The NIH has given numerous grants to researchers who have used animal models, including mice, to study the impacts and safety of cross-sex hormones. But nobody is "making mice transgender."
Nancy Mace made this comment about “transgender mice” a month ago. While “making mice transgender” is obviously an oversimplification of these studies, she was pretty clearly talking about gender affirming models of treatment on mice. Nitpicking over whether someone can actually turn a mouse (or any organism) transgender, completely misses more important points. Bringing up transgenic mouse studies when there’s no evidence that’s what anyone was actually trying to talk about just makes the complainers look like morons.
If anything we should be funding longitudinal studies on the humans who have already received this treatment.
In my defense I’ve been annoyed about this for a couple of days because I keep seeing Andrea Love’s meme pop up in my Facebook feed unironically and I know exactly the kind of response I’d get from left leaning friends if I were to point out what’s actually true. So I needed to vent.
I did end up reading the whole thing though. Thank you for reporting.
You kind of go off the rails and into the weeds pretty quickly with an untenable premise, a misunderstanding of the differences between gender and gender identity -- entirely different kettles of fish. Or shrimp and fish as the case may be 😉🙂.
More particularly, gender refers to and denotes, to a first approximation, sexually dimorphic traits of a more or less objectively quantifiable nature, whereas "gender identity" is largely, to a first approximation, the subjective psychological identification by the individual with those traits.
You might read Kathleen Stock's Material Girls, particularly the chapter on Gender Identity, for some elaborations on those differences.
You might take a look at the standard biological definitions for the sexes. The ONLY thing that MUST be present for ANY organism of ANY anisogamous species to qualify as male or female is to be producing -- present tense -- either small or large "reproductive cells":
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
"female, adjective: Of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes.
male, adjective: Of or denoting the sex that produces gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring."
There's diddly-squat there in any of those definitions about any secondary sexually dimorphic trait. For the very sound reason that they are designed to capture ONLY the single common element in ALL males and in ALL females in ALL anisogamous species -- i.e., the quite distinct mechanisms for producing either small or large gametes. See my post on the concept of mechanisms in science in general and in biology in particular:
Moot exactly why biologists, those worth their salt (few & far between), have boiled those definitions down to a single trait -- i.e., producing large or small reproductive cells (gametes). Offhand, it seems a major reason is to be able to compare which other traits are typical of which sex and, maybe most importantly, in which species.
For example, in most if not all mammals, it is only the female that can "bear offspring" and give birth. But in seahorses and some half-dozen other species, it is the male that does so. From Google’s AI response to the query “male seahorse pregnant”:
QUOTE: Yes, male seahorses can get pregnant and give birth. This is a unique adaptation that has intrigued scientists for decades.
How it happens: (1) The female seahorse transfers her eggs into the male's brood pouch; (2) The male fertilizes the eggs; (3) The male incubates the embryos in the pouch; (4) After about 20 to 28 days, the male gives birth to the fully-formed seahorses. [UNQUOTE]
So bearing offspring is a "sexually dimorphic trait" that is typical of females in many species, but it is not unique to females since some males (seahorses) also do that. Which is why "bearing offspring" is NOT part of the definition for "female -- at least in more reputable sources. Q.E.D. 🙂
Thing is, unless "gender" is used as a synonym for "sex", it's routinely used for *non-biological* things relating to sex. Of course, there's it's use in "gender identity" as discussed before. However, "gender" is also used to describe societial mores and expectations that go along with sex, such as what behaviors or manner of dress are considered appropriately "masculine" or "feminine." That's especially true of "gender-critical" feminists; that's the kind of gender that they are very critical of.
Things "that go along with sex" -- e.g., your "behaviours or manner of dress" -- are absolutely no part of any set of reputable biological definitions for the sexes.
You were the one who said "I'm pretty sure that [those behaviours and manner of dress] is just called 'sex'. "
Did you read any of the definitions I posted? If not then you might try doing so and showing us all exactly where they talk about "those behaviours and manner of dress".
It's going to be hard to resist spending the next few weeks compulsively refreshing my email waiting for those Olson-Kennedy articles you have lined up to arrive....
When you say "sorry folks, there is" such a thing as gender identity in humans, what do you exactly mean? I don't think anyone disputes that individuals have a subjective sense of their own gender. What I and many others dispute is that everyone is born with an immutable gender identity, a "gender soul" so to speak, that will determine the need to change their bodies if it is at odds with their biological sex. THAT is a concept for which there is absolutely no scientific evidence, and which amounts to a quasi-religious belief progressives have adopted after successful lobbying by transgender activists. "Gender identity", properly understood, is a socially constructed, subjective sense of oneself that is largely based on gender stereotypes and social expectations, that can be fluid throughout a person's life, and that should not have to lead to harmful medical interventions. What we need is more acceptance of gender nonconformity, not more research into messing with biology in order to fit social norms.
If someone identifies as a Furry, do they exist as a special category of human?
No. They are human, male or female, and people are complicated.
I don't agree with you on people being transgender, Ben. I do appreciate your reporting. I say, someone with a transgender identity. You say, transgender person.
By the way, I know someone whose daughter identifies as a Furry. The Furry is also non-binary. The Furry got her breasts removed to affirm this Furriness.
Yes, that's really the crux of the matter. Transgender people like to accuse us of "erasing their existence" when we question the notion of an innate "gender identity". I fully acknowledge that people, even kids, who identify as transgender exist. That doesn't mean that I think they are "born in the wrong body" and that they need medical treatment in order to be "their true selves" - or, for that matter, that they can actually "be" the other sex and should be allowed in single-sex spaces. None of this means people who believe these things don't exist. It just means that we have to grapple with the questions of medical ethics and conflicts of rights their subjective desires present.
Kate, I think one reason this gains so much traction is that LGBTQ is seen as a monolith. Obviously, it is not. Yet, transgender claims piggyback on the identity experiences of many gay and lesbian people.
I recall a conversation with a gay family member, an older male. He was astounded by our daughter's claim to be transgender (ROGD), yet he couldn't separate it from his earlier coming out experiences as a gay man. I asked him, please don't project your younger self's experiences onto our daughter. This is a different phenomenon. He did struggle with this. Cognitive dissonance.
Gay people exist.
I don't have a gender identity. Not all people believe in this gender identity concept.
Gay people understand what it’s like to have somebody tell you that you’re not what you are, they claimed that sexual orientation was a choice you were actually some kind of a heterosexual that was going against authority and God. That way they were free to demonize gay people all they want because they were actively being bad people. Accusations that they were all pedophiles or that they would never find love only lust and die lonely disgusting humans… Yeah there weren’t lies too low for those kind of people to say about gay people. So yes there’s absolutely an understanding that a gay person can have in reference to transgender people, especially if they are treating them like evangelical types used to treat gay people.
No I don’t understand your claim that you don’t have a gender identity, I feel like a man if I do something that makes me feel like a woman it’s really uncomfortable I know some trans men that feel exactly the same way although they were born women. Is it possible that other people might feel differently than you?
