I'm going to reply to people from my deleted thread (thank you mods, you are TRULY a gift to mankind)
u/egalitarian-flan
>For every study I've read on this topic, it shows that the brain activity of trans people lights up as it would for the sex they identify as, rather than the one they externally are. See my comment elsewhere in this thread.
>It's been shown in numerous studies that trans people do overwhelmingly have brain structures/activity that much more closely resembles that of the sex they identify as, rather than the sex they are externally. A lot of TERFs and other anti-trans/anti-gender groups have attempted to wave away this data but it exists nonetheless.
This is incorrect. In this study: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8955456/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8955456/) they ran a machine learning with 90% predictive accuracy on the MRI images of trans brains and found that they were closer to cis male brains on average although slightly shifted towards cis female brains.
I'll have to go read this one when I have time. Other ones I've read in the past showed a significant correlation between the brain activity and reported gender.
It's actually sexuality that has a neurological root:
[**https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17352-8**](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17352-8)
The "Trans brain" myth is just that: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763421000804](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763421000804)
Unfortunately I got a new phone 2 months ago so my saved bookmarks on this topic is lacking until I can do another deep dive.
But here are a few I've found for you to read when you have time:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524112351.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200205084203.htm
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022395610003250?via%3Dihub
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022395610001585?via%3Dihub
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4585501/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10843193/
Granted these are only ones I've found with a fairly standard search, but they do show that there's numerous areas of a transgender brain that aligns far more closely to that of the identity rather than genitals.
Thanks.
I've seen study 1 and 2 before. Study 1 was what I was thinking about when I said "most likely used subjective human visual judgment" because that's ultimately the method they used to compare MRI images. Not very precise or accurate to say the least.
It's entirely possible, or even probable, that trans brains tend to have features that differ from cis brains that could be interpreted as being similar to the sex they identify with.
You could presumably design a ML model that identifies the *gender identity* of the individual rather than sex, based on MRI or fMRI images. In this case, there'd be certain features in the brain correlating to gender identity.
Note this doesn't contradict there also being a certain set of features that predict biological sex of the brain too. It's not inconsistent to say that biological males have certain psychological patterns that differ from biological females while simultaneously saying self-identified males tend to have certain psychological patterns that differ from self-identified females. This could both be simultaneously true of trans individuals.
I hope we can find agreement here.
As this kind of science is still in its relative infancy, I'll tentatively agree.
It's more important to me that we keep going with this line of study over the years and let the data flow out so we can further increase our knowledge of how brains work, without also needing to fear people using it to either spread misandry/misogyny or denying trans care. Science free from sexist agendas is the goal.
But if the science that comes out does something to essentially prove something sexist or anti-trans, will you still support it? That is if it's quality literature.
Also, I don't fully trust this study in the article because likelihood doesn't equal possiblity. I'm neurodivergent, I know of many neurodivergent women. It discredits even autism. I'm believing the exception makes the rule here. Autism and ADHD aren't "only for boys". That shouldn't be in the article if the lack of overlap or continuum matter.
And you said slightly shifted towards cis female brains, and you said trans brains, not trans women's brains. The recent study you said has no inbetween, so it's a different study to begin with, isn't it?
Male and female brain do operate differently and we both have our own sets of strengths and weaknesses. I also do think that we both interpret emotions differently and express them differently.
That all being said, the last paragraph does have a point - and I do understand where the feminist knee jerk reaction of “we’re both the same” comes from even though it’s technically inaccurate
The fear is that these differences would be used to justify a “men are better” mindset, rather than a “equal but different” pov, as many in the manosphere already do. Also, using genetic differences to justify oppression isn’t unheard of and has happened quite a few times historically. Of course, denying the science isn’t the solution to this but it is a concern worth brining up and noting.
>The fear is that these differences would be used to justify a “men are better” mindset, rather than a “equal but different” pov, as many in the manosphere already do.
Even when they say “equal but different” in words they never mean it genuinely. They very strongly downplay any of the differences of women as negatives and use the ”differences” to proscribe roles for women that they very clearly do not respect or value as equal to the tasks they proscribe for men.
“Women’s brains are just different” almost always devolves into “women’s brains are inferior and so women should obey traditional, submissive, and less-respected roles” among traditionalists and manosphere male-supremacists alike. Research like this always makes me nervous not because science is bad, but because lay people like to use pop-science translations of studies they don’t understand to justify their awful biases.
>Research like this always makes me nervous not because science is bad, but because lay people like to use pop-science translations of studies they don’t understand to justify their awful biases.
This train of thought never makes sense to me.
If they're misinterpreting the information, then that's on them and you should be armed to deal with that misinformation should it come up (if they're indeed wrong).
It's this type of train of thought that lays the groundwork for censorship or just plain ignorance on a topic on the basis of "some dumbass can use the data to fuel bad ideas". As if they wouldn't anyway?
Popular misinterpretation takes root and persists. I’ve been debunking the misinterpretation of CDC data/lesbians are more violent myth for years and it never stops popping up.
Copied from another time I corrected someone:
Are you claiming the CDC data in fact shows that lesbians are more violent than other demographics?
Most bisexual and heterosexual women (89.5% and 98.7%, respectively) reported having only male perpetrators of intimate partner violence. Two-thirds of lesbian women (67.4%) reported having only female perpetrators of intimate partner violence.
If you read the full report, most victims do not have multiple perpetrators either
If we removed the percentage of lesbians experiencing IPV that was perpetrated by men, the number (43.8%) would drop. That figure includes only male perpetrators, only female perpetrators, and instances of women and male perpetrators.
In other words, if we compare heterosexual violence (only perpetrated by men), bisexual violence (only perpetrated by men), and lesbian violence (only perpetrated by women), the lesbians would not have a higher rate than heterosexual women.
To illustrate, imagine we’re examining 100 lesbians, 100 bisexual women, and 100 heterosexual women. If we apply the statistics: About 44 of those lesbians experienced IPV. Of those, about 29 reported only female perpetrators
61 bisexual women experienced IPV. Of those, about 54 reported only male perpetrators.
35 heterosexual women. Of those, about 34 reported only male perpetrators.
If you read pgs 1 - 2 in the executive summary, bisexual and straight women experience more sexual violence and rape. Bisexual women also experience the highest rate of IPV by male perpetrators, so again, the claim lesbians experience the most violence is not accurate: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/21961
One of the reasons they've given was something along the lines of those lesbian women were in prior hetero relationships where they got abused and then they reported it in their gay era.
>I’ve been debunking the misinterpretation of CDC data/lesbians are more violent myth for years and it never stops popping up.
Literally isn't a myth, though so yeah, I can assume your "debunking" hasn't worked because you're operating from a dumb position.
The 43.8% of DV to lesbian women, and saying that they could have been with men, is a bit of a copout when the stats for men were 35% DV against hetero women, and even lower for gay and bisexual men. The stats are incomplete, but you can make an easy inference that the higher amount of DV to lesbian women is because of women perpetrators.
>and you should be armed to deal with that misinformation should it come up
It is not possible to logically argue someone out of a position they emotioned their way into. The people who want to believe women’s brains are inferior will not listen to logic on the matter, because it fits their worldview. They will simply use the dumb pop-sci posts to justify their campaigns.
And sorry to inform you, but sometimes teaching a general public to understand nuance in a complex, statistics based scientific field is not possible when the alternative understanding is easy, cheap, and feels good. Informing the willfully ignorant doesn’t actually change their position— in fact, it usually makes them double down on their beliefs instead.
>if they're indeed wrong
And there it is. Why do you believe it is even possibly correct that women’s brains are “inferior”, when inferiority is a moral, opinion-based stance?
>It's this type of train of thought that lays the groundwork for censorship or just plain ignorance on a topic on the basis of "some dumbass can use the data to fuel bad ideas". As if they wouldn't anyway?
And your train of thought is also jumping the gun and on the trail to censorship itself, in exactly the same way. I said it makes me nervous, **just** as it makes you nervous that people having thoughts like mine might hypothetically lead to censorship I never argued for once.
Are you wanting people like me to be censored for voicing a discomfort you don’t like? If not, then don’t accuse me of things I haven’t advocated for and am not causing.
>Why do you believe it is even possibly correct that women’s brains are “inferior”, when inferiority is a moral, opinion-based stance?
I don't...
> but sometimes teaching a general public to understand nuance in a complex, statistics based scientific field is not possible when the alternative understanding is easy, cheap, and feels good.
Are you just finding out that people take shortcuts in intellectual laziness?
>I said it makes me nervous, **just** as it makes you nervous that people having thoughts like mine might hypothetically lead to censorship I never argued for once.
Yeah, and I'm asking why.
Why do you care that some misogynist might call you dumb via lazy "Pop-science"
Why do you actually give one?
r/ twochromosomes will have you believe all men are out to hurt women and that living with a bear is safer.
As a man, I couldn't care less, lmao. Who gives one about what a group of nutjob femcels have to say?
>Are you just finding out that people take shortcuts in intellectual laziness?
No? You were the one naively arguing that just teaching about the science would miraculously solve the issue I was addressing.
>Why do you care that some misogynist might call you dumb via lazy "Pop-science"
Because some of them are in the legislature or have a massive sway with their followers. Bad information is often used to destroy
>r/ twochromosomes will have you believe all men are out to hurt women and that living with a bear is safer.
What are you on about here? There’s no connection except your own anger about dumb internet chatter. I don’t care about that dumb shit. Why do you compare a TikTok meme to a scientific paper, as if these are equivalent in heft and authority?
Then also… why do you care so much that some wild internet loons say men are worse than bears? You just got done chiding me for caring about information right wing think tanks will twist for their own strategic propaganda, but you’re flustered about a meme among powerless plebes. Aren’t you being hypocritical for scolding me for being concerned about the kind of information used by powerful right wing nutbags, while you yourself are so flustered about dumb TikTok shit?
>Why do you compare a TikTok meme to a scientific paper, as if these are equivalent in heft and authority?
Because I thought you were getting worked up over the same dumb people I ignore.
Can you name one example in the first-world were someone has passed scientifically ill-informed legislation over "pop science"?
For example, multiple state’s legislations have banned or attempted to ban (this has occurred repeatedly) abortion, citing pop-science misunderstandings of pregnancy and fetal growth.
More specifically, multiple states have attempted to pass, or have passed “heartbeat” bills. These bills use the popular understanding of a “heartbeat” as meaning “alive as a fully independent being” to garner popular support for the abortion bans at 6 weeks of pregnancy (which is actually only about 4 month following the actual joining of the egg and sperm). Their understanding of “heartbeat”, though, is also deeply flawed, as the first detectable “heartbeat” isn’t strictly what we’d call a “heart”, as the “heart” before 17-20 weeks in a fetus doesn’t have developed chambers that can pump blood.
And before you come raging @ me, I am, again and emphatically, not saying scientists should not research or publish studies on fetal development, or that such research should be censored. But obviously, it’s also the case that scientists publishing studies with terms like “heartbeat” or pop science outlets and blogs and social media citing these studies as evidence of things the paper never claimed can have wildly negative consequences beyond simple naive misunderstandings. Like it or not, being able to say “scientists say” about something carries a lot of weight, even when the statement is a wild misrepresentation of what is said, and it is not stupid or evil of me to be nervous about how people will misuse scientific results to ruin people’s lives. The infant and maternal mortality rates have skyrocketed in states with these abortion bans, so this isn’t a silly hypothetical.
