Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Hi all,

I've been reading some material on brain based differences between male and females.  I came across this article:

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2008/06/bigender-and-brain.html (http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2008/06/bigender-and-brain.html)

Perhaps most notable to me is this quote from a German study:

QuoteRadiologists can now confirm what transsexuals report - that they feel "trapped in the wrong body" - on the basis of the activation of the brain when presented with erotic stimuli. There is obviously a biological correlation with the subjective feelings.

I'm in a position where I probably will never transition unless I can show pretty conclusively that my brain is physiologically male.  So studies like these are obviously interesting to me.  So my question is - how do people get these brain scans, fMRI or otherwise?  I would bend over backwards to participate in studies like these.  Anyone know anything about this?

Thanks,
Joseph

How would a brain scan help you transition?

Quote from: Nero on January 17, 2009, 02:23:12 PM
How would a brain scan help you transition?

It wouldn't help with the whole transitioning process, per se, but it would help me to start the process.  I'm in a situation where I feel the need to "prove" to people that I'm not just "making this up" or delusional... basically in response to those who would feel that my male gender identity is invalid.  I know you may be thinking "you shouldn't care what other people think." But, I have many personal reasons for caring.  There are many who think Gender Identity Disorder, Harry Benjamin Syndrome, transsexualism, etc, is something that you can fix with therapy, God, or whatever.  They would argue that you are not "born with" GID and that you should live in your assigned birth sex... i.e. all the arguments those on this board have probably heard.

If I was content to live as a hermit far away from civilization - or even if I was content to forsake almost all of my current relationships and live on the other side of the world in stealth - I would transition.  But I'm not content to do those things, and I'm not willing to put up with the alienation that transition would cause in my current life, so I won't transition until I can show that my brain is wired to be male, that therefore the very essence of who I am is male, and that any female characteristics I have should be altered to conform to that male identity.

Hope that answers your question.

Joseph

I am aware from a UK viewpoint that it is possible to seek an MRI scan as a private patient if you offer a good reason for it.  It is an expensive diagnostic tool and you really need a good reason for shelling out money for one such as a real medical issue like a bone problem, cancer, stroke ( as in my case ) etc.,

........however I feel that one 'knows' if one is either male or female despite the body we inhabit or our upbringing based on a birth certificate and the social conditioning we endure.  It is the few of us that decide to take action because life is intolerable as men/women and we need to correct an error of biology and gestation.  My mind is supposedly contained within my brain but I am not sure if a MRI scan will confirm my feeling of overwhealming femaleness but I will not dismiss the scholarly works of those scientists in Germany.

Thing is - unless you're going to flash the brain scan results everywhere, I don't see how this will help. And if your people won't accept you now, a brain scan may not change that. There are plenty of cases of intersexed TS who have 'proof' of their conditions and are still disowned.

That said, I hope you can get what you need.

Quote from: Joseph on January 17, 2009, 02:20:16 PM
Hi all,

I've been reading some material on brain based differences between male and females.  I came across this article:

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2008/06/bigender-and-brain.html (http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2008/06/bigender-and-brain.html)

Perhaps most notable to me is this quote from a German study:

QuoteRadiologists can now confirm what transsexuals report - that they feel "trapped in the wrong body" - on the basis of the activation of the brain when presented with erotic stimuli. There is obviously a biological correlation with the subjective feelings.

I'm in a position where I probably will never transition unless I can show pretty conclusively that my brain is physiologically male.  So studies like these are obviously interesting to me.  So my question is - how do people get these brain scans, fMRI or otherwise?  I would bend over backwards to participate in studies like these.  Anyone know anything about this?

Thanks,
Joseph

Medical Schools are always looking for people that MDs in training can practice on.  Get the published study, hopefully with images, and give a call to your friendly med school's Department of Radiology.  Tell them you want to replicate the study on yourself.  You may need to talk to a few professors before you find one that's interested.  There are some slight risks like bad reactions to the contrast dye used in the proceedure and you'll likely get an IV line inserted.  It is an expensive proceedure.  Plan on spending $4,000 - $5,000. 

Joseph, interpreting something like brain scans is still subjective and scientists still don't know that much about it. Some person is still gonna be looking at it and saying "oh that part lights up a little so you must be TS".. All it is is comparing your brain to other people's..

