Neil DeGrass Tyson vs Ben Shapiro on transgenderism

[Magical Realist]

Odd that neither of you searched for it, and odd that he’s an astrophysicist, not a biologist.

And neither is Shapiro. Does he even have a degree in science?

"If someone dresses in a way that aligns with a gender different from the one that they were assigned at birth and does not experience distress or dysfunction as a result, this situation would not typically be classified as gender dysphoria. In this case, their gender expression is a personal choice that does not necessarily indicate a mental health condition.

Gender dysphoria is specifically about the distress and impairment caused by the incongruence between one’s experienced gender identity and assigned sex. If the expression of gender is a source of comfort and congruence for an individual, and does not lead to distress, it does not meet the criteria for gender dysphoria."

Yes..I posted all that already with the link to the Cleveland Clinic.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/ar...tal-health

[Secular Sanity]

Yes..I posted all that already with the link to the Cleveland Clinic.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/ar...tal-health

My bad. I missed that. Good deal!

[C C]

[...] Same with body dysphoria. [...]

There are occasional cases of women "pathologically" obsessed with looking like Barbie, who undergo multiple surgeries over the years to fully achieve the appearance. There are also individuals who identify with a different race or ethnic group than what they were born in, but can't do anything about it due to classification as a social justice taboo slash outrage. (In addition to medical alternation of skin pigmentation probably being another development in the future, though current plastic surgery is certainly capable of converting facial features.)

IOW, the broadness of potential kinds of dysphoria revolving around the body haven't remotely been isolated and brought to fruition yet. Humans have yearned to alter themselves in various ways going back to prehistoric times, and now the Western and other conformity structures that obstructed those pagan inclinations of the past are crumbling as the transhumanism era looms.

We should look to the future to grasp just how wide-ranging body related dysphoria is. Since advanced surgery for most of it hasn't been pragmatically available up to this point, otherkin have to deal with their neurdivergence and physical dissatisfaction in less extreme ways (including deferring it to a spiritual orientation).

Humans in prior centuries coped with their desire to resemble animals via face tattoos and various kinds of body deformation and mutilation (in Australia, at least -- since the wildlife actually features it -- the split penis is arguably an attempt to mimic the bifurcated penis of marsupials.)

But once the ice breaks and the trend of ground-breaking surgery and genetics begins, "species dysphoria" will become an official item in the general category. Futurists and science fiction writers like John Varley anticipated such decades ago -- with inhabitants adopting even the human-hybrid nature of extinct animals. (Maybe the prognostication goes back even further, if one strained to be inclusive of The Island of Doctor Moreau.)

In that "human menagerie" of the future, body-focused dysphoria won't even be construed as negative, but something that the applicable adult (not child) can or should remedy due to the vastly expanded range of surgery and bioengineering of that era. Quite literally, "freaks" bordering on new species will be everywhere, including cyborg variations. For survival reasons, traditional humanity has its moral right to challenge and obstruct that radical transition, but ultimately we will lose to "progress" as we always do.

[Syne]

"Brain activity and structure in transgender adolescents more closely resembles the typical activation patterns of their desired gender, according to findings to be presented in Barcelona, at the European Society of Endocrinology annual meeting, ECE 2018. These findings suggest that differences in brain function may occur early in development and that brain imaging may be a useful tool for earlier identification of transgenderism in young people."----
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...112351.htm

Notice how they always obscure the ages they're talking about with the very vague "young people." Teens and young adults are young people, who have been exposed to a lot that could change their behaviors and effect neuroplasticity. They actually go from "may be present from a very young age" to "Current strategies for addressing GD in younger people involve..." to "young people." Progressively more vague as they approach making any actual claim.

"More closely resembled" and "more similar" are also vague subjective phrases that don't offer any quantitative comparison.

Too bad many people have no critical thinking or reading comprehension skills.

[Magical Realist]

Teens and young adults are young people, who have been exposed to a lot that could change their behaviors and effect neuroplasticity.

Really? So what were young trans kids "exposed to" that changed their brains to look and function more similarly to their identified gender? Something in the water perhaps? lol And what scientific studies support this?

