Quote from: Susan522 on August 12, 2014, 06:28:15 PMI agree that we live in what could be described as an essentially patriarchal society.  I am not sure that I could go so far as to call it "essentialist.

I can appreciate the different view but I personally think various essentialisms are at the root of sustaining patriarchy. I think the most obvious is gender essentialism that maintains the inferiority of femininity and women via rigidly guarded gender roles. Fortunately, this one seems to be increasingly breaking down in many places. Within the scope of this are the fierce defence of binary gender in many societies and the way assignment of gender at birth is treated like an immutable fact. Somewhat linked to this is biological essentialism which relies on vacuous appeals to nature for validity. In this case, deviation from initial sex assignment is treated as an inexcusable offence and certain aspects of biology are arbitrarily given primacy based on the enforced functions of the sexes. For instance, the way in which cisgender women are often reduced to their uterus.

QuoteIn any case, I think what should be considered is that 'academia' is most certainly not the "smallest of bubbles".  This is where trans* is more than acceptable.

I think our definitions of 'smallest of bubbles' may diverge quite a lot because I tend to think consistent acceptance only occurs in areas like the social sciences in a very limited number of countries. Relative to the rest of academia and the rest of the population, that's a minuscule proportion of the world that is predictably accepting.

Equally, having interacted with some of that 'bubble' in the UK, I don't think being trans is encouraged within that sphere (I can't speak for anywhere else). The author of the original piece seems to argue that there's some unsubstantiated 'trans until graduation' phenomenon originating from this when I tend to think there's merely acceptance.

QuoteAlso....Might you please clarify/amplify your following remark: "Equally, I dislike that the significant claims seem to be rooted in anecdotes or ignore alternative possibilities. I appreciate it's just a blog but I can't accept a nebulous and general claim that 'adoption of transgender identity itself is at cause for some of the dysphoria people experience' based on a few people known for forty years with alternatives for their change in attitude to gender perception being ignored."

Based on my reading, the author seems to be making a claim about the origin of some dysphoria for all, or many, people but is making that claim based on a handful of people that they've personally known. I can't accept a generalised claim based on such an insignificant sample size and the subjective judgement of the author. In short, the conclusion is not justified by the available information. In my mind, it's massively overstretching and open to incredible influence from personal bias.

Similarly, the author ascribes the fear of returning to male presentation to adoption of 'transgender identity,' a thing they never define, rather than exploring the possibility that their aversion is due to evolution of their legitimate womanhood. People frequently don't realise how painful and empty their life was until they're freed from those things so they can perceive it clearly. When they're able to see, they fear returning to how they were. To borrow from the author, I believe the possibility of their fear being due to 'organic desire' isn't explored.

Alternatively, it's never explained how the author knows that these people were comfortable with their previous presentation. Absence of such information being shared with the author is not evidence of absence.

Finally, I simply do not trust the author's intellectual rigour. My judgement of them is probably affected by my own biases but in many of their posts they seem to be eager to reach predetermined conclusions rather than explore the possibility of every alternative explanation, or even any alternative explanations. When people resort to such selective thinking, I become suspicious and very cautious around them. In my experience, it's often the case that they're hiding ideology behind a façade of intellectual enquiry.

QuoteHere is what a true educator and medical expert in GID has to say about the development of gender identity in humans... it is a biological! not the result of any "construction"

I'm afraid I tentatively disagree that the abstract proves that definitively. The sample size is tiny, as was the case with their previous study and important ones such as the original Zhou et al work, so doesn't justify a generalised conclusion to me. Past studies I've read, including their previous work, have also seemed to suffer from failure to account for alternative explanations and reached conclusions based on speculation (e.g. they seem to speculate three years without testosterone would be enough to rule out it being an important factor in the abstract) so I'll have to see if that's the case here too.

Nonetheless, the findings are interesting and warrant further study to rule out alternatives.

First we had Ray Blanchard and then Anne Lawrence with their treatise on  ->-bleeped-<- and now this "expert!"
This reminds me of a rather crude comment one of my friends who holds a master's in education once said, "Opinions are like A-holes, everyone has one and too many A-holes have opinions!" My considerable life experience of having been told how to think, who I am and what I am including a recent diagnosis over the telephone concerning a physical ailment is validation enough that my friend's comment crude as it was is right on the mark! That's all I'll have to say in this thread.