What baffles me about the brain scans though is how they say gay mens brains activate like women's.
What about gay and lesbian TS's? Would a lesbian mtf's light up like a straight man's and a gay ftm's like a straight woman's?
How would they find out someone is TS based on what gets them off? ???
Am I missing something here? lol

Quote from: Nero on January 17, 2009, 03:27:33 PM
Thing is - unless you're going to flash the brain scan results everywhere, I don't see how this will help. And if your people won't accept you now, a brain scan may not change that.

That was the exact same thing I was thinking. There is no way certain small
minded people are going to accept you being TG just because you purely had
a "brain scan". But we all do what we need to do!

I would just be happy if they just found a brain.

I am sure mine now is just a gooey mush of hormone induced jelly.

Rebecca

Quote from: Joseph on January 17, 2009, 02:20:16 PM
...on the basis of the activation of the brain when presented with erotic stimuli.

That doesn't prove an awful lot to me.
There is a big chunk of transsexualism that has nothing to do with eroticism.

The scientific approach is very interesting, but right now it's half-baked.

What if I place all my faith in some German study and later it's discredited?

I transitioned. I'm much, much happier. Ergo, transition was the right thing for me. QED

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your thoughts.  Even if your thoughts are coming out of gooey mush, Rebecca. :)

Nero, I get what you're saying about having to flash brain scan results around.  The thing is, for the people I know, it would probably make it easier if I could sit down with them and explain to them something like "there's evidence that GID is caused physiologically and my brain scan shows I fall into the normal range for a male in terms of [fill in the blank here]."  Because to them it would make it more legitimate, i.e. it's more likely I'm not just "making it up" or basing it all on my feelings.  So even if I don't flash brain scan results everywhere, I can at least use them with specific people.

I'm mostly interested in participating in these these studies in general (or getting an independent study done) - not necessarily this particular one about erotic stimuli.  yikes. :)  I know this field is pretty fledgling and mostly I'm just wanting to know more about what opportunities are out there.  I guess at this stage it may not be worth it to try to do this....

Anyways, thanks again for all your replies.

Joseph

Hey Joseph. I actually know exactly what study you're talking about. I'd posted a thread about it awhile ago... it went down like a led balloon. lol

Anyways, it also interested me the fact that there was a clear difference between men and women in this test and I'd be interested to take it. But more for curiosity rather than any sort of proof.

Though as you said it's very fledgling and I doubt you'd be able to get an expert to say anything definitively. And even if you got the result you were going for it's likely that it could be tossed aside because it's not a "legitimate" test.

Your best bet is to research what routes you have available to you to transition and try to work within it as best you can.

Quote from: Joseph on January 20, 2009, 12:22:24 AM
Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your thoughts.  Even if your thoughts are coming out of gooey mush, Rebecca. :)

Nero, I get what you're saying about having to flash brain scan results around.  The thing is, for the people I know, it would probably make it easier if I could sit down with them and explain to them something like "there's evidence that GID is caused physiologically and my brain scan shows I fall into the normal range for a male in terms of [fill in the blank here]."  Because to them it would make it more legitimate, i.e. it's more likely I'm not just "making it up" or basing it all on my feelings.  So even if I don't flash brain scan results everywhere, I can at least use them with specific people.

I'm mostly interested in participating in these these studies in general (or getting an independent study done) - not necessarily this particular one about erotic stimuli.  yikes. :)  I know this field is pretty fledgling and mostly I'm just wanting to know more about what opportunities are out there.  I guess at this stage it may not be worth it to try to do this....

Anyways, thanks again for all your replies.

Joseph

I think you underestimate people's ability to disregard evidence if it doesn't fit their preconceived prejudices.  But more importantly, I think it telling that you evidently feel you have a choice not to transition.  That you can just not do it if you choose.  If that's the case, then don't do it.  If it's not the case, then no study results will make a difference in your decision.  And, like I said, the study results won't likely make any difference in how people who know you react to your transition.  If you find a way to have the study, fine.  Let us all in on it.  But it strikes me as unhealthy and unrealistic to pin your transition decision on the outcome of such a study.  It's sort of like making your transition contingent on the outcome of a gene test.  That's what leaps out at me.

