Said so eloquently. The thing I can’t get passed—old fashioned I know—but I think in order to identify into a group, most people have to agree on what that thing is and isn’t. I know words or subjective and people won’t agree on the meaning of things 100%, but the more we stray away from a clearish definition the more it means nothing. It ends up hurting women when we can’t even decide who should be advocated for when we talk about women’s rights
Well put… And I agree with you. It's the overlap, or agreement between our subjective perceptions (our "clearish" definitions) that creates what we term objective reality. I think that this whole confusion about defining "woman" or "man" is silly, quite frankly. The fact that language is subjective, socially constructed, and definitions are fuzzy around the borders doesn't mean that everything is up for grabs. Unfortunately, some people take advantage of the inherent ambiguities of language to confuse even the simplest points. I'm not sure how a beanbag chair· fits into the standard definition of a chair but it's a chair, nonetheless. Arguing about beanbag chairs doesn't mean that dining room chairs don't exist or that a bookcase is a chair. Personally, I do not have any difficulty identifying a chair, a woman, a man, or somebody who's trying to confuse an issue just to show off. Sadly, I'm afraid, you are correct that women have not fared well of late due to these rather pointless controversies. That saddens me, indeed.
Both major POV's in general on the subject have some validation, but most are focused on a very narrow minded question that think implies large meanings. This topic is in the Metabiology realm that includes psychology as the major founder, philosophy, biology, religions, both metaphysics and quantum physics, Chemistry, and a slew of theoretical studies. All that combines into morphological theo-socio-psycho-neuro-immuno-psychology metaphysics. Meaning I agree with both POVs to some degree, but the POVs need to move away from biological evidence vs not biological. The entity controlling my human body cells are have a societal and reproductive biological gender, but the cells themselves do not have a gender identity or sex depending on definition unless you redraw the defining lines which is not always advisable especially in times of social flux. However consider this, if we start redefining how we view our bodies and who is in control of all those cells, then airborne skin cell and aromatics from deification in a bathroom can be considered assault and even sexual assault. Biological sex can differ from the society role that one might want to play in the form of gender identity that doesn't always conflict in theory but does cause a lot of internal and external friction or division that normally leads to a break down in the strength of the pattern holder or soul. Love yourself enough to embrace your born sex either chosen by divine choice or self choice into existence, which is your part of your identity as male sex are males and to say otherwise is to be in conflict with yourself. Imagine, if I was born a buffalo but identify as a lion, how long with it take them eat me even if I had a symbiotic relationship where I lured other buffalo into traps and tried to eat them as well. My body would probably reject that type nourishment and I would probably be the backup meal if I survived that long unless you subscribe to the cultivation propagation vegetation theories in which living things that are helped to procreate in masses by those who eat most of the offspring (veggies in this case) some call harvest and the other POV is culling like Hitler attempted.
“The key point to remember is that cells, genes, or molecules don’t have gender identities any more than your lungs or liver can fall in love.”
Every cell in my body has a sex. No cell in my body has a gender identity. I find the sex denialism embedded in this social contagion of gender identity particularly egregious and intolerable.
This is a great article! The relationships between brain phenomena and experiential states of mind is articulated here more clearly than in any other literature I have read on the meaning of "gender identity."
I would like to suggest a couple other ways that one's mental identity is connected to one's physical being. For most people beginning before birth, there is active interaction with ones own body, consisting of mouthing, manipulating with fingers, looking and so on. In normal development individuals feel that their bodies are themselves. They respond to loss of body parts through injuries and diseases with fear, horror and grief.
When people get into puberty, especially in current American culture, they pay a lot of attention to what their body looks like. This is a very big deal for adolescent females and is a major contributor to self-image, self-esteem, ability to enjoy one's body, and to specific positive or negative self-evaluations of one's attractiveness to peers. So, the concrete reality of a person's body and one's ability to connect with it as "self" are central to identity, and in this area many if not all trans-identified people do not value their bodies or regard them as the basis of their identities, but instead they want to "get rid of" body parts that "are not me" and not "how I want to look."
Another area where I often see confusion involves the degree of linkage between behavioral traits, preferences and so on that we might regard as masculine or feminine, and sex differences. There are significant differences between men and women in some behaviors, such as differences in kinds of aggressive behavior that males and females do, especially when they are young. I don't agree with the theory that all "gendered" behavior is entirely socially constructed, because I think that there are factors like testosterone and estrogen that influence sex differences in preferences and behaviors, when they occur.
Thank you for this comment and for sharing your thoughts. I agree with you completely. I think that your first point is especially important and thought-provoking. Obviously, I don't know what it's like to be a woman, so it's hard for me to understand the difference in how a young woman (versus a young man) feels as their body starts to change. But, certainly, I agree with you that the sense of self is intimately tied to the experience of the physical. Do you think that this is a bigger issue for women, and if so, in what ways?
I don't know if puberty is a "bigger issue" for girls at puberty and through adolescence than it is for guys, but it is different. Girls have to get used to managing their monthly cycle of mood changes, bleeding, and pain in many cases. They usually look forward to breast development, but girls who develop earlier or who have larger breasts become targets of unwanted levels of attention from boys. Adolescent girls as well as the people around them start shaming breast exposure in girls at the same time that boys are encouraged to go shirtless and show off their developing torsos.
It was fascinating to me to read about peoples' reactions to the recent incident in which trans activist Rose Montoya exposed his chest during a White House visit. There was a wave of disgust and horror from witnesses that I expect was very gratifying to the exhibitionistic activist. In U.S. culture, this reaction only happens when the person baring her chest is a female.
The most significant shift in a girl's relationship with her embodied self is towards being perceived as an object of the admiring or critical male gaze. Many adolescent girls become so focused on the sense of their bodies as objects of evaluation that every move they make becomes fraught with concerns about "how I look as I move that way." In my generation we spent hours individually and together poring over Seventeen Magazine, absorbed in admiration and envy of the young models, and comparing ourselves to them with relentless self-criticism. Today's young women do the same thing on social media, where the environment is less sheltered and more vicious by comparison.
While I do not have an inside perspective on what boys go through during the adolescent years, my impression is that they are more involved with the physical experience of using their bodies in play. In these experiences they are living out their own desires through their bodies, in the role of a "subject," in contrast to the girls' increasing sense of their bodies as an "object" of someone else's desire or disapproval.
I think that hypercritical self-objectification and objectification by others is the primary source of the epidemic of depression, anxiety, self-injury, and focus on "transitioning" that we are currently seeing in young women. Similar problems have been going on for multiple generations, especially among daughters of upper middle and upper class white people. I infer that the problem is mostly caused by cultural pressures within that demographic that interact with certain biologically based vulnerabilities that are more characteristic of females than males. The latter appear to include a tendency to develop anxiety and depression in response to social stressors, and to react to these feelings by dissociating from the body and attacking it.
Interesting and, I think, completely accurate. Thanks for taking the time to explain your point of view. I think your idea of "subject" versus "object", is spot on. I've never thought of it quite like that. Thanks for your insights. I sincerely appreciate them, Frederick
I was lucky enough to be a copytaker (specialist audiotypist taking dictation over the phone from reporterss in the field) during the last gasp of mainstream media profitability and viability.
Good reporters had a technique for surviving the ideological biases of their newspapers. Some lurid declaration would go into the first paragraph, followed by the facts. Which were sometimes in opposition to the supposed line they were taking.
It wasn't ideal but an attentive reader could still get an accurate picture. But you had to know how to read it.
Similarly, I've read that in Soviet times, reporters would write: "Capitalist provocateurs have been apprehended stirring up false rumours that there are bread shortages in Murmansk," and everyone who read it understood that there were bread shortages in Murmansk.
That's a very interesting observation. Truth is, I've never thought about it in those terms. Perhaps, to some extent, you are correct. I have to give this one some thought…
We may be a little closer to identifying the neural networks associated with a transgender identity. See
"Possible Neurobiological Underpinnings of Homosexuality and Gender Dysphoria" https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/29/5/2084/5062356 They made two observations: 1) That brain morphology (physical structure) of transgender subjects was indistinguishable from their natal sex, once homosexuality was taken into account. 2) That brain connectivity (functional connections) in the self-referential network was weakened in the transgender subjects. This means that transwomen and transmen showed a unique brain feature that was not present in cis heterosxual or cis homosexual people. However, it's unknown whether this weakening of the self-referential network precedes GD or is the result of rumination associated with GD. And it's difficult to parse out with this particular research dataset because 80% of participants were childhood onset and 20% were post-pubertal onset. But there's something there ... listen to the stories of trans-ID people and detransitioners and you'll see that rumination and obsessive thoughts are a common to both.