I agree that that's why many gay people don't seem to object to the trans movement hijacking their cause (there are many, however, who do). But false beliefs of the past notwithstanding, homosexuality can actually be measured by physical reactions towards various kinds of imagery, so it can be proven to be real - something not just of the mind, but of the body as well. We don't have any objective measures for someone's "gender identity". Homosexuality also doesn't rely on societal constructs to exist, whereas gender identity does. Most importantly, it has been shown that gender identity CAN change, whereas sexual orientation never does.
Feeling like a furry… meaning somebody who likes to wear a costume of an animal and even preferring pepperoni pizza over sausage is not the same as gender identity, everybody has a gender identity. Lots of kids like playing dress up and then, without intervention move onto to other things. Of course there’s adults that have fetishes that run from straight man liking to wear women’s clothes, to domination, to wearing other costumes… again different from sexual orientation or gender identity.
Gender identity is understood, somebody whose sex is female feels like ansomebody who sex is female feels like a man. Understanding why some people are wired with the wrong gender identity maybe not so much. But people liking to dress up as animals is linked to other issues like fetishes they’re not an identity. I would imagine you might know a furry because they function perfectly normal outside of their fetish at work on vacation or shopping at the store.
No, removing their breast to be a furry doesn’t actually happen because it’s not a real thing. It’s just meant to demonize transgender people nothing new there, they used to demonize gay people more, they simply moved onto somebody less known less able to defend themselves.
I think the main reason the trans movement is running into opposition among those who whole-heartedly support gay rights is that unlike gay rights, trans "rights" conflict directly with the rights of others. I don't mean the civil rights that trans people should enjoy and already do. I mean the rights they claim to entering single-sex spaces, and the right to be regarded as no different at all from people who are actually born as the sex they now want to be. Both of those demands infringe on the freedoms of others in a way gay rights never have. They should more properly be called "entitlements", not "rights" or "protections", and nobody should be surprised that much of the rest of society is unwilling to grant them.
Although most liberals, including gay people think that trans women shouldn’t compete in women’s sports because of science based philosophies not because our religion just hates somebody. Let’s be clear, trans have been using the bathroom forever you’ve just been told to be threatened by it, the constitution doesn’t guarantee your sensibilities. Trans women use a private stall to go to the bathroom so unless you’re peeping under their door you know nothing about it. In fact we’ve had lots of cases pop up where biological women have been harassed because they’re not feminine looking enough. That’s probably happening more than trans women using the bathroom. The moment a trans man uses the bathroom you’re calling the police on him because he looks more masculine than your husband does. Again, they’ve been using that bathroom forever you’ve just been told to notice. The fact that you need to be told to notice something says none of your rights have ever been taken away. You’re just using that as an excuse to probably hide your religious hate to attack somebody. What is evangelicalism in America without somebody to demonize and hate?
That woman who’s insulted by some creep telling her she’s trans, do you think she has a right to punch your lights out or will you cry victim?
Wow. Just more evidence you have no clue to whom you are talking. What makes you think I'm coming at this from a religious standpoint, or that I am particularly concerned about the bathroom issue? I am a liberal atheist from Europe. I don't particularly care about trans people using women's bathrooms, certainly not because I personally fear them, and I always thought this issue was a bit of a distraction. Locker rooms, where people get naked in front of each other, however, are a different story - even if I personally wouldn't care that much, I know there are women who do, and they deserve to have their single-sex privacy. As do women in prisons and rape shelters (again, not my personal issues), where the safety concerns are more pressing. Maybe the same should be true for bathrooms, given that there are women who are rape survivors who might be very uncomfortable if a non-passing dude walks into a bathroom with them. Again, not something that bothers me personally, but something I now question out of principle for the protection of women. I don't think you as a man get to have an opinion on the question of what sort of sex-based protections women deserve or not.
As for your other projections, I think I have made it very clear that I am VERY comfortable with gender-nonconformity, and that that is precisely why I think medical transition should only be a very last resort, for adults.
Yeah, but when I say that, people think I'm validating that sex can be changed. And that's not what I'm saying. Mice can't be trans, because they cannot think abstractly about their gender. Humans can.
I think the problem is that there isn’t a clear definition of what gender is in the first place. Definitions usually on offer are usually circular, based on sex anyway, or based on stereotypes about behaviors and roles that tend to be concentrated in one or the other sex.
I always thought that the definition of gender as socially constructed vs the reality of biological sex was pretty useful. The problems started in the wake of Judith Butler's idea that sex is ALSO socially constructed. I remember finding that idea crazy all the way back in the mid-90s, way before I ever thought about transgenderism. I never would have thought that this absurd idea would infiltrate so much of academia and even the medical profession.
The concept of gender refers to the roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a society considers appropriate for men and women in a given society or culture, and also to certain predispositions that are genetically and hormonally inscribed in our brain circuits. Gender identity is the internal experience that people have about their own gender. For example, a heterosexual man might behave in a completely masculine way, or he might also behave at least in part in ways that the society in which he lives preferentially attributes to women, or he might behave in very feminine ways.
It is possible that, in the same way as is supposed to occur with sexual orientation, gender identity is formed, at least in part, through hormonal pathways.
The problem is that so far, nobody has found any evidence of "certain predispositions that are genetically and hormonally inscribed in our brain circuits". That is so far just an article of faith held by the transgender movement and those they have managed to convince to go along.
It is doubtful that gender identity is immutable; it is estimated that around 80 percent of children who claim to be the opposite gender to their natal sex, if not affirmed, abandon that identity upon reaching puberty and the vast majority end up being homosexual.
Sounds like we are agreeing. That was exactly my point. Except that I would go further and say that even the 20% who may persist should not try to alter their body (which is always harmful), but live as gender non-conforming members of their sex.
I don't think undergoing medical interventions to modify secondary sex characteristics as an adult should be illegal, but it should certainly be a last resort, not something someone rushes to do once they turn 18. I am also not sure to which I extent I support this being covered by insurance (i.e. by all of us). If it's rare enough and confined to extreme cases of long persistent distress, then maybe yes, but it shouldn't be done easily on demand.
So we don’t completely disagree, I think it still should be a decision between the parents of doctor and a child but hopefully the doctor would have the information they need to make a good decision. And I’m pretty sure that nobody has a surgery without thinking about it a whole lot and talking to a lot of specialist it’s not the kind of thing that your son says hey you know what I wanna do tonight…
If a baby is born with male and female genitalia the insurance covers fixing it, if a child is born with a cleft lip insurance pays to fix it, if a woman is taking fertility drugs and it causes a premature birth of triplicates insurance pays for it. It is rare and the insurance should cover it.
Two things: until a few years ago, the use of puberty blockers was not as common as it is now, and we have also recently seen an explosion of teenagers – especially girls – declaring themselves transgender, without a previous history in their childhood.
So I think it is necessary, on the one hand, to consider the possibility of a “social contagion effect” among – and especially “female” – adolescents.