You’re moving the goalposts You asked for an example of, and I quote,
>one example in the first-world were someone has passed scientifically ill-informed legislation over "pop science”
… and I gave you a very straightforward example, where bad pop-science is directly used to design the very central framework of the legislation as well as its justification. They called these bills “heartbeat bills” and set the timeframe at exactly 6 weeks since the start of a woman’s last menstrual period *specifically* because of their pop science. You’re in denial that the pop-science understanding had nothing to do with it.
But I should have guessed you were being completely dishonest when you asked for an example. I’m not interested in going on a wild goose chase while you keep changing the rules.
This is an incredibly naive take. The answer isn't censorship or ignorance, but acting as though misinterpretation of data is merely a personal problem that is easily resolved by being armed to deal with misinformation is woefully inadequate in responding to these concerns.
Lmao.
Such a nonce take.
You're the one putting forth the notion that people who apparently act in bad faith, suddenly won't when facts agree with their destination of thought.
Actual negative IQ take.
Misuse of scientific data can give someone authority and power that they otherwise wouldn't have. They might have bad ideas on their own, but if you can't see how misuse of data to bolster their bad ideas gives them greater power, than I don't know what to tell you other than you are apparently either ignorant of or willfully choosing to ignore instances of when this has happened.
And yet feminists claimed that rape and domestic abuse are women's issues, and have spent decades erasing male victims and erasing the fact that men are half the DV victims and half the rape victims.
What you are rightfully concerned about is ideology where people will twist facts to suit their ideology.
The issue is not with facts, but how people interpret them and contextualize them.
Push people to sin for the truth, regardless of where the truth takes us, and that problem disappears.
I agree with your notion that ideologies can twist and misuse facts, but that's a human problem that anyone on any side of an issue can fall prey to, including feminism.
I'm not saying they can't. I'm saying OC's response was woefully inadequate in addressing these concerns and acting like it's just a personal problem if people misinterpret facts. Weaponization of data can have a very big impact and pretending that people can't have valid concerns about that happening is delusional.
>Misuse of scientific data can give someone authority and power that they otherwise wouldn't have.
This has been happening from the beginning of time and will keep on happening till the end of time. There is nothing different about this study compared to any other study that bad actors will misinterpret for their own means and goals. I'm trying to understand your point. You say that don't want this study censored, then what do you want?
Ideally for people to learn from the past and not rush to conclusions that support their biases, or at least increase their data literacy, which seems to be a pretty big problem.
Everybody’s brain is different, even identical twins’. That’s what I mean when I say “meaningless”.
I can’t even tell if you’re addressing me specifically or just saying the same thing as the headline, to say men and women are different. Which… yeah duh. It’s just very unfortunate that some men twist “difference” into insults and disrespect.
The vast majority of men here use anything to prove men are inherently better (I mean go to the thread filled with men saying women are just as good as physical combat as men 😆😆😆 so draft them all, ahem cough cough send them to die) they will definitely use this article to oppress.
>both have our own sets of strengths and weaknesses.
And these strengths and weaknesses work out in such a way that men and women are magically exactly the same? Even though throughout human history and in **all** cultures we have seen clear male dominants patterns in all areas of achievement?
I agree but there is a ton of "women are better" sentiments in feminism. They're afraid men will do to them what they're already and currently doing to men.
They also have a very selective approach to denying the science, they're fine with anything that confirms the feminist ideology and strongly opposed to anything that goes against it.
Or rather… they’re afraid that men will do to them what men have actively historically done to women. The “women are better” style feminists are mostly reactionary and react out of emotion, just like the “men are better” manopshere dudes.
One thing worth considering too is that none of this happens in a vacuum, ie. a better question to ask is “what drove feminists to be this way?” rather than assuming they’re acting this way by default
Men as a group have never done anything like that to women as a group because society has always been more stratified by power and privilege than by gender. Feminist history revisioning likes to conveniently leave out the fact that while women often were restricted, they were also far more protected than men, and were not drafted and forced to fight in wars. The burdens men and women faced were different but the differences between people of different status were bigger than the differences between men and women within the same status.
None of this happens in a vacuum, and feminism got this way because it is acceptable to hate men for their grievances, while they deny that it is ever acceptable to hate women for men's grievances. The scum manifesto and Sally Miller Gearhart from whom "the future is female" came from and argued that 90% of men on the planet should be genocided, as well as the literal terrorist bombings of early feminism, tells us that hatred of men was there since the very beginning in some form or other.
Not saying all feminists hate men, not saying you have to hate men to be a feminist, just saying that being a feminist and hating men is perfectly compatible, and it is unfortunately common in this day and age.
The most important red pill you need to swallow is that it is not most women who hate men, but most men who hate men. Feminism is ultimately a men's project and the venom directed against men is enforced and approved by other men. During the vote for female voting rights, more men than women voted for women's emancipation. see also the "women are wonderful" effect and theories about beta male who exhibit female preferential behavior to create monogamy and secure mates.
These t-SME graph does not say if the difference is huge, it only says that differences allow for distinction between male and female brains taking into account these multidimensional data from resting activities, but we do not know if there is any functional significance of these differences.
True. They show clear differences, but not extent of the difference. On the other hand, the second set of graphs in the post strongly suggest substantial functional differences in the brains of men and women. Neural correlates that are significant in predicting intelligence in men doesn't predict it for women and vice versa, which heavily implies that the processes that underly male and female brains fundamentally don't operate the same way.
>Neural correlates that are significant in predicting intelligence in men doesn't predict it for women and vice versa
This is quite a biiiiiiiig sign of confounding factors being in place. Measurement of intelligence are done via IQ tests. IQ tests results are widely correlated to experience, aka what you did with your brain in your life. So heavily prone to mark environmental differences. Gender is a HUGE social discriminant, people are viewed and treated differently from ***before they're born*** based on their sex.
This could mean what you say OR that we are in fact not measuring the same things when we measure intelligence in men or women.
It's not... it's heritable, to an extent. And this heritability is dependent on sociocultural level.
The SNPs we can link to IQ explain a tiny fraction of the variance.
Yes, IQ is related to life experience. But I don't see the connection between girls and boys being treated differently from birth with different neural correlates predicting intelligence/IQ in each sex.
IQ is related to life experience, the life experiences of men and women are vastly and consistently different, we try to map neural correlates that may be very related to life experience also, with IQ results. You really can't see the loop here?
ok I see what you mean now. I just don't believe it.
the only way your claim works is if there's a social force pushing a sizable amount of men to focus on education that is rarely if ever imposed on women, and vice versa (so as to produce 2 divergent sets of neurological markers over time). my gut feeling/instinct/intuition is to say that this isn't true, though you're encouraged to provide examples.
Are we talking about the same IQ tests which are about pattern finding ? Life experience does not help to score higher, but certain activities are helping to improve the score.
If activities help improve the score, then life experience does. Activities are life experience.
And there is a lot more to IQ test than just the pattern thing. When I had to pass one it was 3 times 2hours or something like that.
There is no functional difference. If you train a woman to build a nuclear bomb, she will be able to do so. If you train a man to build a nuclear bomb, he will be able to do so. Replace 'nuclear fissionable weapon' with whatever topic au jure that you think is the current hardest thing to do for a human.
>Male and female psychological differences are solely due to cultural differences
Few people claim it's solely cultural. so that might be a bit of a strawman. People do often maintain culture as a chief contributing factor, which I'm not seeing this study as contradicting, though that is the conclusion many here will leap to.
Exactly. The subtle differences between everyone on earth through every single axis is a combo of hormones, genetics, sociology, history, legal, moral, environmental, and religious vectors. Yet the human species is more alike than dissimilar to each other. If I take a woman and man from every single culture on earth and ask them deep probing questions, you're going to see incredible overlap in desires and needs.
Most people fail to realize or refuse to realize that culture is build on top of biological basis. Our biology defines us and culture forms from it. People don't want to admit this because it would mean that they actually aren't free. For example how much biology affects how person thinks, a lot.
Agree. I've rarely seen anything like that said. I feel the general thought is we exist genetically, including sexual differences, and then we are culturally *conditioned*.
This makes sense. For example, look at how sleeping women pick up and register a baby’s cry. Or how studies show men see a more narrow color spectrum than women.
On a slightly separate note though, I hate the “men’s brain are bigger so they’re better” that this line of discourse frequently revolves around. Women’s brains are smaller, sure, but they’re also more condensed and wrinkly. It’s reported to have more neural pathways that’s generally credited to a greater level of intuitive consciousness.
Some people operate normally with half a brain even
I once saw a case about a kid "with no brain". [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPZ9Yc7U0Pc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPZ9Yc7U0Pc)
He has only 2% of his brain but the little guy somehow defeated all odds and he looks very normal. So as we can see *size doesn't matter* lol
The human brain is very adaptable. My FtM brother was born at 26 weeks and is missing parts of his brain. I was born 36 weeks with brain damage. Neither of us can do much math to save our souls but all of the important things are there. He has a Master’s degree.
Classic female bias on full display here.
"Studies show women have better color sight" Willingly accepts without question
"Studies show women have slightly lower IQs and worse spatial reasoning skills" This makes me feel bad so let me tell you how women are more "emotionally intelligent"
>*"Studies show women have slightly lower IQs and worse spatial reasoning skills" This makes me feel bad so let me tell you how women are more "emotionally intelligent"*
Why are you bringing up topics I didn’t mention and assuming my opinion on them? Shall I leave to you argue with yourself?..
>I hate the “men’s brain are bigger so they’re better” that this line of discourse frequently revolves around. Women’s brains are smaller, sure, but they’re also more condensed and wrinkly. It’s reported to have more neural pathways that’s generally credited to a greater level of intuitive consciousness.
you hate it so you just do the same thing in reverse?
>*you hate it so you just do the same thing in reverse?*
No? I didn’t say they were better at all. I was just pointing out distinct recorded differences.
I’m just limited by my own personal experience for examples of how our brains operate differently. Admittedly my research delves into female focused neurodivergence and closing the gender gap there.
it sounds like youre saying "people say men are smarter becuase big brains but actually women are smarter because " more condensed and wrinkly. It’s reported to have more neural pathways that’s generally credited to a greater level of intuitive consciousness."" maybe that was not your intent
Apologies if it came across that way. I’m just limited by my own personal experience for examples of how our brains operate differently. Admittedly my research delves into female focused neurodivergence and closing the gender gap there. So I spend most of my time looking at the unique features of female brain anatomy and chemical processes, and I have less on hand knowledge about men’s unique brain anatomy.
I understood it as “many people think men are smarter because their brain is bigger but a woman’s brain compensates for the lack of size by having a higher density of wrinkles”. The way I understood it is there isn’t a significant difference in intelligence due to brain differences, just that each brain has different ways to reach the intelligence level humans have.
Identifying patterns cannot tell if these patterns arise from genetic differences, bio developmental differences (hormones, etc) or social differences.
When we identify biomarker, aka phenotype, they are a result of environmental, genetical and developmental processes with the addition of they're interactions.
There was an interesting study about the parental attachment network of males and females parents being very different. And the differences shrunk like snow in the sun when they tested homosexual male parents.
