Is There Something Unique About The Transgender Brain?
Transgenderism has been around for a very long time. With new abilities within science, they are finally doing research on the topic. Within this past few years, people of trans* identifications have been largely in the spotlight. Examples are Laverne Cox from Orange Is The New Black and one of the world's largest Trans Rights activists, Caitlyn Jenner, the bathroom arguments in North Carolina, and the Department of Defense working to lift the ban on transgendered individuals from serving in the military. A lot of people argue that transgenderism is abnormal and that it is a choice.
There is some research that supports that transgenderism is biological. Twin studies have shown that identical twins are much more likely to both be transgendered. However, this article targets the brain in regards to transgender people. Imaging of the brains of males and females have shown that their brains have a slight difference in their structure. Based on this, it is theorized that transgender individuals have a brain that more resembles that of their experienced gender and not the sex assigned to them at birth. This study used 18 male to females and 24 female to males. They tested their brain structures before and after they started hormone therapy. The MRIs showed that their brains even before the hormone therapy, resembled that of their experienced gender. "For example, he female-to-male subjects had relatively thin subcortical areas (these areas tend to be thinner in men than in women). Male-to-female subjects tended to have thinner cortical regions in the right hemisphere, which is characteristic of a female brain. (Such differences became more pronounced after treatment)".
Some researchers have looked at brain function in regards to transgendered people. Researchers had prepubertal and adolescent boys and girls with gender dysphoria participate in this study. They studied the response of the hypothalamus to androstadienone, which is a steroid that has pheromone properties. The steroid affects the hypothalamus in males and females differently. The researchers found that the hypothalamus reacted to the steroid in the same way that their experienced genders would react. For clarity, this means that the adolescent who was assigned female at birth, but their gender identity was male, their hypothalamus reacted to the steroid in the same way that a male assigned at birth would. This occurred with both gender identities. They were not able to gather conclusive results with the participants that were pre-pubertal. This study is highly important because "sex differences in responding to odors cannot be influenced by training or environment.”
I really enjoyed this article because it is on a topic that is in news headlines every day. It is a very popular topic in our society these past few years. There have been some negative and positive outlooks on the topic, and a lot of the negative outlooks try to attack transgenderism by saying that it isn't real. They argue that it is a choice and that there is no biological basis for it. This is the beginning of good information that will ultimately help people of transgender identities to be accepted in the social world and have proper healthcare available to them. I really would like to see what the future studies are going to produce.
There is some research that supports that transgenderism is biological. Twin studies have shown that identical twins are much more likely to both be transgendered. However, this article targets the brain in regards to transgender people. Imaging of the brains of males and females have shown that their brains have a slight difference in their structure. Based on this, it is theorized that transgender individuals have a brain that more resembles that of their experienced gender and not the sex assigned to them at birth. This study used 18 male to females and 24 female to males. They tested their brain structures before and after they started hormone therapy. The MRIs showed that their brains even before the hormone therapy, resembled that of their experienced gender. "For example, he female-to-male subjects had relatively thin subcortical areas (these areas tend to be thinner in men than in women). Male-to-female subjects tended to have thinner cortical regions in the right hemisphere, which is characteristic of a female brain. (Such differences became more pronounced after treatment)".
Some researchers have looked at brain function in regards to transgendered people. Researchers had prepubertal and adolescent boys and girls with gender dysphoria participate in this study. They studied the response of the hypothalamus to androstadienone, which is a steroid that has pheromone properties. The steroid affects the hypothalamus in males and females differently. The researchers found that the hypothalamus reacted to the steroid in the same way that their experienced genders would react. For clarity, this means that the adolescent who was assigned female at birth, but their gender identity was male, their hypothalamus reacted to the steroid in the same way that a male assigned at birth would. This occurred with both gender identities. They were not able to gather conclusive results with the participants that were pre-pubertal. This study is highly important because "sex differences in responding to odors cannot be influenced by training or environment.”
I really enjoyed this article because it is on a topic that is in news headlines every day. It is a very popular topic in our society these past few years. There have been some negative and positive outlooks on the topic, and a lot of the negative outlooks try to attack transgenderism by saying that it isn't real. They argue that it is a choice and that there is no biological basis for it. This is the beginning of good information that will ultimately help people of transgender identities to be accepted in the social world and have proper healthcare available to them. I really would like to see what the future studies are going to produce.
This is an interesting article Greer and I was actually going to do the same one. In class, we learned about how the 90's was considered the "decade of the brain" and that is when brain imaging revolutions were discovered. If it weren't for that invention then we probably would not be able to uncover the biological aspects of transgenderism. This was surprising to read about because it seems like there never really is any science behind this topic, only people believing it is confusion or a choice to want to be a different gender. This also relates to nature vs nurture topic we learned in class. The article states that there is biological research on transgenderism and that would be the nature aspect but there could be a nurture aspect as well, for example, someone choosing to be a different gender because of their experiences throughout life. Overall, I thought this was a well summarized article and I definitely learned some new information!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your summary of the article. It was very well written and it hit all the necessary points to convey the message of the article. One constructive comment could be the use of the terms "transgender(ism)" and "transgender(ed)." It may not be your fault and may have been in the article itself but I would like to explain why it can be problematic. "Transgender(ism)" dehumanize transgender people and reduce who they are to 'a condition.' The term "Transgender(ed) makes it seem as past tense like it was an option to become the opposite gender and discounts the true meaning of being transgender, the feeling that one is the opposite gender and makes it seem like people woke up and decided to be the other gender, further eliminating their identities. I wanted to post that just for educational purposes. I know it's completely off the topic of our current course but I fell that it's important to bring it up. Apart from that, it's interesting to see the MRI results and the cortical areas. It's beautiful to see how people's brains correlate with their gender expression and their personal identities.
ReplyDeleteNunez, I agree with your statement about the different usage of the words "transgenderism" and "transgendered" because it is a valid point that many people do not think of when they use the term "transgenderism". Even though it may not matter to most people, those who are transgender may be sensitive to the terms. I also agree that the MRI results and cortical areas are intriguing because it allows us to understand the complexity more.
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