Good article!
QuoteOne of the leading experts on the subject is Dick Swaab, professor of neurobiology at the University of Amsterdam and author of the book We Are Our Brains. According to his theory, which the researchers at University of Vienna share, the male hormone, testosterone, plays a key role in shaping the parts of our brain that influence gender identities. This happens in the womb during the second of two phases. In the first half of gestation, surges of testosterone – or the absence of it – influence the development of the genitals as male or female. In the second half of fetal development, testosterone surges – or their absence – shape the brain in terms of gender identity in the female or male direction.
The only thing that's missing from it is the fact that, as a result of treatment aimed at preventing miscarriages and premature births, there are millions of nominally male people alive today who were exposed during that second phase to high doses of synthetic hormones with testosterone-suppressing properties.
This is an excerpt from the book "Brain Sex", first published in 1989. That book only talks about the effects of medical hormone exposures on behaviour and makes no mention of effects on gender identity. However, the prevailing theory in 1989 was that gender identity was learned rather than being something you're born with, so they wouldn't have been looking for effects on gender identity. Most of us had never heard of ->-bleeped-<- until the internet came along, and were trying to do our best to fit in as our assigned gender when that book was written, so it wouldn't have been apparent that, for many of us who've had these hormone exposures, it's not just our behaviour that's been altered, it's our entire core identity too.
