3 ms·

I might get decapitated for suggesting this here, but it would be interesting to see the results on people with gender dysphoria. Do the hormones change the bra

I might get decapitated for suggesting this here, but it would be interesting to see the results on people with gender dysphoria. Do the hormones change the brain or does it remain the same? Test it both on patients starting as teens and as adults and study over time.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
I was wondering this too. Some transgender people say transition is valid because brain scans show they have a brain of their identified gender. I don't know if I want to stake my legal rights on an MRI machine. Even if I have a "guy" brain I'd still rather stay on E.
- 000ooo000 3y ago
  If I can derail conversation for a moment, what is the idea behind 'valid' or 'invalid' transition? It's not a phrase I've heard before sorry. I'm not in any kind of other forum where I think I could ask this without getting very emotionally-charged responses.
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
    In this case I meant valid as in, transitioning is really the best way to treat gender dysphoria and it's not useful to think of dysphoria as a delusion that would go away with conversion therapy or with time. Hope that helps!
    - 000ooo000 3y ago
      Thank you
  - faeriechangling 3y ago
    Look into gender essentialism, which contrasts with gender constructivism. It's often associated with TERFs, but it is VERY common within transgender communities themselves. There's notion that certain gender identities are valid and others are not (especially being male/female), and there's also the notion that diagnosable medical issues are required to be truly transgender. In this conversation, if you're AMAB, and have a male brain, and claim to have transitioned to being non-binary a gender essentialist might go "aha! Science proves they are nothing but a transtrender and a man" A constructionist would say "aha - the fact they have a male brain yet expresses a non-male gender identity proves they're a truly unique and special transgender person". It seems like an easy way to be on the "Right side of history" to reject gender essentialism, since you end up never calling a transgender person invalid. There is a dark side to rejecting essentialism, which is if gender ISN'T essential, than logically it should be possible to change people's gender identity to a "better" one. Which can result in things like Joan/John https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer.
  - cdstamper 3y ago
    I'm no expert but I think the idea is to avoid a scenario where someone would take a brain scan and declare someone's transition to be 'invalid'. Transition (and by extension gender) is something deeply personal that shouldn't be gated by physical characteristics, including brain development.
    - 000ooo000 3y ago
      Ah that makes sense. I think I took it a little too literally and the phrasing lead me to think that some transgender people themselves categorise transitioning as valid or invalid.
lgleason 3y ago
There have been studies that have shown that a persons preference for things over interactions were affected by testosterone levels from a young age (1 or 2) to teenage years. That would also affect the brain development etc.. That being the case, unless you changed it at a young age I'm not sure that this could be changed later on in life.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
fixkl 3y ago
Many people suggest that trans people have brains more inline with their desired gender, and this causes feelings of gender incongruence. However, if we take a closer look, we see some important underlying issues. In a famous study, the authors compared prepubertal and adolescent children, then suggest sex atypical cerebral differentiation occurs within these individuals [1]. The authors found sex atypical differences in the adolescent cohort, but the majority of that cohort is homosexual: - Homosexuality = 23% of trans boys + 44% of trans girls (prepubertal cohort) - Homosexuality = 100% of trans boys + 78% of trans girls (adolescent cohort) The only non-sex typical finding which was specific to gender dysphoria was in visual network-1 (VN-1; via fMRI). It was suggested that alterations in this network may disrupt body perception in gender dysphoric individuals. In another study by some of the same authors, they tested whether transgender people (with gender dysphoria) would have sex atypical hypothalamic activation to androstenedione, a steroid hormone in human sweat that causes sex-specific olfactory responses [2]. But similar to the previous study, sexual orientation was not accounted for. Why is this important? Well, the same sex atypical hypothalamic response is observed in homosexual men [3] and in homosexual women [4]. It's becoming increasingly clear that the only people with any sort of sex atypical cerebral differentiation occurs in homosexual individuals (on average). This is further supported by functional connectivity studies of sex atypical amygdala co-variance. You can see this in Figure 1 of this paper: [5]. Notice the high similarity in amygdala activity (at rest) between heterosexual females and homosexual males (and vice versa). Interestingly, in an effort to bring all of this together, this study examined the brains of heterosexual transgender people in order to control for sexual orientation: [6]. As Figure 1 of this paper shows, the authors found sexual dimorphism in various gray matter parameters in control male and females. However, these findings were not found in the heterosexual transgender population. So rather than sex atypical brain structure/function, what is specific to gender dysphoria itself? It's been shown that individuals with gender dysphoria show weaker structural and functional connectivity within the default mode network (DMN) of the brain, which is vital for body perception/image and self-referential processing [7]. Findings which have been replicated in [8] and [9]. The DMN consists of cerebral midline structures, including the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Interestingly, it's been shown that trans individuals (with GD) show a stronger activation pattern within these DMN structures when viewing pictures of their body morphed to the opposite sex: [10]. You can see the results in Figure 5 of this paper. It's important to note that correlation is not causation. Just because we observe a different pattern in gender dysphoric subjects compared to neuro-typical controls, does not suggest it's innate (born with) or a product of post-natal experience. We simply do not know. Also, transgender people tend to have lots of co-morbidities from depression, anxiety, anorexia, autism, and a homosexual orientation. All of this needs to be considered when looking at neuroscience studies on this population. [1] Nota, N. M., Kreukels, B. P. C., den Heijer, M., Veltman, D. J., Cohen-Kettenis, P. T., Burke, S. M., & Bakker, J. (2017). Brain functional connectivity patterns in children and adolescents with gender dysphoria: Sex-atypical or not? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28972892/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28972892/ [2] Burke, S. M., Cohen-Kettenis, P. T., Veltman, D. J., Klink, D. T., & Bakker, J. (2014). Hypothalamic response to the chemo-signal androstadienone in gender dysphoric children and adolescents. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24904525/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24904525/ [3] Savic, I., Berglund, H., & Lindström, P. (2005). Brain response to putative pheromones in homosexual men. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15883379/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15883379/ [4] Berglund, H., Lindström, P., & Savic, I. (2006). Brain response to putative pheromones in lesbian women. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16705035/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16705035/ [5] Savic, I., & Lindström, P. (2008). PET and MRI show differences in cerebral asymmetry and functional connectivity between homo- and heterosexual subjects. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18559854/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18559854/ [6] Savic, I., & Arver, S. (2011). Sex dimorphism of the brain in male-to-female transsexuals. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21467211/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21467211/ [7] Burke, S. M., Manzouri, A. H., & Savic, I. (2017). Structural connections in the brain in relation to gender identity and sexual orientation. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29263327/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29263327/ [8] Uribe, C., Junque, C., Gómez-Gil, E., Abos, A., Mueller, S. C., & Guillamon, A. (2020). Brain network interactions in transgender individuals with gender incongruence. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32057995/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32057995/ [9] Feusner, J. D., Lidström, A., Moody, T. D., Dhejne, C., Bookheimer, S. Y., & Savic, I. (2017). Intrinsic network connectivity and own body perception in gender dysphoria. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27444730/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27444730/ [10] Majid, D. S. A., Burke, S. M., Manzouri, A., Moody, T. D., Dhejne, C., Feusner, J. D., & Savic, I. (2020). Neural Systems for Own-body Processing Align with Gender Identity Rather Than Birth-assigned Sex. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31813993/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31813993/

