[please be serious] Does gender have -anything- to do with gentials at ALL?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > [please be serious] Does gender have -anything- to do with gentials at ALL?

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Only so far as genitalia typically produces large amounts of behavior altering hormones, at least when working "normally".

# ¿ Apr 18, 2016 16:58

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:04

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

OwlFancier posted:

There may be an inborn gender but most of the things associated with the two traditional genders are rather difficult to credibly associate with our biological makeup.

There's nothing biologically that requires men to have short hair and be paid a lot and wear male clothes and like male colours and drive loud and/or fast cars and never show feelings, but those are all aspects of the traditional male gender.

These bolded would seem to be covered under the typically high levels of testosterone in males. Short hair, "male" clothes and male colors seem to be entirely socially constructed.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2016 19:02

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Ddraig posted:

I don't think having high levels of testosterone would make you predisposed to driving loud cars and never showing feelings.

For one thing, cars are a fairly recent invention. Throughout the entirety of human history, cars have been here for about 0.00001% of it.

And as for the second, I'm guessing you've never spent time around young children because boys certainly show feelings, until they're forced to 'man up'.

By "~~loud~~fast cars and feelings" I'm more speaking of the aggression and intensity, along with a decrease in risk assessment that testosterone brings with it in normal and higher levels.

Anger is the one trait that men are allowed socially, and it corresponds with high levels of testosterone. You're right that others are suppressed socially, much to the detriment to a man/boy's devloping emotional well-being.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2016 20:20

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Ddraig posted:

From that chart, it seems that fetal exposure to testosterone peaks at about the same level as it does in pubescent boys, and with much greater intensity.

If a love of cars and being stoney-faced is linked to testosterone, do these feelings slowly ramp up during puberty? How about the period before puberty where children play with toy cars etc.? How does that lull in testosterone account for that?

You're being simplistic to avoid what's been said to argue further for some reason. Cars are just one of any number of loud, dangerous things that people with high levels of testosterone and low risk avoidance are into. And again, being "stoney-faced" is a social construct, while increased aggression is not (entirely).

# ¿ Apr 18, 2016 21:32

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

OwlFancier posted:

However, masculinity is not tied solely to loud and dangerous things, there are specific things which are associated with masculine prestige, merely being loud and noisy is not sufficient, which suggests that the behaviour remains heavily socialised. Biology as a basis for gender roles does not stand up to criticism beyond a vague suggestion that maybe some behaviours might somewhere have a basis in something biology related sometimes mumble mumble fart. It's a dumb idea and is not really worth discussing.

It's a good thing then that nobody suggested that masculinity is solely tied to anything.

Biology is a basis only as far as hormones (of which everyone produces varying levels of testosterone and estrogen) effect your behavior. It's not reaching to posit that since aggression is an effect of increased testosterone levels, that someone would make more aggressive choices (specifically, the research pointing to decreased risk aversion). Nobody is suggesting that it's the be all end all, and huffily not discussing it is silly. Hormones are interesting.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2016 21:53

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Main Paineframe posted:

Are you sure that the stereotypical "male" affection for loud and potentially dangerous machines, such as power tools, fast cars, and heavily-armed airplanes is due to testosterone and not, you know, a century and a half of social and cultural conditioning? I feel like you're overly inclined to blame things on while ignoring boatloads of cultural context.

Helsing here puts it better than I can.

Helsing posted:

Gender dimorphism and the fairly consistent tendency for men, especially young men, across many different cultures, to be more aggressive, would seem to suggest that beneath all that social conditioning there is at least some relationship between sex and behavior. But we also have a lot of evidence that social conditioning and individual variation play a big role here so it seems dangerous to leap to any simplistic conclusions one way or the other.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2016 21:54

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

McAlister posted:

I bolder the important word there.

Male children show feelings much more readily but are socialized to stop as they grow older. Suck it. Be a "man" ( with the implication that men don't feel ).

http://www.academia.edu/19569177/Im_Not_Going_to_Be_a_Girl_Masculinity_and_Emotions_in_Boys_Friendships_and_Peer_Groups

Girls of the same age are encouraged to think about and accept their emotions. This is a much better practice IMO and one of the places where we should be treating boys more like girls instead of the other way around. The way we socialize boys stunts their social IQ's and may be why they take so much longer to reach emotional maturity.

