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Comment by artichokes | Hacker News Reader

Can someone tell me where this breaks down?

1. Testosterone and estrogen have an influence on mental characteristics like disposition, interests, and motivations.

2. Male and female bodied people have on average significantly different levels of testosterone and estrogen.

3. Therefore, male and female bodied people will on average have differences in mental characteristics like disposition, interests, and motivations.

I understand that 3 does not follow from 1 and 2, but have not been able to figure out the reason why.

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You are struggling with this because believing there is no difference between the mental characteristics of men and women on average is to be in denial of reality.

I think maybe this is a hard pill to swallow for many people because we have proven over and over that we can't trust each other to both know this AND still treat everyone, regardless of how we may be able to classify them, as an individual and to judge each individual by their own actions, desires, and capabilities rather than by the average characteristics of whatever bucket we happen to be considering them to be in at the time.

That's not the difficult part for me, it would easily just be another Bayesian prior like occupation, style of dress, language, etc. It's just that the odds of me being right and everyone else in the world being wrong about such a simple, universally understood thing are so unlikely that it's almost certain that my reasoning is wrong.

It is almost universally accepted (outside of a few small echo chambers), men ("male bodied people") and women ("female bodied people") do have, on average, differing interests and propensities. Are you under the impression this isn't the case?

I’ve seen a few people on the internet who believe there are differences, but I’ve never met one in real life. And not for small sample size- the fact that there aren’t differences has always been a common topic of conversation in every social setting I’ve been in- my classrooms, workplaces, hanging out with friends, etc. It’s amounted to hundreds (thousands?) of people who know that there are not mental differences between sexes, and none who believe there are. Every family member, every girlfriend, every professor, every coworker, etc.

But none of been willing to explain to me why we know this; when I ask they think I’m trying to make a rhetorical argument that here are differences, and react poorly. I’ve stopped asking them.

There are many more sex hormones than estrogen and testosterone.

For example on the androgenic side there is DHT, androstenedione, DHEA, A5, etc. On the estrogenic side there is estetrol, estrodiol, estrone, etc.

DNA encoding in males and females also alters the quantity of non-sex related hormones like T3, T4, TSH in the thyroid for example.

Men and women are indeed different in metal characteristics, but it is often difficult to pinpoint one specific hormone as the cause.

Many hormones influence the release of other hormones. For example, testosterone is converted to estrogen in side of fat cells through a process called aromatization. So a male with too much testosterone, may end up with too much estrogen as well. DHT another androgenic hormone is also converted from testosterone, and testosterone itself is created out of fats in your blood stream.

Many of these hormones are signaling hormones for things like stress, libido, anxiety, etc. A combination of these is what makes up characteristics of a person's personality.

It’s well known and uncontroversial that higher levels of testerone (e.g. average male levels) promote muscle growth, bone density, etc. Testosterone is obviously a huge component of what makes men able to build muscle faster than women.

But just because testosterone defficiency in a male (below normal range) can lead to anxiety and depression in some men and exogenous testosterone therapy which brings levels back to baseline shows some evidence of alleviating the depressive and anxiety symptoms, does not mean anything for baseline characterstics of otherwise healthy men or woman.

Hormones obviously have a huge impact on human mood. I think it’s under-studied how dramatic an effect hormone imbalances can actually have, and how to effectively alter hormone levels to successfully improve mood. Seratonin for example is a neurotransmitter but I think can also be considered a hormone, and we’ve all heard of SSRIs.

Mens and women's bodies respond to these hormones differently. It's why people who have a y chromosome but who have complete androgen insensitivity syndrome are women. The level of testosterone or estrogen does not matter; only how you respond to it

Don’t trans people take the hormones associated with the opposite sex to become more like that sex? I.e. a male-bodied transwoman will take estrogen, and in turn her body becomes more feminine. The reverse for transmen.

That would seem to indicate that testosterone/estrogen have (on average) the same response in both male and female bodies, either masculinizing or feminizing.

> Don’t trans people take the hormones associated with the opposite sex to become more like that sex?

This is correct. Although there's only so much they can do for those of us transitioning post-puberty (like me) once bones have fused and stopped growing.

As testosterone is stronger than oestrogen, it will override the oestrogen in your body and bring about masculinising changes such as making your adams apple more prominent changing your voice box, a V-shaped upper body, facial structure, body hair, hand and feet size, larger bones, and higher hip growth. Whereas if you only have oestrogen, these effects don't occur at all - really only just wider hip growth.

#3 is kinda hinky.

Yes, there are differences between men and women - physical and emotional. But they also respond differently to hormones. When men have low levels of testosterone, they may get a bit depressed; but those "low" levels of T are far higher than what any woman will ever experience, even women who are thriving. So it's pretty clear that male and female brains do not react the same way to these things.

> So it's pretty clear that male and female brains do not react the same way to these things.

Give the man suffering low testosterone some oestrogen and progesterone, and their mood will lift and vice-versa. Low hormone levels result in depressive symptoms, not what type they are.

Society. Nature does not dictate everything- nurture has a role to play as well. We're constantly being shaped by our environments, from friends to parents to media.

How much of our personalities is due to nature and how much is due to nurture is, as far as I am aware, not figured out. It is a very hard problem to separate those influences.

Oh no, I totally understand the social influences like everyone does. My issue is that I can’t understand why there aren’t >0 biological/hormone related ones as well.

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