This author is ignoring the last twenty years of neurobiology research.

This photo should be required staring for any psychosocial revisionist who tries to posit a non-biological basis for being trans.



Full study: http://www.transgendercare.com/medical/hormonal/brain_sex_diff.htm

And before anyone asks there are literally dozens of additional studies about brain differences between trans people and the cisgender population.

Here is a 70 minute webcast to an annual AMA gathering in early 2011 regarding the biological basis for why people are trans.

None of this is new stuff. This is 25 year old research. The only reason I can see for someone denying the research and positing nonsense like this so-called "expert" is that they have an agenda of their own.

Earlier this year, I blogged about Medical Information About Transwomen in Sports and that article includes numerous links to more brain studies. And finally, I highly recommend the brain section of the AE Brain blog.

Quote from: LizMarie on August 14, 2014, 10:01:25 AMThe only reason I can see for someone denying the research and positing nonsense like this so-called "expert" is that they have an agenda of their own.

Oh dear, I don't think that's the only reason a person could choose to reject the firm conclusion that gender identity is partly or wholly influenced by initial biology based on available evidence. While I'm only a lay-person, I do have some experience with studying statistics and biology formally and informally via extensive personal interest. This means I'm probably very wrong but I've repeatedly read most of the studies in humans and found them all rather lacking due to issues like infinitesimal sample size, failure to include alternative explanations, and categorically claiming to have ruled out variables like hormone exposure based on very questionable thinking. In the past, I've raised my potential issues with a specialist acquaintance and they said they were valid. Of course, they could just be wrong too or be telling me that so I can save face rather than it actually being true.

Importantly, this doesn't mean that I rule out a neuroanatomical contribution or assume the alternative theories are correct. I just prefer to maintain the default position of 'don't know' until there's more reliable evidence. I also appreciate a lot of people do ignore the existing studies rather than engage with them due to ideological blinkering. I don't think that's the case with me though because, despite knowing appeals to nature are fallacious, my instinct is to long for there to be a definitive contribution based on neuroanatomy. After all, it would probably be perceived as taking any sense of responsibility for what society sees as deviance away from me and anyone I love. How can I not partly want that?

Quote from: Lonicera on August 14, 2014, 11:50:47 AMWhile I'm only a lay-person, I do have some experience with studying statistics and biology formally and informally via extensive personal interest. This means I'm probably very wrong but I've repeatedly read most of the studies in humans and found them all rather lacking due to issues like infinitesimal sample size, failure to include alternative explanations, and categorically claiming to have ruled out variables like hormone exposure based on very questionable thinking. In the past, I've raised my potential issues with a specialist acquaintance and they said they were valid. Of course, they could just be wrong too or be telling me that so I can save face rather than it actually being true.

Importantly, this doesn't mean that I rule out a neuroanatomical basis or assume the alternative theories are correct. I just prefer to maintain the default position of 'don't know' until there's more reliable evidence. I also appreciate a lot of people do ignore the existing studies rather than engage with them due to ideological blinkering. I don't think that's the case with me though because, despite knowing appeals to nature are fallacious, my instinct is to long for there to be a definitive explanation based on neuroanatomy. After all, it would probably be perceived as taking any sense of responsibility for what society sees as deviance away from me and anyone I love. How can I not partly want that?

I think that this is an excellent observation which IMHO merits more discussion.

Your assertion then is that every single study, including those sponsored by NIH and other major scientific bodies is therefore flawed. You fail to show how each study is flawed and just "assume" this is so. You insist that sample size is insufficient, yet fail to assert what you consider sufficient sample size even while other medical and biological studies use similar sample sizes for specific studies that reach specific conclusions about other medical conditions.

It would help if you could identify what specifically is wrong with each individual study rather than making sweeping generalizations trying to assert that hundreds of studies over the last 25 years are all somehow invalid. That's an incredible assertion and incredible assertions require incredible validation and evidence.

I await your evidence rather than simply arguing philosophically.

