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Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

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Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#21

Post by mccr8 »

chroma wrote: post #9
csours wrote: post #2

I had a (male) colleague once argue with me that men and women had no differences in mentality due to testosterone. The desire to believe in equality is weird sometimes. To be clear, I don't think there is any difference in generic mental abilities due to gender / sex, but it seems clear that brains would be affected by hormonal differences - for instance I have a thyroid deficiency, and I can really feel it when I'm…

Did your colleague know about mental rotation tests?[1] Men perform significantly better than women at these. And among men, mental rotation ability is correlated with testosterone levels.[2] I could see your buddy arguing that culture was responsible for behavioral differences such as violent tendencies, but the same dismissal can't be made of this test. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_rotation 2. http://www…

As esailija posted elsewhere in this thread, at least one study has shown that gender differences in mental rotation tasks can be eliminated through training.

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#22

Post by peterwwillis »

It's unfortunate that changes in the brain is all they studied. If you have 18 people who are undergoing this transition, it would be useful to document any other changes and note them as candidates for further study.

For example, many people will remark on an increased sex drive (not a surprise considering the testosterone), but the way people actually think about and treat the opposite gender seems to change as well. It would suggest that testosterone has a part to play in the development of gendered social structures. But who knows?

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#23

Post by BurningFrog »

esailija wrote: post #19
BurningFrog wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitely differences in both generic mental abilities and what fields interest people between the sexes. From an evolutionary biology perspective, it would be really weird if there weren't. To be clear, men and women are equally mentally gifted as a whole, but focused on different skills, and with bigger variance in men. Pinker's "Blank Slate" lays out the case well: http://www.amazon.com/The-Blank-Slate-…

You mean evolutionary psychology , not biology. The former is basically a pseudoscience and the latter makes no such claims.

I'm not even saying this is an established scientific claim, only that it would be really weird if the statistical differences between men and women were 100% outside of the brain, given how different the evolutionary pressures are.

Evolutionary psychology does have some problems :) It's easy to tell dazzling and believable stories in that frame, but much harder to prove them empirically.

I think some real science is being done in the field, but I agree that when people make EP arguments on the internet, you need to apply a lot of skepticism.

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#24

Post by no1ne »

esailija wrote: post #18
chroma wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With mental rotation, there is practically no overlap. See the graph from the original study.[1] It's a similar story for physical strength. Nobody denies that men tend to be stronger than women, but most people vastly underestimate the disparity. In a study that measured grip strength in 2,000 people[2], the weakest 5% of men were comparable to the top decile of women. Even elite female athletes were only as strong…

There's plenty of studies that debunk the mental rotation myth: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100915080431.ht... http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angelica_Moe/publication... There's also a study showing the field of neuroscience having a tendency to make unsupported and untested claims to confirm stereotypes http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12152-012-9169-1

http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2015/08/scien... Is this also stereotypical? Read what the researcher(a woman by the way)had to say. For 20 years, she actively avoided studying sex differences in the brain until her own data showed her that differences between females and males were real. Let science be about cold-hard facts and let it not be muddied by "feelings".

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#25

Post by oldmanjay »

esailija wrote: post #18
chroma wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With mental rotation, there is practically no overlap. See the graph from the original study.[1] It's a similar story for physical strength. Nobody denies that men tend to be stronger than women, but most people vastly underestimate the disparity. In a study that measured grip strength in 2,000 people[2], the weakest 5% of men were comparable to the top decile of women. Even elite female athletes were only as strong…

There's plenty of studies that debunk the mental rotation myth: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100915080431.ht... http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angelica_Moe/publication... There's also a study showing the field of neuroscience having a tendency to make unsupported and untested claims to confirm stereotypes http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12152-012-9169-1

there's a pretty big difference between "debunk[ing] the ... myth" and showing the effect is real and can be reduced via training. in particular, your second link says the differences are probably real in its conclusion!

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#26

Post by BurningFrog »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #6

Beautiful example of politics driving research. They only studied something they knew was a disadvantage for males, while the first thing everybody is curious about is how the IQ changed, if it changed: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/dr-paul-i...

It's a little weird to say males have higher IQ on average.

As I understand it (I'm not an IQ expert, just some internet know-it-all), women score better on some categories of questions, as do men, so when you put together a test, you try to make sure it balances out so both get the same average.

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#27

Post by 336f5 »

csours wrote: post #2

I had a (male) colleague once argue with me that men and women had no differences in mentality due to testosterone. The desire to believe in equality is weird sometimes. To be clear, I don't think there is any difference in generic mental abilities due to gender / sex, but it seems clear that brains would be affected by hormonal differences - for instance I have a thyroid deficiency, and I can really feel it when I'm…

> The desire to believe in equality is weird sometimes.

It's not that weird. If you look back in the HN archives, you can find one or two submissions from transsexual authors who argue, essentially, that after changing genders, they were discriminated against more, and that this proves that society/Silicon Valley/etc must be extremely sexist & discriminatory because nothing else about them changed; many of the HN commenters agreed with the claims.

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#28

Post by esailija »

oldmanjay wrote: post #25
esailija wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of studies that debunk the mental rotation myth: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100915080431.ht... http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angelica_Moe/publication... There's also a study showing the field of neuroscience having a tendency to make unsupported and untested claims to confirm stereotypes http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12152-012-9169-1

there's a pretty big difference between "debunk[ing] the ... myth" and showing the effect is real and can be reduced via training. in particular, your second link says the differences are probably real in its conclusion!

The myth is that the differences (in mental rotation ability) are innate or "biological", not that there is differences (in mental rotation ability) in the first place.

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#29

Post by [deleted] »

no1ne wrote: post #24
esailija wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of studies that debunk the mental rotation myth: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100915080431.ht... http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Angelica_Moe/publication... There's also a study showing the field of neuroscience having a tendency to make unsupported and untested claims to confirm stereotypes http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12152-012-9169-1

http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2015/08/scien... Is this also stereotypical? Read what the researcher(a woman by the way)had to say. For 20 years, she actively avoided studying sex differences in the brain until her own data showed her that differences between females and males were real. Let science be about cold-hard facts and let it not be muddied by "feelings".

[deleted]

Re: Research: testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals [pdf]

#30

Post by no1ne »

esailija wrote: post #28
oldmanjay wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's a pretty big difference between "debunk[ing] the ... myth" and showing the effect is real and can be reduced via training. in particular, your second link says the differences are probably real in its conclusion!

The myth is that the differences (in mental rotation ability) are innate or "biological", not that there is differences (in mental rotation ability) in the first place.

>> myth is that the differences are innate or "biological"

erm...please read

1. Genomic differences between developing male and female brains in the womb-- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150203190223.ht...

and if you still feel that somehow humans try to gender stereotype whilst the fetus are still in the wombs, then read this also-

2.Sex differences in rhesus monkey toy preferences parallel those of children-- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/

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