… because you don’t, as a rule, choose your own neurophysiology. Certain structures in transsexuals’ brains are closer to the form they take in cisgendered members of the sex they identify with than the sex they appear to be.
… because you don’t, as a rule, choose your own neurophysiology.
Become a taxi driver and grow your hippocampus. The boundary between what you can change and what you can’t is not as clear as you seem to think.
Certain structures in transsexuals’ brains are closer to the form they take in cisgendered members of the sex they identify with than the sex they appear to be.
Become a taxi driver and grow your hippocampus. The boundary between what you can change and what you can’t is not as clear as you seem to think.
As I have said elsewhere, there is a sliding scale involved. This is decidedly towards the “unchosen” end, and considering that transsexuals report having changed their lifestyle as a result of preexisting problems, it seems reasonable to call this one for the “nature” side.
… because you don’t, as a rule, choose your own neurophysiology.
You have some control over it. Everything you do and every thought you have affects your neurophysiology. How much control you have over it is an interesting question, which can’t be answered simply by pointing to differences on brain scans.
There’s a sliding scale. At one end, we have things like frontal lobes. At the other, we have imagination. This is the kind of structure that doesn’t alter without external stimuli, and even then it’s bloody hard.
If you take physicalism seriously, every experience can be expected to show up eventually, on sufficiently advanced brain scans. That has no bearing on what is a choice and what is not. Choices and non-choices will both have physical correlates.
And no it doesn’t, there are brain areas that are statistically different in the small population of trans brains donated to science, but there is no brain scan for trans and it would be useless anyway, because if you experience yourself as trans and the scan says “nope” it’s the scan that’s wrong. The individual is the sole authority and the diagnosis is by telling a shrink what you experience.
The fact that we cannot currently diagnose gender dysphoria [EDIT: in a living subject] with a brain scan does not change the fact that it is caused by a neurological disorder, and as such is biological, not a choice.
if you experience yourself as trans and the scan says “nope” it’s the scan that’s wrong. The individual is the sole authority and the diagnosis is by telling a shrink what you experience.
Are you saying that cisgendered people should be eligible for gender reassignment surgery and so on, or that any brain-scan based test will be imperfect?
I am saying that a trans person can only be diagnosed by saying “I experience myself as [fill in the blank]” because that unspoken, personal experience is what trans is. Not the brain stuff. That may be what trans is caused by. It’s like having a sore toe, that can be caused by a dropped hammer or kicking the door, but the essence of sore toeness can’t be determined by testing for hammers and a negative test for a dropped hammer would not disprove it, the essence of sore toeness is the ouch.
I’m pretty sure that the ouch is merely evidence that someone is experiencing pain. We’re perilously close to arguing definitions here, though. If someone developed such a scan and there were a lot of trans people coming up as cis that would be warning sign, but it is not impossible (merely unlikely) that there are “trans” people who have more in common with cis people than “real” trans people.
EDIT: it may help to consider autism here.
FURTHER EDIT: dammit, stupid karma toll cutting off my discussions.
If someone developed such a scan, and it labeled a bunch of trans-identified people as cis, then IMO that would be good evidence for the proposition that the scanner is buggy.
Once again, I support the right to wear underpants on your head but I wouldn’t teach my kids it’s socially acceptable.
It shows up on brainscans.
How is the second sentence at all evidence against the first?
… because you don’t, as a rule, choose your own neurophysiology. Certain structures in transsexuals’ brains are closer to the form they take in cisgendered members of the sex they identify with than the sex they appear to be.
Become a taxi driver and grow your hippocampus. The boundary between what you can change and what you can’t is not as clear as you seem to think.
Do we know what these structures do?
As I have said elsewhere, there is a sliding scale involved. This is decidedly towards the “unchosen” end, and considering that transsexuals report having changed their lifestyle as a result of preexisting problems, it seems reasonable to call this one for the “nature” side.
Besides this? No.
You have some control over it. Everything you do and every thought you have affects your neurophysiology. How much control you have over it is an interesting question, which can’t be answered simply by pointing to differences on brain scans.
There’s a sliding scale. At one end, we have things like frontal lobes. At the other, we have imagination. This is the kind of structure that doesn’t alter without external stimuli, and even then it’s bloody hard.
If you take physicalism seriously, every experience can be expected to show up eventually, on sufficiently advanced brain scans. That has no bearing on what is a choice and what is not. Choices and non-choices will both have physical correlates.
Autism is a choice!
Then you are perpetuating cissexism.
And no it doesn’t, there are brain areas that are statistically different in the small population of trans brains donated to science, but there is no brain scan for trans and it would be useless anyway, because if you experience yourself as trans and the scan says “nope” it’s the scan that’s wrong. The individual is the sole authority and the diagnosis is by telling a shrink what you experience.
… how so?
The fact that we cannot currently diagnose gender dysphoria [EDIT: in a living subject] with a brain scan does not change the fact that it is caused by a neurological disorder, and as such is biological, not a choice.
Are you saying that cisgendered people should be eligible for gender reassignment surgery and so on, or that any brain-scan based test will be imperfect?
I am saying that a trans person can only be diagnosed by saying “I experience myself as [fill in the blank]” because that unspoken, personal experience is what trans is. Not the brain stuff. That may be what trans is caused by. It’s like having a sore toe, that can be caused by a dropped hammer or kicking the door, but the essence of sore toeness can’t be determined by testing for hammers and a negative test for a dropped hammer would not disprove it, the essence of sore toeness is the ouch.
I’m pretty sure that the ouch is merely evidence that someone is experiencing pain. We’re perilously close to arguing definitions here, though. If someone developed such a scan and there were a lot of trans people coming up as cis that would be warning sign, but it is not impossible (merely unlikely) that there are “trans” people who have more in common with cis people than “real” trans people.
EDIT: it may help to consider autism here.
FURTHER EDIT: dammit, stupid karma toll cutting off my discussions.
If someone developed such a scan, and it labeled a bunch of trans-identified people as cis, then IMO that would be good evidence for the proposition that the scanner is buggy.
“I experience myself as a beetle in a box.”