On the other hand, regarding the use of blockers, studies seem to show two things:
1. If blockers are not used, 80% of children who declare themselves trans will give up on that identity.
2. If blockers are used, 95% will want to continue.
Regarding the “explosion,” I am not saying that it is exclusively due to social contagion, but I think it is an important factor to take into account when considering the most appropriate path, beyond the fact that the correct thing to do should be to do a case-by-case analysis, which as we know is increasingly difficult due to the increase in demand for care, which reduces the time dedicated to each patient.
Regarding the result of using blockers or not using them, a dilemma arises: If they are used early, the aesthetic results are superior and few choose to give up later. If they are not used or are used late, the results are not the best, and most of those who identified as trans, later give up that identification.
But even for those who enter the path of medicalization, even if they declare some satisfaction with the changes obtained, the cost both in health and economic terms is high.
What to do then? I am not clear. I lean towards acceptance, both from society towards trans people and from trans people regarding their condition (without entering into the medical path). But I am not a fanatic, perhaps I am wrong. The ideal would be to discover a mechanism that accurately indicates who is genuinely trans - because their brain is wired that way - and who is simply confused. Until that is achieved - if it could ever be achieved - I think we must behave with the greatest possible respect towards people who claim to have gender incongruence.
Let me start with I actually have a libertarian and view on this and I don’t mean libertarian because I don’t wanna pay taxes like so many but because if somebody wants to live as a man or a woman that’s none of my business.
Now onto reality I’m a 67 year-old married gay man I went through my childhood hearing that I wasn’t really homosexual, I was just a heterosexual going against somebody’s God. Your sexual orientation was a preference it was a choice. of course all of those claims were somewhere between complete nonsense and complete lies. Fortunately I’ve always had a very logical mind so I quickly understood that if these people were lying about that they were also probably lying about all homosexuals were pedophiles and all homosexuals would live lonely sad lives always looking for lust and never finding love. I heard some rather nasty things as a kid from evangelical Christians.
For this reason I’m always leery of people saying that they know what other people perceive themselves to be. But again how someone wants to live their life is none of my business, and I know it makes for a more complicated society but that’s the cost of freedom, we’re not all being forced to march to one person’s view of everything.
Now as for the idea that gender is a social construct there’s actual studies that prove that wrong… before genetics, surgeries for babies that are born both male and female were usually surgically altered to be females, easier to dig a hole then build a pole… the problem was, half of them were actually male so when they made them female they grew up feeling like boys. Below is a link to one of those cases. But again, if you accept the fact we’re a free country and it’s nobody’s business we wouldn’t even be discussing this now.
The concept of gender refers to the roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a society considers appropriate for men and women in a given society or culture, and also to certain predispositions that are genetically and hormonally inscribed in our brain circuits. Gender identity is the internal experience that people have about their own gender. For example, a heterosexual man could behave in a completely masculine way, or he could also behave at least in part in ways that the society in which he lives preferentially attributes to women, or he could – finally – behave in very feminine ways.
It is possible that, in the same way as is supposed to occur with sexual orientation, gender identity is formed, at least in part, through hormonal pathways.
So gender would be partly a social construction, such as, for example, wearing skirts or powdering, would be examples of social constructions, arbitrary, we could say. On the other hand, being an entrepreneur, a leader, a warrior, are predominantly masculine characteristics, because that was what our male ancestors needed to be if they wanted to survive and leave offspring, which is why these characteristics were passed on to successive generations.
The Federal Gov’t routinely spends 20% more than it takes in. The country has a debt burden not seen since the end of WWII. We have to get this monstrosity to live within our means. Something has got to go. If private individuals want to waste their money on this stuff, let them. Don’t steal for the rest of us for this silliness.
A couple issues with this, how did we get out of the debt of World War II? Did it have anything to do with the tax system that paid it down? Tops tax bracket of 90% so a lot of the created wealth of the country went into paying down our debt. And at the same time we created the largest middle class in the history of mankind and quite a few millionaires.
I’m 67 and my eyes glass-over when I hear people say, live within our means, that is impossible because whenever there is savings, it goes to tax cuts tax for the wealthy. It’s like taking on a second job to pay down household expenses and the other spouse immediately quit their job and runs up a credit card and then says you need to get a third job, we have to pay down this debt!
Bill Clinton who spent five years cutting the size of government without causing a recession balancing the budget fighting against Republicans who saw that balance budget as room for more tax breaks for rich people. Clinton shut the government down twice fighting with them to stop them from doing that.
He succeeded in balancing the budget because he recognized how huge deficits are created, something Americans have forgot.
Let's be consistent; these drugs don't make people transgender either. First comes the ideation, then the drugs. If transgender ideation is a naturally-occurring phenomenon, then why should it be limited to humans? We don't know if gender dysphoria was resolved in these mice given gender-affirming care. It is typical of the anthropocentric scientific establishment that no-one thought of asking these mice to make their feelings clear.
Maybe they did wonder, but the mice didn't answer...
Seriously, we can't rule out the possibility that cross-gender identity exists in other species. What we can say for sure is that gender identity based on natal sex exists. That seems pretty obvious to me.
Ah, but as gender is performative (Butler, 1990) we do not need the mice to answer our questions. We merely have to observe the gender performed by each mouse, and then determine which mice are transgender by comparing their gender expression with their gender assigned at birth. Drag is mice, and mice is drag.
I'll try again, let's see, please, friends, try to avoid expressions such as "you don't know what you're talking about" or "you don't understand at all..."; sometimes it's not the best thing to say everything we think, we only cloud the possibility of reaching an agreement.
I agree w/you that precise language would have been helpful, but it is fair to say that the def of “transgendered” is quite fluffy. It could mean a 3 year old male who wants to be called a girl name, or it could be used to qualify a 16 year old female on cross-sex hormones who removes her breasts, or it could refer to a 40 yo man who grows his hair shoulder-length and prefers to use the ladies’ room. Therefore, if a female human or a male human on cross-sex hormones qualifies as “transgendered”, then it’s fair that we call a female mouse on cross-sex hormones transgendered.
Further, I think it’s unfair (bigoted?) of you to say:
“Because for any animal to be transgender, it would require a sophisticated enough, humanoid cognition to be able to conceive of their gender identity in the first place.”
Faith-based assumptions that ignore scientific reasoning and biology have gotten us into this mess, so it’s down the rabbit hole we go, it’s Katy-bar-the-door, the transgender mice are coming!!!
Of note: “In their effort to ban pediatric gender transition treatment, statehouse Republicans have focused on what they characterize as the weakness of the science supporting such interventions and the associated safety concerns. It is therefore worth noting that conservatives’ efforts to ban research in this field and cancel grants for animal model studies call into question the sincerity of their expressed concerns about the quality of research evidence.”
> "That’s precisely it. There’s no such thing as 'turning a mouse transgender.' .... So the whole concept of turning mice trans is, indeed, ridiculous—even silly."
Nope, sorry: wrongo! With all due respect ..., offhand it seems you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Though a lot of that goin' round these days, particularly on anything to do with gender.