Yeah surely you are transitioning or considering it because its something you need to do not something you want to do, I mean there is a difference.  I don't mean to lecture but if you are doing it because you need to then no matter what the brain scan says you will surely have to transition because it is something you just have to do...

Hi Joseph, my two cents worth. Give yourself time. I spent my whole life trying to pretend that GID wasn't a real issue or worth losing friends and family over. Now I feel the exact opposite and wish I had been willing and able to transition long ago.
I am the sum total of all my  experiences. 

 I had at a time looked to prove that my feelings were valid with those close to me. but for me I came to the conclusion that if I needed to prove that my feelings were valid that these people were not all that close to me anyway, and if they would not like or love me for being who I am than they never liked or loved me anyway they only liked or loved the image they had set in thier minds of me. I decieded that I didn't need anyone in my life that thier feelings about me depended on weather or not I fit perfectly into thier image of me. this is just my personal experience and I am not suggesting anyone do things my way I do it because it seems right to me but that doesn't mean it is right for everyone.

I'm getting a brain scan (MRI), but not for GID. And, yeah, I'd agree, that even if one could "prove" it with a brain scan, there's tons of people that still won't accept it, and find arguments against it. Just look at evolution and the fights that still go on about that.

I have had numerous scans to establish causes for my strokes and this week I recieved a full written report from the Neurologist.   This thread was about getting scans to 'discover' if one may be a subject of GID or other condition that may explain why one feels the way you do.

I would just say in the light of my own results, it is often best to live in ignorance because the truth can be very unsettling.

I hate to ruin the party but the NY Times Magazine printed a lengthy article on female sexuality on 25 January 2009.  Researcher Meredith Chivers was hoping to find a definative answer to what drives feminine desire as part of her study she "Chivers, with plenty of self-doubting humor, told me that she hopes one day to develop a scientifically supported model to explain female sexual response, though she wrestles, for the moment, with the preliminary bits of perplexing evidence she has collected — with the question, first, of why women are aroused physiologically by such a wider range of stimuli than men. Are men simply more inhibited, more constrained by the bounds of culture? Chivers has tried to eliminate this explanation by including male-to-female transsexuals as subjects in one of her series of experiments (one that showed only human sex). These trans women, both those who were heterosexual and those who were homosexual, responded genitally and subjectively in categorical ways. They responded like men. This seemed to point to an inborn system of arousal. Yet it wasn't hard to argue that cultural lessons had taken permanent hold within these subjects long before their emergence as females could have altered the culture's influence. "The horrible reality of psychological research," Chivers said, "is that you can't pull apart the cultural from the biological."

It's a long article but you can read the whole enchilada at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25desire-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=what%20do%20women%20want?&st=cse (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25desire-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=what%20do%20women%20want?&st=cse)

Okay, party continues.  However I have to ask what sexuality has to do with it?  I haven't a clue what my sexuality is and my confusion, if any, is with my gender.  Perhaps I should attempt to plough through this worthy academic paper, something I do often with law reports but should I bother in the context of this thread?

I thought it was fascinating.  It's not a scientific paper but an article for general consumption.  The sexuality comes into play when measuring what type of erotic stimuli people found arousing.  The were 2 measures of arousal; one subjective (what people self reported) and objective, sensors that measured physical aousal.

Males were as expected.  Hetero males were aoused by hetro erotica and lesbian erotica, but not gay erotica.  Gay males were aroused only by gay erotica.  The physical and subjective measures were consistent.  Females, regardless of sexual preference showed physical arousal to ALL the erotic stimuli.  There self reported measures however reflected their sexual preference.  There's more to it than that but thats a nutshell version of her findings.

hi... there have been some good tests done . i just dont think you would wont to go by this road yet well not for many years . its really a ...dead... end . one the tests that were done did say there is a difference beteen male female & trans as to size of there brains just one miner prob they are not here to day to tell us . like others here have said would it change your ...friends... attatude to wards you i think not .  so dont waste your money . your real friends will accept you for who you are . not what others think .. i found that out & i have a lot of friends who just accept me ......
               ...noeleena...