The Peakening ™ - Part 1: The Bad Science on Transgender Issues

submitted by mambean from self.GenderCritical

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[–]snub-nosedmonkey 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I find the information here slightly misleading. It's also worth pointing out that Gina Rippon doesn't deny that brain gender differences exist. Also, most scientists compare adult brains because sexual dimorphism is more apparent in post-pubescent individuals. Logically speaking, you would expect some brain sex differences to be more prevalent after puberty.

TL;DR: Science shows there are differences between male and female brains, and in male and female behaviour, on average. These differences have biological roots and are not purely a societal construct. That’s mainly what I’m addressing here and I’ve included references where I can. I'm certainly not saying that the environment has no influence on the phenotype.

Brain structures

On average, males and females do differ in at least 30 morphological brain features. At the same time, there is a lot of variation within each sex; there isn't really such a thing as a 'typical' male or female brain.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228549134_Gender_Differences_in_Human_Brain_A_Review#:~:text=Male%20brains%20are%20about%2010,more%20neurons%20to%20control%20them

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-016-0768-5

Behaviour

There are differences, on average, in male and female behaviour that have biological roots. The environment also has an effect on behaviour and society can reinforce and enhance pre-existing differences. The ideology about sex differences in behaviour being entirely down to socialisation is refuted by science and anthropology. On average, healthy males who have gone through puberty have much higher levels of testosterone compared to a healthy females. Testosterone "activates the subcortical areas of the brain to produce aggression" so it's perhaps not a surprise that men tend to be more aggressive than females.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/#:~:text=Testosterone%20activates%20the%20subcortical%20areas,testosterone%20to%20reduce%20its%20effects.

Sex differences in behaviour exist in other primates too, despite a comparative lack of sex-biased parental care and socialisation:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jnr.23862

A review of toy preferences in human infants shows that there are clear consistent differences between males and females at a young age.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01624-7#Sec56

[–]mambean[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

snub-nosedmonkey, you misunderstood what the article is claiming. Let me paraphrase:

For example, it was long thought that brain size determined intelligence or competency in certain skills - women's brains (or certain parts thereof) are often smaller than a man's, thus this "shows she is competent in women's things but not in "man's things"." In more modern studies this has been debunked as brain size is not strictly relegated to sex (just like how many men are tall, but not all of them) and that size of the brain does not affect some's intelligence.

So this paragraph here does not deny that the average brain of a man and a woman is different, it instead challenges the idea that brains can be gendered. To reduce confusion here, there is no proven part of your brain that makes you feel "female" and no part of your brain that makes you feel "male". If you read the articles linked in the original post, it also shows that your life experiences (keeping in mind that both men and women often live lives relegated to their gender roles) and what you use your brain for can increase the size of that area of the brain as well as the connections.

Currently there is no solid study that actually proves that a brain sex can be proven, at most only minimal differences have been found and no individually fully conforms to either. A lot of brain studies you'll find are extension or part of "pop science" and research cherry picking, when done with a large sample size like this study here (6,000 people), the issues become apparent with the claim: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151029185544.htm

"Many people believe there is such a thing as a 'male brain' and a 'female brain,'" Dr. Eliot said. "But when you look beyond the popularized studies -- at collections of all the data -- you often find that the differences are minimal."

Meta-analyses by other investigators have also disproved other purported sex differences in the brain, Dr. Eliot noted. There is no difference in the size of the corpus callosum, white matter that allows the two sides of the brain to communicate, nor do men and women differ in the way their left and right hemispheres process language.

It's not a good principle to bring the sex differences in primates and other animals because human beings do not grow up and act like other animals - some animals have large brain differences and more instinct reliant, others aren't as much. If we want to study human brains it has to be human studies.

Male and female hormones and their production as you mentioned in your comment here - is something complete separate and are actually produced by other organs in your body (sex) or hormone supplements, your brain is affected by said hormones indeed but not the producer of them.

[–]snub-nosedmonkey 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I didn't misunderstand the article, I just wanted to highlight some average differences between the sexes in terms of brain science and behaviour. I should have been clearer, I wasn't disagreeing with anything you wrote in section 2 and I think we're on the same page about the science. However, there is a risk someone reading that information might incorrectly think that there are no differences between male and females brains on average, and that any sex differences in behaviour are purely down to culture and socialisation (I've seen this view on this very forum). That's why I chose to also mention hormones and behaviour. The point of the primate studies was to show that biology can, and does, create sex differences in behaviour that are independent of socialisation in very closely related species which we share a common ancestor with. It would hardly be unexpected if we find that some differences in behaviour between the sexes have strong biological roots, but that's not to say that the environment (i.e culture and socialisation) doesn't also play a big role.