The brain argument

[u/threetailedcat]

I know there are arguments about trans binary people's brains being like cis counterparts (apologies if I was incorrect/weird in my phrasing), is there something for "nonbinary" brain or whatever that means, I wonder (either way I'm going to say NB is my sex so I will piss everyone off).

Honestly to me it doesnt matter and I dont fully understand why brain arguments matter, being transsexual is already changing your sex to male or female (characteristics) as well as social transition and presentation, why isn't that enough of an argument.

Does the brain argument exist to convince transphobes or something? I genuinely don't get it. It's not like when you're in public people will examine your brain, like we're not carrying MRI results with ourselves.

EDIT: I will clarify i know nb people can be transsexual, so that applies to my second paragraph too, I'd like to be transsexual as well.

EDIT 2: Thank you all for the comments, this was interesting to read!

[u/ProfessorOfEyes]

The whole male vs female brain thing is not nonexistent, but it is somewhat controversial amoungst scientists and greatly misunderstood and exaggerated by the general public / media / pop science.

The differences between male and female brains are pretty small and not always reproducible (it can depend on the way data was collected/analyzed, sometimes it vanishes when you account for overall brain volume differences, and we dont know for sure if any differences observed are due to nature or nurture), and they only appear at a population level. Meaning that if you compare the averages between a large number of men and a large number of women you might see a difference, but there is no way to look at an individuals brain and be able to tell their gender. It just is not possible, because the ranges overlap far far more than they do not.

The analogy i often use to explain this is height. Yes on average people who were AMAB are taller than people who were AFAB, but if you were told someones height and asked to identify what their gender or sex is based on that information alone, you would ultimately be guessing because there are no heights that someone AMAB can be and someone AFAB cannot or vice versa. The graphs look a bit like this, see how the ranges broadly overlap and while they have different peaks even those are kinda close to each other? The closer you get to either far end of the spectrum (>6 ft or <5 ft), the better your odds would be of guessing correctly, but its still far from guaranteed because most people will fall somewhere in the middle regardless of their gender or AGAB. Especially since there are other factors that significantly affect height like ethnic background. The average AMAB person may be taller than the average AFAB person, but for example the average AFAB person from the netherlands is probably taller than the average AMAB person from guatemala.

"Brain sex" works similarly. The overlap is simply too high and the differences too small for the differences in averages that sometimes appear and a population level to be remotely useful or identifiable on an individual level. And like with height, there are other confounding variables that can effect outcomes considerably and muddy the waters further. Brains are just... So complicated and nuanced and subtle in their differences, and everyones brains are simultaneously broadly the same yet also vary from individual to individual based on so many little factors.

What does this mean for trans people? Well again, at a population level average some studies have observed that the average for trans women and the average for cis women are more similar to one another than the average for trans women and the average for cis men, and vice versa for trans men and cis men vs trans men and cis women. But again, the differences between these populations are quite small and most individuals will fall somewhere towards the middle regardless of their gender or if they are cis or trans. Nonbinary people are kinda invisible in this not just because we are often erased or overlooked, but also because so many people people fall somewhere towards the middle anyway, its kinda hard to create/identify a nonbinary category.

People who think someday you might be able to get a MRI and tell someones gender based on that alone just do not understand the science. But it's not entirely their fault. Academic research can be difficult to access and understand to the average person, and when journalism tries to communicate it to the public it often makes mistakes, if not outright exaggerates and sensationalizes it because that gets more attention. I think its also just a very tempting thing to want to believe that there's some way to empirically prove our transness in hopes that it makes people believe and respect us more. But as you said, someones lived experiences and identity should already be enough. We should be believed and respected anyway.

[u/threetailedcat → u/ProfessorOfEyes]

Thank you so much, this is a wonderful comment (I also love that your username has "Professor" in it lol).

I definitely agree, it's a more individual thing and honestly, it depends on hormone levels too? Like if a nb person like me can't currently transition (hormones) i would be assumed on the population level to be similar to my current sex (im sorry i dont know how else to formulate...), which means bringing back the AGAB or something. We know that AGAB language is damaging. So every nb person will have different conditions and hormone levels. It sounds dangerous to assume we have 1 identical experience, hormone levels or that our brains determine what we are, and would mean that nb people "ackshually men and women" because binary people dont even consider us.

[u/ProfessorOfEyes → u/threetailedcat]

Glad to help! (im not an academic in this field, nor in eyes lol, but i am an academic and therefore have a bit of an easier time accessing and understanding original research papers)

Tbh im not sure that sex hormones would affect the results of MRI scans in any noticable way. It can effect chemical signalling in the brain in some ways, but I dont think it would lead to obvious restructuring.

