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As always, the "why" quest occupies a lot of my time. It is funner than suicide. :)
So, today I am obsessing on Brain construction and happened upon this Wiki: I think it bears reading for the curious, and those who like to take things apart and throw them in the trash.
Previously, I had read about the strange function of the Hippocampus and the Swedish studies of it regarding GID folk. Well, as it turns out Amygdala may be heavily involved also. No, Amygdala is not some Arab girl, but a part of the human brain silly. Oh, now my imagination has gone rampant. I can most certainly see my next protagonist being named, Amy G Dala. :)
Especially do read the section on Sexual Orientation.
Comments
In regard to your previous blog...
...it certainly has a lot to do with PTSD and traumatology.
Love, Andrea Lena
Well, Amy G Dala
proves that people are born with their mindset and brain chemistry already set.
May Your Light Forever Shine
Why does it matter?
If it was shown to be the definitive cause, what difference would it make other than to reduce human experience to a matter of brain chemistry?
I like to think I'm larger than just the functions of my body and I hope my mind and ego are more than the sum of synapse connections. And the chances are, even if they found the cause they'd not be able to undo them. Not that I want it now even if they could--too much premarin has flowed under the bridge, and I'm firmly ensconced in the person and place I think I was meant to be.
Keep looking for the holy grail if you wish, but count me out.
Angharad
Can I ....?
Amy G Dala, I like it. Can I use that for a game character name in one of the games I play? :))
Well maybe it would be much better to see a story here with such a character.
Waits..... well..... I guess it will take a while to write.
*heads off to read some other stories*
.
Oh! Interesting stuff!
Sex-Difference Studies
The problem with these brain studies (as well as pretty much all the sex-difference studies) is that they have serious flaws in methodology, criteria, sample size, and lots more. See, for example, Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference, Rebecca M. Jordan-Young's Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences, and Lise Eliot's Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps—And What We Can Do About It, all of which talk about the way that men and women are put into different "boxes" for different sets of skills, ability to do certain kinds of thinking, emotions, and so on, and why those distinctions turn out to be less distinct than some researchers claim. Trans people are sometimes used to bolster one side or another of these arguments, and the difference there are just as meaningful (i.e., not at all).
I'm a huge booster of science, but the history of these experiments, not to mention their frequently blatant biases, doesn't make me think we're going to get any useful way of "diagnosing" people any time soon. I know how I thought and felt, and what I experienced, and what I had to do to survive—ultimately, why doesn't really matter for me any more.
(Not to mention that if there were some test that came to be recognized as the gold standard for determining who was and was not a "real" transsexual, chances are that there would be people who were misdiagnosed, in either direction. The system we have now isn't perfect, but it probably works at least as well, and maybe better, than any physiological test would.
For what it's with, I tend to think that taking hormones is a pretty good test—someone's reaction to the changes (real or imagined) seems to be a pretty good indicator.)
-- Jane
same...
I find my response to this sort of thing the same as Jane's. None of these things have sufficiently proven anything and if they actually do hint at anything more than research bias it's still only a hint. Which in the grand scheme of things, hints are rather worthless.
I also long since abandoned any consideration for "why" beyond that it's something I have to go through, and when I've finished here and meet God, maybe then he might tell me why.
My mom otoh seems to have some sort of strange compulsion to understand why. That she never will doesn't even seem to enter her thinking.
For me, it is more important to just live with it than to understand why I'm living with it.
Maybe someday I might be in a situation that I can just leisurely wonder about it, but not right now. I have more important things to put my mind to.
As for hormones being a good test: what does estrogen making me crazy horny say? ;)
Abigail Drew.
"Hormone Test"
The idea of testing with hormones is that it should be possible for someone to have a sense of how they feel about changes before the hormones have irreversible effects. I think that's probably a lot more practical with MTF than FTM, as testosterone's irreversible effects take less time to show themselves. Of course it's also possible to see some results just with antiandrogens, which take longer to have effects than estrogen.
