Thread by @delaneykingrox

Let's talk 'brain in a jar' transgender theory.

Okay, so say you are a cisgender male and you get a bionic arm. You are still male.

Lets keep swapping bits out. Cyber eyes- male.
Cyber legs- still male.
Cyber penis- yep, male.

The fact is, you will see yourself as a cisgender male no matter how much of your body is missing or replaced.

Why is that? Because gender identity exists in your brain.

So if we transplant a brain to a full robotic body, he will identify as a he. Ergo, "brain in a jar" theory.

Now there is a question... is it because the brain learned it was male, or is it intrinsic identity?

Actually we have an answer to that.

At one stage in the horrible history of gender, the leading theory was children learn their gender from experience.

When boys suffered a destroyed penis during a mistake in circumcision, they where given surgery to give them vulvas. The parents where instructed to never...

...tell the children and raise them as girls.

The results where overwhelmingly, amazing positive... until a doctor whose own results contradicted those of the study looked in on the kids.

The results, it turns out, were faked. It had been a disaster.

Look up John Money and Milt Diamond for the full, tragic story.

The kids suffered horrible dysphoria and suicides occurred.

The result is that gender identity is nature, not nurture.

This upholds what was established by psychiatrists before, that gender identity disorder patients could not be 'cured' by psychotherapy. It seemed intrinsic.

Further neuroscience studies concluded that transgender brains more closely matched the gender they...

...identified with when examining parts of the brain such as the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.

Further studies showed rats gendered behaviours could be flipped by exposure of hormones during fetal development.

Brains do seem to have an innate sense of gender.

So we know that a human brain in a robot body would have a sense of gender identity.

Now, if I introduce you to a robot bodied human, is it human?

Yes, unquestionably.

Is it the gender it says it is?

Yes. Unquestionably.

So you have a brain set up with a female gender identity, walking around in a robot body... it is female.

Same goes for our meat sack bodies.

You steer the body development (which we CAN change) to match the brain development (which we CANNOT change) and align the individual

So we know that:

A: brains have gender identity
B: Y chromosomes only effect fetal development of gonads, past that they don't appear to do anything.
C: HRT changes the DNA sequence activated so the body shifts to the required gender.
D: trans women are women. Trans men are men.

As for me, an intersex person... I got dealt a shuffled deck. I choose the cards I play. Not you.

My gender identity is female, and there is zero I can do about that, or you can. It is, and that is it.

My body is mine to shape and customise. Be it robot or flesh.

Let transgender people tune their bodies to their brains. It is the only way they can live in harmony.

Or... yunno... It's all cake.

Want to learn more about the actual science but in layman's terms? Here are some threads.

https://twitter.com/delaneykingrox/status/1136072085044846593?s=19

And what the difference between gender identity, gender expression, gender roles is. Because heaping them all into 'Gender' leads to dumb arguements.

https://twitter.com/delaneykingrox/status/1280521362650435584?s=19

So, further few comments:

The Y chromosome (usually but not always) triggers differentiation in the gonads in the FIRST trimester of development.

The brain develops mostly in the THIRD trimester...

Both sets of instructions for making 'male' and 'female' tissues are present in our genome (our entire DNA).

Androgens created (usually but not always) by the gonads flip the 'female' default code to 'male'.

So by the third trimester, you should (but not always) get hormones...

...flooding your body that line up all your cells DNA instructions to those of your gonads. So your brain develops cisgender.... ie, matching your gonads.

But... not always...

If the hormone balance shifts between first and third your brain can develop using different instructions to your groin.

Furthermore, in order for hormones to flip the default to male, your hormone receptors have to be shaped to receive them. A variant can mean they ignore it.

You see this in partial and complete androgen insensitivity syndrome ( PAIS or CAIS ).

Children effected by Diethylestilbestrol also show this.

So yes, tissues in the brain and the groin can mismatch, leading to the dissonance experienced which is currently called "gender dysphoria".

But brain plasticity! I hear some bozo at the back cry.

Yes, brains are very good at rewiring. But not everything. No amount of conversion therapy torture, electrodes in the brain and conditioning affects gender identity.

Horrifically, we know this because people did it.

Again, this is nature/nurture. The nurture aspect is super plastic, we can rewire habits, learn to use new nerve paths to operate limbs and so on. We can even retrain left/right/up/down! (We strapped mirror goggles to students for months) brains are cool.

But...

...gender identity appears to be a deep, core thing... which makes sense as evolution of sex goes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in us.

Can we pinpoint this? Can we rewire it?

This is where you hit an ethical wall. It would require cruel human experimentation.

And for what? You give healthcare to trans people, they transition what they want and their suicide rate returns to closer of that of cisgender folk

I personally would rather live in a world where folk get access to healthcare to deal with their dissonance than have a culture that allows human fetus experimentation for adjusting brain development to align to a false dichotomy.

Call me crazy.

Now, for completions sake, let's cover genderfluid and non-binary identies.

Firstly, these are completely, utterly valid. Gender identities are not binary. It is not a single variable. Brains are far, far more complicated than that.

Because our DNA has instructions that make cells behave in a 'male' or 'female' associated ways (such as secondary sex characteristics in development of fat, muscle and hair) you need to understand that is on a single cell basis. We are made up of tissue, clusters of cells...

...an individual human can have all sorts of tissue developed from hormones shifting or some cells being insensitive to a hormone.

A very clear example of this is in PAIS where people have patches of 'male' typical tissue and 'female' tissue structures in the same body.

A Barr body, such as in humans in XXY klinefelters. You can see this sort of thing visually in a tortoiseshell cat.

So, you see, non-binary amd gender fluid people exist in the same way intersex bodies exist... because a human is made up of many tissues of many cells and is NOT a single binary.

These identities are therefore every bit as valid as binary ones.

The problem is that we don't see funding going into examining non-binary and gender fluidity, studies usually have very small sample sizes and you once again hit that ethics wall.

The lack of scientific data about those identities is more to do with who controls the purse strings.

Not cool

Humans are complicated. The problem with trying to fit us into neat boxes is that you have to cut off parts, and that is inhumane.

Be kind. Read. Learn. Grow.

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