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago

I was wondering this too. Some transgender people say transition is valid because brain scans show they have a brain of their identified gender. I don't know if I want to stake my legal rights on an MRI machine. Even if I have a "guy" brain I'd still rather stay on E.

000ooo000 3y ago
If I can derail conversation for a moment, what is the idea behind 'valid' or 'invalid' transition? It's not a phrase I've heard before sorry. I'm not in any kind of other forum where I think I could ask this without getting very emotionally-charged responses.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3y ago
  In this case I meant valid as in, transitioning is really the best way to treat gender dysphoria and it's not useful to think of dysphoria as a delusion that would go away with conversion therapy or with time. Hope that helps!
  - 000ooo000 3y ago
    Thank you
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  Look into gender essentialism, which contrasts with gender constructivism. It's often associated with TERFs, but it is VERY common within transgender communities themselves. There's notion that certain gender identities are valid and others are not (especially being male/female), and there's also the notion that diagnosable medical issues are required to be truly transgender. In this conversation, if you're AMAB, and have a male brain, and claim to have transitioned to being non-binary a gender essentialist might go "aha! Science proves they are nothing but a transtrender and a man" A constructionist would say "aha - the fact they have a male brain yet expresses a non-male gender identity proves they're a truly unique and special transgender person". It seems like an easy way to be on the "Right side of history" to reject gender essentialism, since you end up never calling a transgender person invalid. There is a dark side to rejecting essentialism, which is if gender ISN'T essential, than logically it should be possible to change people's gender identity to a "better" one. Which can result in things like Joan/John https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer.
- cdstamper 3y ago
  I'm no expert but I think the idea is to avoid a scenario where someone would take a brain scan and declare someone's transition to be 'invalid'. Transition (and by extension gender) is something deeply personal that shouldn't be gated by physical characteristics, including brain development.
  - 000ooo000 3y ago
    Ah that makes sense. I think I took it a little too literally and the phrasing lead me to think that some transgender people themselves categorise transitioning as valid or invalid.

