Once
upon a time, in the fairly recent past, people often asked what made
a person gay or lesbian—taking the perspective that homosexuality
was a pathology that needed explanation. Various theories were
proposed: psychological (could a domineering mother and passive
father be the cause?); moral (was it a failure to embrace
“traditional Christian family values”?); and biological (was
there some hormone imbalance or brain abnormality at fault?).
Today,
when someone comes out as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, the question of
etiology is rarely raised. Lesbian, gay and bisexual rights
advocates are much less likely to spend their time tossing back at the homophobic the
questions, “What made you straight? When did you realize you were
straight? Could you do something to change your heterosexuality if
you tried?” Sexual orientation is generally treated as a fact,
something that is not pathological and that requires no etiological
explanation.
Back
in the 20th
century, however, many advocates for “gay rights” sought to find
a physical cause for homosexuality. They hoped that finding proof
that there was some immutable, biological reason for homosexuality,
beyond the individual's control, would lead to greater social
acceptance. In fact, it was political activism, not scientific
discoveries, that led to the social shift to viewing LGB people as a
minority deserving of protection from bigotry. But for a while, many
“gay rights” activists were focused on finding proof that there
was such a thing as the “gay brain,” and research on the topic
persists today. The size of the hypothalamus of gay men has been argued to
be more similar to straight women's than straight men's. It's been
posited that straight men and lesbians have brains with a right
hemisphere slightly larger than the left, while straight women and
gay men have balanced brains.
Implicit
behind these arguments is a belief that gay men are in some way
effeminate, and lesbians masculine. But LGB activists scoff at this
belief today—the idea that gender expression relates to sexual
orientation now seems offensive and ridiculous. So while scientific
research continues to look for ways in which gay male brains are
“feminine” and lesbian brains are “mannish,” LGB rights
advocates no longer pay much attention.
We've
not come to this point, however, in the struggle for trans gender
rights. Trans people today are making strides, but we're now in the
position LGB people were decades ago. We face a great deal of
discrimination and disgust from the cis gender population, and we are
constantly asked, “What made you trans? Was it psychological
trauma, is it that you don't respect traditional Christian family
values, or is there something wrong with you medically?”
And
just like lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the 20th
century, trans people today face such virulent bigotry that many
trans people hope
finding scientific proof that there is some immutable, physical reason for trans
gender identity, beyond the individual's control, will lead to
greater social acceptance. Today many trans activists are eager to
trumpet neurological studies that purport to show that the brains of
trans men are more like the brains of cis men than of cis women, or
that the brains of trans women are more like those of cis women than
cis men.
It
was the philosopher Descartes who first argued that the brain
contains localized areas that control the body. He declared that the
soul occupied the pineal gland—a theory sounds ridiculous today,
when we know that the pineal glad is more prosaically the structure
that secretes melatonin. But today, many trans people (it must be
clear by now that I am not one of them) are looking for a brain
structure housing gender identity. They argue that people are born
with a “brain sex,” and that if this “brain sex” differs from
the individual's genital sex, they suffer from an intersex condition
that must be treated via gender transition.
I
am deeply uncomfortable with this intersex theory of gender
dysphoria. While I know from personal experience that it gives some
trans people great comfort, and while I worry about seeking to
demolish what others feel is their life raft, I want to lay out my
objections.
My
first objection is a scientific one: gender identity and gendered behavior are
deeply complex. They are no more located in the hypothalamic unciate
nucleus than the soul is located in the pineal gland. If many of
ares of the brain are involved in something as comparatively simple
as speech, how many more must be involved in matters as complex as
sense of self?
A
second objection relates to the entire field that Cordelia Fine names
“neurosexism.” Basically, the entire field of neurological study
of sex differences is pervaded by sexism and flawed by a teleological
approach: “We know that men are good at math, logic and sport,
while women are good at nurturing and communicating, so let's pin
these to some brain differences we can locate. This will show that politically-correct resistance to the idea of eternal gender roles is pointless.” By linking claims
to trans rights to this body of science, we're tying ourselves to
gender stereotypes and a regressive social agenda.
A
third objection is that the brain is a very “plastic” organ,
meaning that it changes over time. For example, when a deaf person
communicates via sign language, different areas of the brain are
“recruited” to process communication than just those used for
oral speech. Furthermore, early and late learners of sign have
different patterns of brain activation when they observe another
person signing. In other words, the brain, like other parts of the
body, is affected by life experience and use--it varies greatly from individual to individual, and for one individual over time. Even if we were to find that
trans men resemble cis men in their patterns of brain use,
this would not mean that such a similarity is inborn. It would just
mean that trans people have life experiences similar to cis people
who share their identified sex, cultural norms, and gendered behavior. This is certainly proof that we experience our gendered identities and lives in the same way cis people do. It is not proof that trans people are born with intersex brains.
Another
objection I have is to the foundational premise at hand: that trans men and
cis men are uniformly masculine in their gendered behavior and style, and
hence distinct from feminine trans and cis women. In fact, there are
plenty of men, cis and trans, who are nurturant parents, or who like
the color pink, or who are bad at sports. There are many women, cis
and trans, who are dominant athletes, have bad verbal skills, are
excellent at spatial relations, or who hate primping. Furthermore,
plenty of trans people are nonbinary in identity, which can't be
explained in the least by this dyadic, reductionist framework.
I
also object as someone who is intersex by birth to the framing of
trans identity as an intersex condition. The difficulties faced by
intersex people can indeed relate to gender identity, since children
born intersex today are forcibly assigned a dyadic sex at birth, and
often subjected to sex reassignment surgery to which they cannot
consent. If the child grows up not to identify with the sex to which
ze was coercively assigned, gender dysphoria results. But no test
has ever been developed that can determine what the eventual gender
identity of an intersex person will be—not in the brain, the
chromosomes, the gonads or the genitals. And the issues intersex
people face center on forced sex assignment in childhood--something which advocates of the intersex brain thesis tacitly support when they argue that since trans status arises from an intersex brain, it "must" be treated medically. Like many
intersex people, I boggle resentfully at the idea held by some trans
people that intersex people are “lucky,” have a privileged
relationship to the medical community, or are free from stigma in our
lives. The belief that being categorized as intersex
would lead to advantages, which causes some trans people to frame trans
identity as an intersex condition, is deeply flawed.
Finally,
I would argue that this entire issue is a distraction. Remember that
it was not the discovery of a brain area “causing” homosexuality
that led to the relative successes of the LGB community in gaining
civil rights. It was activism that led to those gains. The belief
that if differences could be shown to be inborn, liberation would
result, seems hopelessly naïve to me. Bear in mind that for many
decades, scientists argued that women should not be permitted to vote
or attend college because their brains were too small. More starkly,
consider the Holocaust, which was founded on a belief in inborn
racial inferiority. Some intersex conditions can be detected prenatally, but this has not led to more widespread acceptance of intersexuality. When these conditions are detected, doctors typically offer to terminate the pregnancy.
For
all these reasons, I urge people not to hitch the wagon of trans
rights to the idea of inborn, dyadic, neurological differences.
Brains are extraordinarily complex and shaped by culture and
experience over time. Gender identities are multiple, gender roles
constantly evolving, and gender expression varies widely from
individual to individual. Intersex people face huge obstacles, and
framing us as the lucky group to be emulated denies our suffering.
The
solution to transphobia is not neurology, but political activism.