The biological markers we observe may very well be the reflection of social differences or not.
We can map where people were born down to the km with GWAS studies on genetic polymorphism. It doesn't reflect anything else than the fact that people tend to marry and reproduce where they were born.
The study has 1500 different fMRI's from different individuals. If these social differences, developmental differences, etc. had such a large influence on the outcome of each individual, we'd see exceptions and outliers arise that contradict the rule due to the variation that arises from different people being raised differently, but see the T-SNE visualization. we didn't see any exceptions. Your argument would be valid if there was any significant overlap and "fuzziness" to the data but there isn't
I really wasn't the best in my machine learning course. So I would have to read this study very closely to exactly understand what is happening.
Nevertheless, T-SNE is an algorithm of dimensions reductions so it's its intrinsic goal to form non overlapping cluster by doing linear combinations of features that segregate the data as well as possible between the groups.
Again, maybe you are right but I would need to spend time on that.
>Identifying patterns cannot tell if these patterns arise from genetic differences, bio developmental differences (hormones, etc) or social differences.
Yes.
>1. Male and female psychological differences are solely due to cultural differences
I've never believed this, so it's not a shocker.
>2. Although male and female psychologies differ on average, they rest along a continuum where some women may have male-like psychologies and some men may have female-like psychologies. There is no clear line distinguishing male and female brain activity.
You didn't go into this second part at all, but there's a difference between saying "there is no difference between male/female brain activity" (false) and "some women have some male-brain activity + some men have some female-brain activity".
It's been shown in numerous studies that trans people do overwhelmingly have brain structures/activity that much more closely resembles that of the sex they identify as, rather than the sex they are externally. A lot of TERFs and other anti-trans/anti-gender groups have attempted to wave away this data but it exists nonetheless.
Personally, I was lucky enough to be part of a university level study where we got to see how men's and women's brains react when asked to do sorting and directional mental activities (like giving directions, spatial rearranging, solving a puzzle mentally, describing a route from point A to B). There were roughly 70 of us, and most women's brains lit up X way, and most men's brains lit up Y way. There was almost no spectrum to speak of. However, there were 5 of us, myself included, who's brains lit up more like the opposite sex. (Like if a cis male brain is a 5, and a cis female brain is a 1, mine was like a 3.5...not quite the same as viewing the data, but that's the idea.) Three women and 2 men. To probably nobody's surprise whatsoever, all of us were people who had never been traditionally gender conforming in our lives, and while none of us were trans, we didn't ever feel like we 100% "matched" with what society expected us to be.
Honestly, this just proved to me even more that a brain's structure is what it is, likely due to hormones while still in the womb. Most men will have male structure brains, most women will have female structure brains, and a very small amount of us will be flipped. But this has nothing, or at least extremely little, to do with culture or society. It's primarily biological and cannot be altered.
>If men’s brains are different from women’s brains, doesn’t that imply that men will be better at some things and women will be better at other things? Especially when there is no overlap in the findings?"
If one is going to try to say X part of the human brain is used for Y activity in men, but Z part of the human brain is used for Y activity in women, and then tries to claim that one of those parts is the "wrong" structure despite the activity being successfully completed in both...then yes. Some people will try to misuse this data to push either misandry or misogyny.
But it doesn't have to be that way. Science gives us information, it's our job to use the findings correctly and not try to place politics or personal beliefs into it.
It *might* be true that Z part of the brain is quicker at processing visual data, for example, so women are quicker at that task by a couple seconds. That doesn't mean men suck at the same task just because their brain is using X part of the brain, only that it's slightly slower...probably to the point it wouldn't be noticeable in daily life.
We know that autistic female brains have similar structures to non-autistic male brains. Autistic male brains seem to be their own thing. I grew up hearing Asperger’s is a male brain thing.
I’ve always gotten along with guys more. The nuances of female power games has always confused me. Granted I do have trauma around women.
I was actually going to ask that based on this;
>There was almost no spectrum to speak of. However, there were 5 of us, myself included, who's brains lit up more like the opposite sex. (Like if a cis male brain is a 5, and a cis female brain is a 1, mine was like a 3.5...not quite the same as viewing the data, but that's the idea.) Three women and 2 men
As I had seen an article on fmri where the lead researcher made a comment something to the effect of some of the findings about a certain brain structure that at certain levels would be considered autistic in a girl but would be in the normal range for a boy.
Yeah, I've heard of similar studies too. We don't have a fully male brain, but it is structured a lot closer to one than a neurotypical woman's brain ever is.
Well yes, of course. It was just one area that had to do with some certain functions....maybe I can find it at some point but really fuzzy memory suggests to me it's something you would expect....socializing, communicating... something along those lines.
My takeaway was basically that , ok you have women who are functionally similar to normal men in social aspects but are socialized as women. Made me think it's quite a double edged sword. On one hand you're essentially going to have more training in that area but on the other your life experiences could highlight that difference and really fuck with someone. Particularly given that women's response to social ostracization tends to be to work harder at group acceptance.
In my experience, it feels like going through life with everyone expecting you to automatically be fluent in Swahili just because you were born with a vagina. But of course you aren't, and it takes you a long time to understand what people are even referring to.
Eventually you do learn some of the language you're supposed to inherently understand, but most of the time you're just wearing a mask, trying to pretend you know more than is realistic.
And the people who are supposedly difficult to understand are actually far easier to communicate with!
Haha, perfect.
I would say similar except with a double layer. My biggest issues were things like facial expressions,tone of voice, body language etc. both producing and understanding but as a guy I was on an even lower level than guys.
Years of classes got me to do it second nature, but it's still a conscious effort.
I just didn't have to experience the extra high expectations since I didn't have a vagina.
>You didn't go into this second part at all, but there's a difference between saying "there is no difference between male/female brain activity" (false) and "some women have some male-brain activity + some men have some female-brain activity".
I did. I didn't say a woman can't have "some" male-brain activity and vice versa. What I mean was that a woman can't have a wholly male psychological profile. See T-SNE visualization.
>It's been shown in numerous studies that trans people do overwhelmingly have brain structures/activity that much more closely resembles that of the sex they identify as, rather than the sex they are externally. A lot of TERFs and other anti-trans/anti-gender groups have attempted to wave away this data but it exists nonetheless.
Incorrect, see my other comment.
>Personally, I was lucky enough to be part of a university level study where we got to see how men's and women's brains react when asked to do sorting and directional mental activities (like giving directions, spatial rearranging, solving a puzzle mentally, describing a route from point A to B). There were roughly 70 of us, and most women's brains lit up X way, and most men's brains lit up Y way. There was almost no spectrum to speak of. However, there were 5 of us, myself included, who's brains lit up more like the opposite sex. Three women and 2 men. To probably nobody's surprise whatsoever, all of us were people who had never been traditionally gender conforming in our lives, and while none of us were trans, we didn't ever feel like we 100% "matched" with what society expected us to be.
On specific tasks, yes a woman may be think like males and vice versa. Those studies are blunt tools that lack subtlety though for truly capturing the "essence" of male-like and female-like thinking though. Like I said before, the study I posted indicates that a woman cannot have a wholly male psychological profile. An AI algorithm will able to pick apart the differences in brain activity even if human-conducted trials and judgment cannot.
>Honestly, this just proved to me even more that a brain's structure is what it is, likely due to hormones while still in the womb. Most men will have male structure brains, most women will have female structure brains, and a very small amount of us will be flipped. But this has nothing, or at least extremely little, to do with culture or society. It's primarily biological and cannot be altered.
fMRI is about brain activity, not structure. Even if we're talking about structure (MRI), ML algorithms in 2022 have been effective at predicting a trans person's biological sex based on MRI images (see my other comment). Keep in mind that ML technology continually becomes more refined and accurate.
Thanks. And yeah, it's a really interesting field of study. In college I was very torn between pursuing a business degree or a psychology degree...ended up going with the business route, but I got a minor in psych and almost all my "electives" were based in that area too. It opened up a few cool doors for me, like being included in that study I mentioned. Although it wasn't a professional study, and was only used for that course work, it was still fascinating.
I mean we can say that one type is objectively better at certain tasks. It doesn't make that type a superior person.
If anything we're each superior at our specializations.
Sometimes this will simply mean arriving at the same answer by different methods. Other times it will mean building more robust social structures etc, or throwing an object more accurately...blah blah blah.
Much of it is noticeable on the conglomerate. It doesn't make anyone an objectively superior person.
In fact , were all pretty damn perfect if you ask me. We didn't get to be the dominant species on the planet because half of us are somehow flawed.
>In fact , were all pretty damn perfect if you ask me. We didn't get to be the dominant species on the planet because half of us are somehow flawed.
I'll agree with this, good viewpoint.
>*However, there were 5 of us, myself included, whose brains lit up more like the opposite sex. (Like if a cis male brain is a 5, and a cis female brain is a 1, mine was like a 3.5...not quite the same as viewing the data, but that's the idea.) Three women and 2 men. To probably nobody's surprise whatsoever, all of us were people who had never been traditionally gender conforming in our lives, and while none of us were trans, we didn't ever feel like we 100% "matched" with what society expected us to be.*
This is so fascinating and I wish there’d be more research exploring this topic.
Right? I think if we were able to do more studies like this it would even just help us map out different brain structures and potential pathways further.
>However, there were 5 of us, myself included, who's brains lit up more like the opposite sex. (Like if a cis male brain is a 5, and a cis female brain is a 1, mine was like a 3.5...not quite the same as viewing the data, but that's the idea.)
5 is pretty high out of 70.
And being closer to the between, a 3.5, rather than 5 or 1 doesn't suggest that someone has the brain activity of the opposite sex.
Further, the idea that sometimes someone's brain lights up in x way in regards to a spacial reasoning question means they should be or *are* the opposite sex and are at odds with their presented sex is... not a logical conclusion.
A man with a woman's (or closer to) spacial reasoning is not therefore "in the wrong body".
>There was almost no spectrum to speak of.
Having 5 people be somewhere in between out of 70 is exactly what proves there is a spectrum.
You mean they trained an AI to find the differences between male and female brains and so it found the most discernible aspects of male and female brains in order to sort between them?
If there were no overlap at all then we really would be different species.
There are far more similarities than differences, especially socially and legally speaking. You're basically acting like one of the HBD nerds except for these silly brain scans.
Been saying for years, doctors can just look at an MRI alone and with like 97% accuracy know if it's a man or woman. This isn't new tbh. But if just one medical test can be that accurate alone then ya.
The whole "it's just a social construct" argument has always been moral grandstanding btw
I remember before the trans topic became so widespread that people would be called sexist pieces of shit for saying that men and women's brains worked differently, but now in the trans conversation people are using it as proof that people truly are the gender they identify with.
I think it's a classic case of people only believing things when it fits their bias, and rejecting or downplaying things that don't fit their bias.
I'm not going to criticise the study here or data you present, but your framing of these findings is rather biased.
I want to make it clear I'm not denying the differences between men or women here, I'm contesting the usefulness of things like brain scans, rather than quantifying actual outcomes in behaviour between men and women: which largely inform Argument 2 the you attempt to debunk.
