Sex personality differences

[Robin]

i thought I would drop back in for a while since I saw this essay that has been around for a while called "The New Evolution Deniers" by Colin Wright in Quillette.

The group that most fervently opposed, and still opposes, evolutionary explanations for behavioral sex differences in humans were/are social justice activists. Evolutionary explanations for human behavior challenge their a priori commitment to “Blank Slate” psychology—the belief that male and female brains in humans start out identical and that all behavior, sex-linked or otherwise, is entirely the result of differences in socialization.

Now he has obviously got the claims of transgender people completely backwards - no transgender person claims that socialisation caused them to be a particular gender.

They don't claim male and female brains start out identical, they say they have the brain characteristics usually associated with the opposite sexual characteristics.

Indeed it is the gender critical side who claim that being trans gender is socially transmitted. Indeed the author of this article makes this very claim elsewhere.

Quite surprising that someone who holds himself to be the embodiment of science, rationality and intellectualism didn't even bother to glance at the position he was attempting to critique.

He goes on:

Most are probably not aware, but animal personality research is a vibrant field within behavioral ecology due to the ubiquity of personality as a phenomenon in nature, and its ability to explain interactions both within and between species. In nearly every species tested to date for the presence of personality, we’ve found it, and sex-linked personality differences are frequently the most striking. Sex-linked personality differences are very well documented in our closest primate relatives, too, and the presence of sexual dimorphism (i.e. size differences between males and females) in primates, and mammals generally, dramatically intensifies these differences, especially in traits like aggression, female choosiness, territoriality, grooming behavior, and parental care.

OK, so brain differences linked to sexual characteristics is well documented in nature.

Also, as he says elsewhere, these differences are not always linked to the sexual characteristics and can vary.

How exactly does that contradict what trans gender people say about themselves?

In fact it seems to show quite plainly that the reports of trans gender people are quite consistent with evolution and observations of nature.

 

[angrysoba]

I predict: Nothing good can come of this thread.

 

[Robin]

Something good can come of this thread. Admittedly there is a significant chance that it won't.

 

[Warp12]

Something good can come of this thread. Admittedly there is a significant chance that it won't.

I recall reading an article that stated that when people were "actively transgender" (sorry, only way I can describe it), their brain function was similar their chosen identity. If they "de-transitioned", the brain function was similar to their birth assignment.

I know the language is crude, but it is hard to describe without offending someone, I suppose.

I can't find that article, but I think there are many that put forth similar ideas, as far as brain function and chosen identity.

 

[arthwollipot]

Something good can come of this thread. Admittedly there is a significant chance that it won't.

The prior evidence isn't great. But here goes.

In my experience there is as wide a diversity between people who identify as cis male and people who identify as cis female, and between people who identify as trans male and people who identify as trans female, and the same spectrum is covered, that any functional differences in brain anatomy can be considered a normal part of the spectrum for all people, regardless of sexual or gender identity.

This is not to say that those differences in brain anatomy do not exist, just to say that any effect they have on a person's personality or behaviour is not directly related to their sexual or gender identity.

Let's oversimplify. Say a particular feature of a person's brain anatomy is related to impulsiveness, and its size varies depending on whether a person has XX chromosomes or XY (putting to one side for a moment those who have rarer chromosomal arrangements). Say it is smaller for XX, and larger for XY. There is likely such a variation in the range of impulsivity that there will be some XX people who are more impulsive than some XY, and some XY will be less impulsive than XX, and such differences are likely to average out to a greater or lesser degree. In other words, it is not warranted that I should assume that any given XY person will be more impulsive than any given XX person. It is even less warranted that I should treat XY people differently from XX people, or cis people differently from trans people, based on this anatomical difference.

As I explicitly oversimplified at the beginning of this example, I will conclude by saying that the true situation is likely to be far more complicated and will require knowledge of many, many factors to unravel. I will also offhandedly remark that science does not have all the answers yet, and any discussion we have here on the neural correlates for behaviour, including any contributions by me, will be inadequately informed to be authoritative.

 

[arthwollipot]

I know the language is crude, but it is hard to describe without offending someone, I suppose.

It's okay to struggle with it. The important thing is that you're trying. The terminology that you're looking for is someone who is in the process of transitioning, or whose transition is complete. As opposed to someone who is transgender, but hasn't begun transitioning yet, or someone who has reversed a previous transition and now identifies as the gender assigned to them at birth.

 

[Robin]

I recall reading an article that stated that when people were "actively transgender" (sorry, only way I can describe it), their brain function was similar their chosen identity. If they "de-transitioned", the brain function was similar to their birth assignment.

I know the language is crude, but it is hard to describe without offending someone, I suppose.

I can't find that article, but I think there are many that put forth similar ideas, as far as brain function and chosen identity.

I have never heard this claim before so I can't really comment.

 

[Robin]

The thing is we have here a person with a PhD in Evolutionary Biology who could not remotely be described as "woke" telling us that there is plenty of good evidence that there is such a thing as a "male brain" and a "female brain" inasmuch as there are heritable characteristics that are usually associated with each set of sexual characteristics, but that these are not necessarily always linked.

So the idea that someone might be born in the wrong body is consistent with such scientific evidence as long as we understand it as someone having the brain characteristics that are usually associated with the people who have the opposite sexual characteristics.

ie this is a rare, accidental, case of agreement between the two sides.

 

[Warp12]

I have never heard this claim before so I can't really comment.

