Susan's Place Transgender Resources

The Irish Times
DICK AHLSTROM
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2012/0201/1224311049973.html (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2012/0201/1224311049973.html)

IT CAN happen in juries and local groups, in Dáil committees and company board rooms. Too much testosterone can thwart good decision-making.

People have long blamed the male hormone for damaging group dynamic and now University College London researchers have proven this to be true.

QuoteFor this reason only women were used as subjects, Dr Wright said.

Supplements were given to elevate their testosterone levels temporarily and the women conducted a series of tests to measure levels of co-operation.

This isn't a particularly considered response, but when I read that, I had to think for a moment if that was acceptable.

But it does raise some interesting issues.

On the one hand, it suggests that humans are innately co-operative and it's only the evolutionary adaptation, giving some men excess testerone, that makes some men behave the way they do.

But on the other hand, perhaps more validly, men are as much part of humanity as women. Testerone, along with it's effects are as human as any other factor.

But it does raise an interesting question of how significant the presence of excess testerone is on human behaviour generally.

Could be a rather daunting prospect if some authorities try to modify the testerone levels in populations generally, to control violence.

  I find that test flawed!  It is also known that men from their fifties will really start to decline on their T levels.  During this transition, the T levels fluctuate with high spikes.  This causes irritability and can go into bad decision making in group situations.  I have seen this at my club business meetings where most on the board are over fifty and the average age is rising the past 20 years.  Some of these fellows mellow out in their latter 60's.  You are getting the same effect putting these women subjects on T. 
  My case, the T level was too high during my adult life for my body that my muscles didn't bulk out, too high libido, low self esteem, and no change of being introverted since childhood.  The female HRT changed all of that.  I was stunned when my muscle mass increased, I became more confrontational and my self esteem went up with a better outlook on life.  This fall after being stunned all summer turned to anger when I realized that I had missed out on the good parts of the younger part of my life.  I still am. 
  This is a function of the personality, the emotions, the stresses such as family things of the people plus their hormone levels.  It is the fluctuations and not the particular hormone that is really to blame.  The menstrual cycle is one well known historical fact here.  This test on the women subjects was too short in duration.  I see some of the same complaints here with the FtM members on T. 
  Joelene

One could argue that men have higher levels of T for longer, so they are more adapted to higher levels of T. The sudden spike of T those women were subject to,however, gave them side-effects not only aligned with the higher level, but also, related to the sudden spike of T they received.