Sammy
@NeuroSGS
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PhD student in Neuroscience. Research interests include sex differences in the brain, sexual orientation, and gender dysphoria.
Joined March 2009
My pinned thread of threads, primarily containing citations and explanations about neurological/ psychological sex differences, sexuality, gender dysphoria, and other academic research interests of mine:.
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Is there a bigger waste of time then doing a gender studies degree? 🙈.
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When I first started researching gender dysphoria I assumed that activists/trans people would be happy when I spoke of a potential neurological mechanism for their dysphoria (body perception), but instead they denied the evidence and said I’m a bigot…. Why is this? 🤔.
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Gender dysphoria and anorexia show lots of brain similarities (alterations in networks mediating body perception), but you wouldn’t suggest anorexics are “born in the wrong body”.
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There’s NO neuroscience evidence supporting the concept of “gender identity”. Prove me wrong.
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Young people make irrational decisions because their prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped. Prefrontal maturation is largely dependent on sex-hormones throughout puberty. Why, then, do we give kids puberty blockers? . Where’s their chance of natural brain development?.
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In case anyone wanted to know, current neuroimaging data does NOT support the hypothesis that gender dysphoria is caused by a brain of the opposite sex!.
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“Scans of trans brains from an early age show we are more aligned with the gender we identify with. Hundreds of studies.” - @IndiaWilloughby . Care to share with us these “hundreds” of studies that demonstrate this finding that are *not* confounded by sexual orientation and/or.
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Question for gender activists: If we know the vast majority of children diagnosed with gender dysphoria actually desist and grow up homosexual, why is there this urgent need to give them puberty blockers?.
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Another question for gender activists: If you believe transgender people have brains of the opposite sex, what brains do the other 79 gender identities have? 🤔.
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Do transgender persons show sex atypical brains? . Many people suggest that trans people have brains more inline with their desired gender, and this causes feelings of gender incongruence. However, if we take a closer look, we see some important underlying issues.
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Why is the treatment for anorexia usually cognitive behavioural therapy, but the treatment for gender dysphoria (which shows similar brain pathology) is to affirm their belief by transitioning? . Why is one curing mental illness, and denying the other transphobic?.
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If brains are highly malleable, and gender identity is fluid, why do activists think permanent medical procedures are necessary?.
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“Controversial” statements: . - There are two sexes.- Gender is just your personality .- Cannot be born in the wrong body.- Sex atypical brain ≠ transgender.- Kids should not be given PBs .- No such thing as “gender identity”. Anyone else care to add to the list?.
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Great question I received from @JamesCantorPhD . If a transgender person was born on a desert island (with no masculine or feminine social influence), would that person still grow up to be transgender? 🤔.
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I don’t know what’s worse, the blatant misinformation or the smirk when telling it….
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Reminder: Puberty blockers have no long-term studies and are not a “pause button”.
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There is NO convincing data that shows transgender individuals have brains of the opposite sex. Prove me wrong.
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There is NO convincing neuroscience data demonstrating an innate “gender identity”, or that gender dysphoria is *caused* by having a brain of the opposite sex. Prove me wrong.
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Years ago a masculine girl was called a “tomboy”, now they’re called “trans”. Don’t get me wrong, I think gender dysphoria is very real for some people, but nowadays gender non-conforming kids are told they are “born in the wrong body”. This is ideology!.
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Define gender ideology in a single word, I’ll go first; . Misguided.
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You need to understand confounding variables. Homosexuality, on average, is associated with a cross-sex shift in the brain. If your transgender cohort is homosexual and you identify a cross-sex shift in the brain, how do know you that finding is rated to being transgender and not.
How do you fake neurological anatomy?. One study found that the neurological anatomy of trans people was somewhere between cis males and females. One of many studies. Trans people are not mentally ill or "faking it". The facts are what they are.
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Gender activists do NOT tolerate diversity of thought. You must think like them, talk like them, and act like them. Anyone who has anything critical to say is a bigot and excluded from their very “inclusive” group….
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I don’t believe there is any neurological evidence for “gender identity”. To all the activists on here, can you convince me otherwise?.
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If we could diagnose gender dysphoria with a brain scan, is this something the trans community would actually want? . We hear the beloved “opposite sexed brain” argument a lot, but I’ve also heard that a test for “true” gender dysphoria would be transphobic. So which is it?.
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People seem to confuse evidence for gender dysphoria as evidence for “gender identity”. These are NOT the same thing.
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Heterosexual.
@NT78stonewobble @NeuroSGS @void_type @SwipeWright What do you call a transgender woman who's attracted to women?.
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Why put your child on puberty blockers during such a critical time period of brain maturation? . Doesn’t sit well with me.
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This new account will be dedicated to delivering peer-reviewed neuroscience papers on a variety of important topics, from sex differences to sexual orientation and gender dysphoria. I will give detailed threads and explanations which people can cite.
