Lecture 14 Part 1: Gender Dysphoria

This video reviews Gender Dysphoria as defined by the DSM-5.
Professor NiCole T. Buchanan
Michigan State University

[@liberate-america4482]

Very interesting. When I got my MA, the DSM 5 hadn't yet been released, and I struggled to understand the differences on this topic. You did well explaining some of those changes.

[@johnnzioka7770]

nice lecture professor

[@Dollzeve7]

One in 100 Infants-is incorrect data. Where is the statistic coming from? What is the source ?

[@Stylez_G_White]

She must have meant "1 in 1000"; every source I'm pulling up says 1:1000-4500.

[@deajar-davidlazer8678]

If the genetic mutations that correlate to the condition are healthy mutations found in a normal person, ie: a mutation being similar to that which gives you your eye colour, then gender dysphoria is not a condition or abnormality at all. It’s genetic variation. Labelling it as an abnormality would indicate a bias for the axiom that human sexual biology is a binary, being normal? Would it not? The more I learn the more I get the impression we are pathologising things that are clearly a part of nature. The reason these people have such difficulty is that the rest of society imposes on them and won’t allow or accept they actually exist.

[@Dollzeve7]

It is not nature it is nurture.

[@deajar-davidlazer8678]

@@Dollzeve7 it’s not nuture. The neurological structure of the brain correlates to the gender identity both before and after any medical intervention. That means it is genetic. There from birth. If no interventions can change that then nuture has zero chance of impacting it. You can of course condition someone to behave a certain way but you can’t change their biology. All the studies that have been done into it are showing that

[@Thepsychsiren]

@@Dollzeve7it is both. Both components contribute to gender dysphoria.

[@Thepsychsiren]

Hopefully soon we’ll expand our language and understanding so we can correct the narrative… I agree with you 100%

[@Tomi-always-Tomi]

@@Dollzeve7 no it is banana

[@BredahKinya.]

1àa

[@deajar-davidlazer8678]

The biological indicators of sex keep growing as the field is studied and studies of people with non conforming genders are uncovering more biological indicators than just genitalia and sex chromosomes. The trans individuals have shown dimorphism in the brain and also specific genetic mutations like in the androgen receptor and cytochrome p17. These things were found normally in the opposite ‘sex’ but also found in the trans individuals claiming to be that sex. If you take the whole thing into consideration and remove psychosocial roles or constructs… your left with biology that shows a spectrum and not a rigid binary. Technically the biology of a trans person puts them as neither a man or a woman but somewhere on a sex spectrum which our societies have not provided labels or roles for so they have no choice but to go with what we have provided… one or the other. Nature unfortunately doesn’t do duality but humans keep trying to force her into pigeon holes.

[@Bellamammal]

Nothing you've written and nothing "discovered" about bodies, chromosomes, brain function, etc., changes the rigid binary that is the nature of sex within the human (and all other) animal. Even your description of trans individuals as dimorphic indicates a choice between one of two options. No matter the biological or chromosomal condition, persons produce either male or female gametes. That is not a spectrum. That is one or the other. Full stop.

[@EvanWells1]

Do you know the studies that cite the sexually dimorphic differences? I'd be interested in taking a look. The only ones I know of either show differences that are not sexually dimorphic, too small to be considered as relevant, or are accounted for by/fail to account for homosexuality (i.e. where differences were shown they are the same as those known between same-sex vs. homosexual differences, but the subjects were trans+gay).

[@deajar-davidlazer8678]