As for excitement and risk taking ... Go to google and find the nearest place offering riding lessons to girls that has "vaulting" courses. Then drive down and watch a class.

http://www.abc.net.au/local/videos/2012/08/28/3577345.htm

Or Google wing walkers. Not female wing walkers. Just wing walkers. Since they were predominantly women. Hell, watch this clip of Gladys Ingle repairing a biplane's landing gear in flight. Imagine what the soundtrack would be if she had been a man. But since she is a woman - and we have socially decreed that women aren't risk takers and don't have an enjoyable adrenaline kick from danger like red blooded boys do - we have to downplay the danger instead of celebrating it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8oAzdbd0J2A

Back to horses. Horses are a wonderful way to see how social attitudes rather than innate differences between the genders are feeding this myth that testosterone makes people adventurous. When horses were boy things then women were compelled to ride side saddle for decorum and thus limited in terms of access and mobility to horses. The guys hogged them much like they hog the home gaming consoles today limiting girls access to certain gaming platforms. And back then much ado was made about how big and scary and dangerous horses were and how delicate women couldn't be trusted to handle these strong giant beasts!

Now we have cars. And the boys don't dream of owning their own destrier anymore. And horses have become a girl thing. And in barns all over the first world girls and teens and young women are reveling in doing all the trick riding that was once the domain of men. ]And this is far more dangerous than cars. A race car with a gazillion horse power has way more safety features than a mare with just the 1. And my Mazda at 90 doesn't feel as fast as a Tennessee Walker at 30 because you don't have the wind and the motion and the feeling of effort.

And - unlike boys/men - we don't do it to impress the opposite sex. You rarely see a guy in a barn and when you do they are usually lost. I love my husband dearly and he reads this forum ( hi Hun ) but I still get a chuckle out of trying to get him to ride with me and having an 11 year old stable girl step in to get his uncooperative horse in cross ties to saddle up. Girls - not boys - are socialized to want horses now. Horses are now culturally feminized and portrayed as gentle and safe.

But horses haven't changed. And girls haven't changed. Just our societal notions have changed. And an inner city 7 year old girl dreaming of charging through a barrel racing course on the back of a mustang she gentled herself like in the books is expressing the same risk taking adventurism that a 7 year old boy wanting to be a fighter pilot is. The identical basic impulses are channeled in different directions by society.

But if the two the girl is actually far more likely to actually live the dream. As there are more equestrians than fighter pilots running around.

These are excellent points. I would really like to find out if the women and girls drawn to equestrianism and other high risk activities exhibit higher levels of testosterone than the average. One of the interesting things I've come across on the subject of hormones, was that fathers have increased levels of Estrogen. Is the need for more empathy and protectiveness due to the birth of your own child driving that increase?

# ¿ Apr 18, 2016 22:06

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

McAlister posted:

These bio truths arguments don't stand up even if you grant them their overly complex/sketchy assumptions. And given that we can very clearly see/test/reproduce the effects of social pressure on people there is no real need to find other explanations except as an attempt to defend the current social order.

This explains your hostility at least. Nobody here is attempting to defend any sort of social order. Even if hormones were responsible for the majority of our behavior (which is not what the research done on them says), it would still be wrong to force people into gender roles. Please remember that explanation is not agreement. The desire to understand something is not supporting it.

Now, that out of the way, are you really trying to say that hormones have no impact on human behavior? Research does not support this. Our mental state is managed by such a delicately balanced cocktail of chemicals (including hormones) that even a small change in the levels can screw you up. This I know first hand, as I have to take one medication to balance my seretonin, and another for testosterone. Without them, I become paranoid, anxious, obsessive and depressed. Without the testosterone especially, my libido dissapears completely as a 34 year old man (though it started in my 20's). I'm a different person without them.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2016 18:06

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

McAlister posted:

You can't claim that a hormone is the root cause of something when people with virtually none of that hormone have the result too. When you do you are being no different than the people who claimed math ability was linked to testosterone.

You keep saying I'm claming that hormones are a root cause. I'm not. I'm questioning whether it's a factor in play. I think it is, and the research done supports that it may be.

How can your testosterone and my estrogen be irrelevant, so long as they are the proper amounts for our brains to process as our respective sexes? The body produces them for a reason. Are you saying they're vestigial from when we were still forming?

McAlister posted:

And when I say, "hold on, I've got way less testosterone than you even without your boosters but my libido is fine" there is a simple explanation for it. In women different hormones regulate libido than in men. So I can have a libido without lots of testosterone because I'm getting it from my sex hormones. Same result, different mechanism.

Now here's more along the lines of what I'm trying to say. Of course it effects you differently. Why is their harm in asking what effect different hormones have on each of us? So what if old misogynists use testosterone in their arguments. We know they're wrong.

To this end and to address the topic in the OP, I want to know if a Trans-wo(man)'s brain is processing hormones at an abnormal level. Not to justify any sort of categorization or social norm, but to further understand what causes a person to be trapped in a body they know isn't right for them.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2016 19:29

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Main Paineframe posted:

When you take a testosterone pill, do you immediately develop a deep craving for power tools, riced-out sports cars, and extreme skydiving into the driver's seat of a convertible parked on top of a yacht?

