Research woes
I seem to have found the only article in existance about brain differences between transsexuals/transgendered people, and heterosexual cisgendered people. There are a ton of review articles on gender, gender determination, and TS and TG, but they all refer back to that same article - "Male-to-Female Transsexuals have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus." Just articles on gender identity, or even sexual identity, that are related to biology are difficult to find. There are some on CAH and the masculinization affects it has on behavior and gender roles of the girls with the disorder, which will be useful, but not terribly so. How can it be that no one has done any research on this?
Even more annoying - why is all the research that has been done so depressingly binary. It's all "yes, MTF's have female brains" or "the decision to of which sex to raise an intersexed child as is a difficult one". The article about "girls with CAH may display masculine behavior, but they do not generally have GID or become transgendered" was a little less binary, but still, all the articles and authors and institutions feel this need to classify everyone into neat little male or female packages. There seems to less concern now, compared to in the past, about if the chromosomal sex matches the sex the child is raised, but they still have to be able to check off "male" or "female" on a form. What is so wrong with letting those kids grow up neutral/androgynous, and let them decide for themselves how they want to present? I have not found anything mentioning that option. I haven't even found anything much about gender dysphoric people/children (as opposed to GID), except that they usually improve with therapy. What kind of therapy? Do they actually improve? Are their brains different from typical cisgendered male and females?
This makes me wonder what my brain looks like. According to every internet (and a couple non-internet) quiz things I've taken, my brain (and basic presentation for that matter) is in the androgynous-to-masculine range. So...what does my BSTc look like? If BSTc's can differentiate for male and female, it would make sense that they could have a size in between male and female. (For the record, males have BSTc's (a sexually dimorphic area of the brain that is associated with the amygdala, and which controls emtions related to anxiety and stress, and which may be involved in gender identity) that are nearly twice as large as the BSTc's of females.)
Anyway, it's getting increasingly irritating to not find any articles on what I want. I'm sure I'll be able to pull together enough for a research paper (although it's going to take more effort than I was hoping it would), but it's frustrating to assume that there's data out there - especially now when gender and sexual orientation is a somewhat prominent issue - and there's no data to be found.
ETA: "gender nonconformity" and "tomboys" are good keywords. Yay more articles.
Even more annoying - why is all the research that has been done so depressingly binary. It's all "yes, MTF's have female brains" or "the decision to of which sex to raise an intersexed child as is a difficult one". The article about "girls with CAH may display masculine behavior, but they do not generally have GID or become transgendered" was a little less binary, but still, all the articles and authors and institutions feel this need to classify everyone into neat little male or female packages. There seems to less concern now, compared to in the past, about if the chromosomal sex matches the sex the child is raised, but they still have to be able to check off "male" or "female" on a form. What is so wrong with letting those kids grow up neutral/androgynous, and let them decide for themselves how they want to present? I have not found anything mentioning that option. I haven't even found anything much about gender dysphoric people/children (as opposed to GID), except that they usually improve with therapy. What kind of therapy? Do they actually improve? Are their brains different from typical cisgendered male and females?
This makes me wonder what my brain looks like. According to every internet (and a couple non-internet) quiz things I've taken, my brain (and basic presentation for that matter) is in the androgynous-to-masculine range. So...what does my BSTc look like? If BSTc's can differentiate for male and female, it would make sense that they could have a size in between male and female. (For the record, males have BSTc's (a sexually dimorphic area of the brain that is associated with the amygdala, and which controls emtions related to anxiety and stress, and which may be involved in gender identity) that are nearly twice as large as the BSTc's of females.)
Anyway, it's getting increasingly irritating to not find any articles on what I want. I'm sure I'll be able to pull together enough for a research paper (although it's going to take more effort than I was hoping it would), but it's frustrating to assume that there's data out there - especially now when gender and sexual orientation is a somewhat prominent issue - and there's no data to be found.
ETA: "gender nonconformity" and "tomboys" are good keywords. Yay more articles.