Come Up To The Lab (And See What’s On The Slab)
Still catching up from my three-plus weeks of illness (gah), but aiming to get back on a regular schedule now (crossing fingers). Was it Jubal Harshaw who, if he didn’t write, got “spiritually constipated”? I forget. Anyway... I think I’ll write a bit. This world takes a lot of digesting!
A few folks here and there have asked me “technical” questions about the phenomenon of being Transgender. It’s easy for me to forget, considering my lifelong fascination with issues of sex and gender, that this is a sort of esoteric knowledge, in its way - widely available, but not widely familiar. So tonight, I’ll take a stab at actually explaining some of the technical stuff. (And please forgive the Rocky Horror quote in the title... you’ll soon see why it was irresistible!)
The most important thing to understand is that being Trans is now understood to be a physical and physiological problem, not a psychological one. (Though it can certainly cause its share of psychological problems, including anxiety and depression.) This is a huge reversal from earlier days, when it was categorized as a mental illness and treated in ways that ranged from merely ineffective to downright abusive, all aimed at trying to force a change in one’s inner sense of self, whether by gentle persuasion or by force. The basic assumption was that the reality of gender was purely the reality of the body - i.e., the body was always right. If the mind disagreed with the body, it was obviously the mind that was diseased and needed fixing.
Over the years, however, evidence has been mounting to show that it’s not “all in the mind.” It’s not about simply wanting to be the opposite sex (say, because of some traumatic experience, or believing that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, or whatever). It’s about already being, and always having been, the opposite sex, mentally, to what you appear to be - because it’s not merely in the mind but literally in the brain, a physical organ. The phenomenon of being Trans is about having been born with a genuine mismatch between brain and body. (Cue the spooky Frankenstein music, please... or possibly the Time Warp!)
How is this possible, if one doesn’t happen to be the monstrous midnight creation of a mad scientist? Well, we already know that Mother Nature (a very definite Mad Scientist type) likes to mix things up on occasion. If you’re ever bored, you might want to read about the history of medical views on Intersex babies, those who are born with the physical attributes (complete or incomplete) of both genders. Physical sex is not the simple, straightforward thing we’d like to assume it is, and, just like any other aspect of the body, it doesn’t always develop in ways that fit into anyone’s neatly-defined boxes.
So if it’s possible for the body itself to develop in contradictory directions, why isn’t it also possible for the body and the brain (which is, after all, a part of the body, albeit a highly specialized one) to diverge and take different paths? The answer, of course, is that it’s not only possible... it happens.
With the advent of technologies that can scan a living brain without doing it harm, we now know a few things about how brain structure differs between “normal” males and females. We don’t always understand why... but still, certain patterns are clearly visible. For instance, one recent study focusing on four specific areas of “white matter” in the brain found that the brains of transgender individuals did not fit the predicted patterns for their physical sex. In particular, transmen like me (born physically female, but self-identifying as male) actually have brains that look more male than female - that is, they fit the masculine pattern of development, not the feminine pattern.
We don’t yet know enough about the brain to do much more than speculate about how these differences affect us. It’s possible that some of those brain structures might bear directly on a person’s internal sense of gender. Or, they might simply affect some of the differences in mental processing modes that govern our interactions with others and our world... which in turn affect our self-perceptions, our feelings of sameness or differentness from whatever group we are told we belong to.
With information like this in hand, it makes more sense to decide that if the brain and the body disagree, the brain should win. After all, it’s the seat of identity, of one’s sense of self. My brain, far more than my body, is what makes me ME. But how does this weird dichotomy actually happen? What could make the brain develop as male while the body develops as female (or vice-versa)?
The most likely mechanism is variation in hormonal exposure during the prenatal period. You see, there’s a complex sequence of stages in fetal development that controls sex differentiation in various systems of the body; it doesn’t all happen at once, from a single cause. Rather, there’s a series of hormonal cues that need to happen at just the right times. And the catalysts that control one stage of development in one system of the body (say, the reproductive system) don’t have the same effect in another stage or on another system (say, the nervous system). Thus, if there is a divergence from the normal sequence, it is entirely possible for the fetus to develop with mixed charateristics of some sort.