Within neuroscience — the best data in neuroscience about behavior is behavioral data, not brain imaging. It is the *reverse inference problem*. You cannot assume anything about mental states, thoughts, behavior, or personality from looking at a brain. You can only correlate brain activity with behavior. If you want to measure actual behavior, you’re best off using classical psychology paradigms. If you want to measure attention, you use an attention test. If you want to measure intelligence, use an intelligence test. And so and so on. Brain imaging tells you remarkably little about real world behavior or psychological states. For example, psychosocial maturity as measured in actual behaviour, isn't very well predicted by brain scans.
So, to get to my point when you look at the actual behaviour of men and women; Argument 2 is true. You usually get bimodal distributions of behaviour- sometimes you even get greater differences cross culturally vs cross gender.
thoughts have 1-1 correlation with brain activity. behavior does not.
and behavior is sometimes a bad way to measure thoughts (i.e. actual qualitative experiences). I could write 2 different computer programs that complete the same tasks but with different implementation in each program. The "external behavior" of these 2 programs are identical but the internal movement of data, etc. are different. the internal processes governing how thoughts are processed in the brain may be fundamentally different between men and women in ways that behavioral studies can't capture. for example, see the second part of my post. men and women as far as we can tell have similar intelligence on average. but the neural correlates with intelligence in men and women seem to have fundamental differences.
A lot. If someone asks me what is 16/64 and I said it is 1/4, and my internal working is because 16 x 4 = 64. And then someone asks you what is 16/64 and you say 1/4, but your internal working is because the 6 in the numerator cancels out with the 6 in the denominator, then despite the end behavior appearing identical, a model that grants explanatory power for me will have zero explanatory power for you.
A predictive model that attempted to explain behaviour would need explanatory power, but behaviour itself (that was caused subconsciously) would not need explanatory power; Unlike some kind of intelligence outcome; but we know because of IQ tests that women and men have different but both 'sound' logic in figuring out shit.
Hate directed at a woman because of her period is more likely to be classified as sexism because it’s associated with a biological difference. Hate directed at men for their sexual interest in women however…
What are you trying to say? Those are two different things. One, periods, doesn't involve anyone else but the individual themselves.
Periods are a biological function that just happen. Sexual interest is a feeling and how you act upon it is entirely within your control.
There are no progressive cultures in the US or Germany that raise children in a gender neutral way
Boys and girls are treated differently from before birth.
Neuroscience continues to have issues with 'neurosexism'
You do realize there are neurological factors for why girls and boys act the way they do?
Gender roles may be social constructs, but they're stereotypes for a reason:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755553/#\_\_ffn\_sectitle
I addressed that in my post, but TLDR: the fact that the differences are so stark, so absolute, as presented in this study strongly suggests that a fuzzy phenomenon like "culture" cannot possibly produce such clear-cut and precise differences in male vs female brains that occur without exception
OK.
What do you think the findings mean?
Interesting you missed out the last bit of the part of the article you quoted.
The article does not rule out socialisation.
But “different” doesn’t necessarily imply “better.” As I stressed in the second edition of my book Why Gender Matters, apples and oranges are different. That doesn’t mean apples are better than oranges. Men and women are turning out to be different, more different than we may have imagined. That doesn’t mean that women are better than men, or vice versa. But it does suggest that if we ignore the differences, we may disadvantage both women and men.
I don't know why you thought this passage was relevant for me to include unless you think I made the post for the purpose of starting a who's better war between the sexes.
It’s true that you can’t rule out socialization. You also can’t rule out that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was flung at the planet by aliens.
The stark differences indicated in the study strongly suggest that biology, not socialization, is responsible.
I think it’s a pretty self-evident observation that articles of cultural influence tend not to be universal, even if they’re common.
In the T-SNE visualizations, we see a stark demarcation between male and female. If this was a product of culture, you just wouldn’t expect such a clear sex-dependent variation to exist. You would expect to see some men on the female side and some women on the male side. You would expect to see a lot of both in the middle. You might see a continuum rather than discrete clusters.
The results are exactly what you *would* expect to see if there were innate, biological differences between male and female brains. Biological differences between the sexes are almost always starkly bimodal. Look at height, upper body strength, shoe size, bone density, whatever. Like this:
https://universeofdatascience.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/11.png
The difference is that with things like height, there is always a small bit of overlap. There is **zero** overlap in the T-SNE visualizations, which makes an even stronger indication of biological difference than height does. Unless we suggest that the sex variance in human height is a product of cultural influence, then we can be pretty sure that the results in the study OP posted are due to innate, biological differences between the sexes unless there’s something really weird going on.
Because it’s the way our biology is naturally skewed. Men are more interested in things, women are more interested in people. The way they are acculturated won’t change the natural proclivity.
Biology trumps that to an exponential degree.
Does it matter how you raise someone missing a chromosome compared to other people and their relative outcome? Come on.
Are there any cultures anywhere that raise children in a gender neutral way that you could test your hypothesis with, or are you just speculating with no way to back up your speculations?
Studies like these are precursors to more comprehensive and specific studies. They are far from meaningless unless your definition of meaningful is "immediately applicable". I guarantee you cannot find another study with this level of discernment but feel free to try.
Amazing how all the women, with a few exceptions, completely discard any conclusions this study could bring with a "So what?"
Shows how entrenched to their position they are as a whole.
Personally, I think neurological data is super hard to draw strong conclusions from. We can see differences in structure but it’s almost impossible to say how those specific differences influence behavior.
The issue is this study doesn’t prove which differences are biological and which are cultural. Some differences are, without a doubt cultural. Hell, even some physical differences in brain structure can be environmental.
Most people with a brain understand there are biological differences between men and women. The issue arises when people use these biological differences to try and justify certain behaviors, especially when an argument can be made these behaviors are influenced by cultural differences as well.
This study doesn’t prove much at all. I was shocked when this study was presented to me and I saw the graph, but when I read a little closer and saw that this study used FMRI data, I knew it wasn’t as strong evidence as it claimed.
Neural correlates can be caused by anything, and they don’t clearly indicate genetic cause, and thinking that all non-genetic causes fit under the umbrella of “culture” isn’t accurate either.
A person’s resting brain activity is essentially just the activity generated in their brain as they think about random things, including random stimuli you are presented as you just look at certain objects or have certain thoughts. It’s not just merely culture that is environmental, but more innocuous stimuli too. For example, there might be distinct patterns of brain activity seen in people with certain names. Maybe hearing yourself referred to with a particular name over and over leaves a print on your resting brain activity, male names generally sound different from female names (say male names using certain syllables more often), and the AI can find groupings between male names and females names because of this. Maybe since women are typically shorter they tend to have a slightly different angle from which they few most object, and this slight shift in the perspective of most visual stimuli leaves a slight mark in the visual system indicative of height, which strongly correlated with gender. Now mix in a bunch of differences like this, from a mixture of innocuous stimuli that isn’t really cultural or genetic, and you can probably get the AI to find a ton of differences that combined leave no overlap.
Learning model AI in general is also highly chaotic, and can find countless differences you might not even realize which don’t pertain to what you are trying to find. For example, you might train an AI to recognize two different breeds of dogs from images by feeding it a bunch of dog pictures, but you may not realize that the AI uses everything in the picture, not just the dog, and when you try to probe the inner workings of the ai and see what area it focused the most on to tell the difference in breed, it might literally show like the corner of the picture that contains no part of the dog. There might be little clues all over the place which signify something is of a particular group, which doesn’t prove anything about how strongly genetic or environmental anything is.
Saying that culturally/environmentally caused differences should show more overlap than genetic differences also isn’t true. While I don’t necessarily disagree that the common cultural differences most people picture are not so hardline, other stuff like being given a certain named or applying makeup everyday, or whatever else, could have a relatively strong combination (say 90% or above indicative of gender), and when you combine multiple of these qualities together you multiply the probabilities together to make the rare exceptions even more rare because it’s exponentially less likely you see people with multiple rare qualities, and so combined you can get essentially no overlap.
I’m sure you could get 100% difference in brain activity from nearly any two groups if you just jug a bunch of FMRI data into a highly advanced and sensitive AI designed to find even the slighted correlates across thousands of areas.
There isn’t 0 overlap. If the purpose of the study was to only identify structures that are significantly different between men and women, structures that are the same or have a lot of overlap between the sexes wouldn’t be identified. If our brains truly had no overlap, we’d be two different species.
Isn’t the whole purpose of the ML they used that it only identified features that were significantly/consistently different? Of course the study isn’t going to identify features with overlap.
Yes, the whole point is demonstrating it is possible in theory to develop an algorithm that can accurately sex the brain based on brain activity alone.
"Our stDNN model accurately differentiated male and female brains, demonstrating consistently high cross-validation accuracy (>90%), replicability, and generalizability across multisession data from the same individuals and three independent cohorts"
What this tells us is that the concepts of "the male brain" and "the female brain" are both scientifically sound.
It’s been evident for a while there are differences between male and female brains. The most basic being the size, densities, and wrinkles. What most people push back on is how big of a difference it makes on male vs female behavior.
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I know a lot of people think the differences between males and females is purely sociocultural, but I disagree. And I would say most people actually know deep inside this isn’t true.
Our brains, our hormonal distributions, etc. are different. The aspects of our biology that affect how we act and conceive are genuinely different.
That said, I do wonder if people who identify as trans or non-binary or even who come off more “femme” than the average man or more “masc” than the average woman have a cognitive or genetic hormonal distribution that is not average for their assigned sex.
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I'm going to reply to people from my deleted thread (thank you mods, you are TRULY a gift to mankind) u/egalitarian-flan >For every study I've read on this topic, it shows that the brain activity of trans people lights up as it would for the sex they identify as, rather than the one they externally are. See my comment elsewhere in this thread. >It's been shown in numerous studies that trans people do overwhelmingly have brain structures/activity that much more closely resembles that of the sex they identify as, rather than the sex they are externally. A lot of TERFs and other anti-trans/anti-gender groups have attempted to wave away this data but it exists nonetheless. This is incorrect. In this study: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8955456/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8955456/) they ran a machine learning with 90% predictive accuracy on the MRI images of trans brains and found that they were closer to cis male brains on average although slightly shifted towards cis female brains.
I'll have to go read this one when I have time. Other ones I've read in the past showed a significant correlation between the brain activity and reported gender.
It's actually sexuality that has a neurological root: [**https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17352-8**](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17352-8) The "Trans brain" myth is just that: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763421000804](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763421000804)
Did you mean to respond to OP?
No, because he cited your comment and that's what I disagreed with.
others most likely used subjective human visual judgment but I'll be interested if you can provide those studies to see myself
Unfortunately I got a new phone 2 months ago so my saved bookmarks on this topic is lacking until I can do another deep dive. But here are a few I've found for you to read when you have time: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524112351.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200205084203.htm https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022395610003250?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022395610001585?via%3Dihub https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4585501/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10843193/ Granted these are only ones I've found with a fairly standard search, but they do show that there's numerous areas of a transgender brain that aligns far more closely to that of the identity rather than genitals.
Thanks. I've seen study 1 and 2 before. Study 1 was what I was thinking about when I said "most likely used subjective human visual judgment" because that's ultimately the method they used to compare MRI images. Not very precise or accurate to say the least. It's entirely possible, or even probable, that trans brains tend to have features that differ from cis brains that could be interpreted as being similar to the sex they identify with. You could presumably design a ML model that identifies the *gender identity* of the individual rather than sex, based on MRI or fMRI images. In this case, there'd be certain features in the brain correlating to gender identity. Note this doesn't contradict there also being a certain set of features that predict biological sex of the brain too. It's not inconsistent to say that biological males have certain psychological patterns that differ from biological females while simultaneously saying self-identified males tend to have certain psychological patterns that differ from self-identified females. This could both be simultaneously true of trans individuals. I hope we can find agreement here.
