Meet the neuroscientist shattering the myth of the gendered brain

submitted by DR373737 from theguardian.com

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

I know this post means well.

But you can tell if a brain belongs to a man or woman about 95% of the time even using Joel's rather limited comparison.

I'm only going into this here because the brains of gay people make up the small percentage that can't be reliably IDd, they have abnormally developed brains. This proves sexual orientation is innate, one of the things gay rights activists have been using as major leverage against the religious conservative groups.

If you push 'no such thing as brain sex,' which is very much not the opinion of most neurobiologists, you damage a major supporting argument for gay rights.

You are also using fringe science not supported by the mainstream and that just doesn't look good to outsiders reading this.

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

After a lifetime of socialization, I'd be more surprised if you couldn't tell the difference. There being a difference doesn't say anything about the cause of that difference.

How about we support LGB rights because it doesn't harm anyone and there's no reason not to? Just because something is inborn doesn't mean it's good, and just because something isn't doesn't mean it's bad. The cause of homosexuality and bisexuality are irrelevant to the validity of gay rights.

If you think saying "no such thing as brain sex" damages support for gay rights, then you'd also have to argue that the "born this way" arguement supports things like pedophilia. Because the pedophile movement does compare itself to the gay rights movement in this way. And to preempt any knee-jerk responses, no, I am not comparing pedophilia to homosexuality.

And so what if it's fringe? The mainstream accepts a lot of nonsensical bullshit about women, and it isn't right just because it's mainstream. There are lots of things that don't look good to outsiders (like being against gender identity, for example), that doesn't mean we shouldn't say them.