Sex personality differences

[arthwollipot]

Okay, now that Emily's Cat has arrived in the thread, it's probably a good idea for me to drop out for the good of my blood pressure. I do want to say one last thing, though.

The "woman in a man's body" narrative is misleading and not representative. Most transgender people would not describe their lived experience in that way. Some certainly do, and have, but it is not the standard narrative.

Peace.

 

[theprestige]

The "woman in a man's body" narrative is misleading and not representative. Most transgender people would not describe their lived experience in that way. Some certainly do, and have, but it is not the standard narrative.

What is the standard narrative? Is there anything to it besides gender stereotypes?

 

[Darat]

Brains are sexed, not gendered. So if you look at the chromosomal makeup of brain cells, you can tell which is male and which is female. Barring that, the only other observable difference is directly related to hormone exposure that differs between males and females.
As you say, all of the other claims to "man brain" and "lady brain" are inconclusive and not predictive.

Nope. The evidence is that there is no such observable difference that allows us to determine if the brain is female or male, all we can do is say “on average”.

 

[Darat]

The brains are chromosomally different between males and females. They are also subjected to hormones during fetal development, and those hormones differ between males and females. That hormone exposure results in some differences as I understand it, but those differences are directly sex-linked, and are almost entirely related to actual differences in sexual reproduction and sexual characteristics.

Brains are also highly plastic. Exposure throughout our lives to the differential conditioning of males and females has an affect on behavior and personality, which are reflected in brains.

But at the end of the day, there really isn't anything remotely akin to a "boy brain" and "girl" brain that supports the transgender rhetoric of "born in the wrong body". A transgender person's brain is not materially or statistically more like the sex that they identify with. A transgender person's brain is, however, materially and statistically more like the sex class to which they belong.

Which study has found that, I try to keep up to date on all the brainy science stuff and can’t find any studies that have looked at that.

 

[Darat]

…snip…

What if the science of brains reveals that there are men who think more like typical* women, but are comfortable identifying as men, and there are also men who think more like typical women, but are uncomfortable identifying as men? What if science reveals that many men who identify as women don't think like typical women? Do we deny them the rights and accommodations due to transgender men? Do we deny that they're trans at all?

This is the same type of issue that was raised for me when the claim of homosexual men having a region of their brain more like heterosexual women. (That is what got me interested in “brain science”.) We have to be very careful with not going beyond what the scientific research supports, all too often folk with a strong opinion will try to shoehorn the latest scientific findings to fit their opinions, rather than the other way around. Just look at how persistent the wrongness of the claims about “left/right” personality traits have been.

I would also be wary of the “ don't think like typical women” the “think” part takes us past any possible science based opinion at the moment. We have barely scratched the surface of the “thinking” part of understanding how the brain works. We do know that there is a lot more variety in how the thinking happens than we used to think, the old view of brain maps with distinct areas handling “vision”, “audio” and so on struggle to encompass what we now know. (Lots of that evidence comes from studies on brain injuries.)

All in all we need to - at least - learn to crawl before we try to beat Bolt’s world record sprint.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Always worth dropping this study in again. It's a little older now, but I don't believe it has been shown totally wrong yet. The basic conclusion is that while we have structures in our brains that each tends towards being more "female" or more "male", and while most females have more "female" structures than "male" and vice versa, very few people have entirely "female" or entirely "male" brains, but rather a combination of each with various parts at that intermediary of both.

 

[Robin]

As you say, all of the other claims to "man brain" and "lady brain" are inconclusive and not predictive.

And yet Colin Wright say it is outlandish, anti-science, evolution-denying, blank-slater, being like a creationist to believe that the brain is not gendered in this way.

That is the strange anomaly I was highlighting and curiously it is among different factions of the gender critical people.

One group say that science unambiguously tells us that the brain is gendered and the other group say that science unambiguously tells us that the brain is not gendered.

As far as I can see the science isn't in

 

[Robin]

Let me again quote the key part of Colin Wright's article:

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.

So he is claiming that there is clear evidence of a gendered brain, not just in humans but in other animals.