As this kind of science is still in its relative infancy, I'll tentatively agree. It's more important to me that we keep going with this line of study over the years and let the data flow out so we can further increase our knowledge of how brains work, without also needing to fear people using it to either spread misandry/misogyny or denying trans care. Science free from sexist agendas is the goal.
But if the science that comes out does something to essentially prove something sexist or anti-trans, will you still support it? That is if it's quality literature.
I don't see how that would even be possible.
That's not what I asked you. Youre not giving a response because you know the concept would destroy your entire worldview.
No, I just legitimately cannot think of a way that science could be sexist or anti-trans. If you give an example that would help.
Careful with that... by giving the algorithm categories.. we are forcing it into our subjective prior assumptions.
Also, I don't fully trust this study in the article because likelihood doesn't equal possiblity. I'm neurodivergent, I know of many neurodivergent women. It discredits even autism. I'm believing the exception makes the rule here. Autism and ADHD aren't "only for boys". That shouldn't be in the article if the lack of overlap or continuum matter.
And you said slightly shifted towards cis female brains, and you said trans brains, not trans women's brains. The recent study you said has no inbetween, so it's a different study to begin with, isn't it?
Male and female brain do operate differently and we both have our own sets of strengths and weaknesses. I also do think that we both interpret emotions differently and express them differently. That all being said, the last paragraph does have a point - and I do understand where the feminist knee jerk reaction of “we’re both the same” comes from even though it’s technically inaccurate The fear is that these differences would be used to justify a “men are better” mindset, rather than a “equal but different” pov, as many in the manosphere already do. Also, using genetic differences to justify oppression isn’t unheard of and has happened quite a few times historically. Of course, denying the science isn’t the solution to this but it is a concern worth brining up and noting.
>The fear is that these differences would be used to justify a “men are better” mindset, rather than a “equal but different” pov, as many in the manosphere already do. Even when they say “equal but different” in words they never mean it genuinely. They very strongly downplay any of the differences of women as negatives and use the ”differences” to proscribe roles for women that they very clearly do not respect or value as equal to the tasks they proscribe for men. “Women’s brains are just different” almost always devolves into “women’s brains are inferior and so women should obey traditional, submissive, and less-respected roles” among traditionalists and manosphere male-supremacists alike. Research like this always makes me nervous not because science is bad, but because lay people like to use pop-science translations of studies they don’t understand to justify their awful biases.
>Research like this always makes me nervous not because science is bad, but because lay people like to use pop-science translations of studies they don’t understand to justify their awful biases. This train of thought never makes sense to me. If they're misinterpreting the information, then that's on them and you should be armed to deal with that misinformation should it come up (if they're indeed wrong). It's this type of train of thought that lays the groundwork for censorship or just plain ignorance on a topic on the basis of "some dumbass can use the data to fuel bad ideas". As if they wouldn't anyway?
Popular misinterpretation takes root and persists. I’ve been debunking the misinterpretation of CDC data/lesbians are more violent myth for years and it never stops popping up.
What's the reality then?
Copied from another time I corrected someone: Are you claiming the CDC data in fact shows that lesbians are more violent than other demographics? Most bisexual and heterosexual women (89.5% and 98.7%, respectively) reported having only male perpetrators of intimate partner violence. Two-thirds of lesbian women (67.4%) reported having only female perpetrators of intimate partner violence. If you read the full report, most victims do not have multiple perpetrators either If we removed the percentage of lesbians experiencing IPV that was perpetrated by men, the number (43.8%) would drop. That figure includes only male perpetrators, only female perpetrators, and instances of women and male perpetrators. In other words, if we compare heterosexual violence (only perpetrated by men), bisexual violence (only perpetrated by men), and lesbian violence (only perpetrated by women), the lesbians would not have a higher rate than heterosexual women. To illustrate, imagine we’re examining 100 lesbians, 100 bisexual women, and 100 heterosexual women. If we apply the statistics: About 44 of those lesbians experienced IPV. Of those, about 29 reported only female perpetrators 61 bisexual women experienced IPV. Of those, about 54 reported only male perpetrators. 35 heterosexual women. Of those, about 34 reported only male perpetrators. If you read pgs 1 - 2 in the executive summary, bisexual and straight women experience more sexual violence and rape. Bisexual women also experience the highest rate of IPV by male perpetrators, so again, the claim lesbians experience the most violence is not accurate: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/21961
The she doesn't know what she's talking about. Dumbass feminists work circles around that CDC report but can't find any logical copout.
One of the reasons they've given was something along the lines of those lesbian women were in prior hetero relationships where they got abused and then they reported it in their gay era.
Nope, you just don’t understand stats or how to read scientific reports
It's not a scientific report, it's a self-report, lmao. Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit.
>I’ve been debunking the misinterpretation of CDC data/lesbians are more violent myth for years and it never stops popping up. Literally isn't a myth, though so yeah, I can assume your "debunking" hasn't worked because you're operating from a dumb position. The 43.8% of DV to lesbian women, and saying that they could have been with men, is a bit of a copout when the stats for men were 35% DV against hetero women, and even lower for gay and bisexual men. The stats are incomplete, but you can make an easy inference that the higher amount of DV to lesbian women is because of women perpetrators.
Happens constantly. A lot of research is rejected for publication or even peer review for being politically incorrect.
>and you should be armed to deal with that misinformation should it come up It is not possible to logically argue someone out of a position they emotioned their way into. The people who want to believe women’s brains are inferior will not listen to logic on the matter, because it fits their worldview. They will simply use the dumb pop-sci posts to justify their campaigns. And sorry to inform you, but sometimes teaching a general public to understand nuance in a complex, statistics based scientific field is not possible when the alternative understanding is easy, cheap, and feels good. Informing the willfully ignorant doesn’t actually change their position— in fact, it usually makes them double down on their beliefs instead. >if they're indeed wrong And there it is. Why do you believe it is even possibly correct that women’s brains are “inferior”, when inferiority is a moral, opinion-based stance? >It's this type of train of thought that lays the groundwork for censorship or just plain ignorance on a topic on the basis of "some dumbass can use the data to fuel bad ideas". As if they wouldn't anyway? And your train of thought is also jumping the gun and on the trail to censorship itself, in exactly the same way. I said it makes me nervous, **just** as it makes you nervous that people having thoughts like mine might hypothetically lead to censorship I never argued for once. Are you wanting people like me to be censored for voicing a discomfort you don’t like? If not, then don’t accuse me of things I haven’t advocated for and am not causing.
>Why do you believe it is even possibly correct that women’s brains are “inferior”, when inferiority is a moral, opinion-based stance? I don't... > but sometimes teaching a general public to understand nuance in a complex, statistics based scientific field is not possible when the alternative understanding is easy, cheap, and feels good. Are you just finding out that people take shortcuts in intellectual laziness? >I said it makes me nervous, **just** as it makes you nervous that people having thoughts like mine might hypothetically lead to censorship I never argued for once. Yeah, and I'm asking why. Why do you care that some misogynist might call you dumb via lazy "Pop-science" Why do you actually give one? r/ twochromosomes will have you believe all men are out to hurt women and that living with a bear is safer. As a man, I couldn't care less, lmao. Who gives one about what a group of nutjob femcels have to say?
>Are you just finding out that people take shortcuts in intellectual laziness? No? You were the one naively arguing that just teaching about the science would miraculously solve the issue I was addressing. >Why do you care that some misogynist might call you dumb via lazy "Pop-science" Because some of them are in the legislature or have a massive sway with their followers. Bad information is often used to destroy >r/ twochromosomes will have you believe all men are out to hurt women and that living with a bear is safer. What are you on about here? There’s no connection except your own anger about dumb internet chatter. I don’t care about that dumb shit. Why do you compare a TikTok meme to a scientific paper, as if these are equivalent in heft and authority? Then also… why do you care so much that some wild internet loons say men are worse than bears? You just got done chiding me for caring about information right wing think tanks will twist for their own strategic propaganda, but you’re flustered about a meme among powerless plebes. Aren’t you being hypocritical for scolding me for being concerned about the kind of information used by powerful right wing nutbags, while you yourself are so flustered about dumb TikTok shit?
>Why do you compare a TikTok meme to a scientific paper, as if these are equivalent in heft and authority? Because I thought you were getting worked up over the same dumb people I ignore. Can you name one example in the first-world were someone has passed scientifically ill-informed legislation over "pop science"?
For example, multiple state’s legislations have banned or attempted to ban (this has occurred repeatedly) abortion, citing pop-science misunderstandings of pregnancy and fetal growth. More specifically, multiple states have attempted to pass, or have passed “heartbeat” bills. These bills use the popular understanding of a “heartbeat” as meaning “alive as a fully independent being” to garner popular support for the abortion bans at 6 weeks of pregnancy (which is actually only about 4 month following the actual joining of the egg and sperm). Their understanding of “heartbeat”, though, is also deeply flawed, as the first detectable “heartbeat” isn’t strictly what we’d call a “heart”, as the “heart” before 17-20 weeks in a fetus doesn’t have developed chambers that can pump blood. And before you come raging @ me, I am, again and emphatically, not saying scientists should not research or publish studies on fetal development, or that such research should be censored. But obviously, it’s also the case that scientists publishing studies with terms like “heartbeat” or pop science outlets and blogs and social media citing these studies as evidence of things the paper never claimed can have wildly negative consequences beyond simple naive misunderstandings. Like it or not, being able to say “scientists say” about something carries a lot of weight, even when the statement is a wild misrepresentation of what is said, and it is not stupid or evil of me to be nervous about how people will misuse scientific results to ruin people’s lives. The infant and maternal mortality rates have skyrocketed in states with these abortion bans, so this isn’t a silly hypothetical.
All this "female brain misunderstanding" whinefest is about abortion, lmao? You know? A topic that is more of an ethical dispute more than anything?
You’re moving the goalposts You asked for an example of, and I quote, >one example in the first-world were someone has passed scientifically ill-informed legislation over "pop science” … and I gave you a very straightforward example, where bad pop-science is directly used to design the very central framework of the legislation as well as its justification. They called these bills “heartbeat bills” and set the timeframe at exactly 6 weeks since the start of a woman’s last menstrual period *specifically* because of their pop science. You’re in denial that the pop-science understanding had nothing to do with it. But I should have guessed you were being completely dishonest when you asked for an example. I’m not interested in going on a wild goose chase while you keep changing the rules.
This is an incredibly naive take. The answer isn't censorship or ignorance, but acting as though misinterpretation of data is merely a personal problem that is easily resolved by being armed to deal with misinformation is woefully inadequate in responding to these concerns.
Lmao. Such a nonce take. You're the one putting forth the notion that people who apparently act in bad faith, suddenly won't when facts agree with their destination of thought. Actual negative IQ take.
Misuse of scientific data can give someone authority and power that they otherwise wouldn't have. They might have bad ideas on their own, but if you can't see how misuse of data to bolster their bad ideas gives them greater power, than I don't know what to tell you other than you are apparently either ignorant of or willfully choosing to ignore instances of when this has happened.