Note also that self-referential brain network they studied here is also weakened in people with conditions like anorexia and body dysmorphia. And that network is part of the default mode network which is altered in ADHD, anxiety, and self-referential processes like rumination, craving, and avoidance.
Thank you, thank you for hosting this site and writing this piece. It takes work to find the underlying research, read, understand, and then objectively summarize. It takes time for readers to then read what you write to better understand the findings AND what the inconsistencies in the media are. You make us think better. So thank you.
I, too, began many years ago before Substack to be bothered by the misalignment btwn actual reports or legal opinions or research papers and public popular media summaries. https://seethegaps.org/2018/10/05/gaps-in-information/. So glad Substack and thoughtful writers and readers like you are finding their way to each other.
This is very interesting and I really appreciate your article. There are a lot of people misusing biology to promote their views. The traditionalists (both left and right wing) want to use a simple high school level biological definition of sex where chromosomal make-up determines whether you are male or female. They will argue that since you can't change your chromosomes your sex is immutable. But we know biology is much more complicated. Sex can be viewed as a species level strategy for reproduction. Each species that reproduces sexually combines gametes using a male and female strategies. However, each individual does not need to fall into either binary category for the species to reproduce. There are many species where individuals can be male and female simultaneously or sequentially. Perhaps it makes more sense to talk about each human as having one of two sexual strategies that is immutable (at least currently) but not necessarily tied to sex of the individual. I don't know if innate sex is immutable but it does appear to be extremely resistant to change. Most people would be horrified if you persistently treated them as anything but their birth sex or forced them to change their primary or secondary sex characteristics in some horrible experiment. They have an innate sex that matches their birth sex. Only a very small minority has an innate sex that differs from birth sex. I don't think we have very good numbers but I have seen it estimated at around 0.3 percent. This minority would be considered trans. So when we talk about sex being binary it makes sense for the species to have male and female strategies but not necessarily only one way to be male or female at the level of the individual. Clearly there are trans females who can have a male sexual strategy (transmitting sperm to impregnate). Conversely there are trans males who can have a female sexual strategy (become pregnant and give birth). We can be a lot more flexible in defining sex at the individual level if we don't limit ourselves by linking sex to sexual strategy. We can for example include such things as innate sex as a key attribute of sex along with many other attributes including chromosomes.
Quite agree with your comments about "a simple high school level biological definition of sex where chromosomal make-up determines whether you are male or female."
However, the answer to the question of "immutability" is contingent on how we define the terms "male" & "female". IF we said that the "necessary and sufficient conditions" to qualify as members of those categories was to have XY & XX chromosomes THEN, ipso facto, such people would be males and females. The same way that the "necessary and sufficient condition" to be a teenager is to be 13 to 19.
So the issue is really a matter of the definitions we start from -- which are generally somewhat arbitrary. There are no intrinsic meanings to any of our words; Moses didn't bring the first dictionary down from Mt Sinai on tablets A through Z so there are NO definitions that qualify as gospel truth.
However, the standard biological definitions stipulate that to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types; it necessarily follows that those with neither are, ipso facto, sexLESS. Even if Frederick is not entirely on board with those definitions and their logical consequences himself ... 😉🙂
But for details, see the definitions in the Glossary of this article in the Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction:
Wonderfully written. It's a shame how sexist this movement is. If a child isn't a stereotype, they're told there's something wrong with them. Not to mention it targets those who have mental conditions or are otherwise unstable.
I escaped from this cult a while ago. The road to freedom is a bumpy one, but it's better than being a toxic, angry, sad, manipulated--and ultimately delusional--clergyman of the Church of Gender.
Great essay and discussion of the science. I wonder, though, by making gender ideology “science-y” we aren’t missing the point. Has anyone tried to see if there are Hindu biomarkers or Christian fMRI signatures? I seem to remember that the latter has been attempted. And what about “studies” of self-reported well-being after religious conversion? I would bet good money you could justify encouraging kids to convert (on stronger statistical evidence) to a particular religion if you repeat the procedures outlined in the first paper, but substitute gender ideology with any other world religion in the right environment. Say, conversion to Mormonism while living in Salt Lake City.
At the end of the day, transgenderism is a cult. And people can have their cults, what do I care. Unfortunately this is a mutilation cult that is destroying kids lives and families (including my own - I wouldn’t be commenting here if it wasn’t affecting me.) It has as much “biological basis” as any other cult or religion. Indeed, if we ran a transgender study with conversion to Evangelical Christianity as a control, I bet all the “biological” benefits would point to better improvements with established religion (provided it was done in the right social context)
Transgenderism isn't a cult, transgenderism isn't a thing, it's just trans people existing. Transitioning is not mutilation, they do not lose body parts, they still have reproductive organs, boobs, etc. They didn't lose anything. No ones live is being destroyed
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I agree with you! All of our thinking has a biological basis but we interpret the biology (whether it's structural anatomy or fMRI images) according to our own particular perspectives, points of view, and ideologies.
Feb 6, 2023·edited Feb 6, 2023Liked by Frederick R Prete
Thanks for your careful unpicking of erroneous "facts" and conflated concepts in the limited research available on the claimed biological underpinnings -- or not -- of gender "identity", pushed as gender ideology. It brings a refreshing clarity to issues too often wrapped up in impenetrable deconstructionist word-salad, often as misogynist polemics: and puts such flimsy assertions firmly in their place.
If I'm understanding you correctly, what you're doing here is highlighting the oft-overlooked interplay between environmental (I would argue that the distinction between environment and culture is fuzzy) and biological factors where the topic of gender identity is being discussed.
Fair enough, but I'm pretty apprehensive about the way in which you've described our epistemology around the whole phenomenon. You're very nearly excusing a lack of epistemic rigor by attributing almost irreducible complexity to the system (i.e. we'll never have a test for these things) and sort of suggesting that the proposed mechanism simply isn't an important part of the hypothesis(?) Admittedly, this is an ungenerous read and I don't think that's what you were honestly trying to imply, but the read is there and - in my submission - it's lower hanging fruit than the more nuanced parse.
Anyway, that's just a bit of feedback regarding my experience with the article. Overall, I appreciate the point that you're making and spent a good while traipsing through the hyperlinks. Perhaps, eventually, with enough effort, empathy and patience we'll discover the secret to unlocking cross-ideology conversation on this thorniest of subjects.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I'm not sure I understand your first criticism but I'm interested in you clarifying it if you would like to. The reason I pointed out that there will never be a "test" for particular self perception is the same reason there is no single test for autism or Alzheimer's. There is no singular 'cause'. They are all epiphenomena of physiological processes. Also, just to be clear, I'm not making a distinction between biology and the environment. There actually is no distinction in the traditional sense. Brains function within environments and in relationships to the entire organism. It's not a dichotomy, really. Thanks again for the great comment. I enjoyed it.
Of course, always happy to share my thoughts. I think what I'm driving at here is the importance of purported mechanism, so that while we may currently recognize something as a syndrome (I have been diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, for instance) it's still important that scientific medical inquiry be driven to uncover ever narrower mechanistic explanations by dint of further isolating our testing. To stick with the same example, only recently we've discovered that there may be an individual gene responsible for the vast majority of symptoms suffered by those individuals diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. That would be news! Also, we would be able to develop a more accurate test and then perhaps we would have to revisit the taxonomy around UC.
Most psychopathologies (gender dysphoria, for instance - I'm not trying to imply that anybody's identity is pathological), from my admittedly cursory understanding, seem to share a similarly vague process of definition. We observe an anomalous pattern of symptoms (that tend to appear together, for instance) and record those observations to generate data sets from which we can then infer falsifiable mechanistic hypotheses. Always, in my understanding, with the hope of narrowing the space of plausible mechanistic explanations.
