QT, if gender is innate to identity

submitted by HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex from self.GCdebatesQT

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[–]strictly 5 insightful - 4 fun5 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 4 fun -  (1 child)

You said that prenatal hormones that fetuses "are exposed to" at some unspecified time during the 40 weeks it takes for a human fetus to grow to full term have a major influence on sex-linked traits & behavior much later on in life.

I said seem, not definitely, and nothing about major, it’s theory about child imitation. I didn’t state anything about other androgens not mattering. But androgens at one stage doesn't necessarily lead to the same effects as androgen at another stage, and I don't know how long the researchers think this particular timing window expands, and the study itself primarily talks about prenatal androgens, and it’s also hard to know if these girls continued to have an overproduction of androgens even after birth as many of them probably were diagnosed with CAH at birth and got treatment for it, so there wouldn't be much for me to expand on regarding the potential role of post natal hormones in this particular case. I also don’t have limitless time so I will never be able to speak about everything that can be factor.

But it still raises the obvious question: where do these prenatal hormones supposedly come from?

Untreated CAH leads to an overproduction of androgens, this starts before they are born which is why girls with CAH might be born with virilized genitalia.

it is often done with the intent of implying that these hormones come not from the fetus itself, but from the mother

Never implied it came from the mother here, the girls in study have CAH so I thought was obvious that source the was the condition the girls had.

According to a theory advanced by many misogynists and genderists, for some unknown reason women's bodies during pregnancy sometimes give rise to unpredictable surges of sex hormones that cause some fetuses to be flooded with tsunami-like "washes" of the sex hormones that usually predominate in the sex opposite to the fetuses' own sex . This in turn supposedly causes affected fetuses to end up many years later as children, adolescents or adults who are in some way atypical in terms of "gender" expression, identity &/or sexual orientation - or to have other issues like autism, anxiety and learning disabilities.

Prenatal/neonatal androgens being a factor is the leading theory behind female homosexuality. Regarding conditions where scientists think prenatal/neonatal androgens might have a role they are generally uncertain regarding the source of the influencing hormones. It’s known that mothers with certain hormonal conditions (like PCOS) are more likely to give birth to children with certain conditions, making early hormone exposure a possible factor in that condition but this doesn't mean the source of the hormones must come from the mother as it’s equally likely that the child simply inherited the genes related to the mother’s hormonal condition and that in turn causes the child to have a higher androgen production.

at unspecified times prior to birth

It sounded like you thought I too specific for not talking about the potential role of post-natal hormones, but here you seem to think not mentioning a month is too unspecific. They do have theories about the when for some of these things as there some indications about the timings but that would be on a more speculative level.

But no one seems to want to do this or even to discuss it

I think researchers are interested in doing a study like the way you say but studies in this area are not well-funded so often they can only get funding for studies that are very cheap to make. Plus I imagine there is a lot of paper work with consent even for studies that seem simple. As for me, I’m interested in the research but I’m not a researcher, and although I have read a wide range of studies I can’t read studies that don’t yet exist, it’s not to due to lack of wanting. Anyway, it's worth noting the prenatal/neonatal hormones being a factor is only the leading theory for female homosexuality, not male homosexuality (as there are other factor they think matters more there).

as well as the mother-blaming that often underlies them.

What is there to blame if we are talking about homosexuality/GNC? It’s a neutral thing, neither good nor bad. I don’t understand why we should be morally invested in from whom the potentially influencing androgens originally came from, it’s not like we should need a scapegoat to blame in this context as being atypical is not being defective. And in the contexts where the child does indeed have negative condition with strong inheritable factors (like haemophilia) I still don’t think we should see any parent as blameworthy for contributing the gene. Seeing the idea of being the carrier as close to slander would contribute to the idea that the carrier would morally guilty in some way.

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I said in my comment that I wasn't suggesting you personally had claimed or believed the things I was clarifying & objecting to. My points were aimed at the general ideas raised by your earlier post, & I meant them as much for other readers as for you. I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. If that's how it came across, I apologize.

Untreated CAH leads to an overproduction of androgens, this starts before they are born which is why girls with CAH might be born with virilized genitalia.

But the androgens that are overproduced in girls with CAH come from their own bodies during & following development of their own gonads & other glands like the adrenals, right? The excess androgens don't from their mothers' bodies. That's what I was trying to clarify.

