Discussion of the Claims that Transphobes Use Science to Justify Transphobia

Discussion of the Claims that Transphobes Use Science to Justify Transphobia

“Actual research proves that sex is anything but binary”

If we have been paying attention to the media recently, it has been awash with the Humza Yousaf/Scottish Government versus JK Rowling argument over the new Hate Crime Law, which the Scottish Government will implement and has become law as of April 1, 2024.; watch this space for an amended law soon.  As we are aware, Humza Yousaf later resigned, part of a media tirade, due to pressure from the public at large in Scotland, and I’m sure across the remainder of the United Kingdom.

In short, it introduces new offences for threatening or abusive behaviour which is intended to stir up hatred based on prejudice towards characteristics including age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics. These extra provisions will add to the long-standing bill of stirring up racial hatred offences, which have been in place across the United Kingdom since 1986.

I am going to focus on the Transgender component of this bill in this discussion. Whether or not JK Rowling is a self-proclaimed feminist or martyr to the cause or both, even, we know she has never embraced inclusivity; it would seem she has started jumping on the "bandwagon", talking about “the science” and trusting the science.  This science involves the notion that supposedly provides evidence that there are only two sexes and that those sexes are fundamentally different.  This and the far-right media outlets that drip-feed poison into the wider public's ears via their online feeds, jumping on any opportunity to bash Transwomen specifically.

Anti-scientific sentiment besieges our politics, and we are starting to see this more and more. This is what the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) informs us. Most importantly among these anti-scientific sentiments, the IDW cites the rising visibility of transgender civil rights demands and rights as impractical and fundamentally wrong. 

The view of the IDW is that trans people and their advocates are destroying the pillars of our society with their free-speech–suppressing, postmodern concepts such as “trans women are women,” the use of  “gender-neutral pronouns,” or “there are more than two genders.” The assertion of “basic biology” and “biological sex” cannot be ignored, the IDW argues. They suggest that, and I quote, “Facts don’t care about your feelings”; those words may come back at them once you have read this short article in defence of the Trans population and specifically Transwomen.

The irony in all this is that these “protectors of enlightenment” are guilty of the very behaviour this phrase derides. The IDW are often dismissed as just a fringe internet movement, but they advocate that unscientific claims have infected our politics and culture. Especially alarming is that these “intellectual” assertions are used by non-scientists to claim a scientific basis for the dehumanisation of trans people. The real-world consequences are stacking up in the United States of America. We have had the transgender military ban, the bathroom bills, and the removal of workplace and medical discrimination protections for transgender people. The US has a 41-51 per cent suicide attempt rate and targeted fatal violence.

(https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/suicidality-transgender-adults).

Alarmingly, it's becoming clear that it's not just internet trolling anymore; the transphobes have re-grouped and appear to be using another tactic.

Contrary to our popular beliefs, scientific research actually helps us better understand the unique and real transgender ethos and experience. It would appear the Transphobes fail to consider this and dismiss the very thought with their never-ending attention to “biological sex”.  Intrinsically, this occurs through three subjects:  Genetics, Neurobiology and  Endocrinology. As we say, “Hold onto your parts, whatever they may be; It’s time for the 'Biology Talk”

Women make eggs, and men produce sperm. Science tells us that the transphobes appear to have taken to rhetorically asking what the “third gamete" is, as though conflating biology and gender will somehow make transgender people disappear.  I sometimes feel it's difficult to know what these people actually want out of all their vitriol; nevertheless, regardless of their aims, transphobes of all inclinations appear to be looking to the authority of science.  A science that is relatively easy to refute if they wish to listen.

BIOLOGICAL SEX - HOW & WHY WE ARE GIVEN THIS

I am going to assume the reader has some knowledge from their secondary ****** biology and that if you have XX chromosomes, you're a female; if you have XY, you are a male; that's biology 101, I think?  Nevertheless, this tired, rather simplified explanation is perfect for teaching the importance of chromosomes, but it rather forewarns us of the true nature of biological sex. There is a wide and popular belief that our sexes arise only from our chromosomal makeup; this is actually not the case at all.  In truth, your biological sex isn’t set in stone, but it is a living system with a clear potential for change.

