Stop Looking For The Trans Brain
On Western science, asparagus, and right-wing media.
“Transgender brains are more like their desired gender from an early age”
“Brain Sex in Transgender Women Is Shifted towards Gender Identity”
“Neural Systems for Own-body Processing Align with Gender Identity Rather Than Birth-assigned Sex”
All of these are titles of real scientific articles written about trans people. All of them reach a conclusion that one would think trans people would be excited for:
“Trans people exist, and they’re the genders they say they are, according to brain scans.”
But here’s the thing: I’m not looking for the trans brain. I am a scientist, yes, but I’m also queer. Often, these two identities are in tension: valuing parts of Western empiricism & quantitative data (scientist) versus embracing the liminal, the lived gray area—or rainbow area—between easily-identifiable groups, and rejecting simple categorizations (queer).
To encourage my readers to practice “queering” their STEM sensibilities, I’d like to propose three questions that get at why such findings aren’t that encouraging, actually.
Question #1: Okay, so what now?
or, “What do we now do with this information?”
Trans women’s brains tend to look like cis women’s brains, and trans men’s brains tend to look like cis men’s brains. Fantastic. What’s the actionable next step from this?
Is it, perhaps, requiring that all trans people pass a brain scan in order to acquire hormones or pursue a legal name change? Should—can—one biological metric be the sole deciding factor in how health care is distributed? What about those who don’t pass the scan for whatever reason? Why are we letting the state decide/surveil who’s trans; why can’t we just believe people when they say they’re trans (see Q2)? And most importantly, why are we reinventing biological essentialism, when years of feminist scholarship has been devoted to the idea that there is no meaningful difference between women and men?
Another elephant in the room here is non-binary people; what are their brains “supposed” to look like? The cold reality is that “male or female brains” don’t really exist in biology. The brains of men have no distinct anatomical “parts” that the brains of women don’t. Rather, what we call “male brains” (the brains belonging to those who we call males) and “female brains” (the brains belonging to those who we call females) contain differences such as “the average ratio of grey matter to white matter”. These are not fixed values that are pre-determined at birth. They fall on distributions, analogous to something like height; on average, women are indeed shorter than men, but we do have tall women and short kings (and I’m a fan of both of them). Furthermore, these minor differences in our brains’ cellular makeup are influenced by numerous biological AND social factors, so it’s basically impossible to deconvolute the two. Are females simply “biologically” more nurturing and males more spatially-aware, or do we just give little girls dolls to play with and trucks for boys?
No, there is no such thing as a “male brain or a female brain” from a biological perspective. But of course, public knowledge about biology affects how we treat one another: the story is never “the averages of the distributions of the dataset, limited by our current binary gender modality and sample size, demonstrates a statistically-significant trend that those assigned male at birth have a higher ratio of grey matter to white matter”. The story is “men are more logical”. Which is to say, “men” (not males) “are” (absolute, not nuanced or flexible) “more logical” (this one is just sexism).
Biological essentialism is a curse upon scientific disciplines. It defines traits as intrinsically male or female and cleaves them to gender without any regard for nuance or the sociopolitical implications of the science being done. All scientists should be wary of any work being done that aims to conclude “who” a person is based on irrelevant biometric data.
Question #2: Why did we need “science” to tell us that?
or, “Why didn’t you just believe us to begin with?”
Don’t get me wrong: as an engineer, I am inherently curious about how the world works. I believe in the value of legitimate inquiry, and if we can quantify observable phenomena or model them well with concrete relationships, even better.
At the same time, if the conclusion of all your work is “trans women really are women”… I could have told you that.
The current medical guidelines for transition involve robust psychiatric assessment where a patient works with a professional to determine if transition is right for them. This is especially true for minors, for whom medical interventions are extremely limited and the therapy visits go up. As a result, transition care has been wildly successful for those who need it; no biometric data needed. Throw in the fact that trans people have existed across time and cultures (and were doing pretty fine until colonialism erased us), we can see that brain scans—a relatively new invention on a cosmic timescale—are not necessary to tell us who people “really” are.
Because you can just…ask them. Wild, right?
Science has a strange relationship with popular culture, especially conservative culture. They deny the existence of COVID-19, or say it’s real but downplay its severity (whichever is most convenient to them in the moment). They question the efficacy of vaccines that are proven to work. They deny climate change’s already-visible impacts on the world. But the moment a trans person walks in? “There Are TWO Genders: Male and Female. Trust The Science!” The appeal to authority that inherently comes with capital-s Science is wielded as a weapon, including—and especially—when the actual science disagrees with them.