Regarding conditions where scientists think prenatal/neonatal androgens might have a role they are generally uncertain regarding the source of the influencing hormones. It’s known that mothers with certain hormonal conditions (like PCOS) are more likely to give birth to children with certain conditions, making early hormone exposure a possible factor in that condition but this doesn't mean the source of the hormones must come from the mother as it’s equally likely that the child simply inherited the genes related to the mother’s hormonal condition and that in turn causes the child to have a higher androgen production.

The speculations/research I am raising concerns about aren't about pregnant women with PCOS - they are about the 90-95% of women who don't have PCOS or any other condition causing hyperandrogenism. A number of researchers & others allege that women with no unusual hormonal conditions at all nonetheless somehow generate unpredictable sex hormone surges during pregnancy that somehow end up causing their children to have such issues as autism or to identify as "trans" later in life.

What is there to blame if we are talking about homosexuality/GNC? It’s a neutral thing, neither good nor bad. I don’t understand why we should be morally invested in from whom the potentially influencing androgens originally came from, it’s n

Of course, today amongst most educated people in the West, there's no blaming mothers for what their bodies might have done to fetuses when pregnant when kids turn out to be gay or GNC. But in the West, this sort of mother-blaming did historically go on - & it still goes on in many countries & certain cultural milieus in the West were homophobia is still rife & the norm.

Moreover, it's part of a larger pattern of mother-blaming that goes back many generations. Schizophrenia, other mental illnesses & various other problems used to be blamed on things mothers' bodies did to their fetuses in utero. Now some scientists like Simon Baron-Cohen allege that autism is caused by women producing too many steroid hormones during pregnancy (he says this based on testing the hormones in amnio fluid, without taking into account that the hormones in amnio fluid might well come from the fetus or from fetus & mother together, rather from the mother alone).

Outside of research settings, women are still told not to have "negative feelings" like anxiety, fear or grief when pregnant coz the cortisol will screw up the fetus's developing brain. What women drink, eat, do, feel & think during pregnancy is still strongly policed for fear of the damage we will do to our future children as they develop inside us. Some of the caution, as in the case of drinking alcohol, is legitimate. But a lot of the policing of women's bodies, outer behaviors & inner lives that women are subjected to when we are pregnant is about a larger, deeper pattern of social control of women & mother-blaming specifically.

in the contexts where the child does indeed have negative condition with strong inheritable factors (like haemophilia) I still don’t think we should see any parent as blameworthy for contributing the gene. Seeing the idea of being the carrier as close to slander would contribute to the idea that the carrier would morally guilty in some way.

Of course, no one should blame blame parents for passing on heritable conditions to their children, be they X-linked ones like hemophilia or severe combined immune deficiency; Y-linked ones like webbed toes or hairy ears; or ones which occur only when both parents carry & pass on a genetic mutation, as in the case of cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia or hereditary hemochromatosis. But what should happen & what actually happens IRL are two very different things. In families with these sorts of inherited conditions, there tends to be good deal of blaming. Het couples where the man & woman each have to pass on a genetic mutation for disease to occur in their offspring still often blame each other for their children's illnesses & deaths; as someone from a CF family I know this firsthand.

Moreover, because many more inherited conditions are X linked than Y linked (coz the X chromosome carries many more genes than the Y, & thus many more mutations or "defects"), often it's the female chromosome that gets the most blame. Which just leads to more antipathy towards females & femaleness, & in turn feeds into the larger problem of women being blamed for pretty much everything in life, including the bad behavior of men.

Also, since the general public began to grasp how congenital conditions get passed on, many people known or suspected to carry a genetic mutation proven to cause a serious disease or condition have been stigmatized & discriminated against in dating & potential mating, employment & health insurance coz others see us/them as defective ourselves or as carrying a defect that we will likely pass on to our children like a time bomb. It's not right, but it sure does happen. (Which is one of the reasons I campaigned for the USA's Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008.)

But all this is neither here nor there, because the issue of placing blame on women for the hormones our children are/were/might have been exposed to in utero isn't confined to women with hyperandrogenic conditions like PCOS, nor is it confined to women with genetic mutations that we could pass on with the result that our children might have a medical condition that has a clear, already-proven biological basis that leads to distinct, telltale physical markers on which a definitive diagnosis grounded in material reality can be made. The women who are being blamed for causing their fetuses to be "exposed to" hormones that might cause them either to grow up to have problems with no clear physical causes & markers like autism, "gender dysphoria" or "transsexualism" - or just to be atypical in what you & I would consider a neutral way, neither good nor bad, like homosexuality or "gender nonconformity" - are mothers in general, not just those with certain medical conditions or who carry certain gene mutations than can result in kids having a disease or DSD.