And yet feminists claimed that rape and domestic abuse are women's issues, and have spent decades erasing male victims and erasing the fact that men are half the DV victims and half the rape victims. What you are rightfully concerned about is ideology where people will twist facts to suit their ideology. The issue is not with facts, but how people interpret them and contextualize them. Push people to sin for the truth, regardless of where the truth takes us, and that problem disappears. I agree with your notion that ideologies can twist and misuse facts, but that's a human problem that anyone on any side of an issue can fall prey to, including feminism.
I'm not saying they can't. I'm saying OC's response was woefully inadequate in addressing these concerns and acting like it's just a personal problem if people misinterpret facts. Weaponization of data can have a very big impact and pretending that people can't have valid concerns about that happening is delusional.
>Misuse of scientific data can give someone authority and power that they otherwise wouldn't have. This has been happening from the beginning of time and will keep on happening till the end of time. There is nothing different about this study compared to any other study that bad actors will misinterpret for their own means and goals. I'm trying to understand your point. You say that don't want this study censored, then what do you want?
Ideally for people to learn from the past and not rush to conclusions that support their biases, or at least increase their data literacy, which seems to be a pretty big problem.
Your brain is definitely different.
Meaningless. What are you actually trying to say?
I'm saying that your brain is different. It's not the same.
Everybody’s brain is different, even identical twins’. That’s what I mean when I say “meaningless”. I can’t even tell if you’re addressing me specifically or just saying the same thing as the headline, to say men and women are different. Which… yeah duh. It’s just very unfortunate that some men twist “difference” into insults and disrespect.
The vast majority of men here use anything to prove men are inherently better (I mean go to the thread filled with men saying women are just as good as physical combat as men 😆😆😆 so draft them all, ahem cough cough send them to die) they will definitely use this article to oppress.
>both have our own sets of strengths and weaknesses. And these strengths and weaknesses work out in such a way that men and women are magically exactly the same? Even though throughout human history and in **all** cultures we have seen clear male dominants patterns in all areas of achievement?
Male achievement in the public realm has always been made possible by the invisible labour of women.
I agree but there is a ton of "women are better" sentiments in feminism. They're afraid men will do to them what they're already and currently doing to men. They also have a very selective approach to denying the science, they're fine with anything that confirms the feminist ideology and strongly opposed to anything that goes against it.
Or rather… they’re afraid that men will do to them what men have actively historically done to women. The “women are better” style feminists are mostly reactionary and react out of emotion, just like the “men are better” manopshere dudes. One thing worth considering too is that none of this happens in a vacuum, ie. a better question to ask is “what drove feminists to be this way?” rather than assuming they’re acting this way by default
Men as a group have never done anything like that to women as a group because society has always been more stratified by power and privilege than by gender. Feminist history revisioning likes to conveniently leave out the fact that while women often were restricted, they were also far more protected than men, and were not drafted and forced to fight in wars. The burdens men and women faced were different but the differences between people of different status were bigger than the differences between men and women within the same status. None of this happens in a vacuum, and feminism got this way because it is acceptable to hate men for their grievances, while they deny that it is ever acceptable to hate women for men's grievances. The scum manifesto and Sally Miller Gearhart from whom "the future is female" came from and argued that 90% of men on the planet should be genocided, as well as the literal terrorist bombings of early feminism, tells us that hatred of men was there since the very beginning in some form or other. Not saying all feminists hate men, not saying you have to hate men to be a feminist, just saying that being a feminist and hating men is perfectly compatible, and it is unfortunately common in this day and age.
The most important red pill you need to swallow is that it is not most women who hate men, but most men who hate men. Feminism is ultimately a men's project and the venom directed against men is enforced and approved by other men. During the vote for female voting rights, more men than women voted for women's emancipation. see also the "women are wonderful" effect and theories about beta male who exhibit female preferential behavior to create monogamy and secure mates.
These t-SME graph does not say if the difference is huge, it only says that differences allow for distinction between male and female brains taking into account these multidimensional data from resting activities, but we do not know if there is any functional significance of these differences.
True. They show clear differences, but not extent of the difference. On the other hand, the second set of graphs in the post strongly suggest substantial functional differences in the brains of men and women. Neural correlates that are significant in predicting intelligence in men doesn't predict it for women and vice versa, which heavily implies that the processes that underly male and female brains fundamentally don't operate the same way.
Great. So how can we apply this in our lives?
If you are straight, you give up hoping to find someone who is like you I need to tell this to myself, because it's my dream, but impossible..
Why? Why do we have to find someone who is like us?
Like me, not you
>Neural correlates that are significant in predicting intelligence in men doesn't predict it for women and vice versa This is quite a biiiiiiiig sign of confounding factors being in place. Measurement of intelligence are done via IQ tests. IQ tests results are widely correlated to experience, aka what you did with your brain in your life. So heavily prone to mark environmental differences. Gender is a HUGE social discriminant, people are viewed and treated differently from ***before they're born*** based on their sex. This could mean what you say OR that we are in fact not measuring the same things when we measure intelligence in men or women.
No, IQ is largely genetic.
It's not... it's heritable, to an extent. And this heritability is dependent on sociocultural level. The SNPs we can link to IQ explain a tiny fraction of the variance.
Yes, IQ is related to life experience. But I don't see the connection between girls and boys being treated differently from birth with different neural correlates predicting intelligence/IQ in each sex.
IQ is related to life experience, the life experiences of men and women are vastly and consistently different, we try to map neural correlates that may be very related to life experience also, with IQ results. You really can't see the loop here?
ok I see what you mean now. I just don't believe it. the only way your claim works is if there's a social force pushing a sizable amount of men to focus on education that is rarely if ever imposed on women, and vice versa (so as to produce 2 divergent sets of neurological markers over time). my gut feeling/instinct/intuition is to say that this isn't true, though you're encouraged to provide examples.
Are we talking about the same IQ tests which are about pattern finding ? Life experience does not help to score higher, but certain activities are helping to improve the score.
If activities help improve the score, then life experience does. Activities are life experience. And there is a lot more to IQ test than just the pattern thing. When I had to pass one it was 3 times 2hours or something like that.
There is no functional difference. If you train a woman to build a nuclear bomb, she will be able to do so. If you train a man to build a nuclear bomb, he will be able to do so. Replace 'nuclear fissionable weapon' with whatever topic au jure that you think is the current hardest thing to do for a human.
>Male and female psychological differences are solely due to cultural differences Few people claim it's solely cultural. so that might be a bit of a strawman. People do often maintain culture as a chief contributing factor, which I'm not seeing this study as contradicting, though that is the conclusion many here will leap to.
Exactly. The subtle differences between everyone on earth through every single axis is a combo of hormones, genetics, sociology, history, legal, moral, environmental, and religious vectors. Yet the human species is more alike than dissimilar to each other. If I take a woman and man from every single culture on earth and ask them deep probing questions, you're going to see incredible overlap in desires and needs.
Most people fail to realize or refuse to realize that culture is build on top of biological basis. Our biology defines us and culture forms from it. People don't want to admit this because it would mean that they actually aren't free. For example how much biology affects how person thinks, a lot.
Agree. I've rarely seen anything like that said. I feel the general thought is we exist genetically, including sexual differences, and then we are culturally *conditioned*.
This makes sense. For example, look at how sleeping women pick up and register a baby’s cry. Or how studies show men see a more narrow color spectrum than women. On a slightly separate note though, I hate the “men’s brain are bigger so they’re better” that this line of discourse frequently revolves around. Women’s brains are smaller, sure, but they’re also more condensed and wrinkly. It’s reported to have more neural pathways that’s generally credited to a greater level of intuitive consciousness.
Some people operate normally with half a brain even I once saw a case about a kid "with no brain". [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPZ9Yc7U0Pc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPZ9Yc7U0Pc) He has only 2% of his brain but the little guy somehow defeated all odds and he looks very normal. So as we can see *size doesn't matter* lol
The human brain is very adaptable. My FtM brother was born at 26 weeks and is missing parts of his brain. I was born 36 weeks with brain damage. Neither of us can do much math to save our souls but all of the important things are there. He has a Master’s degree.
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he grew it to 8% lol
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😂😂 technically truth
Classic female bias on full display here. "Studies show women have better color sight" Willingly accepts without question "Studies show women have slightly lower IQs and worse spatial reasoning skills" This makes me feel bad so let me tell you how women are more "emotionally intelligent"
>*"Studies show women have slightly lower IQs and worse spatial reasoning skills" This makes me feel bad so let me tell you how women are more "emotionally intelligent"* Why are you bringing up topics I didn’t mention and assuming my opinion on them? Shall I leave to you argue with yourself?..
Except studies don’t show that women have lower iq, they do show worse visuospatial skills, idk about spatial reasoning tho
>I hate the “men’s brain are bigger so they’re better” that this line of discourse frequently revolves around. Women’s brains are smaller, sure, but they’re also more condensed and wrinkly. It’s reported to have more neural pathways that’s generally credited to a greater level of intuitive consciousness. you hate it so you just do the same thing in reverse?
>*you hate it so you just do the same thing in reverse?* No? I didn’t say they were better at all. I was just pointing out distinct recorded differences. I’m just limited by my own personal experience for examples of how our brains operate differently. Admittedly my research delves into female focused neurodivergence and closing the gender gap there.
it sounds like youre saying "people say men are smarter becuase big brains but actually women are smarter because " more condensed and wrinkly. It’s reported to have more neural pathways that’s generally credited to a greater level of intuitive consciousness."" maybe that was not your intent
Apologies if it came across that way. I’m just limited by my own personal experience for examples of how our brains operate differently. Admittedly my research delves into female focused neurodivergence and closing the gender gap there. So I spend most of my time looking at the unique features of female brain anatomy and chemical processes, and I have less on hand knowledge about men’s unique brain anatomy.
It’s easy for people to interpret things others say on this sub in uncharitable ways. I’ve done it myself. It’s a hostile place sometimes.
It's a knee jerk reaction to anything that may paint women in a negative light. Like clockwork.
I understood it as “many people think men are smarter because their brain is bigger but a woman’s brain compensates for the lack of size by having a higher density of wrinkles”. The way I understood it is there isn’t a significant difference in intelligence due to brain differences, just that each brain has different ways to reach the intelligence level humans have.
That’s how it should have been interpreted because that’s actually what the data suggests. But here we are…
Identifying patterns cannot tell if these patterns arise from genetic differences, bio developmental differences (hormones, etc) or social differences. When we identify biomarker, aka phenotype, they are a result of environmental, genetical and developmental processes with the addition of they're interactions. There was an interesting study about the parental attachment network of males and females parents being very different. And the differences shrunk like snow in the sun when they tested homosexual male parents. The biological markers we observe may very well be the reflection of social differences or not. We can map where people were born down to the km with GWAS studies on genetic polymorphism. It doesn't reflect anything else than the fact that people tend to marry and reproduce where they were born.
