foxglove (she/her)

just wondering if you could expand on this for me a bit

not debunked, just made more complicated - the evidence still points to gender identity being biological, fixed (not subject to social or psychological influences), and the result of the early development of the brain, but … it’s not like we have some clear “gender essence” in the way that some people wrongly assume, that is there are no clear “female” and “male” brains, instead all people (cis and trans) seem to have complex sexually dimorphic brain structures that don’t fit neatly into that kind of categorization.

maybe read this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31509086/

The autopsy studies were done by Dick Swaab, and repeated, here’s one of his articles from 2008 (I’m sure you can find the rest on your own):

Garcia-Falgueras A, Swaab DF. A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity. Brain. 2008 Dec;131(Pt 12):3132-46. doi: 10.1093/brain/awn276. Epub 2008 Nov 2. PMID: 18980961.

for a video overview on the science I recommend this overview by Julia Serano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZymYiwoRoC0

This video overview on the variability of sex is also highly recommended: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVQplt7Chos

there were some MRI studies by Joel et al. that disrupted the overly simple findings of the autopsy studies:

Joel D, Berman Z, Tavor I, Wexler N, Gaber O, Stein Y, Shefi N, Pool J, Urchs S, Margulies DS, Liem F, Hänggi J, Jäncke L, Assaf Y. Sex beyond the genitalia: The human brain mosaic. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Dec 15;112(50):15468-73. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1509654112. Epub 2015 Nov 30. PMID: 26621705; PMCID: PMC4687544.

and for a more up to date article with a collab between Joel & Swaab, I would check-out:

Joel D, Garcia-Falgueras A, Swaab D. The Complex Relationships between Sex and the Brain. Neuroscientist. 2020 Apr;26(2):156-169. doi: 10.1177/1073858419867298. Epub 2019 Sep 11. PMID: 31509086.

also worth reading:

Saraswat A, Weinand JD, Safer JD. Evidence supporting the biologic nature of gender identity. Endocr Pract. 2015 Feb;21(2):199-204. doi: 10.4158/EP14351.RA. PMID: 25667367.

Korpaisarn S, Safer JD. Etiology of Gender Identity. Endocrinol Metab Clin North Am. 2019 Jun;48(2):323-329. doi: 10.1016/j.ecl.2019.01.002. Epub 2019 Mar 18. PMID: 31027542.

Ainsworth, C. Sex redefined. Nature 518, 288–291 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/518288a

and finally this systematic literature review on the clinical outcomes of trans gender-affirming healthcare:

https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/

fipto is using the same talking points anti-trans activists (like Matt Walsh) use to argue that intersex people aren’t real or legitimate - “hermaphroditism” in humans historically referred to when genitals are ambiguous or there is a combination of sex organs, including true hermaphroditism where the body develops ovaries and testes.

fipto’s point is only that in a narrow sense we haven’t yet recorded a case where an individual like this has produced a mature egg as well as viable sperm at the same time, though I think that may be false, since there is a recorded case of a true hermaphrodite who ovulated and successfully fathered a child (produced both eggs and sperm). This is rather rare, even for true hermaphrodites, though. (@[email protected] you may care to see this too.)

As an aside about terminology: “hermaphrodite” is an outdated term, and the term “intersex” replaced it. Already a new term has begun to replace intersex in many contexts: “differences in sexual development” (DSD).

fipto’s point is somewhat irrelevant, though - there are humans who are true hermaphrodites and fipto’s motivations in making her point here are questionable.

The reality is that there is no great controversy among scientists on this, and the scientists themselves were happy to refer to people with ambiguous genitals as “hermaphrodites”, and the scarcity of people producing both eggs and sperm don’t undermine anything about the existence or reality of intersex individuals, because someone’s sex and gender is much more complicated than just which gamete they produce.

For fipto, however, who probably believes someone’s sex is based on the gamete they produce (a common lie peddled by anti-trans and anti-intersex activists), the lack of individuals with both eggs and sperm proves to them that intersex individuals do not actually exist. They probably think each of those intersex individuals can be actually classified with the binary sex system that the evidence does not support, and which scientists have moved on from. The main motivations to hold onto a view like this are, like for anti-vaxxers and creationists, social and political rather than based in evidence.

recommended follow-up:

• the video Sex & Sensibility by a biologist who debunks and responds to anti-science content by creationists, and in this case anti-trans and anti-intersex activists like fipto
• the Nature article Sex Redefined covers a lot of the same territory about how science has now moved on from thinking in terms of a strictly binary sex for humans
• for more about the overlap between other anti-science movements and the anti-trans movement, this review of Matt Walsh’s What is a Woman is worthwhile
• the 2023 documentary Every Body might be of interest (was very interesting learning about Alisha Weigel, for example - and it was eye-opening to learn the anti-trans movement are the ones advocating child mutilation, through non-consensual surgeries on intersex children).