their body is "configured" for.

In this example, we aren't considering "chromosomal / hormonal development", I don't think. I think we're looking at the neuronal connection map, just as we are/do for, for example, autism. And I see no reason why one particular non-normal feature might not develop in one place, or another. An anomaly in one area makes other anomalies more or less likely? Why might we "expect a more random distribution of anomalous development"? Why not just one area, or just a few?