Nikki Hiltz is tired of being misgendered by announcers: "I can’t just be like, ‘Oh, no worries, it’s okay."

RunRagged wrote:

Let it Rupp wrote:

RunRagged...you can't accept the neurobiological basis of sex/gender differences and thus gender dysphoria because of your feminist ideology.

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Mate, I am all over these threads pointing out the myriad ways that male and female human beings are physically different because of biology. Much to the annoyance of some other posters, I am like a proverbial broken LP record constantly yammering on at great length and in detail about the thousands of physical differences between the two sexes - differences which I always say all have their basis in biology and evolution.

I don't dispute that many people at various stages of life or in some cases all their lives experience genuine distress, discomfort, anxiety, unease and confusion about their sexed bodies.

Distress and anxiety over various aspects of our sexed bodies is actually quite common amongst the female population - just talk to any girl or woman who feels shame and awkwardness about her periods; hates the way her breasts make her subject to unwanted male attention, ogling, groping, catcalling, bra-snapping, lewd comments, come-ons, mockery, insults, bullying; hates how her breasts get in the way of doing certain things like running, finding a comfortable position to sleep in and getting automobile seatbelts to sit and fit right; has life-limiting health conditions like painful periods, PMDD, endometriosis, menstruation-related anemia; is going through or has been through pregnancy or menopause; is undergoing advanced aging as a female; or has struggled with the fairly common female psychological malady called tokophobia.

I also believe that a great many people - people of both sexes, but female people especially - grow up and go through life feeling very distressed by, and not feeling at home with, the rigid, chafing and limiting sex stereotypes, roles and expectations associated with their/our biological sex. Which is what "gender dysphoria" means.

I also acknowledge that there are people who feel uncertain, or felt uncertain growing up, about what sex they are and how they fit in to the human sex binary.

In the case of people with certain DSDs like XX CAH, XY AIS and XY 5-ARD who experience uncertainty about their sex and feel they don't neatly fit the sex binary, those feelings I believe are clearly based in biology.

But I think the uncertainty about their sex and feeling of not neatly fitting the sex binary that people with certain DSDs experience comes from being born with atypical genital and reproductive anatomy - and from the unfortunate social experiences that often follow from that. Which can mean being genuinely mis-sexed by the adults in their lives when they are babies and children - or it can mean their parents and doctors recognized the child's sex in infancy, but decided it would be better to raise the child as the opposite sex - and to do surgeries on them to disguise their actual sex, and to spend years lying to the kid and hiding the truth from them as they grow up

What happens in all those cases, though, is that because people with DSDs are as intelligent and socially aware as anyone else, they are bound to notice as they grow up and go through life that their own bodies don't look, move, function as they were led to expect they would and should.

This especially the cased during and after puberty of adolescence when their bodies don't change and develop as they expected. XX persons with CAH who might have thought they were boys as children due to enlarged clitoris and labia will realize this is not the case when between 8 and 13 they start puberty and begin developing breasts and they get their periods. XY persons with DMSD like AIS and 5-ARD who grew up thinking they were girls will realize something is off when the rest of the girls in their families, communities and schools get their periods at 11, 12, 13, 14 - but they themselves never do.

Maybe you're right that if people with DSDs grow up feeling confused and uncertain about their sex it's because "hormone exposure" prenatally and in childhood caused them to have brains with neurobiology that make them different to everyone else and that neurobiology is at odds with the rest of their bodies. But I tend to think it's more coz of the outwardly observable ways in which their bodies are obviously different and the unfortunate, often traumatizing and gaslighting ways many people with DSDs have been raised.

But my major disagreement with you has to do with the claims you are making about people without DSDs.

You claim that when people feel uncomfortable with and reject all/many of the sex stereotypes for their sex that constitute "gender" - and they go on to adopt and announce the suddenly very fashionable gender identity labels like trans, non-binary, genderfluid, genderflux, vapogender and so on - it's because "hormone exposure" prenatally and during childhood somehow caused them to develop distinct verifiable brain differences which set them apart from everyone else of their sex.

Sorry, I just don't buy this.

If people with "gender dysphoria" and who adopt the sorts of trendy identity labels Nikki Hiltz has adopted really do have neurobiological differences caused by prenatal and childhood "hormone exposure" - and these neurobiological differences can be seen in brain imaging like some of the studies you cite allege - then how come hormonal testing and brain imaging aren't used to diagnose clinical gender dysphoria and to prove that having a gender identity at odds with your sex is based in biology like you say?

With all the extreme, irreversible medical interventions that kids and young adults with gender dysphoria are routinely subjected to today - "puberty blockers" to halt normal development, exogenous cross-sex hormones, double mastectomies, surgical removal of the penis and testicles and rearrangement of the remaining skin, hysterectomy and oophorectomy - how come no one in gender medicine or the health insurance industry requires that hormonal testing and brain scans be done beforehand to make it absolutely certain that all the young people getting such treatments really do have gender dysphoria and are "true trans" beforehand?

If brain scans really can show that "transwomen" have brains similar or identical to female people like you claim, how come not a single sports governing body uses brain scans to determine whether males like Lia Thomas and Cece Telfer should be eligible to compete in female sports?

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

So she doesn't really "think" she wakes up as a man; she only "feels" she does? And how does that feel for a biological woman, I wonder? However, she does seem to think she is a guy on those days, because she doesn't suggest it is only pretence of some sort or a mere emotion. It is part of her identity - or she wouldn't refer to herself as "they". Thus, she actually thinks that she is a "dude", as well as a "queen" - depending what day it is. (But not race day). Very rational.

I know you often struggle with the English language.

I can't comment on what she "thinks". Nikki didn't talk about thoughts, but about feelings.

Nikki tries to dumb it down for those who don't understand non-binary. I don't know if it's possible to dumb it down any further for you, but it doesn't seem worth the bother.

rekrunner wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

One comes from the brain, while the other comes from the heart or the gut.

Thoughts: an idea or opinion produced by thinking

Feelings: an emotional state or reaction(quote)

- Can you explain how that is a figurative explanation and not meant to be taken as fact?

Yes. There are a great many things I can explain, but this should have been self-evident.

If you insist on remaining literal, here are some biological explanations you requested to get you started:

The heart influencing the physiological, cognitive, and emotional systems:

"Research studying heart rate variability revealed that an individual׳s emotional states can be directly correlated to cardiac electromagnetic coherence. Positive coping mechanisms and intention have been shown to increase cardiac coherence, whereas negative emotions result in diminished coherence."

"As the most powerful and consistent generator of rhythmic information patterns in the body, the heart is in continuous communication with the brain and whole body through multiple pathways: neurologically, (through the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)) biochemically (through hormones), biophysically (through pressure and sound waves), and energetically (through electromagnetic field interactions). Because of the extensiveness of the heart’s influence on physiological, cognitive, and emotional systems, the heart provides a central point of reference from which the dynamics of such processes can be regulated."

How the gut sends messages to the brain:

"Hidden in the walls of the digestive system, this “brain in your gut” is revolutionizing medicine’s understanding of the links between digestion, mood, health and even the way you think."

"Scientists call this little brain the enteric nervous system (ENS). And it’s not so little. The ENS is two thin layers of more than 100 million nerve cells lining your gastrointestinal tract ...."

"The enteric nervous system doesn’t seem capable of thought as we know it, but it communicates back and forth with our big brain—with profound results."

"Researchers are finding evidence that irritation in the gastrointestinal system may send signals to the central nervous system (CNS) that trigger mood changes."

Link:www.oatext.com/the-heart-and-the-brain...

Link:www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellnes...