I'm going to post a series of reports about the recent WPATH conference that I was fortunate to attend. It was in Bangkok Feb 14-18 and had over 600 delegates worldwide.
I'm posting in the transgender open area as I feel the topics are of wide interest.
I'm a little wary as the conference was a place for experts in their fields to present, my caution is that not all people who access boards such as Susan's regard experts as relevant; particularly if the experts opinion differ from their own.
I'm a professional scientist, as are others here, and feel very comfortable in listening to experts and am capable of making informed decision. I do not mean that rudely to anyone.
Several sessions on this. From my particular training the most scientifically interesting.
'Sex Hormones and the Brain'
A tour de force by VU University medical centre in Amsterdam.
I hate to say this because people never understand it; in any scientific study the most important group are the control groups.
This becomes obvious in anecdotal stories. Yes we all wish to be validated as 'truly different' I am a trans*gender and this proves it!! Get over it. It isn't science.
This group are good, the next WPATH is hosted by them in 2016.
Their approach is to use MRI brain imaging, they run the only referral center in Holland. That means they have cohorts to look at at.
What was good? They used age and natal gender matched control groups. They looked at pre and post GnRha and post GnRha HRT treated kids. The numbers were small, but my dirty calculations gave them statistical cohorts.
The most fun was the the effect of androstadienone effects. This is a male pheromone secreted in sweat, blood and semen of males. Females or rather people who are attracted to men respond to it. It very simply 'lights up' parts of your brain that are female orientated. Gender does not matter.
They took cohorts of kids who were brave enough to lie in a brain scanning MRI, they had to lay there for an hour! They had three bottles on their chest with a breathing tube to their nose. The experimenter could could choose which vapour was released and the MRI ran.
The results were interesting. natal females and males were clearly different. TG kids were moving towards M if FtM and to F patterns if MtF. PRE-HRT, that is untreated. Once the same kids were on HRT they blended into the preferred group. Obviously there is a control that could not be ethically performed.
For fun at the beginning of the talk, Sarah Burke (the presenter) passed around a bottle of androstadienone for us to sniff. I thought it smelt like male sweat, not unpleasant but interesting, some of my Gay colleagues thought it was a real turn on. I did turn to my straight male colleague and tell him to lay down on the floor and I'd jump his bones. He realised I was joking
Pity I was getting interested