Doubtless, these are truly complex systems. My point is that we are, nevertheless, always striving toward better and more conclusive taxonomy for these conditions that allow us to employ more conclusive testing. For the time being there may be no individual test for 'autism', but with a clearer definition of the symptomology, a better understanding of the biological systems and ever more powerful technology, might we not arrive at a better way of discussing these conditions accompanied by significantly more conclusive testing capabilities?
I think my urge to comment initially was at least somewhat prompted by the feeling that you handwaved this (process of converging on mechanism) a little bit in the article, and I feel that it's probably still a useful methodology even within the domain of neurodivergent taxonomy.
I understand your point, and I appreciate your comment. However, I'm not handwaving, really. You are correct in theory. However virtually all biological conditions are polygenic. For instance, I've read estimates of 80,000 genetic loci that play a role in height. Also, you have to understand that the 25,000 or so protein coding genes you have in your genome are not the whole story. They make up only a small amount of the genetic load and much of genetic expression is controlled by non-protein coding genes about which we know little, for instance switch genes and Hox genes, and other gene expression promoters as well as epigenetic influences. The interactions are so complex that we do not actually have the mathematics to model them, nor the technical ability to assess the interactions. In the case of a psychological, subjective self-perception, the phenomenon is a product of neural network activity. We understand that. But that doesn't mean the precise activity is discoverable or is the same from person-to-person. While I understand your position — and I agree with you in theory — it's simply not the case that a specific mechanism can be discovered for everything that we name. That is the case for autism, for instance, and it will always be the case. The word is a category under which we subsume a variety of neurological conditions. We could say the same for high blood pressure. Mean arterial blood pressure is controlled by endothelial tissues in the lungs, the liver, the secretory mechanisms of the kidney, clusters of cells around the efferent and afferent arteriols of the kidney nephrons, the synergistic interactions between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, baroreceptors in the aorta and carotid arteries, the contractile characteristics of arterial smooth muscles, circulating ion concentrations in the extracellular fluid and plasma, systemic hormone levels, and more, and more. So, what is the mechanism that "causes" high blood pressure? Well, it's the complex interactions between physiological systems that create the emergent property that is mean arterial blood pressure. That doesn't mean that we can't control it or modulate it, it just means that it doesn't have one particular mechanistic cause. In the case of "gender identity" or any other, subjective perception,, it will never be the case that we can find the central nervous system fingerprint because the complex interactions in the central nervous system are ongoing and dynamic. Does that make sense? Or have I confused the whole thing for you?
Not at all. I take your point, but I think perhaps we're preaching a different high-level approach where heuristics are concerned. At some level of deconstruction, you'll always lose the 'larger system', since the borders of such systems are always, to some extent, determined by human perception. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm shifting the goal posts by positing that it's somewhat important to match the scope of a proposed mechanism to the scope of the observed phenomenon.
This conversation reminds me of an oft revisited and somewhat belabored analogy that often comes up in mathematical discourse about the proverbial dog, swimming against the current upriver, whose kinesthetic actions are so damnably complex to describe in mathematical terms. This is going to sound reductive as hell, but when asked how the dog manages to stay afloat and swim across the river, I think it's alright to respond "Well, it kicks and paddles, and it's somewhat buoyant." The scope of an explanation (proposed mechanism) may, or may not, be sufficient depending upon the scope of what we're trying to explain. Perhaps we dig deeper and explain the nervous and muscular action behind the kinetics, the physics of liquid water, etc. and conclude that the previous answer was inadequate or, at least, incomplete.
I'm meandering, and hoping that you interpret all of this as a good faith attempt to engage in discourse. My point, I suppose, is that there's an interplay between what we're attempting to explain and our present information that feeds back into itself. As our information gets better, the inquiries become more specific, the taxonomy (with any luck) becomes clearer and we're better able to match the scope of the inquiry to the hypotheses.
Trying to reduce the mystery of human neuroses to a single genetic marker (for instance) is foolish because it may (read: does) arise from dynamic interactions between complex systems, but it doesn't mean that we can't get better at modeling those complex systems and thereby offer some sort of potentially satisfactory explanation. I am much happier to have the germ theory of disease to explain why I'm feeling under the weather even if it doesn't describe the specific mechanisms by which said pathogen is wreaking havoc in my body. In some cases, the former serves as a better answer even when the latter information is available.
Regarding autism, dysphoria, etc. it's preferable, in my submission, to strive towards better definitions, descriptions and explanations. Your position (correct me if I'm wrong) that certain things are probably unknowable, strikes me more as a response to poorly wrought inquiries than anything else. For instance, silly people who demand a singular, mechanistic explanation where a description of system dynamics would be required (i.e. really bad scope-matching).
Anyway, that's enough rambling from me. I get the feeling that you already understand where I'm coming from and I appreciate your taking the time to adumbrate your position.
Thanks for this. I not only appreciate your point of view but I agree with you, too. I particularly like the dog example. I'm sure I will use it in future discussions. Thanks for taking the time to explain your perspective. I think you've modified my thinking a bit. Thank you for that!
When I first started reading, I thought this was disingenuous - of course your thoughts are biological in the sense that they are electrical signals within your physical brain, but clearly there’s a distinction between that and a trait like eye color. But as I read, I realized the point I think you were making - it’s very difficult to separate what’s nature from what’s nurture. Traits that we consider psychological can have a strong genetic correlation. A propensity for violence, for example, seems to have a genetic basis according to some studies. Every thought you have, then, is due to some combination of your genetic makeup and your history and environment, and is expressed as electrical activity within a physical brain that’s been shaped by your past experiences.
But I do think it’s useful (if difficult) to try to draw a line between things that can change and things that can’t. There are primary genetic characteristics like eye color or a predisposition to diabetes, that are completely unchangeable. There are things like height, or actually developing diabetes, that are influenced by a combination of genetics and environment but which are physically measurable and result in changes to your physical body that can’t be changed after the fact. And then there are emotions, thoughts, states of mind, which can’t be observed. Evidence shows that some of these rarely if ever change after maturity (sexual orientation, IQ), while others change frequently (mood, romantic feelings, opinions on political topics, religious beliefs). It seems likely that the previous category is based on the physical structure of your brain and the chemicals in it, that could be measured if we knew where to look, while the latter category is based on the electrical impulses. You can think of it as the difference between computer hardware and software. The hardware is fixed, but if you run a different program or input different data into it, you’ll get different results.
The core debate here is which of these categories gender identity falls into. Of course the activists treat it as fact that it’s akin to eye color - an immutable characteristic that we could measure if we only knew which gene and brain structure to look at. It’s the hardware. But there’s a lot of evidence that’s not the case (the meteoric rise in cases, the clustering of cases, and the switch from it primarily occurring in males to being far more prevalent in females). So how do we characterize it? I think it falls into the last category - along with political and religious beliefs. Evidence shows it’s an opinion that can change.
"The core debate here is which of these categories gender identity falls into. Of course the activists treat it as fact that it’s akin to eye color - an immutable characteristic that we could measure if we only knew which gene and brain structure to look at."
What is of most interest to me is the question of why the activists want to characterize "gender identity" to be akin to eye color in terms of being a concrete, observable and immutable characteristic. Most of the positions being taken in the debate about gender ideology represent underlying emotionally invested thoughts. Most commonly there is a fear driving the need to have a pre-conceived specific answer be "right." Activists commonly interrogate the critics of "gender affirmative care" by refusing to respond to probing skeptical questions about the protocol, and by countering the questions with demands to know, "Why are you asking these questions?!" They do this because they are taught to do it in critical theory activist training, but if asked in a spirit of scientific inquiry, the activists would have a valid question. I think that we should all ask ourselves what we have invested personally in the particular line of inquiry we pursue with respect to gender identity. If we don't know, we are more likely to be biased in our research and in our thinking, because we so strongly do not want a set of results to appear or to imply what it does about ongoing clinical practices and legal practices regarding atypical and abnormal gender identity development.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. I enjoyed reading your perspective and agree with many of your points. I do understand what you're saying although I have some differences of opinion on the conceptualizations, and models that you use (for instance, distinguishing between a brain and the chemicals in it, and electrical activity). I would explain the relationship between brain and brain activity somewhat differently than you have here. The computer metaphor is helpful sometimes but our "hardware" is not as static as your laptop. It's always changing, too. And, that changes the way the "software" runs. However, I do appreciate your point of view. Thank you so much for your comment!