If this mixedness is clearly visible in the child’s body at birth - say, if the external genitalia develop ambiguously - the child is said to be Intersex.
But it’s also possible for this mixedness to occur invisbly. One set of hormonal cues tells the developing genitalia, “Okay, kid, you’re gonna be a girl, please structure yourself accordingly” but another set tells the brain, “Okay, kid, you’re gonna be a boy, please structure yourself accordingly.” (Or vice-versa... but this is my story, so we’ll tell it the way it went for me!) The result is, literally, a male-structured brain in a female-structured body... and a very confused human being who may struggle for years wondering what’s wrong, why none of the most basic expectations and assumptions made by those around them ever seem to fit their real sense of identity... and why no one else can see how deeply wrong this poorly-fitting facade feels to the wearer.
Now, there may never be a way to test this explanation directly - since that would most likely involve doing experiments on unborn children, an undertaking which is clearly against our code of medical ethics. However, tests have been done on those ubiquitous little fuzzy white lab rodents, yielding very interesting results. It turns out that it is indeed quite possible, by artificially messing with the hormonal cues that cause sex differentiation, to produce mice which are physically of one sex, but act just like the opposite sex with regard to normal mouse behaviors such as fighting and nesting. (Was I saying something about Mad Scientists? Hmmm...)
Of course, because humans live in a far more complex world than mice, and are more complex creatures ourselves, most of us learn to fake it, at least to some degree. We buy into what our culture and our families and our teachers tell us, and we try to fit... whether it’s about fighting or nesting, clothing or hairstyle, proper social behavior or realistic career choices. But we don’t necessarily stop questioning - and eventually, some of us figure it out. We are simply the children of Mother Nature in her Mad Scientist persona.
And I admit... despite all of the frustration and difficulties of this journey so far, and all of those yet to come... part of me actually thinks that’s pretty damn cool. Perhaps even something to be proud of. Hey, it should at least be good for some serious street cred, on this crazy playground we call Life! I mean, how many kids can say they had a genuine Mad Scientist for a parent - and mean it?
A few folks here and there have asked me “technical” questions about the phenomenon of being Transgender. It’s easy for me to forget, considering my lifelong fascination with issues of sex and gender, that this is a sort of esoteric knowledge, in its way - widely available, but not widely familiar. So tonight, I’ll take a stab at actually explaining some of the technical stuff. (And please forgive the Rocky Horror quote in the title... you’ll soon see why it was irresistible!)
The most important thing to understand is that being Trans is now understood to be a physical and physiological problem, not a psychological one. (Though it can certainly cause its share of psychological problems, including anxiety and depression.) This is a huge reversal from earlier days, when it was categorized as a mental illness and treated in ways that ranged from merely ineffective to downright abusive, all aimed at trying to force a change in one’s inner sense of self, whether by gentle persuasion or by force. The basic assumption was that the reality of gender was purely the reality of the body - i.e., the body was always right. If the mind disagreed with the body, it was obviously the mind that was diseased and needed fixing.
Over the years, however, evidence has been mounting to show that it’s not “all in the mind.” It’s not about simply wanting to be the opposite sex (say, because of some traumatic experience, or believing that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, or whatever). It’s about already being, and always having been, the opposite sex, mentally, to what you appear to be - because it’s not merely in the mind but literally in the brain, a physical organ. The phenomenon of being Trans is about having been born with a genuine mismatch between brain and body. (Cue the spooky Frankenstein music, please... or possibly the Time Warp!)
How is this possible, if one doesn’t happen to be the monstrous midnight creation of a mad scientist? Well, we already know that Mother Nature (a very definite Mad Scientist type) likes to mix things up on occasion. If you’re ever bored, you might want to read about the history of medical views on Intersex babies, those who are born with the physical attributes (complete or incomplete) of both genders. Physical sex is not the simple, straightforward thing we’d like to assume it is, and, just like any other aspect of the body, it doesn’t always develop in ways that fit into anyone’s neatly-defined boxes.