I think this was the one:

"In summary, transgender individuals experience change in lifestyle, context of beliefs and concepts and, as a result, their culture and behaviors. Given the close relationship and interaction between culture, behavior and brain, the individual’s brain adapts itself to the new condition (culture) and concepts and starts to alter its function and structure."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5953012/

 

[catsmate]

i thought I would drop back in for a while since I saw this essay that has been around for a while called "The New Evolution Deniers" by Colin Wright in Quillette.<snip>

Og good grief? Who takes Wright and his cretinous outpourings seriously? Or indeed Quillette.
More alt-right cretinism.

 

[Darat]

.... that any functional differences in brain anatomy can be considered a normal part of the spectrum for all people, regardless of sexual or gender identity. ....

Which is what the evidence seems to point to. It is not possible from a "brain scan" to determine if someone is male or female, it's akin to height, whilst on the whole men are taller than women you can't determine if someone is male or female by only their height nor by only a scan of their brain. (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00677-x)

 

[Warp12]

Which is what the evidence seems to point to. It is not possible from a "brain scan" to determine if someone is male or female, it's akin to height, whilst on the whole men are taller than women you can't determine if someone is male or female by only their height nor by only a scan of their brain. (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00677-x)

"The Cognitive Differences Between Men and Women":

https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html

"New technologies have generated a growing pile of evidence that there are inherent differences in how men’s and women’s brains are wired and how they work.

 

[Darat]

The thing is we have here a person with a PhD in Evolutionary Biology who could not remotely be described as "woke" telling us that there is plenty of good evidence that there is such a thing as a "male brain" and a "female brain" inasmuch as there are heritable characteristics that are usually associated with each set of sexual characteristics, but that these are not necessarily always linked.

So the idea that someone might be born in the wrong body is consistent with such scientific evidence as long as we understand it as someone having the brain characteristics that are usually associated with the people who have the opposite sexual characteristics.

ie this is a rare, accidental, case of agreement between the two sides.

See my reference above - there isn't any actual convincing evidence for there being a "male" or a "female" brain, there are human brains and that's it.

Could socialization "sexualise" a brain? I think that is akin to an "of the gaps" argument, there could be differences that we still can't scan for but given the scale at which we can now investigate and examine brains this seems very unlikely. What could change between sexes is the chemical side of the brain, which we know can influence behaviour, so a different bath of chemicals such as hormones may produce different behaviours (but certainly not in the old simplistic "high testosterone = violence = male" manner).

 

[Darat]

"The Cognitive Differences Between Men and Women":

https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different.html

"New technologies have generated a growing pile of evidence that there are inherent differences in how men’s and women’s brains are wired and how they work.

Mine is the more up to date article... That addresses some of the very findings your article used to support its claims and demonstrates how the conclusions were wrong.

 

[Warp12]

Mine is the more up to date article... That addresses some of the very findings your article used to support its claims and demonstrates how the conclusions were wrong.

NIH article, from July of 2020:

On average, males and females showed greater volume in different areas of the cortex, the outer brain layer that controls thinking and voluntary movements. Females had greater volume in the prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, superior temporal cortex, lateral parietal cortex, and insula. Males, on average, had greater volume in the ventral temporal and occipital regions. Each of these regions is responsible for processing different types of information.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/sex-differences-brain-anatomy

 

[Robin]

Which is what the evidence seems to point to. It is not possible from a "brain scan" to determine if someone is male or female, it's akin to height, whilst on the whole men are taller than women you can't determine if someone is male or female by only their height nor by only a scan of their brain. (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00677-x)

Not just with one characteristic and not a perfect determination.

But if it is the case that there are some brain characteristics that are more common in females and some that are more common in males (i am not saying that it is the case) then it would have to be possible to make a better than chance determination of whether the brain was male or female based on being able to recognise those characteristics.

If it is not possible to make a better than chance determination of the sex of a brain by looking for a set of characteristics then it cannot be true that there are some characteristics more common in female brains or that there are some characteristics more common in male brains.

 

[Darat]

NIH article, from July of 2020:



https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/sex-differences-brain-anatomy

You do know that is supporting what my article stated and what I posted?

 

[Darat]

Not just with one characteristic and not a perfect determination.

But if it is the case that there are some brain characteristics that are more common in females and some that are more common in males (i am not saying that it is the case) then it would have to be possible to make a better than chance determination of whether the brain was male or female based on being able to recognise those characteristics.

If it is not possible to make a better than chance determination of the sex of a brain by looking for a set of characteristics then it cannot be true that there are some characteristics more common in female brains or that there are some characteristics more common in male brains.

Yes exactly like if you had a group of people and only knew their height i.e. sort them by height and you will have a higher chance of being right by saying the taller people are male.

 

[Robin]

Yes exactly like if you had a group of people and only knew their height i.e. sort them by height and you will have a higher chance of being right by saying the taller people are male.

Which is all that I am saying.

Suppose we could supply 100 neuroimaging results to someone without sex identifying details and ask someone to divide them into male and female and they were right about, say, 75% of the time then that would seem to me to be supporting the idea that there are sex differences in the brain.

The thing is that most of us, even if we don't identify as trans or agender or anything like that still do not match closely to any gender model (except maybe our clothes). So I would not expect there to be anything like an exactly male brain or an exactly female brain.

 

[Robin]

But I would also guess that any brain differences that underlie personality traits (again, if there are) would probably be much more subtle than any of those things mentioned in those papers.