If I understand you correctly, your point is that of course biology creates gender identity, because biology creates everything we feel and think about ourselves. Without our neurons and neurotransmitters and all the other concrete features and functions of the brain and body, there would be no thought, no identities, no concepts, no nothing.
However, I wish you had been just a bit more concrete and specific regarding the ways (or any way at all) that biology creates gender identity. Is it a side effect, or an extension, of circulating hormones and the way they affect the brain? Or whatever. I would have appreciated just a bit of actual biological science related to the issue.
Unless your point is that it's impossible to be any more specific, because the brain and personal experience of each person is too complex and unique to codify in general terms?
Thanks so much for your comment. You made a great point. To some extent, understanding subjective thoughts in terms of their biological substrates is beyond our current analytical capacities at the moment. However, we do have some basic understanding of the phenomenon. If you watch this TED talk, you get some sense of how your brain constructs your reality
Now consider the fact that our thoughts are based on neural network activity that has a stochastic (random) property to it. Any set of thoughts can be represented by multiple neural representations. Think of it like the weather. There are patterns in the weather that are recognizable. There are weather conditions that are identifiable. But we can't predict it precisely because there's randomness in the system. Similarly we can't identify one specific cause of a specific weather condition. There are multiple interacting events some subset of which causes a particular weather condition.
Finally, then, you have to consider the fact that any given thought that you have is a product of your particular body developing within a particular environment. So, the same set of neural activities could represent another subjective thought process if, for instance, you had been born and raised in 17th-century New Guinea. Your experiences create the raw materials that are represented by the neural activity and from which the neural activity creates what you experience subjectively. Your particular subjective conscious states are products of the interaction between your biology and the conditions under which the biology is shaped.
Does that speak to your question.... or are you asking for something a bit different?
Your replies speak to my question, in the sense of underscoring that I did understand you the first time.
But in a way that I don't believe you intended, your position that "everything is biology" seems to end up lending credibility to the trans-activists who insist that biological evidence exists. If every blessed thing we are and do is biology-based (which it is), then there's nothing to discuss. Gender identity is as real as lizard identity. So that guy with scaly tattoos all over his body and a bifurcated tongue is a serious person, and in order to respect his identity, we must never refer to him as a mammal.
The truths of brain science are astounding. We are our biology, 100% of the time. And of course, we must not stand in the way of any ADULT who believes that transforming his or her body through surgeries and hormones is an existential imperative. The bodily autonomy of adults is an absolute right, as long as ones desires don't bleed over into the rights and safety of others. But trans activists assert spurious truth claims in order to justify the incursion of males into women's prisons and sports, and the enabling of children to be permanently maimed so that we can "affirm" their intrinsic gender identity.
Said another way, your insight into the ubiquity of biology and indeed, the impossibility of its not being there for any reason whatsoever, is valuable and worth pointing out in general terms, and is actually quite fascinating, because the brain is fascinating. But it doesn't help to debunk the adult-sized portion of metaphysical claptrap that characterizes trans ideology as currently promulgated.
However, I don't know what you could have said instead. Maybe using gender ideology as your test case to demonstrate a fundamental truth about the brain is a little too controversial. Or maybe that's what the Comments section is for. (Caveat: I hope this makes sense. I'm not a scientist.)
A very well written essay with which I strongly agree except for a limited if yet important caveat.
For instance: these are irrefutable!
It just means that your self-perception is your self-perception. It’s unknowable to anybody else until you reveal it.
Every individual should be respected, accepted, included, and have the opportunity to live the best life that they can.
The following however are true with an important caveat:
Hence, “gender identity” is a product of biology because brain activity is biology.
There are no factors other than biology, environment, and culture that could influence gender identity.
The important caveat - if scientistic materialism is true, then these statements are true as is. If, however, transcendent spirituality is reality beyond nature per se, then the true understanding would state ‘gender identity is a function of biology, environment, and culture as these influence spiritually embodied male or female persons’. In a world understood to be created by God (a view of reality that transcends science which is only able to see nature and not natures Creator), then human persons must be understood as spiritually embodied souls whose self perceptions are influenced importantly by their Creator’s designs.
As always, a very thought-provoking comment from you. Thank you. I absolutely understand what you are saying. I guess I'm agnostic on these more spiritual issues. I certainly do not discount them, however, I just don't know. Also, as I tell my students, these fall outside of the domain of biology strictly speaking. Again, I don't dismiss them, they are just outside of my intellectual purview when I have my biology hat on.
Are you familiar with a book called The Illusion of God's Presence: The Biological Origins of Spiritual Longing? The author is John C. Wathey, a computational biologist whose research interests include evolutionary algorithms and the biology of nervous systems. He got his PhD in Neurosciences at UC San Diego following his undergrad years at Caltech. After a postdoc at the Salk Institute, he spent most of his career in the private sector working on computer simulations of protein folding.
I became an atheist after decades mucking around in New Age metaphysics and religions of all kinds. This book answered my most persistent question: what accounts for the plethora of religions and supernatural beliefs among humans everywhere on the globe? Would it surprise you to know that it's biological? Wonderful book...and chock full of data.
There are a plethora of books and articles that preach the gospel of scientistic materialism - and the ideas behind neurological determinism are quite popular.
For myself - after nearly 50 years as a scientist of sorts (BA Molecular Biology, PhD Pharmacology, MD Emergency Medicine) - I have yet to hear of a materialistic world view that overcomes what is commonly referred to as ‘the argument from reason’ as is best defended by C. S. Lewis in his books Mere Christianity and The Abolition of Man. Another good book that addresses the issues of scientistic materialism is The Song Sparrow and The Child by Joseph Vining.
I haven't delved into this topic from the vantage point of "scientistic materalism," and I haven't read any other books that deal with this subject directly. So all I can say is that Dr. Wathey is the opposite of a preacher of a gospel. He was raised in a religious home and although he left Christianity as a teenager, his perspective is compassionate and non-judgmental. There's no tone of preaching or trying to convince anyone of anything. I found his thesis to be ingenious, and entirely based on phenomena in the material world.
“There's no tone of preaching or trying to convince anyone of anything. I found his thesis to be judgment-free and ingenious, and entirely based on phenomena in the material world.”
Preaching does not require emotional language or demogogary - but make no mistake, he would not write a book if he wasn’t trying to convince his readers. And of course his observations are based entirely on ‘phenomena in the material world’ because a scientistic materialist has nothing but material world phenomena. Yet he seems - according to your description - to be ‘explaining God’ as a brain phenomenon in the context of a presupposition that there is no God. A Creator necessarily exists outside the material world, and so cannot be confirmed or refuted by material phenomena.
But to clarify, Dr. Wathey's book is not so much about whether or not God exists, but, as the title says, the nature of the profound emotional and spiritual experiences of God's presence that have given religious people the absolute certainty that God is present and influential in their lives.
In fact, Dr. Wathey had such an experience himself, during which he felt as though he had company in the form of a palpable, protective, loving, presence during a crisis.
Thanks - I find value in your work, and I appreciate your replies to my comments. I wear various ‘hats’ and in my professional activities I often limit my contributions to the scientific ‘hat’. But I find often enough that my views on spiritual realities fit into my applications of scientific thinking. Presuppositions always impact interpretation.
Thanks. I certainly agree with you. And I do spend a considerable amount of time thinking about the spiritual aspects to it all. I spent some years studying Western and then Indian philosophy, and I went to school for a while at the Gujarat Vidyapith founded by Gandhi in 1920 in Ahmedabad, India. But, as I get older, I get both less sure of things and more inquisitive. Go figure
But, as I get older, I get both less sure of things and more inquisitive.
Understood - as I approach 70, and my life takes unexpected turns, my insecurities have been made less powerful by the faithfulness of my God. Yet I spend more time reading about (studying) issues of faith, philosophy, and cultural more so than ever. There is always something new to learn.