[Syne]

Odd that neither of you searched for it, and odd that he’s an astrophysicist, not a biologist.

I'd already watched it, when it came out. Thought I'd see if MR could be intellectually honest enough to look it up himself.

If someone dresses in a way that aligns with a gender different from the one that they were assigned at birth and does not experience distress or dysfunction as a result, this situation would not typically be classified as gender dysphoria. In this case, their gender expression is a personal choice that does not necessarily indicate a mental health condition.

Gender dysphoria is specifically about the distress and impairment caused by the incongruence between one’s experienced gender identity and assigned sex. If the expression of gender is a source of comfort and congruence for an individual, and does not lead to distress, it does not meet the criteria for gender dysphoria.

Same with body dysphoria. Many people may have body image concerns or engage in activities like plastic surgery, buying clothes, working out, or using makeup as part of their personal expression or to align with societal norms, without experiencing the clinical symptoms of BDD. These activities can be part of a healthy self-care routine or a way to feel more confident and socially accepted.

BDD is characterized by an intense preoccupation with perceived flaws that are either minor or not noticeable to others, leading to significant distress and impairment. It's not just about having concerns or insecurities about one’s appearance—it's about those concerns being overwhelming and interfering with daily life.

Correct, gender dysphoria is defined as distressing.
But that doesn't alleviate the break from the biological reality, unless there is an actual intersex mutation to explain it.
Other psychological breaks from reality, like psychosis, are not defined by distress.
So a break from reality and no feeling of distress are not mutually excluding.

Gender dysphoria differs from body dysmorphia (BDD doesn't stand for "dysphoria'), as the former isn't specifically defined as distressing. So any analogies between the two is likely faulty.

---

Teens and young adults are young people, who have been exposed to a lot that could change their behaviors and effect neuroplasticity.

Really? So what were young trans kids "exposed to" that changed their brains to look and function more similarly to their identified gender? Something in the water perhaps? lol And what scientific studies support this?

Trauma, social pressure/contagion, grooming, etc..

[Magical Realist]

Really? Social pressure to identify with the gender opposite their bodies? No...that's ridiculous. There is no such social pressure. And no kids are groomed to identify with the gender opposite their body's. It's the precise opposite.

And I see you have no studies. Here's a study about the biological basis of transgender gender identity:

"They are experiencing dysphoria because the gender they feel on the inside does not match their external sex," Theisen says. "Once someone has a male or female brain, they have it and you are not going to change it. The goal of treatments like hormone therapy and surgery is to help their body more closely match where their brain already is."

"It doesn't matter which sex organs you have, it's whether estrogen, or androgen, which is converted to estrogen in the brain, masculinizes the brain during this critical period," says Dr. Lawrence C. Layman, chief of the MCG Section of Reproductive Endocrinology, Infertility and Genetics in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. "We have found variants in genes that are important in some of these different areas of the brain."

These brain pathways are involved in regions of the brain where the number of neurons and how connected the neurons are typically differ between males and females.

They note that while this "critical period" for masculinizing the brain may seem late, brain development actually continues well after birth and these key pathways and receptors already need to be established when estrogen arrives.

While it's too early to definitively say the gene variants in these pathways result in the brain-body incongruence called gender dysphoria, it is "interesting" that they are in pathways of hormone involvement in the brain and whether it gets exposed to estrogen or not, says Layman.

He and Theisen are co-corresponding authors of the study in the journal Scientific Reports.

"This is the first study to lay out this framework of sex-specific development as a means to better understand gender identity," Theisen says. "We are saying that looking into these pathways is the approach we are going to be taking in the years ahead to explore the genetic contribution to gender dysphoria in humans."----
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...084203.htm

[Syne]

All I see there is a lot of unsupported claims. If you could read, you'd see that your own citation even admits "it's too early to definitively say" and it's only "interesting." IOW, there's nothing substantial there to refute. Just a lot of conjecture. There is no such thing as a "female brain" in a male body without an intersex mutation. There's just less feminine females and less masculine males. That doesn't make them the opposite gender unless you've groomed impressionable children into thinking that MUST be the reason they don't fit in.

Social contagion is well known and includes behavioral contagion. Too bad you're too lazy to look it up.

