The Male Brain versus Female Brain Argument of Transgender Activists

Some Trangender Activists (TRAs) claim that it makes sense to claim that some people are "born in the wrong body" because, e.g., some girls have "male" brains. Christina Buttons explains her disagreement in an article titled "Debunked: The Transgender 'Brain Sex' Argument."

The "brain sex" argument is based on the idea that there are differences in brain structure and function between males and females that are influenced by hormones and genetic factors. Advocates of this argument argue that these differences can also be seen in the brains of transgender individuals and that these differences may contribute to the development of a “gender identity” that is different from their natal sex.

Progressive media outlets have glommed onto this narrative and published dozens of articles asserting that “transgender people are born that way” and “science proves trans people aren’t making it up.” But also, mainstream media like CNN, the New York Times, Newsweek, the Telegraph and scientific sources like Nature and Scientific American have repeated this misinformation.

Here’s why it's wrong The majority of the studies on the “transgender brain” have a fatal flaw: they didn’t control for confounding variables like cross-sex hormone use and, most importantly, sexual orientation. When a study doesn't control for confounding variables, it means that the researchers did not take into account other factors that could have affected the results of the study, which make it difficult or impossible to determine whether the relationship between the two variables being studied is truly causal or a byproduct of other unrelated factors.

Buttons sets forth several specific reasons, including this one:

If “gender identity” were solely biologically ingrained, it would conflict with the fact that gender dysphoria has been observed to resolve spontaneously or through psychotherapy at various ages. As we know from the growing population of detransitioners and a large body of research on desistance in children, transgender identities are not necessarily fixed. Currently, there is no brain, blood, or other objective test that distinguishes a trans-identified from a non-trans identified person.

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A Sensible Question about the Language Gender Ideologists Insist that Everyone Use

Wilfred Reilly asks:

Even if you're pro-gender ideology, why not just say "woman" and "trans woman?" Why would an additional modifier ("cis," etc) for 99.5% of the population ever be necessary? We don't use the label "hearing man" every time we describe someone who is not deaf.

Other contributors to this thread wrote:

Thank you for pointing this out I will now be referring to every person who is not disabled as able-bodied man or able-bodied woman. Brilliant.

Because it's a signaler that when you use it, it signals that you have accepted the gender cult's dogma.

because, no matter how hard they try to convince themselves and everyone else, they know it’s not the same!

That's power. Make 99.5% do the extra work. —woman —cis woman simple 😐

Norm Macdonald once said cisgender was "a way of marginalizing a normal person."

Because no men are a subset of women. There are women and men. That’s it. Some men LARP as a 1950s version of women but that doesn’t make them women

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The Transgender Intersex Gambit: “But Intersex People Exist!”

There are only two biological sexes because there are only two types of gametes. Yes, some people are difficult to categorize by simply looking at their bodies, but if they produce a gamete (a cell capable of combining with another cell to produce a human being), it will be either an egg or a sperm, not a spegg nor any other functional option. See this short video produced by the Paradox Institute.

Almost inevitably, upon taking this position, you will hear people who have inhaled gender ideology say the "But intersex people exist." Intersex conditions exist, but they are rare (2/10,000), much rarer than the (approximately 1.4/100) of 13-17 year old teenagers now claiming to be transgender. Consider the following chart, which illustrates the number of intersex people compared to the numbers of people whose sex is obvious by simply looking:

How does the Intersex Gambit unfold? You will be challenged with the following, which I've heard in person several times from people formally educated enough to know better than to screw up something everyone learned in high school biology. They will say something like this: "Sex is not binary because intersex people exist and this demonstrates that biological sex is a spectrum." Biologist Colin Wright, author of "Understanding the Sex Binary," elaborates. Gender ideologists advises:

If no single line can be drawn, then anywhere someone chooses to draw one is totally arbitrary and subjective. If it’s totally arbitrary and subjective, then that means the categories male and female are also arbitrary and subjective “social constructs” with no firm root in biological reality. If that’s the case, why are we categorizing people in law according to these arbitrary labels instead of letting people simply label themselves? To do otherwise is to oppress people based on a biological falsehood.

Wright laments that this argument is made with "stunning success" and that it has even been embraced by "parts of the scientific establishment and the medical profession." Those using this argument include historian of science Alice Dreger.

In her book, Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, Dreger refers to intersex individuals as “hermaphrodites,” and says: “Hermaphroditism causes a great deal of confusion, more than one might at first appreciate, because—as we will see again and again—the discovery of a ‘hermaphroditic’ body raises doubts not just about the particular body in question, but about all bodies. The questioned body forces us to ask what exactly it is—if anything—that makes the rest of us unquestionable.”

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