The Left must be in service to facts; we have no choice, for our job is to point out the flaws in society and work to fix them so we can move towards the future, which usually involves acquiring data to prove that these problems exist and evaluate how the already-implemented solutions are going. But Conservatives have no loyalty to facts. To them, facts are merely pieces on a checkerboard that they can move around or sacrifice at will to meet their end goal, for their job is to move society backwards to a state in the past. They use whatever tools are available to them; usually nostalgia and weaponized incompetence, but when it’s useful to their end goal (and only then), they do invoke the sacred name of Science, just another weapon in their arsenal.
The way Science/facts/statistics are presented always tells a story. If I tell you the “fact” that 40% of trans youth attempt suicide, you might be led to the conclusion that transitioning is dangerous and thus we should prevent kids from doing it. However, if I tell you the additional (more complete) fact that this number drops by 40% when those kids have one (1) adult in their life who supports that transition, you may start to realize that transitioning isn’t the problem; the problem is a transphobic society.
We give capital-s “Science” so much control over the way we view the world. Therefore, we should have a responsibility to look at ALL the science, the FULL picture, before forming our perspectives. And perhaps, we should also critique whether we should even let Western ideas of science have this much power in the first place…
Question #3: Why do we need an “explanation” for LGBTQIA+ identity in the first place?
or, “why can’t we just accept that a certain portion of the human population is born queer and/or trans and move on with our lives?”
Here’s my hot take: I believe the pursuit of a ‘why’ for trans people is the pursuit of a method to destroy trans people. It’s fascism dressed in a lab coat.
Let’s do a fun case study.
Imagine that, somehow, a statistically-significant link is found between the likelihood of having an offspring who identifies as LGBTQIA+ and asparagus consumption. Which is to say that, for whatever biochemical reason, the more asparagus you eat, the more likely your kid is going to be trans. (While untrue, it would certainly explain all the Western Mass queers…)
I can see it now: headlines reading “ASPARAGUS MAKES YOUR KIDS GAY”, a whole new wave of gay panic followed by calls for government regulations on all asparagus, and screw it, why not green beans too, just to be safe? Parenting books and Facebook posts urging parents to stay away from The Devil’s Liliaceae, TERFs parading in the streets with anti-asparagus signs, a small handful of trans-affirming parents defiantly posting videos of them eating asparagus (but each one countered by thousands of hate comments). All because of a transphobic right-wing media infrastructure that profits off division and appealing to fascism.
Now, this is just a silly example that I just made up to demonstrate the absurd and violent nature of our modern politics. But let’s say it were something else, something more “politically charged”, something that had a material impact on people’s lives.
What if the “source of transness” was found to be, say, insulin? Plant-based meat alternatives and other foods that are high in phytoestrogens? Thyroid medication? Artificial breast milk? Natural breast milk? Birth control? Certain brands of abortion pill?
I’ll tell you what if: there would be blood in the streets.
To be perfectly clear, no link has been found between any of these and human sexuality or gender identity. But I could easily see a study in the next few years connecting LGBTQIA+ youth identity to, say, the use of one of these drugs by the mother. The study wouldn’t even necessarily need to be biochemical in nature: perhaps some confounding variable exists, such as women who took birth control for several years before having kids tending to lean more liberal, and liberal moms being more likely to accept their queer kid, meaning that kid is more likely to come out to their parent (as opposed to queer kids of conservative parents, who exist but tend to stay in the closet or never even realize that they’re queer).
I can see it now: headlines reading “BIRTH CONTROL MAKES YOUR KIDS GAY”, a whole new wave of gay panic followed by a swift ban on all products containing progesterone, estradiol, and screw it, why not levonorgestrel (Plan B) too, just to be safe? Trans women left unable to get hormones, cis women unable to prevent pregnancy and slipping back to a pre-1800s societal status as they’re forced into marriages with abusive men. All because of a transphobic right-wing media infrastructure that profits off division and appealing to fascism.
[No mock-up image is needed here, I think.]
Even among the trans community, there’s this ever-present desire to label everything into neat, “innate” categories. When looking to the past in search of our ancestors, we feel this need to force the “trans” label onto those who may not have used it. Gender-diverse people have existed across time and culture, but the concept of “transgender” is itself a Western invention, an attempt to map an infinity of possibility into yet another binary (cis/trans).
Some questions need to be dissolved, rather than resolved. I’m not saying we need to “suppress free speech” or “stop asking questions” about trans people, I’m saying we need to start asking better questions about trans people.
For example…
The following are empirically-measurable facts:
Trans people exist, and in some form, always have (see: countless historical accounts, or your own eyeballs/ears/other senses).
People who self-identify as trans see enormous benefits when starting to socially transition, and this is true at all ages.