However, the developing consensus is that, to a first approximation, "gender" refers to or denotes various sexually dimorphic traits, both physiological AND psychological, though the latter are a bit more difficult to quantify, though not impossible. For examples of the latter:
1) Global sex differences in personality: Replication with an open online dataset
In the case of physiological traits, putting breasts on male humans -- or presumably male mice -- is creating or producing a trait in them that is more typical of the other sex. Those males are then transgender, gender non-conforming.
That rather clueless CNN article you linked to asserts that:
CNN: "The studies were meant to figure out how these treatments [cross-sex hormones] might affect the health of humans who take them, not for the purpose of making mice transgender."
The people responsible for those studies have to make the mice "transgender" FIRST before they can find out what other consequences might follow in those mice and then, presumably, in humans.
If someone has a delusion-based aversion to food, there is no known ethical treatment which involves affirming the delusion by denying nutrition. No study should be constructed to deny nutrition to mice to evaluate an unethical treatment.
If someone has a delusion-based aversion to their sex, there is no known ethical treatment which involves affirming the delusion by disrupting their endocrine system. No study should be constricted to disrupt the endocrine system of mice to assess an unethical treatment.
That’s the foundational problem, irrespective of transgenic, spayed, neutered or other status of the model animal. The studies model unethical treatments, with supraphysiolic doses of sex steroids in a damaged endocrine environment.
I find the larger list you shared much more interesting since it is rife with assumptions of unethical treatments.
I don’t mind testing cross-sex hormones on mice. Actually a good idea, as well as for puberty blockers. But after all we learned about WPATH’s JHU reviews, previous studies like Tordoff and al. and the (likely useless) NIH study just announced, I’m afraid of the way the authors might torture the data to lead to the desired conclusions.
As for the "transgender" identity, the problem is the way is has become so mushy. It’s not only those who legally and medically transitioned anymore: any "whatever-gender" "omnisexual" part-time cross-dresser is now part of the "trans" umbrella, making the word less and less serious. That explains why people like Brianna Wu reclaimed the word "transsexual" to move away from that movement.
Any scientific research using the word phrase gender-affirming is by definition pseudoscience.
That the problem, not transgenic.
Once that’s clear, one has to ask what’s the purpose of giving mice without ovaries superphysiologic doses of testosterone since that equates to no known therapeutic use female humans.
It’s like bioengineering mice to refuse to eat and seeing what starving them does, or creating brain lesions so they gnaw off limbs.
Mice don’t have the capacity for “gender” identity. It’s stupid for Trump, the WH, or anybody else to say so.
And you’re absolutely right. To me the crux of the Cass report rests on the absence of evidence for much of the scientific/medical claims made by gender activists and practitioners. The way to address that is to do more research and generate more evidence. So both the left (who want to make claims without evidence) and the right (who don’t want to make evidence that might legitimize some of these claims) are behaving like the scientific morons that they are.
And the left need to stop with the penchant for fact checking Trump. He says stupid shit. All day every day. Even when the left is correct about Trump BS’ing, we’ve learned nothing. But if they’re gonna fact check, at least get the bloody facts right.
> "Mice don’t have the capacity for 'gender' identity. It’s stupid for Trump, the WH, or anybody else to say so."
Bit of a stretch to see how mice might be said to have a "gender identity" which is largely subjective, but relatively easy to argue they have genders which is almost entirely objective.
Further, one could argue that they can be said to be "gender nonconforming", largely under the auspices of the NIH through the use of various puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. Bewbs on "male" mice for example.
Gender is only, to a first approximation, just sets of many sexually dimorphic traits. Individuals of one sex which exhibit traits more typical of the other sex, for one "reason" or another, can then be said to transgender, or "gender nonconforming".
Mice are not capable of having “gender identity”. But absolutely, they have biological sexes.
The NIH research would presumably be on the biological effects of “puberty blockers “ and hormones. The measurements would be of resultant effects on “sex traits”. But there can be no measure of “gender identity” in mice.
If your opinion. It depends on how you define the term.
And there are solid reasons to define it to encompass sexually dimorphic traits, both physiological and psychological, both of which are more or less objectively quantifiable and measurable.
You might try reading the Wikipedia article on sexual dimorphism. And evolutionary psychologist @Paula Wright had a cogent elaboration on the point in her “Ruff Sex and Sneaky Fuɔkers”:
Biologic sex is dichotomous, with legitimate rare exceptions. The same is not, and can not, be said of “gender”. That’s why it’s called “identity”….as one can identify as whatever one wants, which has little bearing on biologic reality.
You -- and Ben and far too many others -- are not fucking listening.
How many colours are in the visible spectrum? How many in the bluish half, how many in the reddish half? Billions and billions -- as Carl Sagan might have put it ...
You lot might try getting your heads out of your arses and do a little bit of reading and thinking with them. The articles by Wikipedia and Paula Wright would be good starts.
If you don't calm down and watch your mouth I will have to block you to save myself the strain of getting alerts with this level of invective. Go take a walk, for god's sake.
On the section about Jay Bhattacharya, I see JOK gave a sworn deposition about her NYT comments, but do we still not have the actual results? And the Chen paper that Jesse dissected was the one that left out 6 of the 8 measures it said it was looking to study. As that was apparently funded by NIH, we should have those findings released. I am hoping Jay will follow through on his promised transparency.
No word on those unreported outcomes. Instead, JOK and her crew published a new paper in January that basically duplicated Chen et al. Very weird. Seemed like a stalling technique.
No, we don't have the data about the blockers study. But House Republicans are probing that.
Nancy Mace made this comment about “transgender mice” a month ago. While “making mice transgender” is obviously an oversimplification of these studies, she was pretty clearly talking about gender affirming models of treatment on mice. Nitpicking over whether someone can actually turn a mouse (or any organism) transgender, completely misses more important points. Bringing up transgenic mouse studies when there’s no evidence that’s what anyone was actually trying to talk about just makes the complainers look like morons.
If anything we should be funding longitudinal studies on the humans who have already received this treatment.
Look at you, commenting without reading the whole piece! :)
In my defense I’ve been annoyed about this for a couple of days because I keep seeing Andrea Love’s meme pop up in my Facebook feed unironically and I know exactly the kind of response I’d get from left leaning friends if I were to point out what’s actually true. So I needed to vent.
I did end up reading the whole thing though. Thank you for reporting.
:)
You kind of go off the rails and into the weeds pretty quickly with an untenable premise, a misunderstanding of the differences between gender and gender identity -- entirely different kettles of fish. Or shrimp and fish as the case may be 😉🙂.
More particularly, gender refers to and denotes, to a first approximation, sexually dimorphic traits of a more or less objectively quantifiable nature, whereas "gender identity" is largely, to a first approximation, the subjective psychological identification by the individual with those traits.
You might read Kathleen Stock's Material Girls, particularly the chapter on Gender Identity, for some elaborations on those differences.
"gender refers to and denotes, to a first approximation, sexually dimorphic traits of a more or less objectively quantifiable nature"
I'm pretty sure that's just called "sex".
