Crossing over

[differenceblog]

Cognitive testing on people undergoing transgender therapy is rare, but has happened on a few occasions. The Netherlands seem to be the source of much of this research. Van Goozen et al (1995) found differences in spatial and verbal ability in both female-to-male and male-to-female transsexuals after just three months on hormone therapy. Hulshoff

Comments

[poeticalpanther]

Yah, I would have said "transitioned" have a higher socio-economic class, rather than "existing", for that very reason.

[differenceblog]

Well, another issue is that post-transition, so many transsexuals have trouble getting or keeping jobs that their socio-economic class takes a serious downturn.

Mine has done nothing but improve, but I attribute that more to career growth and aging than my new presenting sex. Perhaps that's naive. I do joke that I transitioned because I wanted to earn 30% more without working any harder. I really hope that isn't why I am earning more.

[astrogeek01]

So the way the first part is written, it sounds like they're monitoring changes over time - but in your comment it sounds more like their controls are non-trans people. Which is it?

[differenceblog]

I think both controls are necessary. People tend to get better at tests when they are administered several times - so in order to compare results over time, you need a matched control group that has been similarly tested.

I chose all three of these studies because they had both pre- and post-hormones testing, as well as a non-hormone treated control group.

[astrogeek01]

Ah, I see. :) Though I imagine one does not get better at the MRI part. ;)

You will tell me when you need volunteers for brain scans right? Should you ever need any?

[differenceblog]

Heh. I don't know how/if I will ever get into neuroimaging at this rate. But I'll let you know.

[7kim_moon]

I'm not sure of an ethical way to do it, but I'd really like to see studies done with a non-treated transsexual control group.

There may be enough non-op, no-hormones TS's (i.e. people not seeking hormonal treatment) about now that this control group could be done ethically -- if they don't desire hormones there's no ethical problem with not giving them hormones.

Of course, there's sometimes been some question of whether no-op no-ho TS's are "really" TS's at all; and it's a murky issue whether the question is an arbitrary nomenclatural and definitional distinction or whether there is some substantive difference between such people (sometimes called "transgenderists") and surgical transsexuals.

[differenceblog]

I don't think that no-op transsexuals would be the right control group, though. I think what I'm really looking for is placebo studies. I suspect that cognitive testing is too easily influenced by expectation.

[amberite]

Something I'm guessing -- have no clear line of data for this, just bits and pieces and many many anecdotes -- is that different areas of the brain are differently hormone-dependent in different people. I'm really interested in what will be different when I start on T at the end of this week. I am highly, highly verbal (and losing verbal capacity is one of the deal-breaker, worst-case scenario things for me, the things that would just get me to say fuck it, I'm going to try to deal as female -- Oddly enough, on days I've taken DHEA in the past, I've noticed less speech capacity but similar or higher textual fluency -- no especial writer's block -- and I know I imprinted text before speech, so I'm hoping/suspecting that if my verbal areas turn out to be hormone-related this particular area won't be