People who self-identify as trans see enormous benefits when starting to medically transition using hormone replacement therapy and, for adults, gender-affirming surgery.
However, access to such care is being made illegal in many American states, tantamount to legislative genocide.
Trans people face an increased risk of violence, especially at additional socioeconomic intersections, such as being Black and trans.
1 in 6 trans people have had an eating disorder, compared to 1 in 50 for cisgender people.
Trans people are discriminated against in the workplace, and are twice as likely as cisgender people to be unemployed.
As such, suicidality is high among trans people, but this risk can be mitigated with a strong social support network and, once again, affordable access to social & medical transition resources.
So maybe, instead of asking:
why are some people trans?
we can start asking:
okay, so some people need to transition, and those who do are currently marginalized in our society…
how can we help them?
Currently Reading
Last week, after years of stimming on my Pela Case, the polymer-plant composite protecting my iPhone 11 Pro finally deformed to the point where it no longer served its primary function. Which is a heady way to say, I cracked my phone screen for the first time in my life. Within a matter of days, I got the screen replaced, ordered two new compostable phone cases, and in the spirit of Spring renewal, I also finally upgraded from iOS 15.whatever.whocares to iOS 16.3.1. With these three upgrades, I now genuinely feel as though I own a brand-new iPhone! The case feels sturdier in my hands, the screen is scratch-free and bright, and the lush new visuals of my home screen give me a sense that I just dropped $1000, when it was really more like $200. Naturally, this got me thinking of right to repair laws, and how we all should be able to swap out our phone screens, batteries, graphics cards, operating systems, and more on a whim. This seemingly “non-sexy” issue lies at the heart of modern politics, a struggle between corporate control over our livelihoods and the everyday person’s right to modify their devices as they like. Luckily, Massachusetts is reportedly going to start enforcing its new automobile right-to-repair law starting on June 1st!
To deal with the plastic’s crisis, Chevron wants to burn plastic and turn it into a fuel which could cause 1 in 4 people exposed to it to develop cancer. There’s no nicer way to say this: using this fuel would be absolutely batshit, and Chevron needs to be stopped.
Lately I’ve been re-reading my favorite fiction book of all time, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. It’s a postmodern horror story that’s somehow both a found-footage documentary and an academic paper. And I love it. If you want to understand my fucked-up brain even more than you can from this newsletter, go get yourself a physical copy of the remastered full-color edition, since it’s impossible to read as an audiobook (you’ll see).
Something that made me smile: “The Onion’s Exclusive Interview With J.K. Rowling”.
Watch History
Recently, a transphobic opinion piece by a cis woman about her encounter with a trans woman in a bathroom stall made it rounds in the U.K. media. The woman, local politician Ruby Sampson, falsely claimed that the trans woman in question made an allusion to her penis in their short conversation. Interestingly, that trans woman turned out to be Sophie McAllister, aka Sophie From Mars, one of my favorite content creators and a bonified trans activist. In this podcast episode, Sophie details the surreal experience of being sexually harassed in the British media. It’s not even the only time in the past week that a far-right politician has attempted to harass trans people publicly, only for trans people to publicly clap back. As awful as the overall story is, I am slightly encouraged by the fact that trans women finally have SOME voice in telling our own stories. For most of recent history, trans women have lived strictly in the underground, having to face all manners of violence and harassment. Now, when people harass us, we can use our platforms to fight back. Let this be a message to all cis people: We’re no longer sub-humans who you can fuck and abuse in the shadows while ignoring us in “real life”. We are out and proud and here to stay. 🏳🌈
“Clap backs” can only accomplish so much, of course. This new video essay by Sarah Z (not that one) tries to cope with the “point” of video essays as a genre, something I’ve been considering myself as a TikToker who makes micro-essays. For more deconstructions of online media, see Caleb Gamman’s work and The Leftist Cook’s new video in the same vein.
A trans man’s feelings about body dysmorphia. Trans men’s perspectives are absolutely essential to understanding gendered oppression, since men do have it rough in many areas of life. (Related: my own video on The Liver King)
Don’t sleep on Shanspeare’s biting social commentary. This month, they put out a video on the aesthetics of modern defiant girlhood (and its roots in whiteness).
Bops, Vibes, & Jams
A recently put out a Spotify playlist of all the songs I’ve been listening to this past winter. Check it out here!
And now, your weekly Koko.
That’s all for now! See you next week with more sweet, sweet content.
In solidarity,
-Anna
I would love to pick your brain someday on being queer and an academic in STEM! It does feel conflicting a lot of the time, and I do feel like I'm operating in a gray area. Your insights are enlightening, love your work 😊