Ramachandran's Lab Looks Into Whether You Can Be a Man in the Morning and a Woman at Night
By Gary Stix | April 19, 2012 |
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/04/19/ramachandrans-lab-looks-into-whether-you-can-be-a-man-in-the-morning-and-a-woman-at-night/ (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/04/19/ramachandrans-lab-looks-into-whether-you-can-be-a-man-in-the-morning-and-a-woman-at-night/)
A graduate student of famed neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran has found a group of men and women who report that their sexual identity can switch involuntarily to that of the opposite sex and back again. The transgender metamorphosis, these people assert, can occur several times a day and at inopportune moments. It is also accompanied by the sensation of phantom breasts or genitalia of the non-biological sex.
The research grows out of Ramachandran's long-standing fascination with the study of body image and how it contributes to a basic sense of the self, work that has included investigations into the phantom limbs of amputees.
The preliminary study by Laura Case, Ramachandran's student, raises the prospect of a new category of ->-bleeped-<-. "Alternating gender incongruity (AGI)," the neuropsychiatric term the researchers have tentatively proposed, describes the involuntary change of gender identity, along with perceived phantom sex characteristics, a tendency toward ambidexterity and bipolar disorder, all signs that suggest a biological basis for AGI. (A related term, bigender, defined as blending or alternating gender states, precedes AGI.)
A fascinating concept.
By Anna Breslaw
Apr 21, 2012 2:00 PM
Is There a New Kind of ->-bleeped-<- With a Faster Shutter Speed?
http://jezebel.com/5904002/is-there-another-kind-of-->-bleeped-<--with-a-faster-shutter-speed (http://jezebel.com/5904002/is-there-another-kind-of--%3E-bleeped-%3C--with-a-faster-shutter-speed)
Now that transgender individuals are just beginning to be accepted into the mainstream—Miss Universe, we're talking to you, sweetie—a new niche of sexuality has emerged, and to certain generations or political alignments (ahem), it may sound like utter science fiction. Of a roughly 600-strong bigender forum, 32 people (11 anatomically female) with an average age of 29 identified themselves as gender-incongruous. In other words, they experience an involuntary change of gender identity (accompanied by "phantom" sexual organs and often ambidexterity or bipolar disorder), sometimes more than once a day, which is sort of incredible and deeply sad and sounds a little bit like a more sophisticated version of the plot of The Time Traveler's Wife.
A paper on Alternating Gender Incongruity was featured in this month's Medical Hypotheses journal, a admittedly patchy and controversial source (please refer to their piece on navel lint). But it's a fascinating study nonetheless. (The navel lint study, I mean. JK JK JK LOL.)
I am posting below the orginal "abstract." Please note that no sample size is given. I do not have access to this journal from home, but I will look at it tomorrow at the office.
Med Hypotheses. 2012 May;78(5):626-31. Epub 2012 Feb 22.
Alternating gender incongruity: A new neuropsychiatric syndrome providing insight into the dynamic plasticity of brain-sex.
Case LK, Ramachandran VS.
Source
Center for Brain and Cognition, University of California, McGill Hall, 9500 Gilman Dr. M/C 0109, La Jolla, San Diego, CA 92093, United States.
Abstract
Between the two extreme ends of human sexuality - male and female - lie a poorly understood and poorly studied spectrum of ambiguously defined sexual identities that are very much a part of the human condition but defy rigid classification. "Bigender" is a recently formed sub-category of ->-bleeped-<-, describing individuals who experience a blending or alternation of gender states. While recognized nominally by the APA, no scientific work to our knowledge has addressed this fascinating condition, or proposed any physiological basis for it. In addition, the alternation aspect has not been proposed as a nosological entity distinct from blending. We present descriptive data suggesting that many bigender individuals experience an involuntary switching of gender states without any amnesia for either state. In addition, similar to transsexual individuals, the majority of bigender individuals experience phantom breasts or genitalia corresponding to the non-biologic gender when they are in a trans-gender state. Finally, our survey found decreased lateralization of handedness in the bigender community. These observations suggest a biologic basis of bigenderism and lead us to propose a novel gender condition, "alternating gender incongruity" (AGI). We hypothesize that AGI may be related to an unusual degree or depth of hemispheric switching and corresponding callosal suppression of sex appropriate body maps in parietal cortex- possibly the superior parietal lobule- and its reciprocal connections with the insula and hypothalamus. This is based on two lines of reasoning. First, bigender individuals in our survey sample reported an elevated rate of bipolar disorder, which has been linked to slowed hemispheric switching. We hypothesize that tracking the nasal cycle, rate of binocular rivalry, and other markers of hemispheric switching will reveal a physiological basis for AGI individuals' subjective reports of gender switches. Switching may also trigger hormonal cascades, which we are currently exploring. Second, we base our hypotheses on ancient and modern associations between the left and right hemispheres and the male and female genders. By providing a case of sharp brain-sex shifts within individuals, we believe that the study of AGI could prove illuminating to scientific understanding of gender, body representation, and the nature of self.