My bed nucleus is bigger than yours…. And???
Transgender people aren’t the monolithic community we may appear from the outside. For every MTF transsexual who insists that she was always a woman inside and she corrected her male body to match her brain, you can find someone who questions whether categories like “man” and “woman” are absolutes after all. (I’ve been reading Undoing Gender by Judith Butler, which is by far her most readable book, and has taken my breath away several times. She attacks the idea of gender as a social construct from a new, ingenious standpoint, by showing how our personhood — and hence our gender — can be “undone” by grief or loss or social crap.) But the woman-brain-in-a-man-body school of thought (or its reverse, for FTMs) remains the mainstream view of trannies. And it’s won the support of some very iffy Dutch science:
[I]nvestigators from the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research in Amsterdam reported preliminary evidence that transsexuals may be inherently different, after all. Their study of six male-to-female transsexuals showed that a tiny structure deep within a part of the brain that controls sexual function appeared to be more like the type found in women than that found in men. If confirmed, the study seems likely to challenge long-held beliefs about what it takes to make someone a man–or, a woman.
The facts: the researchers dissected the brains of six (just six!) post-op transsexuals. They compared them with brains of straight and gay men, and women. The region of the hypothalamus that the researchers claim is different in MTFs than in men (the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminals) is “smaller than a pinhead” and you can’t even see the differences using an MRI. The researchers claim, with absolute confidence, that they know the “bed nucleus” “controls sexual function.” The scientists say the “bed nucleus”
measures about 2.6 cubic millimeters, about the size of the colorful, spherical head of a pushpin. In women, it averages 1.73 millimeters, and in transsexuals the average figure is 1.3.
Some other experts were skeptical, the article linked above says. All of the TSs who were dissected had taken estrogen for years, and maybe that changed the size of this region of the hypothalamus. Or maybe the stress of living as a trans person changed the size of their “bed nucleus”. And then there’s this:
Dr. S. Marc Breedlove of the University of California at Berkeley, who wrote an editorial that accompanies the new report, said that the function of the bed nucleus in human behavior, sexual or otherwise, remained “a complete black box.”
So we don’t even know what it is, or what it does. Or what its size signifies.
The reason this research bugs me has very little to do with me and my fellow trans people. It’s more my fear that we’re being used as wedge to push an essentialist agenda. It’s not too far from saying “transsexuals have women’s brains” to claiming “men’s and women’s brains are totally different.” And from there, to claiming that women have less good spatial sense than men. And from there, to claiming there’s an innate biological difference between men’s and women’s math abilities, says Richard Francis, author of Why Men Won’t Ask For Directions:
Evolutionary psychologists assume that it’s biological, that there are hormones involved, that testosterone somehow makes men better spatial navigators. But, the evidence for that is extremely weak. In fact, I spent much of the time writing this book having to read that kind of literature. Whereas there’s ample evidence that social-cultural factors play an enormous role in this. And also this spatial cognition story extends to sex differences in mathematics. For example, the sex differences are most pronounced in the United States, even in the Western world. In some cross-cultural studies, they’ve shown that in African-Americans and Hispanics that females are superior in mathematics, and in Asian-Americans it has been found that the sex difference is quite small. And, then there’s evidence that these sex differences are disappearing over time, which you would expect given the new educational opportunities available to females. And, this does not accord well with a biological explanation, much less an evolutionary explanation.
December 24th, 2006 at 11:13 am
My bed nucleus is bigger than yours…. And???…
…
December 24th, 2006 at 9:54 pm
With most decisions the most important thing is what takes place after the decision rather than before. Whether a genetic male feels female due to a smaller bed nucleus, cultural forces or other factors these things all came before the decision to transition.
People who focus too much on what made them as they are use time that could better be spent in becoming all that they are capable of.
Nerissa
December 25th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
Frankly, men and women are different in many, many ways. Body manipulation only deals with the surface and is cosmetic. The use of drugs to masquerade as the opposite of one’s birth sex does not change the essential difference between men and women. For example, a trans -woman will never experience menstruation nor will the trans-woman ever produce eggs. The same is fact for transsexuals. The removal of sex organs e.g., the penis, even when it is used to create a faux vagina does nothing to make a person truly the opposite of their birth sex. The same holds true for trans -men when it comes to the production of sperm and the roll of testicles.
This is not theory, but hard cold fact.
I would much prefer to have the boundaries for acceptable gender expression be expanded to include the full degree of gender expression. I would much prefer to fight for equal protection under law regardless of gender expression.
Can we please move on to a place of protection and equality under the law and from the gender theories developed by privileged mostly white academic individuals?
Poor children whose gender expression hold them up for ridicule and threaten their safety are best protected by strong defense of gender variant behavior.
History has taught us that dress does not indicate gender, And I for sure will fight for the right of an individual to control his/her own body: the right to dress in a manner appropriate for their performing work, without restrictions to gene based dress codes.
Judith Butler identifies as a lesbian. Period. A butch one at that! That is what she said when she spoke at NYU recently.
On an other note: why in the world would any parent encourage their child to hate their birth body. The real question for me comes to what in the culture causes a child to feel so different that he/she feels the only solution is to deny their birth sex and seek to be the opposite of their essence.
