LGBT News "Our brains have no gender"

Take that transphobes...

 

Interesting. I always suspected many of our differences were more social and/or activated by hormones rather than innate biological brain differences.

That said, it could pose interesting ramifications on trans and gender issues. Unfortunately, I asl see transphobic people saying "if there's really not too much of a difference why do you even wanna transition."

On the positive side, it could also help dispel myths like that women tend to be "worse" than men in math and spatial activities.

 

They say that some components were more common in males than females and vice versa, but they didn't give any percentage. We already know that this doesn't apply to everyone, but saying that the brain has nothing to do with gender seems to be a bit of a stretch.

Actually, I don't see how such a finding could be beneficial to us. What makes someone trans then if it's not because their brain is wired as male/female/other?

 

It is interesting, but also a very complex subject and one that is hard to draw any definitive conclusions about, because it would be very hard to craft a meaningful study that could isolate all the various factors that influence behaviour.

In terms of the biological structure of the brain, it would be interesting to see a study that compares the brains of subjects of various ages to see if and how the differences between genders vary.

One would expect infant brains would be less affected by learned behaviour and hormonal influences than the brains of older people, though even male and female babies are treated and interacted with differently by a lot of adults, so that stuff starts pretty early on.

 

Sigh, maybe a better way to see it is that a group of researchers tried to show that there are no significant differences between men and women's brains, to this end they made some sort of arbitrary impossible to meet requirement for gender differentiation and once the requirement wasn't met they concluded that they were right and the brains of men and women are the same! When faced with the harsh reality that they discovered structural brain patterns that are common in men and others that are common in women, they realized that ultimately it doesn't matter because they also discovered that many areas of the brain are the same and that sameness that undoubtedly came as a complete surprise to them shows that indeed the brains of women and men are in fact the same. (Outside of those areas that aren't technically the same... but those areas aren't really relevant...right?)

In other words, the article didn't really leave me overly convinced that there are no differences between the brains of men and women... am I missing something?

"Researchers have identified several structural differences between the brains of men and women, but it's impossible to tell the sex of an individual based solely on MRI images of the brain like the one above."

Doesn't this sentence pretty much say that there are, in fact, structural differences between the brains of men and women and the research in question actually proved that such differences exist... who cares if you can't use an MRI to identify the gender of the individual?

 

It may end up being like our genes. We share 98% of our genes with chimps, and yet that 2 percent the difference between ruling a grassy hillside and achieving domination over the entire planet.

 

I'd rather not drawing any conclusion from this study, seeing that how it can be twisted to certain political ideologies, than good science.

 

This is simply lazy journalism - the study itself proves nothing other than some brains are different to other brains

 

The title is misleading. The study did find differences between brains of men and women. It's just that the differences are smaller than previously expected. This is not the same thing as saying that the brain has no gender. Sure, you might not be able to tell individual's gender for sure just by looking at the individual's brain scans, however, you are able to give a percentage chance of the individual's gender.

 

This study is interesting.
I have always thought that there is a greater difference between any two individuals than there is generally between men and woman.

 

We dont know enough about our brains to determine whether this is true or not based on a sample of just 1400 people.

/thread.

 

I like this idea. I always disliked the idea that men and women are opposites in every way.

 

If this ends up being true, it does seem like it would be a blow to trans people, because the whole idea of being trans rests on having the brain of the other gender. If there is no such thing as 'gendered brain', then where exactly does being trans come from?

 

The study found structural differences between men's and women's brains and patterns that are commonly found in men and others in women. Such findings pretty much say the exact opposite of what the title of this thread says. It's common knowledge that there are a large amount of similarities between men and women and it is not really surprising that it is a sort of continuum. Gender seems to be determined during the prenatal phase of a baby's life and by then the baby's brain would mostly be formed.

 

This article is so purely, politcally charged. There is a large margin of error, but there definitely is a difference between boys and girls.

 

I always heard men and women's brains being different as a justification for the existence of transgender people.

 

At the end Connectomics will get all those 'scientists'.

Turns out every brain is unique, and most probably that includes everyone's own experince of gender as well. You can look at the TED talk, and remember 'All brains look like spaguetti', 'cause that's the only truth you can prove using science.

Is someone still looking for differences between 'gay' brains or 'heterosexual' brains? Don't think so...

 

If you look at brain scans, there are certain clusters of cells that present in gay men and women. This entire episode is great, but the part of note I believe is around 29:13 or so. (It might be earlier, they talk about the brain).

 

I just wonder how the article is politically charged. Was it because it talked about the potential social implications if this study were to be true and the results were replicable in further studies?


Science is generally considered one of the better magazines. While it popularizes science, it has very rigorous standards; at the same time, it does condense a lot of information and maybe gibing the "talking points" can seem to be "politically charged."