OK Huggy let me explain the context of the brain scans.
At the moment, unless you are going to dissect brains, the only thing you can talk about in terms of brain scans is how large a specific area is compared to some other reference. So for example how much white or grey matter. That's all. We do not have the resolution to say anything better than that. Overtime dissection studies will show us other differences, and the very first differences were found this way. But this is slow work even if there were plenty of donated brains to choose from money to perform the research. Add to that our lack of understand of how the brain actually works, we're limited in what we can do at the moment except to point and say that bit is bigger than that bit.
Brains are plastic which means that they adapt. Neurons re-connect with each other, some areas become more developed over time through use, much like muscles if you exercise them. So for example the the hippocampus the area responsible for spatial learning gets larger over time in taxi drivers.
There are innate differences between typically male and female brains, but that doesn't mean to say that all male brains share exactly all the same typically male characteristics or all female brains share all typically female characteristics. There is a mix. Society also tends to enforce these differences and because people tend to continue to do what they are good at, they get better at it. This is the nurture part.
There are ways that the brain is not plastic. This is the nature part. Neuroscience can't yet tell us exactly which is why. So for example young boys tend to prefer to play one way, girls another.
No one is saying that transsexuals have wholly the same brain as the gender they claim, it would be unreasonable to do so because they haven't always lived the life in the gender they identify as. In the same way that if you take a young cisgendered girl and raise her as a boy her brain will be different from other girls her same age, but she will still be a girl, still identify as a girl and still think like a girl. This is because she will have developed other skills to a greater or lesser extent.
But despite transgendered people being raised in the gender that they do not identify as, they still have brain scans more typical of the gender that they identify as than their biological sex. This aspect of gender is inherent to their nature and this is why being transgendered is so painful. Their nature is completely at odds with their nurture and this will be reflected in brain scans. This is why it is referred to as gender dysphoria. The only cure is to allow them to live a life in keeping with their nature so they can be who they are.
Understand now?
At the moment, unless you are going to dissect brains, the only thing you can talk about in terms of brain scans is how large a specific area is compared to some other reference. So for example how much white or grey matter. That's all. We do not have the resolution to say anything better than that. Overtime dissection studies will show us other differences, and the very first differences were found this way. But this is slow work even if there were plenty of donated brains to choose from money to perform the research. Add to that our lack of understand of how the brain actually works, we're limited in what we can do at the moment except to point and say that bit is bigger than that bit.
Brains are plastic which means that they adapt. Neurons re-connect with each other, some areas become more developed over time through use, much like muscles if you exercise them. So for example the the hippocampus the area responsible for spatial learning gets larger over time in taxi drivers.
There are innate differences between typically male and female brains, but that doesn't mean to say that all male brains share exactly all the same typically male characteristics or all female brains share all typically female characteristics. There is a mix. Society also tends to enforce these differences and because people tend to continue to do what they are good at, they get better at it. This is the nurture part.
There are ways that the brain is not plastic. This is the nature part. Neuroscience can't yet tell us exactly which is why. So for example young boys tend to prefer to play one way, girls another.
No one is saying that transsexuals have wholly the same brain as the gender they claim, it would be unreasonable to do so because they haven't always lived the life in the gender they identify as. In the same way that if you take a young cisgendered girl and raise her as a boy her brain will be different from other girls her same age, but she will still be a girl, still identify as a girl and still think like a girl. This is because she will have developed other skills to a greater or lesser extent.
But despite transgendered people being raised in the gender that they do not identify as, they still have brain scans more typical of the gender that they identify as than their biological sex. This aspect of gender is inherent to their nature and this is why being transgendered is so painful. Their nature is completely at odds with their nurture and this will be reflected in brain scans. This is why it is referred to as gender dysphoria. The only cure is to allow them to live a life in keeping with their nature so they can be who they are.
Understand now?