@@EvanWells1 It would be better to conduct a meta analysis across many studies to see an emerging pattern. Not just Trans but the study of all dimorphic aspects of the biological system. For example the case of a woman who was admitted to hospital with abdominal pains and discovered to have cancer of testicular tissue inside. On further investigation the individual was found to be 46XY and yet lived obliviously as a woman from birth. The person is still and still identifies as a woman despite our obviously flawed understanding that the SRY should have resulted in a male individual. a slight variation in genetics creating androgen insensitivity or sensistivity can cause ones biology to flip. I wouldnt underestimate the significant impact of such a small difference or impact of such even in the brain. When it comes to sexual biology we are looking at a wholistic system made of many attributes. its not beyond reason that some of those may not be in precise alignment with what we consider completely male or completely female and we may harbor those misalignments and be completely oblivious to them. We may not currently understand what male and female are at all and have approached this from the completely wrong direction or assumption. we're looking at a variety of complexity that we're struggling to categorise. Somewhere between the biology and the higher cognitive function of the human being is a transition to expression. There maybe underlying biology to support that but when you start going at identity and expression, you are walking into the conceptual content of thought. that doesnt just go for trans people. that goes for what we consider normal men and women too and verges on discrediting identity altogether. When you say the subjects were trans and gay, that would have to be clearly defined. a man attracted to another man is gay. A man who was born with a gender disorder who is attracted to a man is gay. or is it meant that a woman who is attracted to a man is gay because she has a gender disorder? It might be a mistake to assume orientation from the person identifying them when the identity should be coming from the lived experience of the person in question and homosexuality taken from that point of view. I'm a man and I prefer women, that doesnt mean I'm not open to appreciating attractive men or that there arent attractive men out there but I would draw the line at someone calling me a lesbian even if I had a gender disorder. As I am male and identify as a man, even if I had biological misconfiguration somewhere, I would still relate to others as a man. If I had an accident or cancer and lost my penis, I would still identify as a man so there must be something other than that which causes a male expression when relating to others. It may even be the case if I were missing the SRY and that has been seen in FTM trans who have a male genetic mutation but no Y chromosome and identify as a man. From what I can see, there is BNSTi neucleous counts that generally signify being to one side of the sexual spectrum or another and part of their cognition is caught up in that. we dont know how that translates to expression but we are still seeing the phenomenon.

[@EvanWells1]

@@deajar-davidlazer8678 If we cannot even define gay then we're not going to get anywhere. There are clear demonstrations of certain stimuli that trigger arousal, so it is not that hard to objectively determine. That someone can be "open" to coaxing some kind of arousal with a different sex than the stimuli in these demonstrations is different than automatic response, while from what I know female sexuality has always been verified to be far more fluid than male sexuality. As far as meta-analysis, there is also of course systematic reviews. One was performed by Alberto Frigerio, et al., and is called "Structural, Functional, and Metabolic Brain Differences as a Function of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation: A Systematic Review of the Human Neuroimaging Literature". Unfortunately it seems to conclude that verifiability of anything is still very limited in this neuro-imaging domain at least as of 2018. From the Analysis Conclusions: "Due to conflicting results, it was, however, not possible to identify specific brain features which consistently differ between cisgender and transgender nor between heterosexual and homosexual groups. Very small brain changes, to date undetectable using the current neuroimaging tools, may affect behavior. The small number of studies, the small sample size of each study, the heterogeneity of investigations, the lack of negative results reported by some studies, and the fact that some studies did not report the sexual orientation of the individuals that composed their sample did not allow drawing general conclusions." The next paragraph sets out a list of recommendations for overcoming these limitations for future studies.

[@deajar-davidlazer8678]

@@EvanWells1 which stimuli? Internal mental or external. Watching how the brain reacts is one thing but watching how the penis reacts is another. While it is said you can’t hide male arousal by the very emergence of an erection, there is also the phenomena of erection during rape which often leaves the victim feeling guilty and confused. This erectile function is not intended by the victim and certainly not a sign of homosexuality. Again if it is the case that a trans person who claims to be a woman turns out to be biologically in part female ( as some genetics, neurological structure and conceptual expression suggests), then being attracted to a man cannot be construed as homosexual. The question is from what angle the researchers used the term homosexual? If that can’t be clarified then the rest of the study has no direction and seems arbitrary or taken from a point of assumption. I’m interested in this topic from multiple angles so I’m not in any way trying to propose a hypothesis that follows my own bias and the questioning needs to continue. It might be a tricky subject because what I’m suspecting is that we have made an assumption about traditional sexual biology that may not actually be accurate. For instance if I question myself regarding homosexuality. I can easily deny it in myself to use as justification for being a traditional male. I find women attractive, I married my wife… but, if I’m completely honest and not influenced by external social pressures, I can condition myself to find men just as attractive and then label myself gay. That then begs a question

[@abba2558]

At 31:00 some of the (vaguely) mentioned psychosocial “treatments” sound an awful lot like conversion therapy... Which definitely isn’t ethical or evidence based.

[@nicolespielman7195]

It isn't conversion therapy because it's just treatment for people who want to feel more at peace in their assigned gender if they don't wish to continue with transitioning. It doesn't involve changing anything about someone's personality and it seems like it is given for people who want it. I can see what you mean though and it definitely could get out of hand if it is suggested as an alternative to transitioning if someone wants to transition.

[@musicbritton9973]

@@nicolespielman7195 im in transitions male to female I knew at age 6 that I was female but growing up in the south and black African home I was beaten for thinking the way I knew I was and thats female

[@nicolespielman7195]

@@musicbritton9973 I wasn't discrediting the experiences of trans people. I was saying the treatments sound like conversion therapy but I don't think the intention is to convince them to stay their assigned gender that's all