Said so eloquently. The thing I can’t get passed—old fashioned I know—but I think in order to identify into a group, most people have to agree on what that thing is and isn’t. I know words or subjective and people won’t agree on the meaning of things 100%, but the more we stray away from a clearish definition the more it means nothing. It ends up hurting women when we can’t even decide who should be advocated for when we talk about women’s rights
Well put… And I agree with you. It's the overlap, or agreement between our subjective perceptions (our "clearish" definitions) that creates what we term objective reality. I think that this whole confusion about defining "woman" or "man" is silly, quite frankly. The fact that language is subjective, socially constructed, and definitions are fuzzy around the borders doesn't mean that everything is up for grabs. Unfortunately, some people take advantage of the inherent ambiguities of language to confuse even the simplest points. I'm not sure how a beanbag chair· fits into the standard definition of a chair but it's a chair, nonetheless. Arguing about beanbag chairs doesn't mean that dining room chairs don't exist or that a bookcase is a chair. Personally, I do not have any difficulty identifying a chair, a woman, a man, or somebody who's trying to confuse an issue just to show off. Sadly, I'm afraid, you are correct that women have not fared well of late due to these rather pointless controversies. That saddens me, indeed.
Perhaps the most clear-minded reflection on this topic I've read to date. Bravo! and thank you.
Thank you! I appreciate that. Feel free to share it...
Both major POV's in general on the subject have some validation, but most are focused on a very narrow minded question that think implies large meanings. This topic is in the Metabiology realm that includes psychology as the major founder, philosophy, biology, religions, both metaphysics and quantum physics, Chemistry, and a slew of theoretical studies. All that combines into morphological theo-socio-psycho-neuro-immuno-psychology metaphysics. Meaning I agree with both POVs to some degree, but the POVs need to move away from biological evidence vs not biological. The entity controlling my human body cells are have a societal and reproductive biological gender, but the cells themselves do not have a gender identity or sex depending on definition unless you redraw the defining lines which is not always advisable especially in times of social flux. However consider this, if we start redefining how we view our bodies and who is in control of all those cells, then airborne skin cell and aromatics from deification in a bathroom can be considered assault and even sexual assault. Biological sex can differ from the society role that one might want to play in the form of gender identity that doesn't always conflict in theory but does cause a lot of internal and external friction or division that normally leads to a break down in the strength of the pattern holder or soul. Love yourself enough to embrace your born sex either chosen by divine choice or self choice into existence, which is your part of your identity as male sex are males and to say otherwise is to be in conflict with yourself. Imagine, if I was born a buffalo but identify as a lion, how long with it take them eat me even if I had a symbiotic relationship where I lured other buffalo into traps and tried to eat them as well. My body would probably reject that type nourishment and I would probably be the backup meal if I survived that long unless you subscribe to the cultivation propagation vegetation theories in which living things that are helped to procreate in masses by those who eat most of the offspring (veggies in this case) some call harvest and the other POV is culling like Hitler attempted.
“The key point to remember is that cells, genes, or molecules don’t have gender identities any more than your lungs or liver can fall in love.”
Every cell in my body has a sex. No cell in my body has a gender identity. I find the sex denialism embedded in this social contagion of gender identity particularly egregious and intolerable.
This is a great article! The relationships between brain phenomena and experiential states of mind is articulated here more clearly than in any other literature I have read on the meaning of "gender identity."
I would like to suggest a couple other ways that one's mental identity is connected to one's physical being. For most people beginning before birth, there is active interaction with ones own body, consisting of mouthing, manipulating with fingers, looking and so on. In normal development individuals feel that their bodies are themselves. They respond to loss of body parts through injuries and diseases with fear, horror and grief.
When people get into puberty, especially in current American culture, they pay a lot of attention to what their body looks like. This is a very big deal for adolescent females and is a major contributor to self-image, self-esteem, ability to enjoy one's body, and to specific positive or negative self-evaluations of one's attractiveness to peers. So, the concrete reality of a person's body and one's ability to connect with it as "self" are central to identity, and in this area many if not all trans-identified people do not value their bodies or regard them as the basis of their identities, but instead they want to "get rid of" body parts that "are not me" and not "how I want to look."
Another area where I often see confusion involves the degree of linkage between behavioral traits, preferences and so on that we might regard as masculine or feminine, and sex differences. There are significant differences between men and women in some behaviors, such as differences in kinds of aggressive behavior that males and females do, especially when they are young. I don't agree with the theory that all "gendered" behavior is entirely socially constructed, because I think that there are factors like testosterone and estrogen that influence sex differences in preferences and behaviors, when they occur.
Thank you for this comment and for sharing your thoughts. I agree with you completely. I think that your first point is especially important and thought-provoking. Obviously, I don't know what it's like to be a woman, so it's hard for me to understand the difference in how a young woman (versus a young man) feels as their body starts to change. But, certainly, I agree with you that the sense of self is intimately tied to the experience of the physical. Do you think that this is a bigger issue for women, and if so, in what ways?
I don't know if puberty is a "bigger issue" for girls at puberty and through adolescence than it is for guys, but it is different. Girls have to get used to managing their monthly cycle of mood changes, bleeding, and pain in many cases. They usually look forward to breast development, but girls who develop earlier or who have larger breasts become targets of unwanted levels of attention from boys. Adolescent girls as well as the people around them start shaming breast exposure in girls at the same time that boys are encouraged to go shirtless and show off their developing torsos.
It was fascinating to me to read about peoples' reactions to the recent incident in which trans activist Rose Montoya exposed his chest during a White House visit. There was a wave of disgust and horror from witnesses that I expect was very gratifying to the exhibitionistic activist. In U.S. culture, this reaction only happens when the person baring her chest is a female.
The most significant shift in a girl's relationship with her embodied self is towards being perceived as an object of the admiring or critical male gaze. Many adolescent girls become so focused on the sense of their bodies as objects of evaluation that every move they make becomes fraught with concerns about "how I look as I move that way." In my generation we spent hours individually and together poring over Seventeen Magazine, absorbed in admiration and envy of the young models, and comparing ourselves to them with relentless self-criticism. Today's young women do the same thing on social media, where the environment is less sheltered and more vicious by comparison.
While I do not have an inside perspective on what boys go through during the adolescent years, my impression is that they are more involved with the physical experience of using their bodies in play. In these experiences they are living out their own desires through their bodies, in the role of a "subject," in contrast to the girls' increasing sense of their bodies as an "object" of someone else's desire or disapproval.
I think that hypercritical self-objectification and objectification by others is the primary source of the epidemic of depression, anxiety, self-injury, and focus on "transitioning" that we are currently seeing in young women. Similar problems have been going on for multiple generations, especially among daughters of upper middle and upper class white people. I infer that the problem is mostly caused by cultural pressures within that demographic that interact with certain biologically based vulnerabilities that are more characteristic of females than males. The latter appear to include a tendency to develop anxiety and depression in response to social stressors, and to react to these feelings by dissociating from the body and attacking it.
Interesting and, I think, completely accurate. Thanks for taking the time to explain your point of view. I think your idea of "subject" versus "object", is spot on. I've never thought of it quite like that. Thanks for your insights. I sincerely appreciate them, Frederick
I was lucky enough to be a copytaker (specialist audiotypist taking dictation over the phone from reporterss in the field) during the last gasp of mainstream media profitability and viability.
Good reporters had a technique for surviving the ideological biases of their newspapers. Some lurid declaration would go into the first paragraph, followed by the facts. Which were sometimes in opposition to the supposed line they were taking.
It wasn't ideal but an attentive reader could still get an accurate picture. But you had to know how to read it.
Similarly, I've read that in Soviet times, reporters would write: "Capitalist provocateurs have been apprehended stirring up false rumours that there are bread shortages in Murmansk," and everyone who read it understood that there were bread shortages in Murmansk.
Is that what's going on in the Academy now?
That's a very interesting observation. Truth is, I've never thought about it in those terms. Perhaps, to some extent, you are correct. I have to give this one some thought…
We may be a little closer to identifying the neural networks associated with a transgender identity. See
"Possible Neurobiological Underpinnings of Homosexuality and Gender Dysphoria" https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/29/5/2084/5062356 They made two observations: 1) That brain morphology (physical structure) of transgender subjects was indistinguishable from their natal sex, once homosexuality was taken into account. 2) That brain connectivity (functional connections) in the self-referential network was weakened in the transgender subjects. This means that transwomen and transmen showed a unique brain feature that was not present in cis heterosxual or cis homosexual people. However, it's unknown whether this weakening of the self-referential network precedes GD or is the result of rumination associated with GD. And it's difficult to parse out with this particular research dataset because 80% of participants were childhood onset and 20% were post-pubertal onset. But there's something there ... listen to the stories of trans-ID people and detransitioners and you'll see that rumination and obsessive thoughts are a common to both.
