Susan's Place Transgender Resources

There was an interesting article on brain wiring in Females and males on the BBC website which had a link to this page in it.

If anyone is interested for a bit of fun, it's a (probably one of many) Female/male brain test..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/add_user.shtml

And out of interest, here is a link to the aforementioned article...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25198063

It's interesting but, unless any of us get access to a study which uses an FMRI to analyze trans brains, we won't know one way or the other how this applies to us as a demographic.

I remember doing that test a while ago.  Honestly, I don't take much stock in these things.  Yeah, I fell into the female range, but I know many guys that would too.  While I think these tests are interesting (especially when there is statistics to back it), they should not be used for validation or invalidation of one's gender.  Still, it's fun to take like most online tests are.

My therapist says I'm hard wired this way. I tend to agree because I had this perception of my self since I was 4

I don't like this test it says I have a male brain.

Quote from: JennyH on December 03, 2013, 07:35:19 PM
I don't like this test it says I have a male brain.

I freely admit to having a male brain (except for the teeny part that wants my gender identity to be female). I approach problems in a male way, can compartmentalize my emotions like a male, and in a dozen other ways.

But...

That doesn't make me ANY LESS of a woman.

*laughs* I actually took the test and, aside from the spatial and angular tasks (I'm an engineer so, I'd better be able to get those easily) everything was squarely in the female range (sometimes exceptionally so).

The fact that they put the spatial reasoning in there is kinda annoying since that's just general intelligence.

... and digit-ratio? For really? *headdesk*

What I find with these tests is that it's easy to cheat if you know what traits are stereotypically female. It's interesting though, if you know what the test is looking for you can sway the results, which begs the question, If you can learn to recognise things that women are supposed to be better at, and vice versa, are we then not reprogramming our brains to become more 'female' ? I mean, it's commonly known that the repetitive conditioning/learning of one task makes us better or quicker at it. We can also un-learn things too, should you want to, by doing things less.

I thought it would be interesting, for us stuck in a world where some are mostly concerned with the aesthetic part of transition, to get a perspective from the inside instead. Not necessarily from the test itself, but what the test is supposed to measure.

The interesting thing, that Victoria touched upon,  I read some time back is that transsexual brains seem to score higher than natal females, in some tasks, after time due to this learning process which makes things become second nature.

And the digit ratio thing...Yeah, I know, funny...

Quote from: Victoria Mitchell on December 03, 2013, 05:55:04 PM
It's interesting but, unless any of us get access to a study which uses an FMRI to analyze trans brains, we won't know one way or the other how this applies to us as a demographic.

Sure, I completely agree. In this respect we are, I would imagine, a bit more complex. Even though this test deals with well known stereotypes, those of us wanting to do something during transition to get us a little further down the line, while we wait for HRT or the next expensive aesthetic step, could take a stereotype or two from this test and learn/un-learn, re-program as it were, until as much of it that we want becomes second nature. What if these 'stereotypes' combine to be little building blocks that influence the way we act, you know, things like our sentence structures, deportment etc..

Quote from: JennyH on December 03, 2013, 07:35:19 PM
I don't like this test it says I have a male brain.

Then stop having a male brain!  :P Try re-programming. And before anyone mentions flashing lights, spinning discs and LSD  ;D, try using the stereotype in your everyday life, as obvious as you need it to be, if it's possible, until it becomes second nature. You never know, it may work. Then try the test again.

Quote from: nikkit72 on December 04, 2013, 05:30:58 AM
What I find with these tests is that it's easy to cheat if you know what traits are stereotypically female. It's interesting though, if you know what the test is looking for you can sway the results, which begs the question, If you can learn to recognise things that women are supposed to be better at, and vice versa, are we then not reprogramming our brains to become more 'female' ? I mean, it's commonly known that the repetitive conditioning/learning of one task makes us better or quicker at it. We can also un-learn things too, should you want to, by doing things less.

I thought it would be interesting, for us stuck in a world where some are mostly concerned with the aesthetic part of transition, to get a perspective from the inside instead. Not necessarily from the test itself, but what the test is supposed to measure.

The interesting thing, that Victoria touched upon,  I read some time back is that transsexual brains seem to score higher than natal females, in some tasks, after time due to this learning process which makes things become second nature.

And the digit ratio thing...Yeah, I know, funny...

Sure, I completely agree. In this respect we are, I would imagine, a bit more complex. Even though this test deals with well known stereotypes, those of us wanting to do something during transition to get us a little further down the line, while we wait for HRT or the next expensive aesthetic step, could take a stereotype or two from this test and learn/un-learn, re-program as it were, until as much of it that we want becomes second nature. What if these 'stereotypes' combine to be little building blocks that influence the way we act, you know, things like our sentence structures, deportment etc..

Then stop having a male brain!  :P Try re-programming. And before anyone mentions flashing lights, spinning discs and LSD  ;D, try using the stereotype in your everyday life, as obvious as you need it to be, if it's possible, until it becomes second nature. You never know, it may work. Then try the test again.

Personally, I don't think we should adopt stereotypes and pretend to be something we aren't.   Everyone has a unique persona and way of thinking, male or female.  We should be that rather than anything else.  Be you and forget what anyone else says.  Then again,  that must be rich coming from me, the person with major social anxiety, lol 

Rebuttal to the article with reference to the original study by Cordelia Fine: http://theconversation.com/new-insights-into-gendered-brain-wiring-or-a-perfect-case-study-in-neurosexism-21083 .

Almost everything was female for me except the 3D rotation questions...I got 12/12 every time and I'm not even an engineer or anything closely related to it. It seems I am good at rotating objects, but I have a terrible time when I need to rotate a map and see the right direction...how about that?

Besides having almost everything on the female range I got my brain exactly on the zero mark. Odd.

A few days later I tried again and got 50 into the female range.

Today I tried again and got 25 into the male range.

lol

25 more to the women side,,,

I cant say im not pleased , but I still call bs on that.

Quote from: Victoria Mitchell on December 03, 2013, 08:43:58 PM
*laughs* I actually took the test and, aside from the spatial and angular tasks (I'm an engineer so, I'd better be able to get those easily) everything was squarely in the female range (sometimes exceptionally so).

The fact that they put the spatial reasoning in there is kinda annoying since that's just general intelligence.

... and digit-ratio? For really? *headdesk*

Same here, the Faces/emotion/word association bits I scored female, but spatial and angular items I scored male.  I presume that just due to being a  clever smart-arse, I'm a Software Test Engineer and have good pattern recognition and deductive reasoning skills anyway.

From reading the trans tendencies thread I'd guess that that a lot of other MTFs would score the same as us - we seem to wired differently to cis people in general.