Something much more along the lines of quickly (as in, over a few days) developing a crushing epiphany that I like big butts, and I cannot lie.

Although, it does also increase my energy levels and willingness to go out and socialize. Which to someone with as deep social anxiety as I have can attest, is insanely risky behavior...

Talmonis fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Apr 19, 2016

# ¿ Apr 19, 2016 19:57

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Guavanaut posted:

Of course not, testosterone has terrible bioavailability orally.

Also this. It's a gel, injection or under the skin dissolving thingie.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2016 20:43

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

OwlFancier posted:

Hormones as a dictator of human behaviour is infinitely less interesting and worth discussing than simply the end behaviours themselves.

Start from what a person feels and what affects their mental wellbeing and work backwards. An obsession with the physical bases for such behaviors and feelings is almost invariably an attempt to delegitimize them.

Not at all. Understanding the underlying causes and addressing them is important. Depression for example, can't be cured by simple wellwishing and telling the person to "feel better," as if it's something that their behavior can control. It's a chemical imbalance. The brain is malfunctioning, and we can help fix it with medication and proper therapy. To develop that medication, you study and "obsess" over the physical basis for the disorder.

If there was a medication that would help make you feel more comfortable in your own body, wouldn't you want that? Remove it from the societal aspect for a moment, and focus on the individual. If you could take a medication that helps let you feel "right" in your own skin, when your baseline is a constant feeling of displacement, isn't that a good thing?

# ¿ Apr 19, 2016 20:55

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

WoodrowSkillson posted:

Considering the vast majority of trans individuals i have spoken with state they knew something was off very early in their lives, I do not think many would be accepting to any therapy that "corrected" them. Some might, especially if their dysphoria is not as pronounced, health reasons prevent a full transition, etc. But you are dealing with someone's identity they have felt since they were a child, and that's a deeper thing than depression.

To me, the real goal is researching the hormonal and other aspects of gender dysphoria is being able to identify it early and allow treatments for transition far earlier in the person's life, when it is far less painful and grueling. If we know how it actually works, we can objectively tell a parent "your child is trans, here is the treatment" when the kid is like 3 or something and does not even personally understand gender yet.

To the thread's point, there is probably some aspect of the hormones that cause you to grow one set of genitals vs another also affecting your gender, and the better we understand it, the faster and easier we can make the process of transitioning.

This is a great viewpoint, though the transition of small children will be a seriously contentious issue for the forseeable future.

I still see it as more of a treatable disorder (treat, not correct), that I would hope prevents people from undergoing such invasive surgery* if the effects were able to be minimized both societally (America seems to be working on it...don't hold your breath though) and medically. If we can formulate something that can help a transperson feel more at home in their own skin (to be clear, I mean just physically) while still able to present as whomever they want, I think that'd be a positive development.

*Surgery of any kind is very risky and should be avoided until all other options are exhausted.

Talmonis fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Apr 20, 2016

# ¿ Apr 20, 2016 14:35

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

McAlister posted:

Would still leave me with really bad cramps and blood so not my first choice. They wouldn't do that either. You see I just thought I didn't want kids but hormones would have their way and any minute now I would surely discover that education and independence and money weren't what I wanted at all and I'd go baby crazy.

Any minute now.

Men are rational beings making reasoned decisions. Women are animals controlled by instincts/hormones. So I was told over and over and over a thousand different ways growing up.

Like lessons. As a child I was sent without consultation to piano, ballet, skiing, gymnastics, riding, and sewing lessons. I wanted to take karate. This was forbidden on the grounds that I was too fragile. I found out the YMCA was offering karate lessons for $7 a month and enrolled myself, then walked down to the Y to take them as a tween. When this was discovered I was ordered to stop. Having been doing the lessons just fine for months I knew I wasn't to fragile. And speaking of danger do you even watch my gymnastics class? The uneven bars are more dangerous than anything I'm doing in karate!

Ah! But the uneven bars don't make me think I can defend myself. Karate is dangerous for me because the false sense of confidence it would give me can endanger me. And I'm a girl. I need to understand how soft and helpless I am ( ballet dancers kick like mules by the way ).

Then they turned to my brother and tried to get him interested in it cause $7 a month is an awesome price. He wasn't. They made him go to a few classes to try it out then let him stop.

He got to stop lessons if he didn't like them. Boys have agency and can decide what they like. Girls don't know what they like and will appreciate it later.

I wanted to be a boy soooo much. I dressed as a boy, cut my hair short, refused to wear make up or jewelry. I wanted respect, control, agency, opportunity, and my drat female body was denying me all of it.

Then puberty hit and it got so much worse.