I'm pretty sure you're wrong ... 😉🙂
You might take a look at the standard biological definitions for the sexes. The ONLY thing that MUST be present for ANY organism of ANY anisogamous species to qualify as male or female is to be producing -- present tense -- either small or large "reproductive cells":
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990 [See the Glossary here for the above]
And Oxford Dictionaries, more or less the gold standard:
https://web.archive.org/web/20181020204521/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/female
https://web.archive.org/web/20190608135422/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/male
"female, adjective: Of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes.
male, adjective: Of or denoting the sex that produces gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring."
There's diddly-squat there in any of those definitions about any secondary sexually dimorphic trait. For the very sound reason that they are designed to capture ONLY the single common element in ALL males and in ALL females in ALL anisogamous species -- i.e., the quite distinct mechanisms for producing either small or large gametes. See my post on the concept of mechanisms in science in general and in biology in particular:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/rerum-cognoscere-causas
Moot exactly why biologists, those worth their salt (few & far between), have boiled those definitions down to a single trait -- i.e., producing large or small reproductive cells (gametes). Offhand, it seems a major reason is to be able to compare which other traits are typical of which sex and, maybe most importantly, in which species.
For example, in most if not all mammals, it is only the female that can "bear offspring" and give birth. But in seahorses and some half-dozen other species, it is the male that does so. From Google’s AI response to the query “male seahorse pregnant”:
QUOTE: Yes, male seahorses can get pregnant and give birth. This is a unique adaptation that has intrigued scientists for decades.
How it happens: (1) The female seahorse transfers her eggs into the male's brood pouch; (2) The male fertilizes the eggs; (3) The male incubates the embryos in the pouch; (4) After about 20 to 28 days, the male gives birth to the fully-formed seahorses. [UNQUOTE]
https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2021/09/20/pregnant-male-seahorses-support-growing-babies-by-forming-placen.html
So bearing offspring is a "sexually dimorphic trait" that is typical of females in many species, but it is not unique to females since some males (seahorses) also do that. Which is why "bearing offspring" is NOT part of the definition for "female -- at least in more reputable sources. Q.E.D. 🙂
Thing is, unless "gender" is used as a synonym for "sex", it's routinely used for *non-biological* things relating to sex. Of course, there's it's use in "gender identity" as discussed before. However, "gender" is also used to describe societial mores and expectations that go along with sex, such as what behaviors or manner of dress are considered appropriately "masculine" or "feminine." That's especially true of "gender-critical" feminists; that's the kind of gender that they are very critical of.
Things "that go along with sex" -- e.g., your "behaviours or manner of dress" -- are absolutely no part of any set of reputable biological definitions for the sexes.
You were the one who said "I'm pretty sure that [those behaviours and manner of dress] is just called 'sex'. "
Did you read any of the definitions I posted? If not then you might try doing so and showing us all exactly where they talk about "those behaviours and manner of dress".
Consider being just a little more specific in regards to your critique of the post so people have a good faith option to respond, thank you.
It's going to be hard to resist spending the next few weeks compulsively refreshing my email waiting for those Olson-Kennedy articles you have lined up to arrive....
God, now I really have to finish watching them.
When you say "sorry folks, there is" such a thing as gender identity in humans, what do you exactly mean? I don't think anyone disputes that individuals have a subjective sense of their own gender. What I and many others dispute is that everyone is born with an immutable gender identity, a "gender soul" so to speak, that will determine the need to change their bodies if it is at odds with their biological sex. THAT is a concept for which there is absolutely no scientific evidence, and which amounts to a quasi-religious belief progressives have adopted after successful lobbying by transgender activists. "Gender identity", properly understood, is a socially constructed, subjective sense of oneself that is largely based on gender stereotypes and social expectations, that can be fluid throughout a person's life, and that should not have to lead to harmful medical interventions. What we need is more acceptance of gender nonconformity, not more research into messing with biology in order to fit social norms.
If someone identifies as transgender, therefore transgender identity exists.
If someone identifies as a Furry, do they exist as a special category of human?
No. They are human, male or female, and people are complicated.
I don't agree with you on people being transgender, Ben. I do appreciate your reporting. I say, someone with a transgender identity. You say, transgender person.
By the way, I know someone whose daughter identifies as a Furry. The Furry is also non-binary. The Furry got her breasts removed to affirm this Furriness.
Yes, that's really the crux of the matter. Transgender people like to accuse us of "erasing their existence" when we question the notion of an innate "gender identity". I fully acknowledge that people, even kids, who identify as transgender exist. That doesn't mean that I think they are "born in the wrong body" and that they need medical treatment in order to be "their true selves" - or, for that matter, that they can actually "be" the other sex and should be allowed in single-sex spaces. None of this means people who believe these things don't exist. It just means that we have to grapple with the questions of medical ethics and conflicts of rights their subjective desires present.
Kate, I think one reason this gains so much traction is that LGBTQ is seen as a monolith. Obviously, it is not. Yet, transgender claims piggyback on the identity experiences of many gay and lesbian people.
I recall a conversation with a gay family member, an older male. He was astounded by our daughter's claim to be transgender (ROGD), yet he couldn't separate it from his earlier coming out experiences as a gay man. I asked him, please don't project your younger self's experiences onto our daughter. This is a different phenomenon. He did struggle with this. Cognitive dissonance.
Gay people exist.
I don't have a gender identity. Not all people believe in this gender identity concept.
I totally agree. There was a great piece on the LGBT Courage Coalition Substack the other day that sums up the problem: https://lgbtcouragecoalition.substack.com/p/crossdressers-and-spicy-straights
100%
Gay people understand what it’s like to have somebody tell you that you’re not what you are, they claimed that sexual orientation was a choice you were actually some kind of a heterosexual that was going against authority and God. That way they were free to demonize gay people all they want because they were actively being bad people. Accusations that they were all pedophiles or that they would never find love only lust and die lonely disgusting humans… Yeah there weren’t lies too low for those kind of people to say about gay people. So yes there’s absolutely an understanding that a gay person can have in reference to transgender people, especially if they are treating them like evangelical types used to treat gay people.
No I don’t understand your claim that you don’t have a gender identity, I feel like a man if I do something that makes me feel like a woman it’s really uncomfortable I know some trans men that feel exactly the same way although they were born women. Is it possible that other people might feel differently than you?
I agree that that's why many gay people don't seem to object to the trans movement hijacking their cause (there are many, however, who do). But false beliefs of the past notwithstanding, homosexuality can actually be measured by physical reactions towards various kinds of imagery, so it can be proven to be real - something not just of the mind, but of the body as well. We don't have any objective measures for someone's "gender identity". Homosexuality also doesn't rely on societal constructs to exist, whereas gender identity does. Most importantly, it has been shown that gender identity CAN change, whereas sexual orientation never does.
Feeling like a furry… meaning somebody who likes to wear a costume of an animal and even preferring pepperoni pizza over sausage is not the same as gender identity, everybody has a gender identity. Lots of kids like playing dress up and then, without intervention move onto to other things. Of course there’s adults that have fetishes that run from straight man liking to wear women’s clothes, to domination, to wearing other costumes… again different from sexual orientation or gender identity.