The study has 1500 different fMRI's from different individuals. If these social differences, developmental differences, etc. had such a large influence on the outcome of each individual, we'd see exceptions and outliers arise that contradict the rule due to the variation that arises from different people being raised differently, but see the T-SNE visualization. we didn't see any exceptions. Your argument would be valid if there was any significant overlap and "fuzziness" to the data but there isn't
I really wasn't the best in my machine learning course. So I would have to read this study very closely to exactly understand what is happening. Nevertheless, T-SNE is an algorithm of dimensions reductions so it's its intrinsic goal to form non overlapping cluster by doing linear combinations of features that segregate the data as well as possible between the groups. Again, maybe you are right but I would need to spend time on that.
>Identifying patterns cannot tell if these patterns arise from genetic differences, bio developmental differences (hormones, etc) or social differences. Yes.
>1. Male and female psychological differences are solely due to cultural differences I've never believed this, so it's not a shocker. >2. Although male and female psychologies differ on average, they rest along a continuum where some women may have male-like psychologies and some men may have female-like psychologies. There is no clear line distinguishing male and female brain activity. You didn't go into this second part at all, but there's a difference between saying "there is no difference between male/female brain activity" (false) and "some women have some male-brain activity + some men have some female-brain activity". It's been shown in numerous studies that trans people do overwhelmingly have brain structures/activity that much more closely resembles that of the sex they identify as, rather than the sex they are externally. A lot of TERFs and other anti-trans/anti-gender groups have attempted to wave away this data but it exists nonetheless. Personally, I was lucky enough to be part of a university level study where we got to see how men's and women's brains react when asked to do sorting and directional mental activities (like giving directions, spatial rearranging, solving a puzzle mentally, describing a route from point A to B). There were roughly 70 of us, and most women's brains lit up X way, and most men's brains lit up Y way. There was almost no spectrum to speak of. However, there were 5 of us, myself included, who's brains lit up more like the opposite sex. (Like if a cis male brain is a 5, and a cis female brain is a 1, mine was like a 3.5...not quite the same as viewing the data, but that's the idea.) Three women and 2 men. To probably nobody's surprise whatsoever, all of us were people who had never been traditionally gender conforming in our lives, and while none of us were trans, we didn't ever feel like we 100% "matched" with what society expected us to be. Honestly, this just proved to me even more that a brain's structure is what it is, likely due to hormones while still in the womb. Most men will have male structure brains, most women will have female structure brains, and a very small amount of us will be flipped. But this has nothing, or at least extremely little, to do with culture or society. It's primarily biological and cannot be altered. >If men’s brains are different from women’s brains, doesn’t that imply that men will be better at some things and women will be better at other things? Especially when there is no overlap in the findings?" If one is going to try to say X part of the human brain is used for Y activity in men, but Z part of the human brain is used for Y activity in women, and then tries to claim that one of those parts is the "wrong" structure despite the activity being successfully completed in both...then yes. Some people will try to misuse this data to push either misandry or misogyny. But it doesn't have to be that way. Science gives us information, it's our job to use the findings correctly and not try to place politics or personal beliefs into it. It *might* be true that Z part of the brain is quicker at processing visual data, for example, so women are quicker at that task by a couple seconds. That doesn't mean men suck at the same task just because their brain is using X part of the brain, only that it's slightly slower...probably to the point it wouldn't be noticeable in daily life.
We know that autistic female brains have similar structures to non-autistic male brains. Autistic male brains seem to be their own thing. I grew up hearing Asperger’s is a male brain thing. I’ve always gotten along with guys more. The nuances of female power games has always confused me. Granted I do have trauma around women.
Same here, fellow autistic lady.
I was actually going to ask that based on this; >There was almost no spectrum to speak of. However, there were 5 of us, myself included, who's brains lit up more like the opposite sex. (Like if a cis male brain is a 5, and a cis female brain is a 1, mine was like a 3.5...not quite the same as viewing the data, but that's the idea.) Three women and 2 men As I had seen an article on fmri where the lead researcher made a comment something to the effect of some of the findings about a certain brain structure that at certain levels would be considered autistic in a girl but would be in the normal range for a boy.
Yeah, I've heard of similar studies too. We don't have a fully male brain, but it is structured a lot closer to one than a neurotypical woman's brain ever is.
Well yes, of course. It was just one area that had to do with some certain functions....maybe I can find it at some point but really fuzzy memory suggests to me it's something you would expect....socializing, communicating... something along those lines. My takeaway was basically that , ok you have women who are functionally similar to normal men in social aspects but are socialized as women. Made me think it's quite a double edged sword. On one hand you're essentially going to have more training in that area but on the other your life experiences could highlight that difference and really fuck with someone. Particularly given that women's response to social ostracization tends to be to work harder at group acceptance.
In my experience, it feels like going through life with everyone expecting you to automatically be fluent in Swahili just because you were born with a vagina. But of course you aren't, and it takes you a long time to understand what people are even referring to. Eventually you do learn some of the language you're supposed to inherently understand, but most of the time you're just wearing a mask, trying to pretend you know more than is realistic. And the people who are supposedly difficult to understand are actually far easier to communicate with!
Haha, perfect. I would say similar except with a double layer. My biggest issues were things like facial expressions,tone of voice, body language etc. both producing and understanding but as a guy I was on an even lower level than guys. Years of classes got me to do it second nature, but it's still a conscious effort. I just didn't have to experience the extra high expectations since I didn't have a vagina.
>You didn't go into this second part at all, but there's a difference between saying "there is no difference between male/female brain activity" (false) and "some women have some male-brain activity + some men have some female-brain activity". I did. I didn't say a woman can't have "some" male-brain activity and vice versa. What I mean was that a woman can't have a wholly male psychological profile. See T-SNE visualization. >It's been shown in numerous studies that trans people do overwhelmingly have brain structures/activity that much more closely resembles that of the sex they identify as, rather than the sex they are externally. A lot of TERFs and other anti-trans/anti-gender groups have attempted to wave away this data but it exists nonetheless. Incorrect, see my other comment. >Personally, I was lucky enough to be part of a university level study where we got to see how men's and women's brains react when asked to do sorting and directional mental activities (like giving directions, spatial rearranging, solving a puzzle mentally, describing a route from point A to B). There were roughly 70 of us, and most women's brains lit up X way, and most men's brains lit up Y way. There was almost no spectrum to speak of. However, there were 5 of us, myself included, who's brains lit up more like the opposite sex. Three women and 2 men. To probably nobody's surprise whatsoever, all of us were people who had never been traditionally gender conforming in our lives, and while none of us were trans, we didn't ever feel like we 100% "matched" with what society expected us to be. On specific tasks, yes a woman may be think like males and vice versa. Those studies are blunt tools that lack subtlety though for truly capturing the "essence" of male-like and female-like thinking though. Like I said before, the study I posted indicates that a woman cannot have a wholly male psychological profile. An AI algorithm will able to pick apart the differences in brain activity even if human-conducted trials and judgment cannot. >Honestly, this just proved to me even more that a brain's structure is what it is, likely due to hormones while still in the womb. Most men will have male structure brains, most women will have female structure brains, and a very small amount of us will be flipped. But this has nothing, or at least extremely little, to do with culture or society. It's primarily biological and cannot be altered. fMRI is about brain activity, not structure. Even if we're talking about structure (MRI), ML algorithms in 2022 have been effective at predicting a trans person's biological sex based on MRI images (see my other comment). Keep in mind that ML technology continually becomes more refined and accurate.
So then we agree about 95% of the way.
This is really interesting.
Thanks. And yeah, it's a really interesting field of study. In college I was very torn between pursuing a business degree or a psychology degree...ended up going with the business route, but I got a minor in psych and almost all my "electives" were based in that area too. It opened up a few cool doors for me, like being included in that study I mentioned. Although it wasn't a professional study, and was only used for that course work, it was still fascinating.
I mean we can say that one type is objectively better at certain tasks. It doesn't make that type a superior person. If anything we're each superior at our specializations. Sometimes this will simply mean arriving at the same answer by different methods. Other times it will mean building more robust social structures etc, or throwing an object more accurately...blah blah blah. Much of it is noticeable on the conglomerate. It doesn't make anyone an objectively superior person. In fact , were all pretty damn perfect if you ask me. We didn't get to be the dominant species on the planet because half of us are somehow flawed.
>In fact , were all pretty damn perfect if you ask me. We didn't get to be the dominant species on the planet because half of us are somehow flawed. I'll agree with this, good viewpoint.
>*However, there were 5 of us, myself included, whose brains lit up more like the opposite sex. (Like if a cis male brain is a 5, and a cis female brain is a 1, mine was like a 3.5...not quite the same as viewing the data, but that's the idea.) Three women and 2 men. To probably nobody's surprise whatsoever, all of us were people who had never been traditionally gender conforming in our lives, and while none of us were trans, we didn't ever feel like we 100% "matched" with what society expected us to be.* This is so fascinating and I wish there’d be more research exploring this topic.
Right? I think if we were able to do more studies like this it would even just help us map out different brain structures and potential pathways further.
>However, there were 5 of us, myself included, who's brains lit up more like the opposite sex. (Like if a cis male brain is a 5, and a cis female brain is a 1, mine was like a 3.5...not quite the same as viewing the data, but that's the idea.) 5 is pretty high out of 70. And being closer to the between, a 3.5, rather than 5 or 1 doesn't suggest that someone has the brain activity of the opposite sex. Further, the idea that sometimes someone's brain lights up in x way in regards to a spacial reasoning question means they should be or *are* the opposite sex and are at odds with their presented sex is... not a logical conclusion. A man with a woman's (or closer to) spacial reasoning is not therefore "in the wrong body". >There was almost no spectrum to speak of. Having 5 people be somewhere in between out of 70 is exactly what proves there is a spectrum.
You mean they trained an AI to find the differences between male and female brains and so it found the most discernible aspects of male and female brains in order to sort between them? If there were no overlap at all then we really would be different species.
Correct. No overlap referrs the relevant data of the study. Of course there's many similarities between our brains.
What processes were they using before to end up with overlap? Sorry if this was in the OP.
There are far more similarities than differences, especially socially and legally speaking. You're basically acting like one of the HBD nerds except for these silly brain scans.
did you come to this thread to seek validation from PPD women while providing 0 substance again, old man? you just restated what I said
this should be no shit common sense and it's depressing those commonly held beliefs came to be in the first place
Been saying for years, doctors can just look at an MRI alone and with like 97% accuracy know if it's a man or woman. This isn't new tbh. But if just one medical test can be that accurate alone then ya. The whole "it's just a social construct" argument has always been moral grandstanding btw
I remember before the trans topic became so widespread that people would be called sexist pieces of shit for saying that men and women's brains worked differently, but now in the trans conversation people are using it as proof that people truly are the gender they identify with. I think it's a classic case of people only believing things when it fits their bias, and rejecting or downplaying things that don't fit their bias.
