Except they were able to assign values of masculinity and femininity to the traits in the first place, which more or less disproves their conclusion.That's not quite right. There are very few brains with only "male" or "female" traits in 10 regions, and that small number is even less in brains that aren't quite done developing, or have only just stopped (ages 18-26).
But it's not that a brain tends to have more traits in common with either side of its gender spectrum.
In other words, there were very few individuals whose brain regions were all malelike or femalelike. And there was no clear continuum between the two endpoints. Instead, across both gray and white matter and in connectivity patterns, brains are so overlapping that calling a particular form male or female is meaningless, Joel and her colleagues wrote.It's not that brains are mostly one gender or the other along a line. They don't hold to any binary and have zero (Edit: "zero" might be an exaggeration, but not by much it seems) sexual dimorphism whatsoever.Not exactly. Here's how they determined malelike and femalelike structures:
In the first analysis, using brain scans from 169 men and 112 women, the researchers defined "malelike" and "femalelike" as the 33% most extreme gender-difference scores on gray matter from 10 regions. Even with this generous designation of "male" and "female" scores, the researchers found little evidence of the consistency they would need to prove brain dimorphism.So masculinity and femininity don't factor in, in their usual meanings (maybe you're using those words in place of "having x-like brain structure"? Let me know if I'm misunderstanding you). They determined what is a "malelike" brain structure by its commonality in men, but its not necessarily associated with what are considered "masculine" traits.
I just jumped threads because this is being discussed in the On the Problems with Communication, Discourse, and Social Justice thread as well. I apologize for bringing completely the wrong tone into this thread.
Second, yes, I was using masculine and feminine as referring to the brain structures, and not physical or behavioral traits. It's kinda the theme of the other thread, being about how we have different understandings of words so we talk past eachother, so of course we keep talking past eachother :)
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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Also, they were "able to assign" brain structures as gender-like because they arbitrarily picked a commonality range to determine whether they were gender-like! There was no hard and fast, clear cut way to determine what structures would be considered common to a given gender other than selecting what "common" meant with a numerical value.
It's worth mentioning that brains continue to develop after birth and change in microscopic ways every day.
It's entirely possible that these "malelike" and "femalelike" traits they observed are either A) based on cultural preconceptions, and/or B) a result of the brain adapting to the environment (culture influencing the brain in ways that the brain perceives as "what is necessary to survive/succeed").
Also, they were "able to assign" brain structures as gender-like because they arbitrarily picked a commonality range to determine whether they were gender-like! There was no hard and fast, clear cut way to determine what structures would be considered common to a given gender other than selecting what "common" meant with a numerical value.
You do know you're saying something very much like "You can't decide if red apples are common among the 100 apples checked without deciding how many red of 100 apples there would have to be for red apples to be common"?
Of course they have to make a cutoff value. They took the 33% of traits that were most different in each direction and called them male and female traits.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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Also, they were "able to assign" brain structures as gender-like because they arbitrarily picked a commonality range to determine whether they were gender-like! There was no hard and fast, clear cut way to determine what structures would be considered common to a given gender other than selecting what "common" meant with a numerical value.You do know you're saying something very much like "You can't decide if red apples are common among the 100 apples checked without deciding how many red of 100 apples there would have to be for red apples to be common"?
Of course they have to make a cutoff value. They took the 33% of traits that were most different in each direction and called them male and female traits.
I've been listening to Sufjan Stevens' 4-disc Christmas album a lot lately. I highly recommend it, it's nice and you can skip the weird autotune parts if you don't like that sort of thing.
Sooo... um, this is gonna be rather off-topic, for which apologies, but.
Is anybody on here located anywhere areound Salem and/or Portland (in Oregon, the US); just moved to the area, myself, and jonesing for people to at least talk game with, in realspace. Old, Luddite gaymer with preference for face-to-face discussions...
/plaintive whine
We now return you to your brain structure discussion.
:)
Life sometimes gives us interesting situations. Please forgive any offense in the following, I'm trying to learn.
Today I was waved over by a cashier, and this is where my questioning comes in...
The associate's name tag read "Jessica". However, aside from hair-style, they looked more male than female.