But part of the whole thing is purely psychological, as just the idea that their body is changing and that the change is good, is probably good enough.
-- Jane
We Just Have To Put People Into Boxes
This only adds to the futility of our insistence on placing people into categories we as society have invented.
It reminds me of the joke about a guy who's been saddled with the nickname 'John The Cocksucker'.
"I dunno," he sighs. "I worked for the Royal Mail for five years. No one called me 'John the Postman'. I worked for the Fire Brigade for ten years. No one called me 'John the Fireman'. I suck one cock..."
This was told to me in a crowded working-class pub, where it was greeted with uproarious laughter. (It was a while ago.) But when I thought about it, there's a serious point to this gag.
Is 'John' gay or not? He doesn't seem to think so. But this one act has caused him to be pigeon-holed as such.
What I should be asking myself is 'does it matter?'
I don't like marzipan. I have no idea why, and I don't care. Someone could come up with a brilliant explanation tomorrow and it would be of no use to me whatsoever.
They won't, of course. It's not worth the bother. And society accepts that where confectionery is concerned, my preferences are my own business.
So why do we waste our time trying to discover why people make the sexual choices they do?
(I think I may have strayed off-topic here. One thing this site has taught me - though I'm a painfully slow learner - is when to shut up and grab my coat.)
Cause vs cure
I have to agree with both Anghard and JSR, at least in part.
First, determining cause is not the same as developing a 'cure.' Even the use of the word 'cure' is a misnomer.
It is of interest to know what causes gender identity and the wide variety of identities that are possible. It might even be of interest to be able to identify cells, neurons or chemistries that make or modify such identities. However, a cure? I'm not so sure about that.
First, what would we 'cure?' Would this be another 'master race' in which macho men and girly women were the only acceptable sexual and gender identities? The threat of eugenics leaps to my mind. If parents can go so far as to select the sex of their offspring, would they not opt for 'ideal' children in terms of their genders?
If the cure was indisputable evidence that humans are a rainbow of gender identities with a dab of this and a pinch of that, then the 'cure' would be societal in nature, rather than personal. If, at that juncture, societies understood and took appropriate actions to ensure the mental and physical well-being of those who are further from the statistical mean, then I might suggest that GID is well on its way to being cured.
However, as Jane remarked, there is a huge gap in scientific understanding that we need to overcome to arrive at a embarkation point to this new societal norm. Vast number of people across the broad spectrum of all humanity must be studied. Small studies are prone to methodological as well as systematic errors. Only by studying vert large numbers can we develop sufficient information to be useful within the human population.
Such studies take lots of time, cost lots of money, and involve lots of scientists and human guinea pigs. Methodologies have to be established regarding testing protocols, analysis of data, evaluation of results, and inferences of conclusions. And, perhaps, the entire series might have to be performed again to ensure that the results are statiscally valid.
Even then, is it likely that such findings would be acceptable to the different cultures, societies and populations of our divided planet? The scientific evidence for a 13.81 billions year old universe is overwhelming. The scientific evidence for evolution, includng humans, is overwhelming. The scientific evidence for global warming is strong and becoming stonger with every new observation. The scientific evidence for the 'Germ Basis' of desease is overwhelming. Yet, there are many groups, some of which are both pwerful and vocal, that resist the evidence, supplanting it with opinion, superstition or other so-called authority.
There is ample historical and sociological evidence that those who are different will be maligned regardless of their value to society. Scientist and intellectuals are often the first groups attacked by revolutionaries. Therefore, one must ask, even if the sources of GID become known, will it make the slightest bit of difference in how we are treated by the general populace? One would hope that this would be the case, as evidenced by the increasing numbers of people, states and countries accepting homosexuality. However, it will take time and effort on everyone's part to advocate and promote such understanding.
I will now step off my soap box! ;-)
Red MacDonald