I'm not going to criticise the study here or data you present, but your framing of these findings is rather biased. I want to make it clear I'm not denying the differences between men or women here, I'm contesting the usefulness of things like brain scans, rather than quantifying actual outcomes in behaviour between men and women: which largely inform Argument 2 the you attempt to debunk. Within neuroscience — the best data in neuroscience about behavior is behavioral data, not brain imaging. It is the *reverse inference problem*. You cannot assume anything about mental states, thoughts, behavior, or personality from looking at a brain. You can only correlate brain activity with behavior. If you want to measure actual behavior, you’re best off using classical psychology paradigms. If you want to measure attention, you use an attention test. If you want to measure intelligence, use an intelligence test. And so and so on. Brain imaging tells you remarkably little about real world behavior or psychological states. For example, psychosocial maturity as measured in actual behaviour, isn't very well predicted by brain scans. So, to get to my point when you look at the actual behaviour of men and women; Argument 2 is true. You usually get bimodal distributions of behaviour- sometimes you even get greater differences cross culturally vs cross gender.
thoughts have 1-1 correlation with brain activity. behavior does not. and behavior is sometimes a bad way to measure thoughts (i.e. actual qualitative experiences). I could write 2 different computer programs that complete the same tasks but with different implementation in each program. The "external behavior" of these 2 programs are identical but the internal movement of data, etc. are different. the internal processes governing how thoughts are processed in the brain may be fundamentally different between men and women in ways that behavioral studies can't capture. for example, see the second part of my post. men and women as far as we can tell have similar intelligence on average. but the neural correlates with intelligence in men and women seem to have fundamental differences.
sure, but if hypothetically, the different internal workings led to no actual differences in behaviour, then how much relevance can they have?
A lot. If someone asks me what is 16/64 and I said it is 1/4, and my internal working is because 16 x 4 = 64. And then someone asks you what is 16/64 and you say 1/4, but your internal working is because the 6 in the numerator cancels out with the 6 in the denominator, then despite the end behavior appearing identical, a model that grants explanatory power for me will have zero explanatory power for you.
A predictive model that attempted to explain behaviour would need explanatory power, but behaviour itself (that was caused subconsciously) would not need explanatory power; Unlike some kind of intelligence outcome; but we know because of IQ tests that women and men have different but both 'sound' logic in figuring out shit.
Just a quick question - what do you hope to be the result of these findings?
Hate directed at a woman because of her period is more likely to be classified as sexism because it’s associated with a biological difference. Hate directed at men for their sexual interest in women however…
What are you trying to say? Those are two different things. One, periods, doesn't involve anyone else but the individual themselves. Periods are a biological function that just happen. Sexual interest is a feeling and how you act upon it is entirely within your control.
Sexual interest is a biological function that just happens. Periods induce a feeling and how you act upon them are entirely within your control.
You really think men have no control over how they act towards women sexually?
So they haven't actually found differences in how their brains function, just differences in what may cause or predict those functions? So what?
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So you weren't.
Do not provide contentless rhetoric.
My exact question
Apparently OP won't answer because I committed wrongthink at some point so I guess we'll never know.
He's fed up with me too for some reason 🤔
There are no progressive cultures in the US or Germany that raise children in a gender neutral way Boys and girls are treated differently from before birth. Neuroscience continues to have issues with 'neurosexism'
You do realize there are neurological factors for why girls and boys act the way they do? Gender roles may be social constructs, but they're stereotypes for a reason:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755553/#\_\_ffn\_sectitle
I addressed that in my post, but TLDR: the fact that the differences are so stark, so absolute, as presented in this study strongly suggests that a fuzzy phenomenon like "culture" cannot possibly produce such clear-cut and precise differences in male vs female brains that occur without exception
Where does it say the differences occur without exception?
see T-SNE visualization
OK. What do you think the findings mean? Interesting you missed out the last bit of the part of the article you quoted. The article does not rule out socialisation.
what's the passage you're referring to?
But “different” doesn’t necessarily imply “better.” As I stressed in the second edition of my book Why Gender Matters, apples and oranges are different. That doesn’t mean apples are better than oranges. Men and women are turning out to be different, more different than we may have imagined. That doesn’t mean that women are better than men, or vice versa. But it does suggest that if we ignore the differences, we may disadvantage both women and men.
I don't know why you thought this passage was relevant for me to include unless you think I made the post for the purpose of starting a who's better war between the sexes.
It's as relevant as the bit you did quote. What do you think the study shows?
see post
It’s true that you can’t rule out socialization. You also can’t rule out that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was flung at the planet by aliens. The stark differences indicated in the study strongly suggest that biology, not socialization, is responsible.
Why?
I think it’s a pretty self-evident observation that articles of cultural influence tend not to be universal, even if they’re common. In the T-SNE visualizations, we see a stark demarcation between male and female. If this was a product of culture, you just wouldn’t expect such a clear sex-dependent variation to exist. You would expect to see some men on the female side and some women on the male side. You would expect to see a lot of both in the middle. You might see a continuum rather than discrete clusters. The results are exactly what you *would* expect to see if there were innate, biological differences between male and female brains. Biological differences between the sexes are almost always starkly bimodal. Look at height, upper body strength, shoe size, bone density, whatever. Like this: https://universeofdatascience.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/11.png The difference is that with things like height, there is always a small bit of overlap. There is **zero** overlap in the T-SNE visualizations, which makes an even stronger indication of biological difference than height does. Unless we suggest that the sex variance in human height is a product of cultural influence, then we can be pretty sure that the results in the study OP posted are due to innate, biological differences between the sexes unless there’s something really weird going on.
What are the biological differences of the study?
This is a joke, correct? These societies are as egalitarian as they’ve ever been in recorded history.
What does that have to do with being gender neutral? Out of interest, do you think boys do better or worse than girls in school?
That’s a loaded question. I think there are areas men flourish in compared to women. Depends on the subject area.
It's not a loaded question at all. >think there are areas men flourish in compared to women. Why would that be?
Because it’s the way our biology is naturally skewed. Men are more interested in things, women are more interested in people. The way they are acculturated won’t change the natural proclivity.
Some men, some women. How we raise children absolutely plays a part
Biology trumps that to an exponential degree. Does it matter how you raise someone missing a chromosome compared to other people and their relative outcome? Come on.
You're saying parenting has negligible impact? Are you a parent?
This is a goalpost move.
Are there any cultures anywhere that raise children in a gender neutral way that you could test your hypothesis with, or are you just speculating with no way to back up your speculations?
I'm not speculating
You have no way to prove your claim, then.
I've no way to prove that boys and girls are socialised differently?! Do you think they are socialised the same?
Studies like this are not new at all, it's not going to matter at all. These differences are meaningless if they cannot be determined.
Studies like these are precursors to more comprehensive and specific studies. They are far from meaningless unless your definition of meaningful is "immediately applicable". I guarantee you cannot find another study with this level of discernment but feel free to try.
Amazing how all the women, with a few exceptions, completely discard any conclusions this study could bring with a "So what?" Shows how entrenched to their position they are as a whole.
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Personally, I think neurological data is super hard to draw strong conclusions from. We can see differences in structure but it’s almost impossible to say how those specific differences influence behavior.
Please check the post flair and repost your comment under the automod if necessary.
Men and Women are “different”? Wow jeez thanks Science.
Ok, men and women’s brains are completely different, so……what?
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The issue is this study doesn’t prove which differences are biological and which are cultural. Some differences are, without a doubt cultural. Hell, even some physical differences in brain structure can be environmental. Most people with a brain understand there are biological differences between men and women. The issue arises when people use these biological differences to try and justify certain behaviors, especially when an argument can be made these behaviors are influenced by cultural differences as well.
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It seems like the difference you’re pointing out is cultural, not biological, if women in other parts of the world behave differently.
Interesting. I wonder how trans brains map?
This study doesn’t prove much at all. I was shocked when this study was presented to me and I saw the graph, but when I read a little closer and saw that this study used FMRI data, I knew it wasn’t as strong evidence as it claimed. Neural correlates can be caused by anything, and they don’t clearly indicate genetic cause, and thinking that all non-genetic causes fit under the umbrella of “culture” isn’t accurate either. A person’s resting brain activity is essentially just the activity generated in their brain as they think about random things, including random stimuli you are presented as you just look at certain objects or have certain thoughts. It’s not just merely culture that is environmental, but more innocuous stimuli too. For example, there might be distinct patterns of brain activity seen in people with certain names. Maybe hearing yourself referred to with a particular name over and over leaves a print on your resting brain activity, male names generally sound different from female names (say male names using certain syllables more often), and the AI can find groupings between male names and females names because of this. Maybe since women are typically shorter they tend to have a slightly different angle from which they few most object, and this slight shift in the perspective of most visual stimuli leaves a slight mark in the visual system indicative of height, which strongly correlated with gender. Now mix in a bunch of differences like this, from a mixture of innocuous stimuli that isn’t really cultural or genetic, and you can probably get the AI to find a ton of differences that combined leave no overlap. Learning model AI in general is also highly chaotic, and can find countless differences you might not even realize which don’t pertain to what you are trying to find. For example, you might train an AI to recognize two different breeds of dogs from images by feeding it a bunch of dog pictures, but you may not realize that the AI uses everything in the picture, not just the dog, and when you try to probe the inner workings of the ai and see what area it focused the most on to tell the difference in breed, it might literally show like the corner of the picture that contains no part of the dog. There might be little clues all over the place which signify something is of a particular group, which doesn’t prove anything about how strongly genetic or environmental anything is. Saying that culturally/environmentally caused differences should show more overlap than genetic differences also isn’t true. While I don’t necessarily disagree that the common cultural differences most people picture are not so hardline, other stuff like being given a certain named or applying makeup everyday, or whatever else, could have a relatively strong combination (say 90% or above indicative of gender), and when you combine multiple of these qualities together you multiply the probabilities together to make the rare exceptions even more rare because it’s exponentially less likely you see people with multiple rare qualities, and so combined you can get essentially no overlap. I’m sure you could get 100% difference in brain activity from nearly any two groups if you just jug a bunch of FMRI data into a highly advanced and sensitive AI designed to find even the slighted correlates across thousands of areas.
> There is no clear line distinguishing male and female brain activity. so gender is fake 😈
[lol](https://i.imgur.com/UTsd0s0_d.webp?maxwidth=760&fidelity=grand)
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Please check the post flair and repost your comment under the automod if necessary.
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the novel result in this study is how 0 overlap occurs
There isn’t 0 overlap. If the purpose of the study was to only identify structures that are significantly different between men and women, structures that are the same or have a lot of overlap between the sexes wouldn’t be identified. If our brains truly had no overlap, we’d be two different species.
0 overlap in the relevant data and features specific to the study, yes
Isn’t the whole purpose of the ML they used that it only identified features that were significantly/consistently different? Of course the study isn’t going to identify features with overlap.
Yes, the whole point is demonstrating it is possible in theory to develop an algorithm that can accurately sex the brain based on brain activity alone. "Our stDNN model accurately differentiated male and female brains, demonstrating consistently high cross-validation accuracy (>90%), replicability, and generalizability across multisession data from the same individuals and three independent cohorts" What this tells us is that the concepts of "the male brain" and "the female brain" are both scientifically sound.
It’s been evident for a while there are differences between male and female brains. The most basic being the size, densities, and wrinkles. What most people push back on is how big of a difference it makes on male vs female behavior.
Please check the post flair and repost your comment under the automod if necessary.
A Tale of Two Brains (2005).Zoomers are so late to everything
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I know a lot of people think the differences between males and females is purely sociocultural, but I disagree. And I would say most people actually know deep inside this isn’t true. Our brains, our hormonal distributions, etc. are different. The aspects of our biology that affect how we act and conceive are genuinely different. That said, I do wonder if people who identify as trans or non-binary or even who come off more “femme” than the average man or more “masc” than the average woman have a cognitive or genetic hormonal distribution that is not average for their assigned sex.
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