I used her name when I thanked her, though her voice was more towards male than female.
Was that the proper etiquette for the situation?
Side Note: I really couldn't ask a whole bunch of questions then and there with the cashier, as it was busy. It's the first situation I've run into under these sorts of circumstances, and I'm trying to learn/get a 'feel' for how to handle such a situation in the future without being rude or ignorant?
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System Administrator
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Sooo... um, this is gonna be rather off-topic, for which apologies, but.
Is anybody on here located anywhere areound Salem and/or Portland (in Oregon, the US); just moved to the area, myself, and jonesing for people to at least talk game with, in realspace. Old, Luddite gaymer with preference for face-to-face discussions...
/plaintive whine
We now return you to your brain structure discussion.
:)
Lots of awesome gaymers in Portland. Might find more by going to a local PFS gathering. They're good people. =) We're fairly close but don't get down there very often and usually it has a specific purpose.
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This is off topic but it's worth it.
On 10/27 I went into surgery for the gastric lap sleeve. The surgery was successful and I'm down 55 pounds within just a couple weeks.
However, I found out the hard way that I should never take heparin. I had a rare reaction to it called Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia. My platelets dropped so low that I developed a blood clot about 2 x 3 inches. My brain was getting no blood at all. I went to the ER and it took me a few days to remember my name and birthday. It took me 2 weeks to be released and I'm still having complications that require ER visits and 5 doctors.
All that being said because one of my friends pointed out that there was a sign behind my hospital bed that read HIT CRITICAL. That's how nerdy we are. I literally was critically hit.
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This is off topic but it's worth it.
On 10/27 I went into surgery for the gastric lap sleeve. The surgery was successful and I'm down 55 pounds within just a couple weeks.
However, I found out the hard way that I should never take heparin. I had a rare reaction to it called Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia. My platelets dropped so low that I developed a blood clot about 2 x 3 inches. My brain was getting no blood at all. I went to the ER and it took me a few days to remember my name and birthday. It took me 2 weeks to be released and I'm still having complications that require ER visits and 5 doctors.
All that being said because one of my friends pointed out that there was a sign behind my hospital bed that read HIT CRITICAL. That's how nerdy we are. I literally was critically hit.
I'm glad you are still with us.
Congratulations, Bob. I mean it. Every once in a while, we have horrible bad luck. Every so often, we have absurd good luck. You had both. Good to see you back.
Glad you're still with us, Bob! I hope that your recovery continues smoothly and that you have no more unpleasant health surprises come your way.
Welcome back, OW, and dang.
I'm having horrible problems. I'm confident they will figure everything out and I will be better. I do not regret the surgery.
Just dropping in, but best of luck, Bob_Loblaw. It's rotten how things went wrong, but congratulations on getting the surgery done, and I hope those complications simplify themselves soon enough!
So I have a question for those who don't yet mind answering the questions from this poorly-educated kobold. This is something I've been trying to work out for a while, but the keywords are too general and question too complicated for Google and that's pretty much my one resource. I personally lack the scope, and while I have friends who are probably qualified, I don't think they want to have to deal with my education on this matter. This question isn't directly about the LGBTAQ spectrum, but there's definitely a connection. Obviously, I'm not asking anybody who's not particularly interested in helping out to do so—I just don't want to make a whole big thread for a single query. I apologize if this question annoys anyone or clogs the thread with tangential conversation.
What does gender mean?
More and more, we're learning that the differences between "male" and "female" minds are less and less significant—that they're more developed culturally than inherently. So what does it mean to identify strongly as one particular gender? This question applies to pretty much all identities and types of identities, but I feel that people who don't identify as the gender they were initially assigned are more likely to have answers themselves.
I know gender identity doesn't come down to which gender role you feel more comfortable in, or whether you feel more or less "masculine" or "feminine". So what does it come down to? I feel like this is a pretty huge gap in my understanding.
In short, what are the mental or physical cues that direct a person towards one gender or another or neither?