Note also that self-referential brain network they studied here is also weakened in people with conditions like anorexia and body dysmorphia. And that network is part of the default mode network which is altered in ADHD, anxiety, and self-referential processes like rumination, craving, and avoidance.
Thank you very much for the comment and the citation. I appreciate it very much.
Thank you, thank you for hosting this site and writing this piece. It takes work to find the underlying research, read, understand, and then objectively summarize. It takes time for readers to then read what you write to better understand the findings AND what the inconsistencies in the media are. You make us think better. So thank you.
I, too, began many years ago before Substack to be bothered by the misalignment btwn actual reports or legal opinions or research papers and public popular media summaries. https://seethegaps.org/2018/10/05/gaps-in-information/. So glad Substack and thoughtful writers and readers like you are finding their way to each other.
Thanks… I look forward to reading your essays!
This is very interesting and I really appreciate your article. There are a lot of people misusing biology to promote their views. The traditionalists (both left and right wing) want to use a simple high school level biological definition of sex where chromosomal make-up determines whether you are male or female. They will argue that since you can't change your chromosomes your sex is immutable. But we know biology is much more complicated. Sex can be viewed as a species level strategy for reproduction. Each species that reproduces sexually combines gametes using a male and female strategies. However, each individual does not need to fall into either binary category for the species to reproduce. There are many species where individuals can be male and female simultaneously or sequentially. Perhaps it makes more sense to talk about each human as having one of two sexual strategies that is immutable (at least currently) but not necessarily tied to sex of the individual. I don't know if innate sex is immutable but it does appear to be extremely resistant to change. Most people would be horrified if you persistently treated them as anything but their birth sex or forced them to change their primary or secondary sex characteristics in some horrible experiment. They have an innate sex that matches their birth sex. Only a very small minority has an innate sex that differs from birth sex. I don't think we have very good numbers but I have seen it estimated at around 0.3 percent. This minority would be considered trans. So when we talk about sex being binary it makes sense for the species to have male and female strategies but not necessarily only one way to be male or female at the level of the individual. Clearly there are trans females who can have a male sexual strategy (transmitting sperm to impregnate). Conversely there are trans males who can have a female sexual strategy (become pregnant and give birth). We can be a lot more flexible in defining sex at the individual level if we don't limit ourselves by linking sex to sexual strategy. We can for example include such things as innate sex as a key attribute of sex along with many other attributes including chromosomes.
Quite agree with your comments about "a simple high school level biological definition of sex where chromosomal make-up determines whether you are male or female."
However, the answer to the question of "immutability" is contingent on how we define the terms "male" & "female". IF we said that the "necessary and sufficient conditions" to qualify as members of those categories was to have XY & XX chromosomes THEN, ipso facto, such people would be males and females. The same way that the "necessary and sufficient condition" to be a teenager is to be 13 to 19.
So the issue is really a matter of the definitions we start from -- which are generally somewhat arbitrary. There are no intrinsic meanings to any of our words; Moses didn't bring the first dictionary down from Mt Sinai on tablets A through Z so there are NO definitions that qualify as gospel truth.
However, the standard biological definitions stipulate that to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types; it necessarily follows that those with neither are, ipso facto, sexLESS. Even if Frederick is not entirely on board with those definitions and their logical consequences himself ... 😉🙂
But for details, see the definitions in the Glossary of this article in the Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction:
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990
Wonderfully written. It's a shame how sexist this movement is. If a child isn't a stereotype, they're told there's something wrong with them. Not to mention it targets those who have mental conditions or are otherwise unstable.
I escaped from this cult a while ago. The road to freedom is a bumpy one, but it's better than being a toxic, angry, sad, manipulated--and ultimately delusional--clergyman of the Church of Gender.
thats not st all how the movement works, that how Christians think, if a girl isn't girly enough theres something wrong with her.
Its not a cult, its just people existing, your the only toxic delusional one here
Thanks. And, I agree with you!
Great essay and discussion of the science. I wonder, though, by making gender ideology “science-y” we aren’t missing the point. Has anyone tried to see if there are Hindu biomarkers or Christian fMRI signatures? I seem to remember that the latter has been attempted. And what about “studies” of self-reported well-being after religious conversion? I would bet good money you could justify encouraging kids to convert (on stronger statistical evidence) to a particular religion if you repeat the procedures outlined in the first paper, but substitute gender ideology with any other world religion in the right environment. Say, conversion to Mormonism while living in Salt Lake City.
At the end of the day, transgenderism is a cult. And people can have their cults, what do I care. Unfortunately this is a mutilation cult that is destroying kids lives and families (including my own - I wouldn’t be commenting here if it wasn’t affecting me.) It has as much “biological basis” as any other cult or religion. Indeed, if we ran a transgender study with conversion to Evangelical Christianity as a control, I bet all the “biological” benefits would point to better improvements with established religion (provided it was done in the right social context)
Transgenderism isn't a cult, transgenderism isn't a thing, it's just trans people existing. Transitioning is not mutilation, they do not lose body parts, they still have reproductive organs, boobs, etc. They didn't lose anything. No ones live is being destroyed
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I agree with you! All of our thinking has a biological basis but we interpret the biology (whether it's structural anatomy or fMRI images) according to our own particular perspectives, points of view, and ideologies.
Thanks for your careful unpicking of erroneous "facts" and conflated concepts in the limited research available on the claimed biological underpinnings -- or not -- of gender "identity", pushed as gender ideology. It brings a refreshing clarity to issues too often wrapped up in impenetrable deconstructionist word-salad, often as misogynist polemics: and puts such flimsy assertions firmly in their place.
Thank you very much for your kind words! I sincerely appreciate them, Frederick
If I'm understanding you correctly, what you're doing here is highlighting the oft-overlooked interplay between environmental (I would argue that the distinction between environment and culture is fuzzy) and biological factors where the topic of gender identity is being discussed.
Fair enough, but I'm pretty apprehensive about the way in which you've described our epistemology around the whole phenomenon. You're very nearly excusing a lack of epistemic rigor by attributing almost irreducible complexity to the system (i.e. we'll never have a test for these things) and sort of suggesting that the proposed mechanism simply isn't an important part of the hypothesis(?) Admittedly, this is an ungenerous read and I don't think that's what you were honestly trying to imply, but the read is there and - in my submission - it's lower hanging fruit than the more nuanced parse.
Anyway, that's just a bit of feedback regarding my experience with the article. Overall, I appreciate the point that you're making and spent a good while traipsing through the hyperlinks. Perhaps, eventually, with enough effort, empathy and patience we'll discover the secret to unlocking cross-ideology conversation on this thorniest of subjects.
And, by the way, I appreciate your final paragraph.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I'm not sure I understand your first criticism but I'm interested in you clarifying it if you would like to. The reason I pointed out that there will never be a "test" for particular self perception is the same reason there is no single test for autism or Alzheimer's. There is no singular 'cause'. They are all epiphenomena of physiological processes. Also, just to be clear, I'm not making a distinction between biology and the environment. There actually is no distinction in the traditional sense. Brains function within environments and in relationships to the entire organism. It's not a dichotomy, really. Thanks again for the great comment. I enjoyed it.
Of course, always happy to share my thoughts. I think what I'm driving at here is the importance of purported mechanism, so that while we may currently recognize something as a syndrome (I have been diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, for instance) it's still important that scientific medical inquiry be driven to uncover ever narrower mechanistic explanations by dint of further isolating our testing. To stick with the same example, only recently we've discovered that there may be an individual gene responsible for the vast majority of symptoms suffered by those individuals diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. That would be news! Also, we would be able to develop a more accurate test and then perhaps we would have to revisit the taxonomy around UC.
Most psychopathologies (gender dysphoria, for instance - I'm not trying to imply that anybody's identity is pathological), from my admittedly cursory understanding, seem to share a similarly vague process of definition. We observe an anomalous pattern of symptoms (that tend to appear together, for instance) and record those observations to generate data sets from which we can then infer falsifiable mechanistic hypotheses. Always, in my understanding, with the hope of narrowing the space of plausible mechanistic explanations.
