Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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Charlie
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

Post by Charlie »

Grok wrote:
pelmut wrote: It is no more difficult than telling a child that some people are left-handed.
A metaphor occurred to me:

1. Those who prefer trousers could be described as right handed.

2. Those who prefer skirts could be described as left handed.
I'm left-handed and prefer skirts :D
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

Post by pelmut »

Darryl wrote:
pelmut wrote:
Darryl wrote:Thought experiment:

Take 50 biological male boys, 6th to 8th grade. Take 50 biological female girls, 6th to 8th grade
...What is gender-related? ...
You wouldn't know, because you haven't asked the boys and girls anything about their genders. Your data would only be related to their sex.
So their gender would make no difference in their behavior? We'd only see roles based on physical sex?
You would see the roles based on their physical/biological sex and some of these will corespond to the genders we usually associate with those sexes. However, some of the 'boys' will have feminine gender and will behave feminine and some of the 'girls' will have masculine gender and will behave masculine. The results will be muddled by this and will not be truly representative of gender.

If you want to see which behaviour is truly gender related, you must classified them by gender.

At a more subtle level, you have to consider that some of the feminine boys will give 'masculine' answers because they have been socially obliged to do so or are afraid of giving away their feminine natures.
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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Do you really think there's a, "play with dolls," vs. "play with toy trucks," gene?

Or a pink vs. blue gene?

Or a long vs. short hair gene?

Because I don't think there is. Instead, I believe these are social associations we're so accustomed to that we start thinking they're biologically determined. But I believe most aren't.

I do believe in predispositions, but I don't believe they're nearly as specific as those above. Boys, for example, are usually more aggressive and competitive, and the degree of that in any one person may affect that person's life choices. But that doesn't mean those choices are strictly biologically-determined.
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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Caultron wrote:Do you really think there's a, "play with dolls," vs. "play with toy trucks," gene?

Or a pink vs. blue gene?

Or a long vs. short hair gene?

Because I don't think there is. Instead, I believe these are social associations we're so accustomed to that we start thinking they're biologically determined. But I believe most aren't.
I don't think there is anything to disagree with here, cultural differences are not controlled by genes. Gender is how you see yourself wanting to fit into the prevailing culture, so it will manifest itself differently in different cultures.
I do believe in predispositions, but I don't believe they're nearly as specific as those above. Boys, for example, are usually more aggressive and competitive, and the degree of that in any one person may affect that person's life choices. But that doesn't mean those choices are strictly biologically-determined.
The gender is biologically-determined, but the way it manifests itself is not.

This raises the interesting point that, as sex and gender are both biologically determined, how can someone's brain develop in a different way from their biological sex when they are both controlled by the same thing? The current thinking is that the gonads of a foetus develop fairly early on in pregnancy, whereas the gender-determining part of the brain develops later; if the hormonal conditions change between the two developmental periods, a mis-match occurs and the baby is born transgendered.
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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pelmut wrote:This raises the interesting point that, as sex and gender are both biologically determined, how can someone's brain develop in a different way from their biological sex when they are both controlled by the same thing? The current thinking is that the gonads of a foetus develop fairly early on in pregnancy, whereas the gender-determining part of the brain develops later; if the hormonal conditions change between the two developmental periods, a mis-match occurs and the baby is born transgendered.
This gets closer to something that's been bothering me for some time.

How would you measure or physically detect the gender of a brain, other than observing a desire to flaunt social customs? And mighten that be psychological rather than physical?

Then again, personality does seem to have a physical component, as in habitually being outgoing or recluse, or happy or depressed, or straight or gay...
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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Caultron wrote:..This gets closer to something that's been bothering me for some time.

How would you measure or physically detect the gender of a brain, other than observing a desire to flaunt social customs? And mighten that be psychological rather than physical...
Very recent research into brain activity has discovered clear differences between 'masculine' and 'feminine' brains. Although there are only slight physical differences, the way they react is distinctly different - it is as though the same hardware has been wired up differently before birth. The big surprise was that transwomen show typically feminine brain activity, even though their sex was designated male at birth.

There is a lot of interesting research waiting to be done in that field.
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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pelmut wrote:Very recent research into brain activity has discovered clear differences between 'masculine' and 'feminine' brains. Although there are only slight physical differences, the way they react is distinctly different - it is as though the same hardware has been wired up differently before birth.
That's be interesting to read. Got any specific references?

