Quote from: Deborah on May 04, 2016, 06:38:40 PM
Actually brain dimorphism occurs in the womb and is triggered by testosterone.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22238103/

If the testosterone is suppressed due to drugs the mother takes, such as DES, the brain can fail to develop male.  Because brain and body dimorphism happen at different stages of pregnancy they can develop in different directions if the hormone triggers are not as they should be.


Sapere Aude

Yes. Very interesting. But can it be used to explain how a brain fails to develop female and develops male instead, so can it be applied to trans men too?

QuoteSo there are likely environmental contributions to ->-bleeped-<-.

Not really. I invite you to read this and focus on this case:
https://sites.psu.edu/evolutionofhumansexuality/2014/04/07/gender-identity-nature-vs-nurture/

This boy was raised as a girl, thinking nurturing and even female hormones could make him female. But as we all would expect here, it failed. Strong evidence that gender identity is innate and nurturing can't mold or alter it.

Quote from: JMJW on May 03, 2016, 09:44:47 AM
I'd be interested in seeing those articles for sure.

There are a mix of write ups there including a spiffy summary video that cites the research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsbtQ2-kUwA


Another write up here that talks about the white matter differences in pre HRT brains of trans folks https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan/


Another here from Scientific American http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-something-unique-about-the-transgender-brain/


There are a lot of other articles that talk to the differences in trans brains.  Google is your friend.  We are born hard wired this way.  It isn't a mental disease and it's not 'curable' as in changing the mind to match the body. 

The reader's digest version on how this happens is that all fetuses start off female and during the third trimester the brain development is influenced by a mix of hormones that help set the familiar gender patterns that are called 'normal'.  In the trans brain we get either too little of something for trans women or too much for trans men.  I hesitate to say testosterone as I have seen in several articles as I think that is hypothetical at this point on the exact chemical imbalance.  I don't doubt that T is a part of it but who knows what else could be at play.  The human body is amazingly complex. 

Quote from: VioletKnight on May 03, 2016, 10:24:06 AM
the 1 in 12 murder statistic is false, thankfully.

http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2015/may/13/garnet-coleman/garnet-coleman-said-transgender-person-has-1-12-ch/

Nice!  I didn't see that article and was operating on obviously dated intel.  Thanks Violet.

Quote from: jossam on May 04, 2016, 10:14:50 PM
Yes. Very interesting. But can it be used to explain how a brain fails to develop female and develops male instead, so can it be applied to trans men too?

Yes.  In a "normal" pregnancy the presence of testosterone beginning around 20 weeks switches the brain to male development.  An XY male fetus produces the testosterone from the testes.  If the mother is taking massive doses of estrogen, as was the case with DES, this can disrupt this process and cause the signal to develop male not to happen.  On the other hand an XX female fetus, not having testes, would normally not get a testosterone signal and the brain would normally remain in its original state and not differentiate male.  But if exogenous testosterone is introduced at around the 20 week mark the brain would differentiate male in response to the signal being present.

Both of these cases are much more than simple theory and have been experimentally duplicated on animals so we know how it works.  For obvious ethical reasons these experiments have not been conducted on humans but the inferences are clear. 


Sapere Aude

What if the parent did not take hormones or meds of that kind? Can it still happen with hormones naturally produced by the mother? Can other factors alter those testosterone signals in the fetus? Like a natural change in her hormone levels, without any external source, or maybe something else?
I did try to ask my mother about this but she told me her pregnancy was ok and seemed irritated when I asked. It's not like I want to blame her or anything like that. There is really no one to blame and I tried to reassure her.

It could be anything and unless she took a specific drug it's probably impossible to know.  However, we do know the mechanism that can cause trans development.


Sapere Aude

Quote from: jossam on May 03, 2016, 10:47:50 AM
I didn't watch the video because I am feeling bad at the moment and I can't handle any more negative feelings today. I just wanted to say I suffer from anxiety and other disorders like bipolar disorder and I take meds and the doctor even put me on an antipsychotic last year (bipolar paranoid issues) but I stopped it after a few months because it made me feel too dizzy, sleepy and just made me feel physically bad (antipsychotics are pretty powerful meds and can have bad side effects). No, it did not get rid of my dysphoria and it didn't change my identity. No med can turn someone cisgender. It's been proven being transgender is not a mental illness also thanks to observing how psych meds don't "work" when it comes to one's innate identity and this is why we change the body because that's been proven to be effective.

They listed a study from the 80s about a person who was given pimozide, which is used to treat Schizophrenia, Delusions, and Torettes Syndrome and other uncontrollable movements. I'm not sure what the effects on the mind are.