Doubtless, these are truly complex systems. My point is that we are, nevertheless, always striving toward better and more conclusive taxonomy for these conditions that allow us to employ more conclusive testing. For the time being there may be no individual test for 'autism', but with a clearer definition of the symptomology, a better understanding of the biological systems and ever more powerful technology, might we not arrive at a better way of discussing these conditions accompanied by significantly more conclusive testing capabilities?
I think my urge to comment initially was at least somewhat prompted by the feeling that you handwaved this (process of converging on mechanism) a little bit in the article, and I feel that it's probably still a useful methodology even within the domain of neurodivergent taxonomy.
I understand your point, and I appreciate your comment. However, I'm not handwaving, really. You are correct in theory. However virtually all biological conditions are polygenic. For instance, I've read estimates of 80,000 genetic loci that play a role in height. Also, you have to understand that the 25,000 or so protein coding genes you have in your genome are not the whole story. They make up only a small amount of the genetic load and much of genetic expression is controlled by non-protein coding genes about which we know little, for instance switch genes and Hox genes, and other gene expression promoters as well as epigenetic influences. The interactions are so complex that we do not actually have the mathematics to model them, nor the technical ability to assess the interactions. In the case of a psychological, subjective self-perception, the phenomenon is a product of neural network activity. We understand that. But that doesn't mean the precise activity is discoverable or is the same from person-to-person. While I understand your position — and I agree with you in theory — it's simply not the case that a specific mechanism can be discovered for everything that we name. That is the case for autism, for instance, and it will always be the case. The word is a category under which we subsume a variety of neurological conditions. We could say the same for high blood pressure. Mean arterial blood pressure is controlled by endothelial tissues in the lungs, the liver, the secretory mechanisms of the kidney, clusters of cells around the efferent and afferent arteriols of the kidney nephrons, the synergistic interactions between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, baroreceptors in the aorta and carotid arteries, the contractile characteristics of arterial smooth muscles, circulating ion concentrations in the extracellular fluid and plasma, systemic hormone levels, and more, and more. So, what is the mechanism that "causes" high blood pressure? Well, it's the complex interactions between physiological systems that create the emergent property that is mean arterial blood pressure. That doesn't mean that we can't control it or modulate it, it just means that it doesn't have one particular mechanistic cause. In the case of "gender identity" or any other, subjective perception,, it will never be the case that we can find the central nervous system fingerprint because the complex interactions in the central nervous system are ongoing and dynamic. Does that make sense? Or have I confused the whole thing for you?
Not at all. I take your point, but I think perhaps we're preaching a different high-level approach where heuristics are concerned. At some level of deconstruction, you'll always lose the 'larger system', since the borders of such systems are always, to some extent, determined by human perception. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm shifting the goal posts by positing that it's somewhat important to match the scope of a proposed mechanism to the scope of the observed phenomenon.
This conversation reminds me of an oft revisited and somewhat belabored analogy that often comes up in mathematical discourse about the proverbial dog, swimming against the current upriver, whose kinesthetic actions are so damnably complex to describe in mathematical terms. This is going to sound reductive as hell, but when asked how the dog manages to stay afloat and swim across the river, I think it's alright to respond "Well, it kicks and paddles, and it's somewhat buoyant." The scope of an explanation (proposed mechanism) may, or may not, be sufficient depending upon the scope of what we're trying to explain. Perhaps we dig deeper and explain the nervous and muscular action behind the kinetics, the physics of liquid water, etc. and conclude that the previous answer was inadequate or, at least, incomplete.
I'm meandering, and hoping that you interpret all of this as a good faith attempt to engage in discourse. My point, I suppose, is that there's an interplay between what we're attempting to explain and our present information that feeds back into itself. As our information gets better, the inquiries become more specific, the taxonomy (with any luck) becomes clearer and we're better able to match the scope of the inquiry to the hypotheses.
Trying to reduce the mystery of human neuroses to a single genetic marker (for instance) is foolish because it may (read: does) arise from dynamic interactions between complex systems, but it doesn't mean that we can't get better at modeling those complex systems and thereby offer some sort of potentially satisfactory explanation. I am much happier to have the germ theory of disease to explain why I'm feeling under the weather even if it doesn't describe the specific mechanisms by which said pathogen is wreaking havoc in my body. In some cases, the former serves as a better answer even when the latter information is available.
Regarding autism, dysphoria, etc. it's preferable, in my submission, to strive towards better definitions, descriptions and explanations. Your position (correct me if I'm wrong) that certain things are probably unknowable, strikes me more as a response to poorly wrought inquiries than anything else. For instance, silly people who demand a singular, mechanistic explanation where a description of system dynamics would be required (i.e. really bad scope-matching).
Anyway, that's enough rambling from me. I get the feeling that you already understand where I'm coming from and I appreciate your taking the time to adumbrate your position.
Thanks for this. I not only appreciate your point of view but I agree with you, too. I particularly like the dog example. I'm sure I will use it in future discussions. Thanks for taking the time to explain your perspective. I think you've modified my thinking a bit. Thank you for that!
When I first started reading, I thought this was disingenuous - of course your thoughts are biological in the sense that they are electrical signals within your physical brain, but clearly there’s a distinction between that and a trait like eye color. But as I read, I realized the point I think you were making - it’s very difficult to separate what’s nature from what’s nurture. Traits that we consider psychological can have a strong genetic correlation. A propensity for violence, for example, seems to have a genetic basis according to some studies. Every thought you have, then, is due to some combination of your genetic makeup and your history and environment, and is expressed as electrical activity within a physical brain that’s been shaped by your past experiences.
But I do think it’s useful (if difficult) to try to draw a line between things that can change and things that can’t. There are primary genetic characteristics like eye color or a predisposition to diabetes, that are completely unchangeable. There are things like height, or actually developing diabetes, that are influenced by a combination of genetics and environment but which are physically measurable and result in changes to your physical body that can’t be changed after the fact. And then there are emotions, thoughts, states of mind, which can’t be observed. Evidence shows that some of these rarely if ever change after maturity (sexual orientation, IQ), while others change frequently (mood, romantic feelings, opinions on political topics, religious beliefs). It seems likely that the previous category is based on the physical structure of your brain and the chemicals in it, that could be measured if we knew where to look, while the latter category is based on the electrical impulses. You can think of it as the difference between computer hardware and software. The hardware is fixed, but if you run a different program or input different data into it, you’ll get different results.
The core debate here is which of these categories gender identity falls into. Of course the activists treat it as fact that it’s akin to eye color - an immutable characteristic that we could measure if we only knew which gene and brain structure to look at. It’s the hardware. But there’s a lot of evidence that’s not the case (the meteoric rise in cases, the clustering of cases, and the switch from it primarily occurring in males to being far more prevalent in females). So how do we characterize it? I think it falls into the last category - along with political and religious beliefs. Evidence shows it’s an opinion that can change.
"The core debate here is which of these categories gender identity falls into. Of course the activists treat it as fact that it’s akin to eye color - an immutable characteristic that we could measure if we only knew which gene and brain structure to look at."
What is of most interest to me is the question of why the activists want to characterize "gender identity" to be akin to eye color in terms of being a concrete, observable and immutable characteristic. Most of the positions being taken in the debate about gender ideology represent underlying emotionally invested thoughts. Most commonly there is a fear driving the need to have a pre-conceived specific answer be "right." Activists commonly interrogate the critics of "gender affirmative care" by refusing to respond to probing skeptical questions about the protocol, and by countering the questions with demands to know, "Why are you asking these questions?!" They do this because they are taught to do it in critical theory activist training, but if asked in a spirit of scientific inquiry, the activists would have a valid question. I think that we should all ask ourselves what we have invested personally in the particular line of inquiry we pursue with respect to gender identity. If we don't know, we are more likely to be biased in our research and in our thinking, because we so strongly do not want a set of results to appear or to imply what it does about ongoing clinical practices and legal practices regarding atypical and abnormal gender identity development.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. I enjoyed reading your perspective and agree with many of your points. I do understand what you're saying although I have some differences of opinion on the conceptualizations, and models that you use (for instance, distinguishing between a brain and the chemicals in it, and electrical activity). I would explain the relationship between brain and brain activity somewhat differently than you have here. The computer metaphor is helpful sometimes but our "hardware" is not as static as your laptop. It's always changing, too. And, that changes the way the "software" runs. However, I do appreciate your point of view. Thank you so much for your comment!