I can see you asking why?  The fact is, biological sex is far more sophisticated than XX or XY (or XXY and X).  For example, XX individuals may present at birth with male gonads, and XY individuals can have ovaries.  How, you may ask, through a set of very complex genetic signals that, in the course of human development, begin with a small group of cells called Biopotential Primordium and a gene called SRY.  The SRY gene provides instructions for making a protein called the Sex-Determining Region Y Protein.  This protein is involved in male-typical sex development; this normally follows a certain template based on an individual's chromosomes.

As a consequence, we have a newly fertilised embryo that initially develops without any clear indication of sex.  Normally,y around five weeks of gestation, a group of cells clusters together to form the Bipotential Primordium.  Referencing our secondary ****** Human Biology, we know that these cells are neither male nor female but have the potential to turn into testes, ovaries or neither.

 https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physrev.00009.2006

Once the primordium forms, SRY, a gene on the Y chromosome that was discovered in 1990, we have the situation where intersex XX males and XY females may be created.  Subsequently, this area to date is not fully understood. We know why SRY plays a pushing role in the primordium toward male gonads; we need to be aware that SRY is not just a simple on/off switch; rather, a precisely timed start ****** or the first line in the “male gonad” makeup.  

A group of cells (instrument sections) must all articulate SRY at the right time; similarly like a conductor and an orchestra. Without direction from the conductor in the orchestra, the embryo will play a different tune; female gonads or just something in between.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11990800/#:~:text=Abstract,identified%20as%20SRY%20in%201990

While you are mulling all of that over, there is more. While brief and coordinated SRY activation initiates the process of male sex differentiation, genes like DMRT1 and FOXL2 maintain certain sexual characteristics during adulthood.  If these genes stop functioning, the gonads change and exhibit characteristics of the opposite sex; as a result, without these genes, certain components of your biological sex change. These genes continue to give as they aren’t directly involved with other aspects of biological sex.  Secondary sex characteristics such as penis, vagina, appearance and behaviour arise much later from hormones, environment, experience and genes interacting.  To further this journey of exploration, we move from the body to the brain, which is where biology becomes behaviour.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5676419/

THE BRAIN: WHERE THE MAGIC IS CREATED

To be clear, many point to the differences between the brains of males and females as proof of a binary sex, especially when the basic biology becomes too complicated for them.  Researching the evidence and with the help of half a century of empirical research, many have repeatedly impugned the notion that brain biology is quite simply XY=male brain and XX=female brain.  To be more precise, I’m about to collapse a common myth: “there is no such thing as 'the male brain' and 'the female brain”.  Conversely, I’m not suggesting there are no observable differences; certain brain characteristics may be sexually dimorphic: observable median differences across male and female brains exist.  Nevertheless, similarly to biological sex, pointing to “brain sex” as the explanation for these differences is clearly incorrect and hinders scientific research.

Let's consider the most obvious illustration of sexual dimorphism in the brain.  The sexually dimorphic nucleus of the preoptic area in the human hypothalamus (sdnPOA).  This often forgotten and minuscule area of the brain with an inordinately sized name is slightly larger in males than females, although at this time it's unclear whether the size difference indicates distinctly wired sdnPOA’s in males versus females, or if, as with when we discussed Bipotential Primordium, the same wiring is occupationally weighted toward opposite poles of the spectrum.  

We may also add that the consideration and evidence suggest that sdnPOA in gay men is more akin to that of straight females than straight males.  As a consequence, and with these facts in mind, the notion of the “male brain” falls apart.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1256598/

Attempting to make a connection with sex, sex chromosomes and sexual dimorphism is also a dead end for understanding other brain properties.  The hormone Vasopressin or antidiuretic hormone (ADH) or arginine vasopressin (AVP) is a nonapeptide synthesised in the hypothalamus, and is dimorphic and linked to both behavioural differences and similarities across the sexes.  In essence and simply, the notion of a sexual binary isn’t scientifically useful and nowhere is this more distinct than in the brain.  