EDIT: Okay, did I really decide to post this right after a big discussion on that very matter? I can't load that article, so it's difficult to tell.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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For a question as big as "What is gender?" I would advise you to look into works on gender theory. You might try Judith Butler (although she's notoriously difficult to read) and Bell Hooks for starters. With an entire field dedicated to the study of what gender is and how it works, I'm sure you can find some good reading on it. I'm not really sure that it's the kind of thing that can be answered in a single forum post (even a long one) :P
I'm sure there's also some gender-related neuroscience and other biology, but that's outside of my particular knowledge set.
Bob, wow; glad you're still with us. Have had some blood clot issues/anticoagulant issues, myself, following bypass surgery. No fun; look forward to hearing you're all the way out of it.
Kristev, hi and welcome!
Lissa, thanks for the advice, though the commute is a limiting factor; Salem is close to Portland, but usually w/o the requisite transportation... Have been looking up local game stores, though their organised play seems centered on 5e D&D (not ideal. But way better than 4e, so I guess I won't b$%%& about it. Much).
Anyhow. Merry Whatevers to all (even if it's just Merry Wintertime).
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For a question as big as "What is gender?" I would advise you to look into works on gender theory. You might try Judith Butler (although she's notoriously difficult to read) and Bell Hooks for starters. With an entire field dedicated to the study of what gender is and how it works, I'm sure you can find some good reading on it. I'm not really sure that it's the kind of thing that can be answered in a single forum post (even a long one) :P
I'm sure there's also some gender-related neuroscience and other biology, but that's outside of my particular knowledge set.
Yeah, it's a difficult topic since many people are often coming from different definitions of the same thing based on what field they're coming from. Gender theorists and other critical theory/philosophy groups don't communicate much with neuroscientists and biologists, and there's more than a little acrimony between some of those disciplines over standards of evidence and other topics. I would venture to say IMO that some of the critical theory bunch have a bad habit of simply making things up and spinning theories based on zero empirical evidence.
Gender roles and social standards of gender expression are clearly social in nature and learned. Gender variance in behavior versus social norms might not have anything to do with being unhappy with your gender identity versus natal assignment. These things have little to nothing to do with biology most likely, but neurochemistry is a subtle, cantankerous thing and it worms its way in like a whispering familiar of influence.
Internal gender identity however seems to the best of our knowledge to be exclusively biological in nature, but it isn't a simple binary either, as it seems to occur on a sliding scale. It's a fascinating field and it's exploded in terms of the number of studies and the quality of the studies in the past five to ten years.
But there's still not much talk between the critical theorists in social science departments and their hard science colleagues doing neurochemistry/developmental biology work. They should, and let the pieces fall as they may insomuch as it concerns the true nature of it all.
Obviously with more data, we learn and understand thing better, and my beliefs are open to change with that new evidence.
For a question as big as "What is gender?" I would advise you to look into works on gender theory. You might try Judith Butler (although she's notoriously difficult to read) and Bell Hooks for starters. With an entire field dedicated to the study of what gender is and how it works, I'm sure you can find some good reading on it. I'm not really sure that it's the kind of thing that can be answered in a single forum post (even a long one) :P
I'm sure there's also some gender-related neuroscience and other biology, but that's outside of my particular knowledge set.
I get that. I was just curious what it was that tells someone "I am male/female/neither" when it barely seems like anybody in our culture really has any idea what those words mean.
I'll try out Bell Hooks sometime. Thanks for the recc.
For a question as big as "What is gender?" I would advise you to look into works on gender theory. You might try Judith Butler (although she's notoriously difficult to read) and Bell Hooks for starters. With an entire field dedicated to the study of what gender is and how it works, I'm sure you can find some good reading on it. I'm not really sure that it's the kind of thing that can be answered in a single forum post (even a long one) :P
I'm sure there's also some gender-related neuroscience and other biology, but that's outside of my particular knowledge set.
I get that. I was just curious what it was that tells someone "I am male/female/neither" when it barely seems like anybody in our culture really has any idea what those words mean.
I'll try out Bell Hooks sometime. Thanks for the recc.
Here's bell hooks in conversation with Laverne Cox.
And here's Judith Butler discussing her views on gender in relation to trans people.