If I understand you correctly, your point is that of course biology creates gender identity, because biology creates everything we feel and think about ourselves. Without our neurons and neurotransmitters and all the other concrete features and functions of the brain and body, there would be no thought, no identities, no concepts, no nothing.
However, I wish you had been just a bit more concrete and specific regarding the ways (or any way at all) that biology creates gender identity. Is it a side effect, or an extension, of circulating hormones and the way they affect the brain? Or whatever. I would have appreciated just a bit of actual biological science related to the issue.
Unless your point is that it's impossible to be any more specific, because the brain and personal experience of each person is too complex and unique to codify in general terms?
You may find this speaks to your question, too... Feel free to comment back!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecvv-EvOj8M
Thanks so much for your comment. You made a great point. To some extent, understanding subjective thoughts in terms of their biological substrates is beyond our current analytical capacities at the moment. However, we do have some basic understanding of the phenomenon. If you watch this TED talk, you get some sense of how your brain constructs your reality
https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality?language=en
Now consider the fact that our thoughts are based on neural network activity that has a stochastic (random) property to it. Any set of thoughts can be represented by multiple neural representations. Think of it like the weather. There are patterns in the weather that are recognizable. There are weather conditions that are identifiable. But we can't predict it precisely because there's randomness in the system. Similarly we can't identify one specific cause of a specific weather condition. There are multiple interacting events some subset of which causes a particular weather condition.
Finally, then, you have to consider the fact that any given thought that you have is a product of your particular body developing within a particular environment. So, the same set of neural activities could represent another subjective thought process if, for instance, you had been born and raised in 17th-century New Guinea. Your experiences create the raw materials that are represented by the neural activity and from which the neural activity creates what you experience subjectively. Your particular subjective conscious states are products of the interaction between your biology and the conditions under which the biology is shaped.
Does that speak to your question.... or are you asking for something a bit different?
Your replies speak to my question, in the sense of underscoring that I did understand you the first time.
But in a way that I don't believe you intended, your position that "everything is biology" seems to end up lending credibility to the trans-activists who insist that biological evidence exists. If every blessed thing we are and do is biology-based (which it is), then there's nothing to discuss. Gender identity is as real as lizard identity. So that guy with scaly tattoos all over his body and a bifurcated tongue is a serious person, and in order to respect his identity, we must never refer to him as a mammal.
The truths of brain science are astounding. We are our biology, 100% of the time. And of course, we must not stand in the way of any ADULT who believes that transforming his or her body through surgeries and hormones is an existential imperative. The bodily autonomy of adults is an absolute right, as long as ones desires don't bleed over into the rights and safety of others. But trans activists assert spurious truth claims in order to justify the incursion of males into women's prisons and sports, and the enabling of children to be permanently maimed so that we can "affirm" their intrinsic gender identity.
Said another way, your insight into the ubiquity of biology and indeed, the impossibility of its not being there for any reason whatsoever, is valuable and worth pointing out in general terms, and is actually quite fascinating, because the brain is fascinating. But it doesn't help to debunk the adult-sized portion of metaphysical claptrap that characterizes trans ideology as currently promulgated.
However, I don't know what you could have said instead. Maybe using gender ideology as your test case to demonstrate a fundamental truth about the brain is a little too controversial. Or maybe that's what the Comments section is for. (Caveat: I hope this makes sense. I'm not a scientist.)
A very well written essay with which I strongly agree except for a limited if yet important caveat.
For instance: these are irrefutable!
It just means that your self-perception is your self-perception. It’s unknowable to anybody else until you reveal it.
Every individual should be respected, accepted, included, and have the opportunity to live the best life that they can.
The following however are true with an important caveat:
Hence, “gender identity” is a product of biology because brain activity is biology.
There are no factors other than biology, environment, and culture that could influence gender identity.
The important caveat - if scientistic materialism is true, then these statements are true as is. If, however, transcendent spirituality is reality beyond nature per se, then the true understanding would state ‘gender identity is a function of biology, environment, and culture as these influence spiritually embodied male or female persons’. In a world understood to be created by God (a view of reality that transcends science which is only able to see nature and not natures Creator), then human persons must be understood as spiritually embodied souls whose self perceptions are influenced importantly by their Creator’s designs.
As always, a very thought-provoking comment from you. Thank you. I absolutely understand what you are saying. I guess I'm agnostic on these more spiritual issues. I certainly do not discount them, however, I just don't know. Also, as I tell my students, these fall outside of the domain of biology strictly speaking. Again, I don't dismiss them, they are just outside of my intellectual purview when I have my biology hat on.
Are you familiar with a book called The Illusion of God's Presence: The Biological Origins of Spiritual Longing? The author is John C. Wathey, a computational biologist whose research interests include evolutionary algorithms and the biology of nervous systems. He got his PhD in Neurosciences at UC San Diego following his undergrad years at Caltech. After a postdoc at the Salk Institute, he spent most of his career in the private sector working on computer simulations of protein folding.
I became an atheist after decades mucking around in New Age metaphysics and religions of all kinds. This book answered my most persistent question: what accounts for the plethora of religions and supernatural beliefs among humans everywhere on the globe? Would it surprise you to know that it's biological? Wonderful book...and chock full of data.
There are a plethora of books and articles that preach the gospel of scientistic materialism - and the ideas behind neurological determinism are quite popular.
For myself - after nearly 50 years as a scientist of sorts (BA Molecular Biology, PhD Pharmacology, MD Emergency Medicine) - I have yet to hear of a materialistic world view that overcomes what is commonly referred to as ‘the argument from reason’ as is best defended by C. S. Lewis in his books Mere Christianity and The Abolition of Man. Another good book that addresses the issues of scientistic materialism is The Song Sparrow and The Child by Joseph Vining.
I haven't delved into this topic from the vantage point of "scientistic materalism," and I haven't read any other books that deal with this subject directly. So all I can say is that Dr. Wathey is the opposite of a preacher of a gospel. He was raised in a religious home and although he left Christianity as a teenager, his perspective is compassionate and non-judgmental. There's no tone of preaching or trying to convince anyone of anything. I found his thesis to be ingenious, and entirely based on phenomena in the material world.
“There's no tone of preaching or trying to convince anyone of anything. I found his thesis to be judgment-free and ingenious, and entirely based on phenomena in the material world.”
Preaching does not require emotional language or demogogary - but make no mistake, he would not write a book if he wasn’t trying to convince his readers. And of course his observations are based entirely on ‘phenomena in the material world’ because a scientistic materialist has nothing but material world phenomena. Yet he seems - according to your description - to be ‘explaining God’ as a brain phenomenon in the context of a presupposition that there is no God. A Creator necessarily exists outside the material world, and so cannot be confirmed or refuted by material phenomena.
Yes, that's true.
But to clarify, Dr. Wathey's book is not so much about whether or not God exists, but, as the title says, the nature of the profound emotional and spiritual experiences of God's presence that have given religious people the absolute certainty that God is present and influential in their lives.
In fact, Dr. Wathey had such an experience himself, during which he felt as though he had company in the form of a palpable, protective, loving, presence during a crisis.
Thanks - I find value in your work, and I appreciate your replies to my comments. I wear various ‘hats’ and in my professional activities I often limit my contributions to the scientific ‘hat’. But I find often enough that my views on spiritual realities fit into my applications of scientific thinking. Presuppositions always impact interpretation.
Thanks. I certainly agree with you. And I do spend a considerable amount of time thinking about the spiritual aspects to it all. I spent some years studying Western and then Indian philosophy, and I went to school for a while at the Gujarat Vidyapith founded by Gandhi in 1920 in Ahmedabad, India. But, as I get older, I get both less sure of things and more inquisitive. Go figure
But, as I get older, I get both less sure of things and more inquisitive.
Understood - as I approach 70, and my life takes unexpected turns, my insecurities have been made less powerful by the faithfulness of my God. Yet I spend more time reading about (studying) issues of faith, philosophy, and cultural more so than ever. There is always something new to learn.
Yes there is…. Always much more to learn.
BTW
A book I am now reading might be of interest to you…
The Song Sparrow and the Child -Claims of Science and Humanity
By Joseph Vining
If you read it perhaps you would comment on it in your blog.