Male and female brains differ at birth
bsd.biomedcentral.com
bsd.biomedcentral.com
Accessible discussion of the results can be found here:
https://studyfinds.org/how-male-and-female-brains-differ-at-...
One can have 100% total brain volume or intracranial volume. If it is not used, it's useles.
Edit: Well I feel like a fool. I opened up and read past the headline. This article is specifically about the differences in babies and acknowledges known differences in adults.
> Sex differences in human brain anatomy have been well-documented, though remain significantly underexplored during early development.
Their claim being that taking medication to suppress testosterone and boost estrogen, as well as having various cosmetic surgeries (castration, inversion of penis, bone/cartilage/soft tissue reshaping of facial features), gives these males a "female body".
Some of these males even claim to no longer be trans as a result of these surgical and pharmaceutical interventions, referring to themselves as "cis women".
The initial studies on this didn't control for sexuality and mostly used subjects who were both homosexual and transsexual. In later studies that also measured sexuality, no correlation of sex atypical brain measurements with trans was found, only with homosexuality.
This is a statement about social identity rather than biology. Transgender people have little or no interest in opening their gray matter or genitals to public scrutiny. It's about respecting the feelings and choices of the individual.
Consider this analogy: suppose that we refused to call people "Christians" who self-identify as Christian but nonetheless ignore or even act in contraction to the teachings of Jesus Christ? As far as I can tell, this would apply to the majority of so-called Christians in the United States. (I personally refer to these people as "Old Testament Christians".)
Many people don't accept that belief, for a variety of reasons, such as viewing that belief as being based upon sexist stereotyping of women and men.
Instead, they understand "woman" and "man" to be the words used to describe, respectively, female and male people who have reached adulthood.
From that perspective, a "trans woman" is simply a man (male) who desires to be a woman (female).
Yes, but debates over the meaning or usage of words are social/philosophical/political issues, not biological issues.
> Many people don't accept that belief, for a variety of reasons, such as viewing that belief as being based upon sexist stereotyping of women and men.
This claim seems questionable. As far as I can tell, the origin of the opposition is mainly religious, and it has come to be political as a consequence of the religious leanings of political parties.
> Instead, they understand "woman" and "man" to be the words used to describe, respectively, female and male people who have reached adulthood.
Yes, but it's unclear how a study of brain matter would change anyone's mind. After all, their definition of female and male always depended on genitals rather than brain composition.
Men vs women can be clearly distinguished in many different ways while keeping their clothes on. Why bother trying to push a narrative that is obviously false? Is it an Emperor's New Clothes situation?
It doesn't come from me. It comes from the people who demand purely biological definitions of "man" and "woman".
> It's an argument that tries to say "if you don't agree with me, you're a pervert that just thinks about genitals".
I didn't say anything about perversion.
> Men vs women can be clearly distinguished in many different ways while keeping their clothes on.
Highly inaccurately. For some damn reason, I've been called "ma'am" way too often, for example by grocery and retail store employees. I guess it's because of my height, which is shorter than average. (I don't have long hair, in case you're wondering.) Anyway, it really pisses me off, massive disrespect.
Your analogy fails because there aren't biological differences between people of different faiths. There are real biological differences between males and females, now detectable to the earliest life stages. Surgery and hormones won't change that, so we should drop the "Trans women are women" rhetoric, because the statement is false. It also enables bad behavior like trying to force lesbians to like dick, lest they be called transphobic.
It would be much more productive to come up with a new pithy statement meaning "be nice to people even if you think they're weird".
Note that these are both social issues, not biological issues, and it's possible to have different opinions about the two. There's certainly no biological imperative to have separate sports for men and women; that's simply a social convention. If we look only at men, those who are taller typically have a huge athletic advantage over those who are shorter. Why don't we have separate pro basketball leagues for tall guys and short guys? Even the "shorter" NBA players, usually guards, are almost always taller than the average male. As a shorter than average male myself, I'm dwarfed not only by NBA players but also by WNBA players. Where do I get my fair shot? ;-)
> Your analogy fails because there aren't biological differences between people of different faiths.
As I already said in my previous comment, this is a social issue, not a biological issue. I also elaborated on this in another comment in this same thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42674247
> It also enables bad behavior like trying to force lesbians to like dick, lest they be called transphobic.
I have no idea what you're talking about or where you're getting this stuff.
This is the core of the disagreement argument of the two "camps". What does it mean to call someone a man or a woman.
In a professional sport, the top 1000 athletes on Earth are almost certainly going to be men. But at the recreational level, the genders can be very competitive, and a lot of women will kick your butt.
If brain size alone meant anything, sperm whales and elephants would be rulers of the world. If brain-body proportion alone meant anything, ants would be rulers of the world.
Also, brains at birth and speedy early development can be misleading. Pigeons develop physically and mentally very quickly when born, while crows take much longer to become self-sufficient. Once fully developed, crows are much more intelligent than pigeons. If anything, there may generally be an inverse correlation between taking longer to develop and smarts. Humans take years to start walking and feed themselves, while giraffes take less than a minute to take their first steps.
The research linked in this thread is probably useful to experts in the field. Without further expert interpretation, I am not sure what value laymen could glean from this study other than a factoid or two. However, I think my comment and a couple of others may be insightful, so sharing the article to start a conversation is not meritless.
Edit: but now I see that this thread has disappeared from the front page, so I guess letting people discuss it is off the table…
To be fair, this is true of almost every article submitted to HN, even the "tech" articles. Tech is a massive field with countless subspecialties.
? How many % women are employed at Microsoft, Google or Apple ? Are the women to blame that Windows, Android and iOS are crap ?
I don't remember but it is more than the average in the rest of the industry.
>Are the women to blame that Windows, Android and iOS are crap ?
Generally not, and neither are men as a whole as you seem to imply.