lgleason 3y ago

There have been studies that have shown that a persons preference for things over interactions were affected by testosterone levels from a young age (1 or 2) to teenage years. That would also affect the brain development etc.. That being the case, unless you changed it at a young age I'm not sure that this could be changed later on in life.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

fixkl 3y ago

Many people suggest that trans people have brains more inline with their desired gender, and this causes feelings of gender incongruence. However, if we take a closer look, we see some important underlying issues. In a famous study, the authors compared prepubertal and adolescent children, then suggest sex atypical cerebral differentiation occurs within these individuals [1]. The authors found sex atypical differences in the adolescent cohort, but the majority of that cohort is homosexual: - Homosexuality = 23% of trans boys + 44% of trans girls (prepubertal cohort) - Homosexuality = 100% of trans boys + 78% of trans girls (adolescent cohort) The only non-sex typical finding which was specific to gender dysphoria was in visual network-1 (VN-1; via fMRI). It was suggested that alterations in this network may disrupt body perception in gender dysphoric individuals. In another study by some of the same authors, they tested whether transgender people (with gender dysphoria) would have sex atypical hypothalamic activation to androstenedione, a steroid hormone in human sweat that causes sex-specific olfactory responses [2]. But similar to the previous study, sexual orientation was not accounted for. Why is this important? Well, the same sex atypical hypothalamic response is observed in homosexual men [3] and in homosexual women [4]. It's becoming increasingly clear that the only people with any sort of sex atypical cerebral differentiation occurs in homosexual individuals (on average). This is further supported by functional connectivity studies of sex atypical amygdala co-variance. You can see this in Figure 1 of this paper: [5]. Notice the high similarity in amygdala activity (at rest) between heterosexual females and homosexual males (and vice versa). Interestingly, in an effort to bring all of this together, this study examined the brains of heterosexual transgender people in order to control for sexual orientation: [6]. As Figure 1 of this paper shows, the authors found sexual dimorphism in various gray matter parameters in control male and females. However, these findings were not found in the heterosexual transgender population. So rather than sex atypical brain structure/function, what is specific to gender dysphoria itself? It's been shown that individuals with gender dysphoria show weaker structural and functional connectivity within the default mode network (DMN) of the brain, which is vital for body perception/image and self-referential processing [7]. Findings which have been replicated in [8] and [9]. The DMN consists of cerebral midline structures, including the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Interestingly, it's been shown that trans individuals (with GD) show a stronger activation pattern within these DMN structures when viewing pictures of their body morphed to the opposite sex: [10]. You can see the results in Figure 5 of this paper. It's important to note that correlation is not causation. Just because we observe a different pattern in gender dysphoric subjects compared to neuro-typical controls, does not suggest it's innate (born with) or a product of post-natal experience. We simply do not know. Also, transgender people tend to have lots of co-morbidities from depression, anxiety, anorexia, autism, and a homosexual orientation. All of this needs to be considered when looking at neuroscience studies on this population. [1] Nota, N. M., Kreukels, B. P. C., den Heijer, M., Veltman, D. J., Cohen-Kettenis, P. T., Burke, S. M., & Bakker, J. (2017). Brain functional connectivity patterns in children and adolescents with gender dysphoria: Sex-atypical or not? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28972892/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28972892/ [2] Burke, S. M., Cohen-Kettenis, P. T., Veltman, D. J., Klink, D. T., & Bakker, J. (2014). Hypothalamic response to the chemo-signal androstadienone in gender dysphoric children and adolescents. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24904525/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24904525/ [3] Savic, I., Berglund, H., & Lindström, P. (2005). Brain response to putative pheromones in homosexual men. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15883379/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15883379/ [4] Berglund, H., Lindström, P., & Savic, I. (2006). Brain response to putative pheromones in lesbian women. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16705035/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16705035/ [5] Savic, I., & Lindström, P. (2008). PET and MRI show differences in cerebral asymmetry and functional connectivity between homo- and heterosexual subjects. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18559854/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18559854/ [6] Savic, I., & Arver, S. (2011). Sex dimorphism of the brain in male-to-female transsexuals. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21467211/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21467211/ [7] Burke, S. M., Manzouri, A. H., & Savic, I. (2017). Structural connections in the brain in relation to gender identity and sexual orientation. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29263327/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29263327/ [8] Uribe, C., Junque, C., Gómez-Gil, E., Abos, A., Mueller, S. C., & Guillamon, A. (2020). Brain network interactions in transgender individuals with gender incongruence. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32057995/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32057995/ [9] Feusner, J. D., Lidström, A., Moody, T. D., Dhejne, C., Bookheimer, S. Y., & Savic, I. (2017). Intrinsic network connectivity and own body perception in gender dysphoria. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27444730/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27444730/ [10] Majid, D. S. A., Burke, S. M., Manzouri, A., Moody, T. D., Dhejne, C., Feusner, J. D., & Savic, I. (2020). Neural Systems for Own-body Processing Align with Gender Identity Rather Than Birth-assigned Sex. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31813993/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31813993/