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“Non-binary” is a social identity (i.e., it’s self-proclaimed). Its central premise suggests that if you don’t conform to traditional gender roles (or conform to neither), you have a different “gender identity”. Males and females (on average) overlap in various behavioural and.
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For those of you wondering what a male brain looks like compared to a female one, here you go: . Can I get my gender studies degree now?
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Despite repeated claims from gender activists, the concept of Autogynephilia (AGP) as an explanation for gender dysphoria in heterosexual males has not been “debunked”.
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What a brilliant exchange… 🙈. Nice to see activists engage in academic discussions online:
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Being against gender ideology doesn’t mean you’re against trans people!.
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Wow. After all the “concern”, @TransLucent_Org will not be publishing their “groundbreaking” research article…. Anyone else disappointed?
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What would it take to convince you that “gender identity” is real? . For me, a consistent definition would be a good place to start 🙄.
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No, transgender women do not have “women’s brains”….
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When you debate an activist about the neurological correlates of gender dysphoria, it’s always evidently clear they’ve not read the literature. Yet, despite this, they have an unjustified over-confidence in their ability to defend their argument.
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Retweet this task for gender activists:. Define “gender identity” clearly, then provide neurological evidence supporting it based on that specific definition. Cite your best papers, but then also explain WHY you think it’s high-quality. I’ll be waiting to see the results.
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Stop telling kids they have an innate “gender identity” - there is no evidence for it and you’re only trying to indoctrinate young children who cannot think for themselves!.
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Male heterosexual cross-dressers (n=37) took part in a questionnaire on their subjective level of sexual arousal (from never to always) when dressing as a woman. Subsequent phallometric tests of penile volume (quantitative measure of sexual arousal) revealed that even those who
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It shouldn’t be controversial (particularly as a neuroscientist) to suggest that puberty blockers will stunt/affect brain maturation is some way. Yet somehow, it is… 🙈.
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Trans women attracted to men are homosexual (androphilic), but activists would have you believe this person is heterosexual because they’re a “woman”. Sexual orientation revolves around sex, not “gender identity”.
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Just because you disagree with the science, doesn’t make the science bigoted or transphobic….
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It’s becoming increasingly clear that the only people with any sort of sex atypical cerebral differentiation occurs in homosexual individuals (on average).
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If we try to search for “gender identity” within the brain, which is apparently innate/immutable but highly fluid (according to the multitude of different definitions we receive), how are we supposed to find it? What exactly are we looking for?.
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Average sex differences within the brain that are observed at the population level does NOT mean there is a male/female brain dichotomy. People need to understand this….
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Sexuality is based on your attraction to ONE of the TWO sexes, not “gender identity”. Many gender activists are trying to re-define this! For instance, they believe a trans woman (natal male), who is sexually attracted to males, is heterosexual. This goes against all science!.
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Gender dysphoria (GD) and anorexia nervosa (AN) both have underlying brain differences associated with each other, perhaps unsurprisingly given the similarity in symptoms (dissatisfaction with their body). That being said, what are these brain similarities?.
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Also, transgender people tend to have lots of co-morbidities from depression, anxiety, anorexia, autism, and a homosexual orientation. All of this needs to be considered when looking at neuroscience studies on this population.
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When viewing your brain scan, what tipped you off that it was female?.
@JoeyBribes @InvincibleDusk @Freedom2713 @thewriterme @OliLondonTV By the way, the brain is biological and mine is in fact female - I've seen the scans myself, one of the rare trans women to have done so. My endocrine system is running on female hormonal levels. My breasts are identical to any other woman's breasts.
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My views on the neurology of gender dysphoria stems from the data. I do NOT wish to invalidate the lived experience of trans people, but if I see issues & flaws in the literature then I’m going to identify them and raise questions. This is good in the long run & isn’t transphobic.
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This woman’s “fact” (that she learnt in her anatomy class at 16) about transgender brain structure leaves @MattWalshBlog speechless.
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Question for gender activists: Is “gender identity” innate/immutable or fluid? . I ask because your definitions seem rather fluid themselves….
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That awkward moment when you tell someone that after controlling for sexual orientation transgender individuals no longer show a cross-sex shift in the brain, and then they precede to cite a study that didn’t control for sexual orientation as “proof” they are correct… 😬.
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We’ve been told “gender identities” are innate, a social construct, immutable, fluid, develops in childhood, develops in utero, is neurological, is psychological, there’s two of them, and there’s hundreds of them. These inconsistencies alone should make you query it’s integrity!.
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Can everyone tag the most influential people combating gender ideology? . I want to add as many of these people to my Twitter lists! . Thank you 😊.
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What sexed brain do non-binary people have? . If males and females share many brain characteristics, what’s the neurological evidence for “non-binary”?.