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526069/

Furthermore, it is also very clear that transgender individuals have the brains to underpin this theory.  With this information in mind, it's very easy to conclude that sexual dimorphisms and that the brain is binary; this is fundamentally wrong.  Research has been conducted with the support and help of the transgender population. We now have a greater understanding of how brain structure, sex and gender interact.  Studies have revealed that some properties, like brain volume and connectivity, Transgender individuals possessed values in between those typical of cisgender males and females; both before and after transitioning. 

Other studies have discovered that for certain brain regions, Transgender individuals appear similar to cis-individuals with the same gender identity.  In that same research, they found specific areas of the brain where Transgender individuals appeared to be more aligned with those with the same assigned sex at birth. It's also compelling to add that other researchers have concluded that Transgender people have unique structural differences from cis-individuals. 

BODY, BRAIN & THE HORMONES INTERPOLATED

So if all of the information we have so far examined is not complicated enough, there is another biological factor that influences the expression of biological sex in an individual: hormones.  I would assume that the audience reading this has gone through puberty; some may have gone through a second puberty during transition.  We all have experience of the power that hormones hold in their hands, but like all things biological, hormones cannot be limited to the pubescent notion that oestrogen is female and testosterone is male.

Firstly, all humans possess a level of oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone with sexual differences not as noticeable as is colloquially thought. At the stage of infancy and pre-pubescence, these hormones exist in a bipotential range, with no significant sex difference.  

Conversely, through puberty, certain sex hormones like oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone become saturated toward one end of a spectrum; however, in developed adults like those that are Transgendered oestrogen and progesterone levels are on average comparable between males and non-pregnant females.

Whilst testosterone shows the greater difference between adult males and females, work in the area of inheritability has suggested that genetics X versus Y actually only explains around 56% of a person's testosterone, implying there may be many other factors when it comes to the subject of hormones.

https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/22/8/2153/644913

It should also be noted by the reader that the measurement of sex hormone levels in any one individual varies wildly across a range of average values, regardless of how near or widely apart you take the measurements.  We know that the binary sex model not only inadequately assumes the presence of hormones but is futile in trying to describe factors that influence them.

Hormones are also affected and influenced by social and behavioural factors in both males and females, further complicating the idea that hormones determine sex; as we have discovered, they don't.  For example, progesterone changes in response to typically “male-coded” social situations where there is dominance and competition, whereas oestrogen, ordinarily linked to”feminine-coded” traits, also plays a part in masculine-coded dominance and power social scenarios.

Notwithstanding that testosterone levels are very different between males and females on average, many external factors can change these levels; for example, a person could be raising a child.  It's been shown that variations in testosterone levels in both men and women can predict particular parenting behaviours.  We are also aware that the content of a sexual fantasy can change testosterone levels, and the fact is that our behaviour and environment, including cultural gender norms and expectation clearly influence sex-related hormones and the biology of the body and brain itself.

THE SCIENCE & SOCIETY - WE CAN CO-EXIST TOGETHER?

I have provided a brief overview here, and although there is a lot to absorb, I feel the science is clear and conclusive in favour of the Transgender population worldwide; Transgender people are “real”.  As an advocate and supporter myself, I feel it's high time we acknowledge that defining a person's sex using decontextualised “facts” is clearly unscientific and dehumanising.  To those who are using the “Biological Sex” stick to bash the Transgender population, the Transgender experience provides an essential insight into the science of sex and quite clearly demonstrates that uncommon and atypical are vital for a successful living system.

I leave you with the thought that “Scientific endeavour itself is justifiably better when it is more inclusive and population diverse”.