Gender identity is understood, somebody whose sex is female feels like ansomebody who sex is female feels like a man. Understanding why some people are wired with the wrong gender identity maybe not so much. But people liking to dress up as animals is linked to other issues like fetishes they’re not an identity. I would imagine you might know a furry because they function perfectly normal outside of their fetish at work on vacation or shopping at the store.
No, removing their breast to be a furry doesn’t actually happen because it’s not a real thing. It’s just meant to demonize transgender people nothing new there, they used to demonize gay people more, they simply moved onto somebody less known less able to defend themselves.
I think the main reason the trans movement is running into opposition among those who whole-heartedly support gay rights is that unlike gay rights, trans "rights" conflict directly with the rights of others. I don't mean the civil rights that trans people should enjoy and already do. I mean the rights they claim to entering single-sex spaces, and the right to be regarded as no different at all from people who are actually born as the sex they now want to be. Both of those demands infringe on the freedoms of others in a way gay rights never have. They should more properly be called "entitlements", not "rights" or "protections", and nobody should be surprised that much of the rest of society is unwilling to grant them.
Although most liberals, including gay people think that trans women shouldn’t compete in women’s sports because of science based philosophies not because our religion just hates somebody. Let’s be clear, trans have been using the bathroom forever you’ve just been told to be threatened by it, the constitution doesn’t guarantee your sensibilities. Trans women use a private stall to go to the bathroom so unless you’re peeping under their door you know nothing about it. In fact we’ve had lots of cases pop up where biological women have been harassed because they’re not feminine looking enough. That’s probably happening more than trans women using the bathroom. The moment a trans man uses the bathroom you’re calling the police on him because he looks more masculine than your husband does. Again, they’ve been using that bathroom forever you’ve just been told to notice. The fact that you need to be told to notice something says none of your rights have ever been taken away. You’re just using that as an excuse to probably hide your religious hate to attack somebody. What is evangelicalism in America without somebody to demonize and hate?
That woman who’s insulted by some creep telling her she’s trans, do you think she has a right to punch your lights out or will you cry victim?
Wow. Just more evidence you have no clue to whom you are talking. What makes you think I'm coming at this from a religious standpoint, or that I am particularly concerned about the bathroom issue? I am a liberal atheist from Europe. I don't particularly care about trans people using women's bathrooms, certainly not because I personally fear them, and I always thought this issue was a bit of a distraction. Locker rooms, where people get naked in front of each other, however, are a different story - even if I personally wouldn't care that much, I know there are women who do, and they deserve to have their single-sex privacy. As do women in prisons and rape shelters (again, not my personal issues), where the safety concerns are more pressing. Maybe the same should be true for bathrooms, given that there are women who are rape survivors who might be very uncomfortable if a non-passing dude walks into a bathroom with them. Again, not something that bothers me personally, but something I now question out of principle for the protection of women. I don't think you as a man get to have an opinion on the question of what sort of sex-based protections women deserve or not.
As for your other projections, I think I have made it very clear that I am VERY comfortable with gender-nonconformity, and that that is precisely why I think medical transition should only be a very last resort, for adults.
Agree, but that's a bit of a tautology, and doesn't get to the heart of the question underpinning the entire edifice of "gender affirming care".
Yeah, but when I say that, people think I'm validating that sex can be changed. And that's not what I'm saying. Mice can't be trans, because they cannot think abstractly about their gender. Humans can.
You assume mice don't have a gender identity, but you don’t have lived experience as a mouse, I assume.
hahaha!!!
I think the problem is that there isn’t a clear definition of what gender is in the first place. Definitions usually on offer are usually circular, based on sex anyway, or based on stereotypes about behaviors and roles that tend to be concentrated in one or the other sex.
I always thought that the definition of gender as socially constructed vs the reality of biological sex was pretty useful. The problems started in the wake of Judith Butler's idea that sex is ALSO socially constructed. I remember finding that idea crazy all the way back in the mid-90s, way before I ever thought about transgenderism. I never would have thought that this absurd idea would infiltrate so much of academia and even the medical profession.
The concept of gender refers to the roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a society considers appropriate for men and women in a given society or culture, and also to certain predispositions that are genetically and hormonally inscribed in our brain circuits. Gender identity is the internal experience that people have about their own gender. For example, a heterosexual man might behave in a completely masculine way, or he might also behave at least in part in ways that the society in which he lives preferentially attributes to women, or he might behave in very feminine ways.
It is possible that, in the same way as is supposed to occur with sexual orientation, gender identity is formed, at least in part, through hormonal pathways.
The problem is that so far, nobody has found any evidence of "certain predispositions that are genetically and hormonally inscribed in our brain circuits". That is so far just an article of faith held by the transgender movement and those they have managed to convince to go along.
It is doubtful that gender identity is immutable; it is estimated that around 80 percent of children who claim to be the opposite gender to their natal sex, if not affirmed, abandon that identity upon reaching puberty and the vast majority end up being homosexual.
Sounds like we are agreeing. That was exactly my point. Except that I would go further and say that even the 20% who may persist should not try to alter their body (which is always harmful), but live as gender non-conforming members of their sex.
We can probably agree on that too, although I am not so categorical about it.
I don't think undergoing medical interventions to modify secondary sex characteristics as an adult should be illegal, but it should certainly be a last resort, not something someone rushes to do once they turn 18. I am also not sure to which I extent I support this being covered by insurance (i.e. by all of us). If it's rare enough and confined to extreme cases of long persistent distress, then maybe yes, but it shouldn't be done easily on demand.
So we don’t completely disagree, I think it still should be a decision between the parents of doctor and a child but hopefully the doctor would have the information they need to make a good decision. And I’m pretty sure that nobody has a surgery without thinking about it a whole lot and talking to a lot of specialist it’s not the kind of thing that your son says hey you know what I wanna do tonight…
If a baby is born with male and female genitalia the insurance covers fixing it, if a child is born with a cleft lip insurance pays to fix it, if a woman is taking fertility drugs and it causes a premature birth of triplicates insurance pays for it. It is rare and the insurance should cover it.
Two things: until a few years ago, the use of puberty blockers was not as common as it is now, and we have also recently seen an explosion of teenagers – especially girls – declaring themselves transgender, without a previous history in their childhood.
So I think it is necessary, on the one hand, to consider the possibility of a “social contagion effect” among – and especially “female” – adolescents.
On the other hand, regarding the use of blockers, studies seem to show two things:
1. If blockers are not used, 80% of children who declare themselves trans will give up on that identity.
2. If blockers are used, 95% will want to continue.
Regarding the “explosion,” I am not saying that it is exclusively due to social contagion, but I think it is an important factor to take into account when considering the most appropriate path, beyond the fact that the correct thing to do should be to do a case-by-case analysis, which as we know is increasingly difficult due to the increase in demand for care, which reduces the time dedicated to each patient.