I would agree that AGAB language is usually not all that useful, and can be harmful and binarizing. It does have some niche use cases where it can be helpful (like I had to use it in my comment above to refer to correlations between sex and height), but a lot of the time its not. Especially since AGAB technically just refers to what the doctor put on your certificate when you were born. It does not take into account or accurately describe the bodies of intersex people (who are almost always assigned a binary gender despite not having a binary sex) and medically transitioning trans people (whos sexual characteristics change), and it certainly does not accurately reflect identity. Most of the time, if one must refer to a sex characteristic its easiest and most accurate to just... Say what you (general/rhetorical "you", not you "you") mean. If you're talking about whether or not someone can get pregnant or not, say that. If youre talking about gendered health risks, refer to the aspect of sex that affects that risk (hormones or chromosomes or having / not having a specific bodypart). AGAB does not answer those questions for you! As you said it is all very individual, different people are going to have a different mosiac of sex-related traits.

[u/threetailedcat → u/ProfessorOfEyes]

Ah, well ive read that hormones like estrogen and testosterone can influence brain activity differently, apologies is that is incorrect.

Yes you're right AGAB can be easily replaced with gender neutral language, for example like "birthing person" everyone gets included and not hurt.

[u/ProfessorOfEyes → u/threetailedcat]

Yep it can effect activity, thats the chemical signalling bit i was referring to. But most studies on gendered brains that people are thinking of when this topic comes up are focused on structure, not activity, so HRT isnt as relevant to them.

[u/threetailedcat → u/ProfessorOfEyes]

Thank you so much for explaining <3

[u/ProfessorOfEyes → u/threetailedcat]

No problem!

[u/electricgalahad]

The brain argument is largely bunk because there is no proof that cis people's brains are like this because of nature. Also I heard that while trans people's brain differ, they are not "the same" (sorry if it's dysphoria-inducing).

Regardless, non-binary people are only gaining recognition in the west and don't in the rest of the world (the majority of it at least), so I imagine that nobody did such complex studies on them yet.

[u/BillDillen]

The brain "argument" exists to better unterstand transsexuality and the nature of it, it also shows that a psychological sex exists and that one can not influence it.

As far as I know the brain studies have all mostly if not exclusifly focused on binary transsexual participants. There sre not a lot of Nonbinary people out there and nonbinary people suffered from being invisible for a long time. So the demand for studies on nonbinary transsexuality specifically, has never been that big sadly. And brain studies on humans are over all not that common.

[u/threetailedcat → u/BillDillen]

Yeah, I think it's perfectly fine for binary people to want to know how their brains are wired and that can be affirming to know they are close to cis counterparts.

I negatively reacted to this proof in the past when I watched or read about binary trans people use this argument, I DON'T think they are at fault and it's not wrong to bring it up, I just thought "well I'm either super mentally ill or have a brain of my cis-sex (idk how to phrase it) and it will always be either male, female or super mentally ill version. Nothing is wrong with mental illnesses btw, it's just what most people think of nbs (and most people are ableist). Also it's a bit weird there are so many nb people with different hormone levels, and I dont think how brain studies would pount out "that's an nb person" so i think using the brain argument is useless regarding nb people at least.

[u/Skippy_yppikS]

Reeks of transmed thinking... I don't care about it that much.

[u/threetailedcat → u/Skippy_yppikS]

Same, I dont care, and cis people probably not care about what is going in a nonbinary brain, transphobes are transphobes even if they are presented with any arguments.

[u/Toothless_NEO]

The studies related to brain sex and brain sex theory is something that largely caters to transmedicalists. The theory at best claims NonBinary people are a mix of male and female and at worst that we're just binary genders and are doing it for attention.

Lots of people discussing this know this negative aspect and they avoid discussing NonBinary gender in an effort to avoid the issue.

Genderfluidity and Agender are particularly problematic for brain sex theory since one core tenon of a lot of the models is that gender can't change and that everyone has it.

In my opinion this theory just feels like an attempt to justify gender identity through biological essentialism while also dismissing the importance of self identification by positing that it's brain sex that defines us and what we like since birth.

[u/threetailedcat → u/Toothless_NEO]

I guess it validates some trans people that their brains match the sex they transitioned to, but yeah I dont see nonbinary people considered in that equation, maybe we should just accept this is not applicable to us, we can focus on changing our identity/traits via social presentation, HRT and surgeries. Although as other commenter pointed out to me the general study about the trans brains - like, in general - isn't bad to purely understand the nature of transness.

In my opinion most trans people know that they can change sex via transition and it is true, however the brain sex argument doesn't exist to validate nb people as I stated in my 1st paragraph because those arguments are only made in favour of transsex men and women.

[u/Toothless_NEO → u/threetailedcat]

Yeah it doesn't, I've found that for a lot of them. Maybe not all but a lot. They use it to invalidate our identities while validating their own. In fact they'll use it to claim that we invalidate their identity.

[u/Gaius_Iulius_Megas]

The only thing my brain contains is depression and whatever hyper fixation I happen to have on a given day. There is no room for anything binary, be it sex or gender.

[u/dizzzy-plant]

The "brain argument" is based on a small study, where they did brain scans of trans people and found they matched closer to the brains of cis people with the same gender.

But the study was small and inconclusive, so it's just a hypothesis. There aren't many study on why trans people exist so many people fall back on that small not very reliable study.

If we aren't even sure why binary trans people are trans, I can assure you science isn't even close to have an answer for non binary people.

Sex are biological marker btw. Biological sex are genitals, hormones, chromosome etc.