Les celebrate difference, lets protect gender variance as fundamental to a healthy sex identify…
December 26th, 2006 at 12:02 am
Chip, I’ve read your comment twice, and I still have no clue what point you’re trying to make. You say you want to “protect gender variance,” but you also seem to take a really hard-core bodies=gender stance. In other words, testicles make someone a man, not the millions of other things that denote a man in most cultures. So a man who loses his balls due to cancer is no longer a man, in your book. Also not sure what your problem with Judith Butler is, since she’s one of the greatest proponents of “protecting gender variance.” I just get the impression you don’t like transgender people for some reason.
December 27th, 2006 at 11:43 am
There’s a recent study that found that the hormone/anti-hormone therapies used by transsexuals changed brain structures.
Brain structures are far more plastic then what people give credit for. People recovering from strokes and so on show that the brain can rewire itself.
Perhaps the combination of hormones and resocialization can create physiological changes in people’s brains.
Also, the sample listed below consisted of younger people. The question is what kind of changes would one see in older people.
_______________
Eur J Endocrinol. 2006 Nov;155 Suppl 1:S107-14.
Changing your sex changes your brain: influences of testosterone and estrogen on adult human brain structure.
Hulshoff Pol HE, Cohen-Kettenis PT, Van Haren NE, Peper JS, Brans RG, Cahn W, Schnack HG, Gooren LJ, Kahn RS.
Department of Psychiatry, Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, University Medical Center Utrecht, A01.126, Heidelberglaan 100, 3584 CX Utrecht, The Netherlands.
OBJECTIVE: Sex hormones are not only involved in the formation of reproductive organs, but also induce sexually-dimorphic brain development and organization. Cross-sex hormone administration to transsexuals provides a unique possibility to study the effects of sex steroids on brain morphology in young adulthood. METHODS: Magnetic resonance brain images were made prior to, and during, cross-sex hormone treatment to study the influence of anti-androgen + estrogen treatment on brain morphology in eight young adult male-to-female transsexual human subjects and of androgen treatment in six female-to-male transsexuals. RESULTS: Compared with controls, anti-androgen + estrogen treatment decreased brain volumes of male-to-female subjects towards female proportions, while androgen treatment in female-to-male subjects increased total brain and hypothalamus volumes towards male proportions. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that, throughout life, gonadal hormones remain essential for maintaining aspects of sex-specific differences in the human brain.
PMID: 17074982 [PubMed - in process]
December 30th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
The problem is that there is very little good scientific evidence for a biological cause to TS. But there’s none that contradicts it, or supports any other hypothesis. Also, given that every other sexually dimorphic organ in the body has a rate of misgendering on the order of 10e-4, we would have to ask what makes the brain “specially protected”.
There are also a very few cases where apparently TS people have spontaneously changed apparent gender. Most of these cases are from the IS condition 5ARD, FtoM at puberty, but there’s a handful where the cause is ideopathic, MtoF at andropause. At least 3 different mechanisms have been identified, but the phenomenon is not well understood.
Finally there’s the study showing a rate of Gender Dysphoria amongst 46xy individuals exposed to the drug DES in the womb of 1 in 5.
As for me - I had Gender Affirmation Surgery 6 weeks ago. I have 46xy chromosomes, but you can’t call it a Sex Change as that would require normal male genitalia. But even the surgeon was surprised to find I had a female pattern pubic bone.
I knew I was a girl since about age 7 - pretty typical for TS women. But when you have the body of a thickset rugby player, there doesn’t seem much point complaining. Had I not been one of the women whose bodies change from M to F spontaneously (though incompletely, alas) in their 40’s, I’d still be doing the male act.
December 31st, 2006 at 10:20 am
THere’s a recent review article on this topic.
Horm Behav. 2006 Nov;50(4):589-601. Epub 2006 Jul 25.
The biology of human psychosexual differentiation.
* Gooren L.
Department of Endocrinology, Vrije Universiteit medical center, PO Box 7057, 1007 MB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. ljgooren@asianet.co.th
Most attempts to identify biological underpinnings of gender identity and sexual orientation in humans have investigated effects of sex steroids, so pivotal in the differentiation of the genitalia, showing strong parallels between animals and the human. The information on humans is derived from the so-called ‘experiments of nature’, clinical entities with a lesser-than-normal androgen exposure in XY subjects and a higher than normal androgen exposure in XX subjects. Prenatal androgenization appears to predispose to a male gender identity development, but apparently not decisively since 40-50% of 46,XY intersexed children with a history of prenatal androgen exposure do not develop a male gender identity. Obviously, male-to-female transsexuals, with a normal androgen exposure prenatally (there is no serious evidence to the contrary) develop a female gender identity, through unknown biological mechanisms apparently overriding the effects of prenatal androgens. The latest studies in 46, XX subjects exposed to prenatal androgens show that prenatal androgenization of 46,XX fetuses leads to marked masculinization of later gender-related behavior but does not lead to gender confusion/dysphoria. The example of female-to-male transsexuals, without evidence of prenatal androgen exposure, indicates that a male gender identity can develop without a significant androgen stimulus. So we are far away from any comprehensive understanding of hormonal imprinting on gender identity formation. Brain studies in homosexuals have not held up in replication studies or are in need of replication in transsexuals. Genetic studies and the fraternal birth order hypothesis provide indications of familial clustering of homosexuality but in many homosexuals these genetic patterns cannot be identified. The biological explanations advanced for the birth order hypothesis lack any experimental support.
PMID: 16870186 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
May 26th, 2007 at 11:27 am
What a thought provoking post, thank you.