So if it’s possible for the body itself to develop in contradictory directions, why isn’t it also possible for the body and the brain (which is, after all, a part of the body, albeit a highly specialized one) to diverge and take different paths? The answer, of course, is that it’s not only possible... it happens.
With the advent of technologies that can scan a living brain without doing it harm, we now know a few things about how brain structure differs between “normal” males and females. We don’t always understand why... but still, certain patterns are clearly visible. For instance, one recent study focusing on four specific areas of “white matter” in the brain found that the brains of transgender individuals did not fit the predicted patterns for their physical sex. In particular, transmen like me (born physically female, but self-identifying as male) actually have brains that look more male than female - that is, they fit the masculine pattern of development, not the feminine pattern.
We don’t yet know enough about the brain to do much more than speculate about how these differences affect us. It’s possible that some of those brain structures might bear directly on a person’s internal sense of gender. Or, they might simply affect some of the differences in mental processing modes that govern our interactions with others and our world... which in turn affect our self-perceptions, our feelings of sameness or differentness from whatever group we are told we belong to.
With information like this in hand, it makes more sense to decide that if the brain and the body disagree, the brain should win. After all, it’s the seat of identity, of one’s sense of self. My brain, far more than my body, is what makes me ME. But how does this weird dichotomy actually happen? What could make the brain develop as male while the body develops as female (or vice-versa)?
The most likely mechanism is variation in hormonal exposure during the prenatal period. You see, there’s a complex sequence of stages in fetal development that controls sex differentiation in various systems of the body; it doesn’t all happen at once, from a single cause. Rather, there’s a series of hormonal cues that need to happen at just the right times. And the catalysts that control one stage of development in one system of the body (say, the reproductive system) don’t have the same effect in another stage or on another system (say, the nervous system). Thus, if there is a divergence from the normal sequence, it is entirely possible for the fetus to develop with mixed charateristics of some sort.
If this mixedness is clearly visible in the child’s body at birth - say, if the external genitalia develop ambiguously - the child is said to be Intersex.
But it’s also possible for this mixedness to occur invisbly. One set of hormonal cues tells the developing genitalia, “Okay, kid, you’re gonna be a girl, please structure yourself accordingly” but another set tells the brain, “Okay, kid, you’re gonna be a boy, please structure yourself accordingly.” (Or vice-versa... but this is my story, so we’ll tell it the way it went for me!) The result is, literally, a male-structured brain in a female-structured body... and a very confused human being who may struggle for years wondering what’s wrong, why none of the most basic expectations and assumptions made by those around them ever seem to fit their real sense of identity... and why no one else can see how deeply wrong this poorly-fitting facade feels to the wearer.
Now, there may never be a way to test this explanation directly - since that would most likely involve doing experiments on unborn children, an undertaking which is clearly against our code of medical ethics. However, tests have been done on those ubiquitous little fuzzy white lab rodents, yielding very interesting results. It turns out that it is indeed quite possible, by artificially messing with the hormonal cues that cause sex differentiation, to produce mice which are physically of one sex, but act just like the opposite sex with regard to normal mouse behaviors such as fighting and nesting. (Was I saying something about Mad Scientists? Hmmm...)
Of course, because humans live in a far more complex world than mice, and are more complex creatures ourselves, most of us learn to fake it, at least to some degree. We buy into what our culture and our families and our teachers tell us, and we try to fit... whether it’s about fighting or nesting, clothing or hairstyle, proper social behavior or realistic career choices. But we don’t necessarily stop questioning - and eventually, some of us figure it out. We are simply the children of Mother Nature in her Mad Scientist persona.
And I admit... despite all of the frustration and difficulties of this journey so far, and all of those yet to come... part of me actually thinks that’s pretty damn cool. Perhaps even something to be proud of. Hey, it should at least be good for some serious street cred, on this crazy playground we call Life! I mean, how many kids can say they had a genuine Mad Scientist for a parent - and mean it?
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