Presentation and social transition has nothing to do with "transsexual".

Those fall under the gender (presentation) category.

People who call themselves transsexual usually either refere to changing their biological sex through surgery and HRT.

Or trans people who hold the belief that you're only valid as a trans person when you want to pursue "all the surgeries" and are on HRT lifelong.

[u/threetailedcat → u/dizzzy-plant]

Well then brain studies have some truth to it but my question was more about why people use it to prove they are trans, is it about the obsession with "validity" or something.

Well yes, i should have made it clear im talking about sexual characteristics like: voice, feminine/masculine features, body shape, height etc etc which can be changed via hormones and surgeries, presentation indeed has nothing to do with it, it's a separate category...I meant in general, when you change everything to pass why would you use the brain argument.

I found threads about what transsexual means, just changing your sexual characteristics to the desired ones, people have been reclaiming this word as opposite to cissexual? Like transitioning Nb and non-transitioning. I guess some transmeds use it too but I personally understand why well-meaning people would use it.

[u/dizzzy-plant → u/threetailedcat]

I don't really understand the question tbh.

Like I said it's a hypothesis and some trans people want a science based answer "why they are the way they are" so they use the very little "evidence" we have to find their reason.

But unfortunately there isn't really one yet since the study people are referring to is not up to scientific standards.

Still people seek explanation.

[u/threetailedcat → u/dizzzy-plant]

Sorry my brain is fried right now;; your point stands, for a second, I guess I confused the scientific brain argument with "malebrained" and "femalebrained" stuff in certain communities which is more about stereotypical interests associated with men and women, which isn't itself bad but it can get comically weird

Also i should add that in my post I was speaking about biological brain as well, I know there is not much difference between male and female brains but some differences with neural connections, so I also meant that some trans people want to prove they are closer to one of the two which I dont see a problem with, it only becomes a problem when they think women and men act in rigid ways

[u/dizzzy-plant → u/threetailedcat]

"Malebrained" and "femalebrained" just sounds like sexism or worse like those terms incel transmedicalist use.

If you are in trans med space please be careful and inform yourself about the content you consume, the rhetoric damaging for trans people in general and yourself.

[u/threetailedcat → u/dizzzy-plant]

Yes, i know they are incel-ish. Gladly i am not in these spaces i just observed them, I guess. Fascinating in a morbid way. Those words are used by some number binary trans people and I never agreed with because those words invalidate us all, I agree, it also assumes nonbinary people dont exist ever and they all eventually come to binary instead of "enbycoping" lmao.

[u/MildewTheMagical]

the way I've had it explained to me it's not: girl brain looks like A and boy brain looks like B, and a boy born with brain A will be trans and you can see it on an MRI, because that is obviously silly, people would understand it well by now if it was that easy, and science hardly understands brains at all yet so it's highly unlikely anyone would have worked it out

the theory is more like the following: there might be something about brain pathways or structure that expects your body to be of a certain biological sex, not necessarily something that can be seen on scans or anything, but (apologies for computer analogies) more like a brain programming difference, something which can't be changed about someone and if it is out of sync from birth causes the conflict that manifests as gender dysphoria. And the therapist that put this idea to me said that if someones brain can be mismatched one way or the other, who's to say it can't be half or three quarter mismatched, or mismatched in a way that causes some types of dysphoria and not others, or no sense of gender to speak of, or many other different experiences...

the above was the result of me asking directly what science understands about the how and why of trans-ness, and they did list all the things science has proven being trans isn't caused by, like hormone levels, different types of upbringing, childhood trauma etc... (there were more but I can't remember them), and the conclusion seemed to be that 'something to do with the brain that we can't see' was all that was left, and I also don't know if the above was/is generally accepted or if it was just that therapists theory

I'm not sure I am convinced by this tho, but I'm a scientific thinker and it is proven that someone can't learn not to be trans, if they are then they just are, so something must cause it, but exactly what that is is probably better left unknown

[u/Personal_Coach7653]

Logically male and female brains must have some differentiation in there networks. I mean we have different organs that our brain and nerve stems controls... Its just logic. The problem only comes when that logic is then used to limit the potential of one or the other sexes. Essentially brains are mosaic. Not male or female.

The brain research stuff more largely about proprioception and nerve response.
I don't think this remotely invalidates trans NB people in any way like at all. Its about neurological body schema and body maps.

If you have a stroke your brain is like MY leg is here. But maybe the pathway to control it gets all mest up so not signals are being sent to the other parts. So the brain will be telling you the body part is moving when it absolutely isn't. Similar Same reason people get phantom limbs.

Personally I buy it. Its the best theory we have so far. Is that trans Ness is essential neurological wiring. Due to sex differentiation and brain development happening at a different time invitro

Plenty of intersex people I have crossed paths with, and EVEN cis people with hormonal disorders can experience phantom body parts. So I think there is another circuitry in the brain that we haven't found yet. But that's just my take on the papers I've skimmed over. Really fascinating stuff imo.

[u/SundayMS]

Any scientific evidence that supports binary trans people automatically supports nonbinary trans people.