 

[Robin]

Seems like we're maybe less than a hundred years away from being able to engineer the sexuality of our children in utero. Which may raise some interesting ethical questions for our children to answer. I wonder what will happen when a hormonally-induced homosexual tells his parents that he never wanted to be gay, and he wishes he were straight, but that's not an option because his parents chose for him. Like those deaf parents who try to have deaf children by choice.

Anyone want to take a stab at the ethics of hormonally inducing gender dysphoria in the womb?

If anyone would like to take a stab at this then I would appreciate if they do it in another thread or start a new one.

It is not relevant here.

 

[Darat]

Let me again quote the key part of Colin Wright's article:



So he is claiming that there is clear evidence of a gendered brain, not just in humans but in other animals.

Disagree, at best he is describing the “phenotype” of the brain of animals but even then I’d say he is going beyond the evidence we have. We only have research into the brains of very few animals and as we now know interpolating animal studies to humans is difficult to get right even within narrow fields like biochemistry.

 

[Darat]

And yet Colin Wright say it is outlandish, anti-science, evolution-denying, blank-slater, being like a creationist to believe that the brain is not gendered in this way.

That is the strange anomaly I was highlighting and curiously it is among different factions of the gender critical people.

One group say that science unambiguously tells us that the brain is gendered and the other group say that science unambiguously tells us that the brain is not gendered.

As far as I can see the science isn't in

Yes it is in regards to structural or unique differences between female and male brains.

This is one of those areas that significant new research is happening “as we speak” so it can be difficult to be up to date when writing opinion pieces.

As I said earlier any significant or unique differences between male and female brains are not caused by having differently structured brains, it is going to be the chemical soup and the rest of the body and how that influences our - as Worzel would put it - “thinkings”.

I would also be very wary of only looking at the brain for understanding our behaviour, the brain itself is only part of a system and excluding the rest of the body strikes me as a reduction too far.

 

[Robin]

For me, that's the most surreal thing here. I keep asking if there's any scientific evidence that there's something more to transgenderism than gender stereotypes. Instead, I get this, which appears to be scientific evidence that it's gender stereotypes all the way down.

But, again, it is not clear to me where you are getting that from. Not from me, certainly.

To clarify for me your understanding of the term "stereotype", do you regard the proposition . men are, on average, taller than women as a stereotype?

If not then we are not talking about stereotypes here (as you said yourself, what is the difference?).

If so then you seem to have a rather confusing understanding of the term "stereotype".

 

[Robin]

Yes it is in regards to structural or unique differences between female and male brains.

This is one of those areas that significant new research is happening “as we speak” so it can be difficult to be up to date when writing opinion pieces.

As I said earlier any significant or unique differences between male and female brains are not caused by having differently structured brains, it is going to be the chemical soup and the rest of the body and how that influences our - as Worzel would put it - “thinkings”.

I would also be very wary of only looking at the brain for understanding our behaviour, the brain itself is only part of a system and excluding the rest of the body strikes me as a reduction too far.

What research are you talking about? If you are talking about the research summarised by Gina Rippon then the "gendered brain" faction of the gender critical people say that this book is nonsense.

An example of a review of the book:

So are female and male brains the same or different? We now know that the correct answer is “yes”: They are the same or similar on average in many respects, and they are different, a little to a lot, on average in many other respects. The neuroscience behind this conclusion is now remarkably robust, and not only won’t be going away, it will only grow. And yes, we, of course, must explore sex influences responsibly, as with all science. Sadly, the anti-sex difference folks will doubtless continue their ideological attacks on the field and the scientists in it.

https://quillette.com/2019/03/29/denying-the-neuroscience-of-sex-differences/

And the qualifications of the author of the review:

Larry Cahill is a professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine and an internationally recognized leader on the topic of sex influences on brain function.

So one group of scientists claim that the science is in for one side.

And another group of scientists claim that the science is in for the other side.

And yet another group of scientists say that the science is not in.

So I think I will wait for a clearer consensus than that.

 

[Roboramma]

Ok but could the brain type identified by this technique be used to accurately predict:
a) the existence of feminine personality traits?

If feminine personality traits positively correlate with female brains, then yes.

b) whether someone self identifies as transgender?

I doubt it.

 

[Darat]

What research are you talking about? If you are talking about the research summarised by Gina Rippon then the "gendered brain" faction of the gender critical people say that this book is nonsense.