Regarding the result of using blockers or not using them, a dilemma arises: If they are used early, the aesthetic results are superior and few choose to give up later. If they are not used or are used late, the results are not the best, and most of those who identified as trans, later give up that identification.
But even for those who enter the path of medicalization, even if they declare some satisfaction with the changes obtained, the cost both in health and economic terms is high.
What to do then? I am not clear. I lean towards acceptance, both from society towards trans people and from trans people regarding their condition (without entering into the medical path). But I am not a fanatic, perhaps I am wrong. The ideal would be to discover a mechanism that accurately indicates who is genuinely trans - because their brain is wired that way - and who is simply confused. Until that is achieved - if it could ever be achieved - I think we must behave with the greatest possible respect towards people who claim to have gender incongruence.
Sex is not the same thing as gender.
Let me start with I actually have a libertarian and view on this and I don’t mean libertarian because I don’t wanna pay taxes like so many but because if somebody wants to live as a man or a woman that’s none of my business.
Now onto reality I’m a 67 year-old married gay man I went through my childhood hearing that I wasn’t really homosexual, I was just a heterosexual going against somebody’s God. Your sexual orientation was a preference it was a choice. of course all of those claims were somewhere between complete nonsense and complete lies. Fortunately I’ve always had a very logical mind so I quickly understood that if these people were lying about that they were also probably lying about all homosexuals were pedophiles and all homosexuals would live lonely sad lives always looking for lust and never finding love. I heard some rather nasty things as a kid from evangelical Christians.
For this reason I’m always leery of people saying that they know what other people perceive themselves to be. But again how someone wants to live their life is none of my business, and I know it makes for a more complicated society but that’s the cost of freedom, we’re not all being forced to march to one person’s view of everything.
Now as for the idea that gender is a social construct there’s actual studies that prove that wrong… before genetics, surgeries for babies that are born both male and female were usually surgically altered to be females, easier to dig a hole then build a pole… the problem was, half of them were actually male so when they made them female they grew up feeling like boys. Below is a link to one of those cases. But again, if you accept the fact we’re a free country and it’s nobody’s business we wouldn’t even be discussing this now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
The concept of gender refers to the roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a society considers appropriate for men and women in a given society or culture, and also to certain predispositions that are genetically and hormonally inscribed in our brain circuits. Gender identity is the internal experience that people have about their own gender. For example, a heterosexual man could behave in a completely masculine way, or he could also behave at least in part in ways that the society in which he lives preferentially attributes to women, or he could – finally – behave in very feminine ways.
It is possible that, in the same way as is supposed to occur with sexual orientation, gender identity is formed, at least in part, through hormonal pathways.
So gender would be partly a social construction, such as, for example, wearing skirts or powdering, would be examples of social constructions, arbitrary, we could say. On the other hand, being an entrepreneur, a leader, a warrior, are predominantly masculine characteristics, because that was what our male ancestors needed to be if they wanted to survive and leave offspring, which is why these characteristics were passed on to successive generations.
The Federal Gov’t routinely spends 20% more than it takes in. The country has a debt burden not seen since the end of WWII. We have to get this monstrosity to live within our means. Something has got to go. If private individuals want to waste their money on this stuff, let them. Don’t steal for the rest of us for this silliness.
On the contrary, if something has to go, it shouldn't be low cost, high potential payout science. Studying gila monster venom led us to Ozempic.
If something has to go, I'd propose tax cuts. How did we get out of debt post WWII? 90% tax on top income brackets.
A couple issues with this, how did we get out of the debt of World War II? Did it have anything to do with the tax system that paid it down? Tops tax bracket of 90% so a lot of the created wealth of the country went into paying down our debt. And at the same time we created the largest middle class in the history of mankind and quite a few millionaires.
I’m 67 and my eyes glass-over when I hear people say, live within our means, that is impossible because whenever there is savings, it goes to tax cuts tax for the wealthy. It’s like taking on a second job to pay down household expenses and the other spouse immediately quit their job and runs up a credit card and then says you need to get a third job, we have to pay down this debt!
Bill Clinton who spent five years cutting the size of government without causing a recession balancing the budget fighting against Republicans who saw that balance budget as room for more tax breaks for rich people. Clinton shut the government down twice fighting with them to stop them from doing that.
He succeeded in balancing the budget because he recognized how huge deficits are created, something Americans have forgot.
Let's be consistent; these drugs don't make people transgender either. First comes the ideation, then the drugs. If transgender ideation is a naturally-occurring phenomenon, then why should it be limited to humans? We don't know if gender dysphoria was resolved in these mice given gender-affirming care. It is typical of the anthropocentric scientific establishment that no-one thought of asking these mice to make their feelings clear.
Maybe they did wonder, but the mice didn't answer...
Seriously, we can't rule out the possibility that cross-gender identity exists in other species. What we can say for sure is that gender identity based on natal sex exists. That seems pretty obvious to me.
Ah, but as gender is performative (Butler, 1990) we do not need the mice to answer our questions. We merely have to observe the gender performed by each mouse, and then determine which mice are transgender by comparing their gender expression with their gender assigned at birth. Drag is mice, and mice is drag.
Phew, I see you ignored my call for calm :)
I'll try again, let's see, please, friends, try to avoid expressions such as "you don't know what you're talking about" or "you don't understand at all..."; sometimes it's not the best thing to say everything we think, we only cloud the possibility of reaching an agreement.
I agree w/you that precise language would have been helpful, but it is fair to say that the def of “transgendered” is quite fluffy. It could mean a 3 year old male who wants to be called a girl name, or it could be used to qualify a 16 year old female on cross-sex hormones who removes her breasts, or it could refer to a 40 yo man who grows his hair shoulder-length and prefers to use the ladies’ room. Therefore, if a female human or a male human on cross-sex hormones qualifies as “transgendered”, then it’s fair that we call a female mouse on cross-sex hormones transgendered.
Further, I think it’s unfair (bigoted?) of you to say:
“Because for any animal to be transgender, it would require a sophisticated enough, humanoid cognition to be able to conceive of their gender identity in the first place.”
Faith-based assumptions that ignore scientific reasoning and biology have gotten us into this mess, so it’s down the rabbit hole we go, it’s Katy-bar-the-door, the transgender mice are coming!!!
Of note: “In their effort to ban pediatric gender transition treatment, statehouse Republicans have focused on what they characterize as the weakness of the science supporting such interventions and the associated safety concerns. It is therefore worth noting that conservatives’ efforts to ban research in this field and cancel grants for animal model studies call into question the sincerity of their expressed concerns about the quality of research evidence.”
Benjamin is wrong about that. Research hasn't been banned. Funding for spurious research may have been withdrawn by the federal government.
> "That’s precisely it. There’s no such thing as 'turning a mouse transgender.' .... So the whole concept of turning mice trans is, indeed, ridiculous—even silly."
Nope, sorry: wrongo! With all due respect ..., offhand it seems you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Though a lot of that goin' round these days, particularly on anything to do with gender.