[Magical Realist]

Social contagion is well known and includes behavioral contagion. Too bad you're too lazy to look it up.

LOL You'll pretty much pull anything out of your ass rather than provide actual scientific studies. Tell us then how a normal cis-gendered kid is caused by "social contagion" to turn transgender by an almost entirely cis-gendered and cis-gender promoting environment? How the fuck does that happen?

Here's more science backing up the brain basis of gender identity in trans persons:

"In his influential book: Behave, American neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky writes that “it’s not the case that transgender individuals think they’re a different gender than they actually are. It’s more likely they got stuck with the bodies of a different sex from who they actually are.” With this remark, Sapolsky summarizes almost three decades of neuroscience research on brain and gender, and what it means to be transgender—no matter what stage of transitioning one is in.

Firstly, it’s important to state that many children and adolescents go through gender identity struggles. Yet, as they grow older, these struggles either resolve themselves or the child becomes a part of their LGBTQ2S+ community. In fact, only 23 per cent of childhood gender incongruence (discomfort caused by a mismatch between one’s gender and sex) leads to transgenderism. Surgically transitioning as a transgender person is also associated with improved psychological well-being.

According to one literature review, “Studies show that there is less than 1% of regrets, and a little more than 1% of suicides among operated subjects.” With some of my friends, I have personally been a witness to how their process of transitioning has benefited their lives. As mentioned before, the brain is uniquely sensitive and responsive to sex in a way the rest of the body isn’t, and when it comes to sexual development, the body and brain tend to develop asynchronously and at differing paces. By the time a boy hits puberty, they will most likely develop adult male genitals, acquire a deeper voice, and start growing body hair. However, due to atypical biological events in their past, their brain will resemble that of a female rather than a male. But what does this really mean?

A pioneering study from 1995 found that a specific brain region associated with sexual behavior was larger in males than females. Upon investigating this brain region size in male-to-female trans individuals, researchers found that this specific brain region was consistent with the transitioned sex (female) of the individual rather than their assigned sex at birth (male). Another follow-up study from 2000 tracked transsexuality as a function of the number of brain cells present in sexually expressive brain regions. Usually, males have twice as many brain cells in these brain areas responsible for sexual dimorphite attributes as compared to females.

After controlling for hormone statuses, sexual orientation(s), and social context(s), the study determined that male-to-female trans individuals did not have the cell count of their birth sex, but the sex they insisted they were. Likewise, female-to-male trans people had cell counts representing their gender orientation rather than their biological sex. These studies spearheaded the modern, and still progressive understanding of sex-gender mismatch: the idea that sex differences in the genitals take hold before sex differences in the brain, and that the lack of synchronization between these two processes might lay the foundation for transgenderism.

The unshakable conviction that one isn’t born in the right body is so far supported by science, but more research needs to be devoted to further replicating these results and exploring how gender identity is coordinated with brain function, hormones, genes, and more. What we do know is that being trans isn’t simply a feeling. It’s an intense and persistent psychological experience that originates from fully biological possibilities and results in distinct physical imprints on the brain as the organ matures.

Sometimes, transphobic rhetoric is bolstered by the claim that “switching genders is simply unnatural.” Even if something seems unlikely, not well-observed, or even downright impossible to us, the fact that it exists makes it, by definition, natural. The reality is that gender struggles are more common than people think, and it’s crucial that in an age of science, we as students commit ourselves to learning the facts of the situation and be open to new information with a compassionate mind."----- https://themedium.ca/the-brain-science-o...ansgender/

[Syne]

Social contagion is well known and includes behavioral contagion. Too bad you're too lazy to look it up.

LOL You'll pretty much pull anything out of your ass rather than provide actually scientific studies. Tell us then how a normal cis-gendered kid is caused by "social contagion" to turn transgender by an almost entirely cis-gendered environment? How the fuck does that happen?

That's a straw man. Again, if you could read, you'd see that I said: "Trauma, social pressure/contagion, grooming, etc.."
IOW, in case you still don't comprehend, I never said it's ONLY social contagion. You just latched onto that because you're chronically intellectually lazy or dishonest.