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I also think Todd makes a good distinction between gender roles and gender expression on the one hand, and gender identity on the other.
May your observance be tranquil and rejuvenating as the year passes through the dark time into the beckoning of the new spring.
May your observance be tranquil and rejuvenating as the year passes through the dark time into the beckoning of the new spring.
You've never been to a Swedish Lucia or Midwinter party, have you? ;)
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You've never been to a Swedish Lucia or Midwinter party, have you? ;)
May your observance be tranquil and rejuvenating as the year passes through the dark time into the beckoning of the new spring.
I can feel my hangover returning just thinking about the last one I went to.
Don we now our gay apparel, as they say.
I feel pretty!
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You've never been to a Swedish Lucia or Midwinter party, have you? ;)
May your observance be tranquil and rejuvenating as the year passes through the dark time into the beckoning of the new spring.
No.
I've been working in retail for over two decades. This *is* our dark time of the year, where the seething roiling masses denude our shelves of products like an army of ants, then repeat the process more rapidly as the day of not-quite-That Guy-Mas rolls around.. and then a week later with the 'not-quite-the-Year's End and now IS'.
As a result, a quiet tranquil restful time in a contemplative corner is ideal for best spiritual healing...
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So, this Christmas is a mixed bag; I just moved away from my home in Anchorage to Salem Oregon. On the plus side, that means I have family I haven't seen in years around me for this holiday season. On the other hand, the friends I love and depend upon are a thousand miles away, including the guy I love with all my heart. So, of two minds/hearts about it all. Having an outbreak of poetry in attempt to manage all the emotional freight.
Quitting Smoking and Orbital Mechanics with a Dash of Last Unicorn
Because, you.
I want to live long
For the longer I linger,
Malingering
In orbit around
Your binary system;
A rogue planetoid
Or maybe -- if I'm graceful
-- a rogue moon
The more likely
(Thinks I)
I may savor
All the old memories
Of you
Made new again.
You make me new,
Like king Haggard and the sea
(full of trapped unicorns).
Ikagi, I know
The metaphors are mixed;
The impulse is sure.
For sure,
I love you more
Than those damn cigarettes.
When once more
Into the breach,
I want to wrap you
In that fuzzy, silver-grey
Roll blanket
And carry the smell of you away
When our orbits drift apart...
Until the next time
Perigee tilts in our favor
And we weave our paths again.
Thanks, CH.
And back at ya with the holiday happies!
Anyone interested in writing m/m (or more varied queer but involving the concept of "Gents") steam punk stories?
There is a call for submissions: Steamy Tales From The Age Of Steam.
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Poking nose back in thread yet again.
Hey everybody, had to set my main avatar name and come out of the closet (so to say). But because I had been using Usual Suspect as my default alias I can't change my main avatar name to that; so now I'm "The Usual Suspect" just so I can show off my shiny new Venture-Agent tag.
Long live the Shadow Lodge. ;)
Edit: Hrmmmm. Not showing my proper name and VA status in here like it is most everywhere else. Strange. Does your main avatar post differently in different topics? Man!!! I wanted to brag and show off that I'm at the bottom of the pecking order finally!!!
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I think it shows your name and status in the PFS subforum. A similar thing goes on with RPG Superstar contestant and voter rankings.
Congratulations on your new position!
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I HAVE SIX MORE PIECES TO EDIT AND AM GOING TO AUDITION TO DO AUDIOBOOKS FOR THE LGBT EROTICA I EDIT WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Also I made 6.43 this last quarter editing.
The sweet taste of professional success...
I'd say congratulations there, too, but given how loud you announced I think I'll need surgery first. =P
Good work, though!
Well, it's been all quiet on the queer front here, it seems, but I thought that this was worth sharing.
That's kind of neat, especially putting it in the context of 'uniform'. That way, it's not a violation when individuals attempt to explore options with their clothing, it's just a uniform, and no direct baggage attached.
It'll be interesting to see how that works out.
Many British school uniforms are unisex, so whatever your plumbing, you end up wearing shirt and trousers to school, whereas others might offer a skirt option (with a unisex upper half).
Others still have a more classic male/female split, which is where this will come in handy.