An example of a review of the book:



And the qualifications of the author of the review:



So one group of scientists claim that the science is in for one side.

And another group of scientists claim that the science is in for the other side.

And yet another group of scientists say that the science is not in.

So I think I will wait for a clearer consensus than that.

(ETA: Also see PhantomWolf's link.)

Not sure why you think that undermines the point several of us have made several times in the thread - as your reviewer puts it: "They are the same or similar on average in many respects, and they are different, a little to a lot, on average in many other respects."

There seems to be some confusion of this "on average".

If we gave ten brains - 5 from females, 5 from males to scientists and said tell us which is female, which is male the only way of doing with 100% accuracy is checking the DNA.

What scientists might be able to do is get say 8 correctly sexed, because they have used the "on average" differences to weight their call of the likelihood of the sex of the brain but two foxed them because some male brains have more on average "female" differences than "male" differences and some female brains have more on average "male" differences than "female" differences.

You seem to be wanting to go beyond what the evidence so far tells us. At this time we don't have the evidence that those "female" and "male" differences even have a correlate to any behaviour of a person (neither internal nor external).

As I explained earlier, we need a lot more research and data before we can even start looking for correlates never made causal links between expressed (or not) behaviours of "femineity" or "masculinity" and brains.

 

[Robin]

Disagree, at best he is describing the “phenotype” of the brain of animals but even then I’d say he is going beyond the evidence we have.

Then obviously you and I are disagreeing on what the term "gendered brain" means.

But let us look at the position he is criticising and calling "evolution denying":

“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.

So if this is what he is arguing against then clearly he is arguing for the position that the male and female brains in humans don't start out identical.

 

[Robin]

Not sure why you think that undermines the point several of us have made several times in the thread - as your reviewer puts it: "They are the same or similar on average in many respects, and they are different, a little to a lot, on average in many other respects."

There seems to be some confusion of this "on average".

Not on my part. I have been saying "on average" all along as far as I know.

I am not sure what point you think you are making, you seem to disagree with me and then clarify that you are saying the same thing that I am saying.

If the differences I am suggesting were unique to each sex and not on average then they could hardly be candidates for the brain states underlying the state of being transgender.

I don't know why you think I am suggesting that people who are transgender have brain characteristics that are never, ever found in their own sex.

So we are definitely *not* looking for something that would correlate with sex 100% of the time.

The suggestion here is that people who are transgender might have the brain characteristics that are usually (I keep emphasising the "usually") found in the opposite sex.

So clearly "on average" is just exactly what we are looking for.

 

[Darat]

Then obviously you and I are disagreeing on what the term "gendered brain" means.

But let us look at the position he is criticising and calling "evolution denying":



So if this is what he is arguing against then clearly he is arguing for the position that the male and female brains in humans don't start out identical.

The issue is more that no brain starts out identical to any other, they will vary even amongst identical twins, just like many other organs do, identical twin studies have given us a lot of hints of the plasticity of the brain.

What we can say is that by the end of puberty and early adulthood (approximately 20) there are only "on average" differences between the brains of females and males.

That leaves us one step behind where you and he seem to want to be, which is the step of linking those "on average" differences to expressed behaviours we would label "feminine" or "masculine".

The research for us to take that step hasn't been done yet (as far as I am aware). The nearest was the weak research done in the early 1990s that found links to structures in male homosexual brains that were more like heterosexual female brains than heterosexual male brains. And that work was flawed in several ways.

At the moment you can't use neurology to draw conclusions as to why some people are transexual or not or why they express some "feminine" or "masculine" behaviours apparently at odds with the sex of their DNA.

 

[Darat]

Would add that I think that we will find out how differences in folks' brains work and why they lead to different behaviours, we just about have the tools (now we can go down to the neuron level) to work this stuff out. And I think we will do so before we have working fusion power generators.... so within 5, 10, 20 or 50 years....

 

[Robin]

People keep saying things that are perfectly consistent with what I am saying and acting as though they contradict what I am saying.

If these brain characteristics were perfectly correlated to sex then it would contradict what I am saying.

The fact that there might be brain characteristics that correlate to sex, but not perfectly is just what I have been saying all along.

You wouldn't get a spectrum with perfectly correlated characteristics, you would get a binary. You need an imperfect correlation to get a spectrum.