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This article is often cited as evidence that the brains of transgender women (TW) resemble the brains of natal women. However, once looking at the data, we see that this may not be the case.
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The brains of trans individuals only show sex-atypicality when they are also homosexual. Sexual orientation is the unexplained variable.
@Joesol0 @Rowan1437306 @Sasspiria The brains of trans people are equivalent to the sex they transition into. And yes, trans men are men and trans women are women.
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It doesn’t matter how many times I point out limitations in the literature on the neurology of gender dysphoria, activists will continually deny them because I’m still a PhD student. My qualifications don’t change the state of literature. It is bad faith to attack the.
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Children are NOT mature enough to fully understand the consequences when it comes to transitioning.
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It’s been shown that individuals with GD show weaker structural & functional connectivity within the default mode network (DMN) of the brain, which is vital for body perception/image and self referential processing .
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Just found out that “non-binary” in Spanish is either “no binerio” (masculine) OR “no bineria” (feminine). It changes based on gender. Seems ironic….
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Read mine and Colin Wright’s (@SwipeWright) new rebuttal tackling the claims made by @realJennyBoylan in her article “To understand biological sex, look to the brain, not the body”.
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Genuine question: Does the trans community want a neurological explanation for their dysphoria? . If yes, does it have to be the brain sex argument? . I ask because alternative explanations always seem to get rejected by activists (AGP or body perception).
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Androgens and estrogens are so powerful, and can thus cause huge physiological differences between men and women, such as genitalia, muscle mass, height, weight, fat dispersion, immune function, voice pitch, and bone density. But we are supposed to believe (according to.
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You cannot claim that "gender identity" is both fluid and malluble, yet innate and immutable at the same time.
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“𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘢 𝘯𝘦𝘶𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘦𝘹 𝘤𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴”. This has to be a nomination for the most ridiculous gender activist statement of the year!.
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Genuine question for gender activists: What’s the rationale for transwomen being women? . Is it their brain? Their identity?behaviour? . Interested to hear what the answers are 🤔.
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It’s important to note that correlation is NOT causation. Just because we observe a different pattern in GD subjects compared to neuro-typical controls, doesn’t not suggest it’s innate (born with) or a product of post natal experience. We simply don’t know.
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@Peaking59433348 I agree. The only way to suggest males with gender dysphoria are “women” is by claiming they have female brains. Once they realise this may not be the case, they take it as a personal attack.
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What’s everyone’s most ridiculous encounter with a gender activist?.
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We see neurological sex differences in every species that’s been studied, it’ll be truly unbelievable if the same didn’t happen in humans. Evolution doesn’t stop at the neck.
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Why is this important? . Well, the same sex atypical hypothalamic response is observed in homosexual men: .
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@zaelefty I’ve done threads to @IanCopeland5 before, but to no response. I listened to the Twitter space he created yesterday, and he often made the point of “if you’re not a biologist/geneticists, you cannot understand the sex binary”. But with his same logic, him not being a.
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In a famous study, the authors compared prepubertal and adolescent children, then suggest sex atypical cerebral differentiation occurs within these individuals.
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There is NO data suggesting anyone has a “gender identity”. The two studies on the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc; a brain region actually involved in fear and anxiety-related neural circuitry) had a combined sample size of six and were confounded by the transgender.
@dyeus__ @JKBisms @hutchinson Nope gender identity is in fact a real observable phenomenon, even in cis people. Fun fact: the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (the part of the brain responsible for self perception and identity) is structurally different in men and women, in trans people it is structurally.
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Another question for gender activists: What’s the criteria for me to become a woman? 🤔.
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Where and how do activists think “gender identity” is encoded into the brain? . Does it arise through white matter? Cortical/sub-cortical structures? Synapses? Local neural networks? Electrical activity? Brain size? Different cell types? . I’d love to know what people think🤔.
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Gender dysphoria is NOT caused by having the body of one sex and a brain of the other….
What controversial academic take would land you in this situation?
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@gwennelsonuk Yes 😂. I’m well aware of the corpus callosum, but my comment was more along the lines of how you noticed that yours was slightly larger than typical (with no reference to compare) with the naked eye. Differences in the corpus callosum are usually better delineated with diffusion.
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When people ask me “do you think there are sex differences in the brain” I say, yes. When people ask me “do you think there are male and female brains” I say, no. Can you tell the difference?.
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Is it a coincidence gender dysphoria and anorexia have similarities within the brain? . Obviously correlation is not causation, but it’s definitely an interesting observation 🤔.
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It’s not scientific to have a pre-made conclusion (i.e., the concept that gender identity is real), and then cherry-pick evidence to support that conclusion.
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Challenge for activists: Show me the BEST science/evidence for “gender identity” in the brain. Give me high quality data that controls for confounding variables, isn’t explained by something else, and uses the best methodology that definitely shows “gender identity”. Go!!!.
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