You've had a rough time of it. You deserve all the things you've bolded, regardless of being a woman or a man, and your parents (I assume?) were bastards for denying it to you while giving it to your brother. But I ask in all seriousness, do you actually have gender dysmophia, or do you just want to be treated with the respect you deserve in the body you have?

# ¿ Apr 20, 2016 17:31

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

McAlister posted:

You are missing the point. I wanted to be male because the way other people were treating me was causing me tremendous distress and they openly admitted that they wouldn't be treating me like poo poo if I were a boy. I could easily observe boys being praised for things I was chastised for and encouraged to walk through doors that were closed to me on the basis of my genitals.

The problem wasn't in me for not being happy with being treated like poo poo. The problem was with society for treating me like poo poo on the basis of my genitals.

Having people constantly tell you that your wants and desires are wrong/abberant/weird and that you are wrong is incredibly stressful. Esp for adolescents.

I'm sure neuroscience could come up with a way to inject me with something to make me ok with being treated as lesser and denied agency in my own life but I disagree profoundly that this would be a good thing to do to people. Suggesting this is like arguing that instead of stopping bullies from bullying we should dose the bullied kids with something that will make them not mind being bullied.

Then they won't commit suicide as much either.

The more you describe this, the more clear it is that you're a victim of child abuse. You don't need medication for that (unless you also have a chemical imbalance that, though unrelated to the issue, would make things much worse on you), you likely need counseling*.

When I say we should develop a medication or treatment that could lessen the emotional hardships of trans issues, I'm solely referring to the feelings of being trapped in the wrong body. Societal issues are soemthing we all need to work on together to fix, even though it's a generational sized problem.

*I say this as someone who has needed counseling for child abuse in the past.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2016 17:46

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Who What Now posted:

After reading that post, saying "Oh, you don't actually need [x], you need [y]!" seems tone-deaf as gently caress.

McAlister posted:

I'm sure neuroscience could come up with a way to inject me with something to make me ok with being treated as lesser and denied agency in my own life but I disagree profoundly that this would be a good thing to do to people.

This is what I was responding to. No, nobody needs medication that does something terrible like that. However, as someone who has experienced emotional abuse as a child, I empathize with her, and recommend counseling, as it is something that has helped me through some serious issues. I may be wrong, but being tone deaf isn't why.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2016 18:29

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

LeftistMuslimObama posted:

The people who keep saying that transgenderedness is the result of rigid social roles making trans people feel uncomfortable expressing their true selves with their present physical bodies are clearly not transgendered and haven't bothered to talk to any transgendered people. It might be true that some people would simply adopt some of the social roles of the "other" gender without pursuing physical transition and be happy with that, but for many of us it's a truly intense physical discomfort with our actual bodies. I am not transgendered because of anything social. I am transgendered because I literally experience phantom-limb-like sensations w/r/t body parts I don't have and immense distress from aspects of the body I do have. The whole point of transition medically is to reduce the number of features of your body that cause you emotional pain because they don't mesh with what your mind truly expects to be there.

Whether the root cause of that is purely psychological, social, genetic, whatever doesn't matter. In any event the feelings and the treatment are the same. It's not my role in society that's wrong, it's my body. Don't pretend to yourself for one minute that if society was just accepting enough to let me just throw on a dress and let that be the end of it that this would solve my problems. My brain would still not be able to accept the body I was born in.

If you don't mind me asking (and by all means tell me to piss off if you want), if we could develop a medication that would lessen the sensations you experience by isolating the chemicals/hormones responsible, would you take it? Or is being trans too much of an important part of your identity?

# ¿ Apr 22, 2016 16:01

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

LeftistMuslimObama posted:

I wouldn't take a medicine like that, though I know trans people who would. For me, I value my identity just as it is. Other people value things differently. That is to say, I see my body as the wrong part. Other people might feel that their brain is getting things wrong. They're both valid perspectives.

Thanks for the perspective.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2016 16:33

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:04

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Stinky_Pete posted:

In the politoons thread there was an anti-trans cartoon that said something like "I'll go with what a doctor calls you," which is no leg to stand on when doctors clearly state that gender dysmorphia is a real, valid condition (probably shouldn't use the word disease) for a human to have and the gender they ascribe themselves is accurate. The medical profession carries a lot of authority for a lot of people, and when the AMA/APA came around on homosexuality and called it a healthy condition, I think it was a big step for social acceptance. I think it's just a matter of using positive language, as opposed to looking at medicalized language as a monolith.

"Sex reassignment surgery is the healthiest option for many people with gender dysmoprhia"

You'd think that calling people by their name would be standard. Or, you know, whatever the person prefers so as to not hurt anybodies feelings. Trans-folks might weird you out, but there's no excuse not to be polite.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2016 19:27

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