And did they measure these differences shortly after birth, before any possible social indoctrination?
pelmut wrote:The big surprise was that transwomen show typically feminine brain activity, even though their sex was designated male at birth.
This would certainly support claims that transgenderism has an innate physical base.
pelmut wrote:There is a lot of interesting research waiting to be done in that field.
For sure. I hope they stick to straight science and not to prevailing mores, interest groups, and stereotypes. I suppose that means psychiatry, not psychology.
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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Caultron wrote:[...] I suppose that means psychiatry, not psychology.
Physiology, preferably. Psychology and psychiatry are notoriously imprecise, and the sceptic might not even call them sciences.

The problem is that we do not yet understand how -- or even why -- the brain functions as it does. The blasted thing remains a bit of a cipher. We've got a very, very coarse idea of how parts of it may work, and we've got a rough idea of what parts of it do what, but we're still not to the point on fully understanding the inner workings.
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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Psychiatry deals with the physical operation of the brain using tools like EEGs, MRIs, and drugs.

Psychology deals with emotional well-being, usually through counseling and therapy.
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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Caultron wrote:
pelmut wrote:Very recent research into brain activity has discovered clear differences between 'masculine' and 'feminine' brains. Although there are only slight physical differences, the way they react is distinctly different - it is as though the same hardware has been wired up differently before birth.
That's be interesting to read. Got any specific references?
I found the original paper about a year ago but didn't make a note of the URL at the time, it might have been https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/ ... y-sex.html, but that is coming up as temporarily unobtainable. I have managed to find a 'pop-sci' reference to some of the research at: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... n-touched/ There is information on sex-related brain differences at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20875436, but they ignored the gender of the participants in that study.

Searching for anything relating to gender differences on line is made more difficult by casual use of the word 'gender' in the title when the article is about sex differences and gender played no part in the study - and this comes from research scientists who ought to know better. No wonder the findings are confused.
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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A. E. Brain web site offers articles regarding sexual/gender differentiation of the brain.

http://aebrain.blogspot.com/
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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Sort of related to this thread. There was a short item on the local TV news last Friday about a primary school in Bristol which had just won some sort of equality award. The school provides unisex toilets and teaches that parents don't necessarily have to be male & female (I'm oversimplifying the story here). They also allow boys to wear skirts and dresses.
While the head teacher was being interviewed, there were two girls in the background, distinguishable by their long hair in platts. One was in a skirt, the other in trousers. After the teacher had said her bit, they interviewed a woman from Christian Concern, who rabbited on about sexualising the children. There wan't any real substance to her argument. I got the imprssion that she's still stuck with the mindset that girls can wear what they like, while boys must only wear trousers. I wondered what she sends her daughter to school in.
The presenter went on to point out that the parents were happy with what the school was doing.
What bothered me a bit was that the school said it supports LBGT; the public are now being fed the story that if a boy wants to wear a skirt, he must be wanting to become a girl, and he couldn't possibly want to wear skirts out of preference - like us guys. Nothing is ever said about girls wearing trousers because thay want to become boys :?
I've scoured the local BBC website and farcebook but can find no reference to this story. Perhaps it is not more newsworthy because no-one is making a fuss?
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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Not sure if this is the story you were referring to Charlie:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-41340331
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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Charlie wrote: What bothered me a bit was that the school said it supports LBGT; the public are now being fed the story that if a boy wants to wear a skirt, he must be wanting to become a girl, and he couldn't possibly want to wear skirts out of preference - like us guys. Nothing is ever said about girls wearing trousers because thay want to become boys :?
LBGT is the fashionable cause of today; people like Skirt Cafe members aren't even on the radar.

An individual with a male body-unless LBGT-must conform to rigid gender stereotypes. So we can't possibly be interested in garments that are associated almost entirely with females.
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Re: Couple Withdraw Their Son From School

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Charlie wrote:...What bothered me a bit was that the school said it supports LBGT; the public are now being fed the story that if a boy wants to wear a skirt, he must be wanting to become a girl, and he couldn't possibly want to wear skirts out of preference - like us guys...
When confronted with new information or ideas, human beings try to integrate them with what they already know. And in this case, what they already know are drag queens and transsexuals, and so that's where they slot any boy who wants to wear a skirt or dress.

But hopefully, with time, their world view will expand.
Courage, conviction, nerve, verve, dash, panache, guts, nuts, balls, gall, élan, stones, whatever. Get some and get skirted.

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