Firstly, if you're a neuroscientist and a specialist in this area then please feel free to say so and I will gladly defer to your expertise in the matter as a bumbling lay-person. As for posting details, I regret that I can't even hope to summarise my position on each individual study given this has been a process that occurred across years of personal research. However, I'll try to give at least an overview of some critical studies based on the things I recall or links I still have available.

QuoteYou insist that sample size is insufficient, yet fail to assert what you consider sufficient sample size even while other medical and biological studies use similar sample sizes for specific studies that reach specific conclusions about other medical conditions.

I'm sure they reach specific conclusions but I'd suggest the validity of those conclusions is entirely dependent on each condition. I think it's illogical to generalise validity of methodology when there are affecting variables such as existing body of work, whether replication of findings in non-overlapping samples occurs, and whether a definitive mechanism is proposed and observed. In the case of research into trans neuroanatomy, at least three of the major studies are conducted on the same sample and they assume a causal relationship to gender identity when they find difference without proposing a mechanism in humans. They typically seem to search until they find a difference then label it a contributing factor, the key difference to that being the Hare et al (2008) study into repeat length polymorphisms but even that only had a p value of .04 which I regard as somewhat questionable.

As for sample size, I don't think it's controversial to assert that the reliability of key studies, such as Zhou et al (1995) or Kruijver et al (2000), is low given they had a largely overlapping sample of six and eight trans people respectively. If you think it's acceptable to generalise that to thousands of transgender people then that's your choice. I don't and it isn't for me to propose appropriate sample sizes, it's up to those undertaking each study to calculate it and ensure they're truly likely to be representative.

With regard to specific criticism of findings or conclusions:

Studies such as the one you cited that focus on the BSTc rely on observed differences in adult trans people to explain observations. Unfortunately, the sexual dimorphism has been shown not be present until adulthood, which instantly raises the question of how the difference in adult structure explains people such as myself that have felt gender dysphoria since childhood. As far as I'm aware, there's speculation that there are as yet unobserved differences in childhood neurology that cause the difference in adults to develop but that hasn't been substantiated.

Most of the studies focusing on neuroanatomy propose a causal relationship wherein anatomical difference yields a different gender identity. It isn't asked whether the unique life sequence of transgender people and their identity yields the biological differences observed. As far as I know, it's known that issues such as PTSD and anxiety yield major neurological changes so why not something like minority stress related to gender experience? As far as I'm aware, only Chung et al (2002) even mentions it as a possibility so it remains unaddressed to me.

Further, the studies I've seen tend to rule out hormone therapy exposure as a cause for differences based on tenuous conclusions. For instance, Zhou et al and follow-up studies ruled it out based on relatively short absence or presence of hormones. They don't explain why those time-frames are sufficient to justify their conclusions or why it couldn't be the case that changes in BSTc volume take long-term exposure or absence for the volume to change significantly. It is just asserted as fact. They rely on facts like a cis woman that had high androgen levels for a year or a trans woman that ceased taking hormone medication three months before death. Further, I believe there have since been fMRI studies that, while lacking the resolution necessary to identify specific BSTc volume changes, show long-term hormone therapy has a significant impact on overall volume of structures. Similarly, I've seen an fMRI study of transgender individuals that have not undergone hormone therapy yet that tentatively suggests we don't match our assigned gender or our actual gender neurologically (can't recall name right now).

These things and many more cause me to remain firmly undecided in this area until there's a great deal of replication with non-overlapping samples and alternatives are definitively eliminated. I'm afraid I'm going to stop now as the above is just an outline of my issues with a few studies and is already quite long. If I were to try to find every study I've read, many of which I simply don't remember much of, then it would be quite monumental. Eap.

QuoteThat's an incredible assertion and incredible assertions require incredible validation and evidence.

I'm afraid I regard the claim that there are 'hundreds of studies' in this domain as a rather incredible assertion too. If there are hundreds of studies demonstrating biological difference of transgender people rather than just general sexual dimorphism, intersex differences, or repeated analysis of a few existing limited datasets then I'd be a tad shocked to say the least.

Topic has well past ran it course on any more added value.

It turned into a tit for tat post.

Locked before it gets more out of hand.

Izzy