However, the developing consensus is that, to a first approximation, "gender" refers to or denotes various sexually dimorphic traits, both physiological AND psychological, though the latter are a bit more difficult to quantify, though not impossible. For examples of the latter:
1) Global sex differences in personality: Replication with an open online dataset
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jopy.12500
2) Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences;
https://www.amazon.ca/Male-Female-Evolution-Human-Differences/dp/143383264X
3) The reality and evolutionary significance of human psychological sex differences
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/brv.12507
4) Sex differences in personality are larger in gender equal countries: Replicating and extending a surprising finding;
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ijop.12529
5) The Nurture of Evolved Sex Differences
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/the-nurture-of-evolved-sex-differences
6) Why can't a man be more like a woman? Sex differences in Big Five personality traits across 55 cultures;
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18179326/
7) The Real Causes of Human Sex Differences
https://quillette.com/2020/10/20/the-real-causes-of-human-sex-differences/
8) No Child is Born in the Wrong Body … and other thoughts on the concept of gender identity
https://4thwavenow.com/2019/08/19/no-child-is-born-in-the-wrong-body-and-other-thoughts-on-the-concept-of-gender-identity/
In the case of physiological traits, putting breasts on male humans -- or presumably male mice -- is creating or producing a trait in them that is more typical of the other sex. Those males are then transgender, gender non-conforming.
That rather clueless CNN article you linked to asserts that:
CNN: "The studies were meant to figure out how these treatments [cross-sex hormones] might affect the health of humans who take them, not for the purpose of making mice transgender."
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/04/politics/fact-check-trump-address-congress/index.html
The people responsible for those studies have to make the mice "transgender" FIRST before they can find out what other consequences might follow in those mice and then, presumably, in humans.
There is no mouse model for human grammar.
Absolutely on the spot.
If someone has a delusion-based aversion to food, there is no known ethical treatment which involves affirming the delusion by denying nutrition. No study should be constructed to deny nutrition to mice to evaluate an unethical treatment.
If someone has a delusion-based aversion to their sex, there is no known ethical treatment which involves affirming the delusion by disrupting their endocrine system. No study should be constricted to disrupt the endocrine system of mice to assess an unethical treatment.
That’s the foundational problem, irrespective of transgenic, spayed, neutered or other status of the model animal. The studies model unethical treatments, with supraphysiolic doses of sex steroids in a damaged endocrine environment.
I find the larger list you shared much more interesting since it is rife with assumptions of unethical treatments.
A distinction without a difference. QUIT doing these experiments with my tax dollars!
I don’t mind testing cross-sex hormones on mice. Actually a good idea, as well as for puberty blockers. But after all we learned about WPATH’s JHU reviews, previous studies like Tordoff and al. and the (likely useless) NIH study just announced, I’m afraid of the way the authors might torture the data to lead to the desired conclusions.
As for the "transgender" identity, the problem is the way is has become so mushy. It’s not only those who legally and medically transitioned anymore: any "whatever-gender" "omnisexual" part-time cross-dresser is now part of the "trans" umbrella, making the word less and less serious. That explains why people like Brianna Wu reclaimed the word "transsexual" to move away from that movement.
There is no mouse-mode for grammar.
Any scientific research using the word phrase gender-affirming is by definition pseudoscience.
That the problem, not transgenic.
Once that’s clear, one has to ask what’s the purpose of giving mice without ovaries superphysiologic doses of testosterone since that equates to no known therapeutic use female humans.
It’s like bioengineering mice to refuse to eat and seeing what starving them does, or creating brain lesions so they gnaw off limbs.
Atrocity.
Plenty of stupid on both sides.
Mice don’t have the capacity for “gender” identity. It’s stupid for Trump, the WH, or anybody else to say so.
And you’re absolutely right. To me the crux of the Cass report rests on the absence of evidence for much of the scientific/medical claims made by gender activists and practitioners. The way to address that is to do more research and generate more evidence. So both the left (who want to make claims without evidence) and the right (who don’t want to make evidence that might legitimize some of these claims) are behaving like the scientific morons that they are.
And the left need to stop with the penchant for fact checking Trump. He says stupid shit. All day every day. Even when the left is correct about Trump BS’ing, we’ve learned nothing. But if they’re gonna fact check, at least get the bloody facts right.
> "Mice don’t have the capacity for 'gender' identity. It’s stupid for Trump, the WH, or anybody else to say so."
Bit of a stretch to see how mice might be said to have a "gender identity" which is largely subjective, but relatively easy to argue they have genders which is almost entirely objective.
Further, one could argue that they can be said to be "gender nonconforming", largely under the auspices of the NIH through the use of various puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. Bewbs on "male" mice for example.
Gender is only, to a first approximation, just sets of many sexually dimorphic traits. Individuals of one sex which exhibit traits more typical of the other sex, for one "reason" or another, can then be said to transgender, or "gender nonconforming".
“Gender” is not objective.
Biological sex is objective.
Mice are not capable of having “gender identity”. But absolutely, they have biological sexes.
The NIH research would presumably be on the biological effects of “puberty blockers “ and hormones. The measurements would be of resultant effects on “sex traits”. But there can be no measure of “gender identity” in mice.
“ ‘Gender’ is not objective.”
If your opinion. It depends on how you define the term.
And there are solid reasons to define it to encompass sexually dimorphic traits, both physiological and psychological, both of which are more or less objectively quantifiable and measurable.
You might try reading the Wikipedia article on sexual dimorphism. And evolutionary psychologist @Paula Wright had a cogent elaboration on the point in her “Ruff Sex and Sneaky Fuɔkers”:
https://www.paulawrightdysmemics.com/p/ruff-sex-and-sneaky-fukers?utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
How many “genders” are there?
How do you “quantify” a “gender”?
Biologic sex is dichotomous, with legitimate rare exceptions. The same is not, and can not, be said of “gender”. That’s why it’s called “identity”….as one can identify as whatever one wants, which has little bearing on biologic reality.
"How many 'genders' are there?
How do you 'quantify' a 'gender'?"
You -- and Ben and far too many others -- are not fucking listening.
How many colours are in the visible spectrum? How many in the bluish half, how many in the reddish half? Billions and billions -- as Carl Sagan might have put it ...
You lot might try getting your heads out of your arses and do a little bit of reading and thinking with them. The articles by Wikipedia and Paula Wright would be good starts.
If you don't calm down and watch your mouth I will have to block you to save myself the strain of getting alerts with this level of invective. Go take a walk, for god's sake.
On the section about Jay Bhattacharya, I see JOK gave a sworn deposition about her NYT comments, but do we still not have the actual results? And the Chen paper that Jesse dissected was the one that left out 6 of the 8 measures it said it was looking to study. As that was apparently funded by NIH, we should have those findings released. I am hoping Jay will follow through on his promised transparency.
No word on those unreported outcomes. Instead, JOK and her crew published a new paper in January that basically duplicated Chen et al. Very weird. Seemed like a stalling technique.
No, we don't have the data about the blockers study. But House Republicans are probing that.
Hope they get to the bottom of it in their "probing", so to speak ...