(01-01-2014, 03:48 AM)AnnabelP Wrote: The question of male and female brains is one which I have discussed to some extent with my wife who sometimes claims to have a male brain and sometimes denies it, whereas I tend to think that I have a partially female brain. If it is correct that the brain of the fetus is initially not gender differentiated, and in genetic males there is a stage in fetal development during which the brain is masculinised, then if this process fails or is incomplete, the male concerned will be wholly or partially transgendered. In such a case I don't think we are dealing with femininisation of the brain, but with failure to develop some or all of the characteristics that will develop into typical male brain functionality. So it seems to me more pertinent for males with gender issues to ask ourselves which male characteristics are missing or deficient, rather than which female characteristics we have. For women with gender variance, I presume that some parts of their fetal brain may have been masculinised, and it is reasonable to query which parts. This difference may possibly account for gender variant behaviour in females being apparently more societally acceptable than such behaviour in male. In the first case it may be seen as something added, but in the second as something missing. In my own case I find it much easier to define the typically male characteristics that are deficient or missing in my brain than to point to specifically female characteristics. On the other hand I have little difficulty in recognizing some male mental characteristics in my wife.
This approach does not conflict with the article you reference since the fetal brain characteristics probably only program how adult gender characteristics are developed responsive to the environment in which a child matures.
I was wondering when someone would comment on this article. Thank you, Annabel. Your insights got me thinking more about male and female brains and how brain structure differences affect us transgendered.
The statement in the article:
"In childhood, we did not see much difference" between male and female, Dr. Verma said. "Most of the changes we see start happening in adolescence. That is when most of the male-female differences come about."
That seems to indicate that hormones, again, are doing their magic, not only producing the visible secondary sex characteristics, such as facial hair growth and upper body strength in boys, and breast growth and widening of the hips in girls, but also the invisible sex characteristics that are determined by brain wiring, such as verbal aptitude in girls, and spacial aptitude in boys. I'm talking about differences in the aggregate, of course.
On the other hand, if you talk to the parents of boys and girls, you will often hear about the obvious differences they see in the behaviors of boys and girls well before puberty. As a parent, myself, of two boys and a girl, I can attest to this.
Clearly there are significant differences in the formation of male and female brains during fetal development that are not showing up in the brain scans of these researchers.
I want to believe that one's gender identity is largely determined in the fetal development stage under hormonal influence. These other differences in the brain wiring of boys and girls come about later, influenced by one's environment, but still under the powerful influence of sex hormones during puberty. It explains a lot.
If a child whose birth-assigned sex is male, but whose gender sense is female, is allowed to mature naturally under the influence of testosterone, the brain develops with a male characteristic structure in adolescence. But, if hormone blocking drugs are administered early in the life of the transgender child, so that the effects of testosterone are not allowed to produce male secondary sex characteristics, it follows that the characteristic brain wiring of males would also be blocked, making it possible for the transgirl to develop the more characteristic brain structure of a female when estrogen is introduced.
Thus, many late transitioning males, are not only hampered by having to live with many permanent male physical attributes, e.g., big hands, broad shoulders, they also have to live with a brain that has already developed into that characteristic of males (except for her gender sense). That explains why HRT doesn't have any substantial affect on one's basic personality or mental abilities in the transitioning process.
I think it's wonderful that science is finally making progress to understand this most complex part of us humans, the brain, which has been cloaked in mystery and superstition since the beginning of man's existence.
CK
