Robert Sapolsky: Brain Gender
Вставка
- Опубліковано 27 бер 2021
- We have heard a great deal about gender being a spectrum, here Robert Sapolksy talks about the brain being on that same gender spectrum! ©Robert Sapolsky 2021 Check out the amazing collection of Science Friday at Nueva here!
• Nueva Journal Club 202...
Science Friday and the Nueva Journal Club are an initiative of the Nueva Research Program.
This man has single handedly made me interested in Neuroscience. So much that I’ve changed my graduate school major. I would love to meet him and tell him thank you.
We will pass the compliment on! Thank you. And yes, I think he's ridiculously inspiring as well.
Read Behave by him. It is my favorite book on this earth. 10 years of writing to create this beautiful 800 page behemoth
I feel the same exact way. I study psychology but I am looking into specializing in neuroscience and I was lucky enough to work under the only neuroscience professor/researcher in my university. And boy could I tell you how excited I was to learn that her mentor and close friend was Dr. Sapolsky. Hopefully she can connect us one day😅, even for a brief hello.
@@mikekane2492 salute. I will check out those authors as well. Ty for sharing.
After listening to his Stanford Human Behavioural Biology class, I feel like a pokemon evolved from phase 1 to last.
"Well, I can't believe actual life is more complicated than what was explained to me a child," said someone who has not be paying attention.
"There are only two genders, and only five senses, and different parts of the tongue respond to specific tastes. It said so in my school biology book, and that's good enough for me. It's science."
@@BrennanYoung I am pouring a beer on the ground for "Planet" Pluto as I write this.
@@BrennanYoungI'm transgender and I agree there are two sexes, but there are cases where the brain doesn't respond to testosterone and it leads to a female brain in a man's body.
2:27
Music ends and Sapolsky starts
Bump
This guy, believe it or not, is possibly one of the best lecturers around. He'll happily lecture for over an hour without any notes to hand and you'll not hear a single 'erm or 'err throughout. Well done all for sharing this.
He's very good at holding attention while keeping his information flowing
"This challenged the dogma that sexual identity is due to social, not biological, influences. This was the view of sociologists who hated high school biology...and the medical establishment as well"
Robert Sapolsky , Behave (2017) page. 213
jesus christ, what are you?@@islaut
@@islautAt any given point in time, we make the best inferences of how the world works with the tools we currently possess. We will never truly understand how things work, as there are always smaller moving parts involved or another way to conceptually model a seemingly objective truth. That is called science.
If we continue exploring a field to understand more about it, and have to change our conceptual models of how things work because experimental results do not match them 1 to 1, then we do. Because, that is science.
Statistics gets you halfway there. You need context and analysis as well to apply it with reason, because without that, you’re just throwing numbers around.
@@islautNothing in your comments suggest you understand the information presented in this lecture. You state something incoherent about smoking and then respond to criticism to your post by claiming your job proves you are always right? The one thing all intelligent minds have in common is an understanding of how little they know and a willingness to learn and change their mind when presented with new information.
@@islautObviously thats exactly how science works. You seem to be implying that because science improved none of it is correct, which is obviously absurd. Science isn't a set of answers in the back of the book, it is a process of guessing then trying to prove your guesses wrong.
@@islaut So you have nothing to say in your defense. Shocking
This should be required watching for everyone who says there are only two sexes and "that's just science."
As well as those who love using terms like " homosexual lifestyle "!
Seriously there are only males and females and you will find zillion scientists that will say so. Mr Sapolski does not understand that we really do not understand the brain and how it relates to us very well. So you can conclude all sorts of things from looking at our brain without it having any real world meaning because there is way to much we do not understand about its relation with us as a person. Also his materialist views are his beliefs not hard objective facts. I say the guy is a bit over confident..that is how you usually get hits and misses..so good luck with all the ''science'' coming from this guy.
Indeed. bookmarking this forever
He’s a fraud.
@@NoThankYouToo Who? Robert Sapolsky?
I am so grateful to Dr. Sapolsky! He enlightens people tirelessly, generously shares knowledge with everyone, not just with peers.
Progress. Once we've cracked the specific haploid set of chromosomes responsible for not caring about spelling, we might be able to consider the area of the brain that causes background music to be mixed way too loud.
Kudos to the biology-based burn. Well done Laird🤣
@@liquidbiotv ❤️
@@lairdkilbarchan Changes made. May the forgiveness gene be found on 1-22 so that my 23rd and I have a chance.
@@liquidbiotv I've been looking into the forgiveness gene, some say it may be triggered by enough long term inactivity in the hippocampus. 🖖
Lololololol
What would I not give to see this guy debate Jordan Peterson. Jordie would get humiliated.
Robert sapolsky is a genius in neuroscience, thanks for inviting him.
So highly informative, and candid with no pretense. Always reassuring to hear someone say "not sure" or "we don't know yet". It lets me know they are more concerned with the solution than being the solver. I'd hope for a discussion like this to be mandatory at some point in the standard grade school curricula. It teaches not just the immediate subject matter, which is critically important, but maybe even more so, reveals a ton about science and its practice in a time where that understanding is lacking.
Such a well put point. I wonder which is the most important aspect of that message, the one we should really teach: 1) scientists don't know stuff, our knowledge is always evolving or 2) gender discussion. And of course, there are some schools and teachers that are trying to do this now.
@@liquidbiotv Thanks. Good to know at least some are teaching it. As for which aspect is more important, I'd say kind of an apples, oranges thing. 1) Is more strategic and greater in scope, whereas 2) might relieve more suffering and so be more pragmatic. 3) I really like what you guys are doing on this channel:) Great job and kudos for getting some quality time with the Dr. and for posing some fascinating questions. I sensed that Dr. Sapolsky really enjoyed it as well.
This presentation is so important! I wish everyone in the world would watch it and let it sink in. Imagine the strife it would calm! I love Prof Sapolsky! Brilliant! I also love how he looks like Rasputin....lol!
I watched the "Stanford" lectures a few months ago and was fascinated by Robert Sapolsky's passion and clear understandable explanation.
I saved as many videos featuring him to watch later.
It's taken a while to get back to them and this is one of my favourites I've watched so far.
This has really helped me understand some basic stuff about gender issues.
Robert Sapolsky seems a fascinating and fascinated man.
Thank you for uploading
Me too, I used to say that my life before meeting him was one and now is a tottally diferent
Thank you Dr. Sapolsky for igniting and feeding my interests in genetics, neuroscience and psychology!
Thank you for sharing it!
It's unbelievable that nowadays we're able to listen to such extraordinary people on youtube!
Dr. Sapolsky is the guy I expect to have all the answers. He seams to put me in a trance. Thanks to the channel and Dr. Sapolsky. Cheers!
I just love Sapolsky's lectures !
Thank you Robert Sapolsky for inspiring me to embark on being a neuroscientist ❤️
Thank you for making this accessible to all.
I would love to go to one of Robert Sapolsky's lectures/talks in person!
I am surprised nobody asked Dr. Sapolsky about puberty blockers.
I'm almost certain he supports the use of puberty blockers.
@@POWPOW-rn5uqhe might indirectly contribute to those suicide numbers...hope they don't get any higher
@@egonomics352 , puberty blockers decrease anxiety, suicidal ideation, and depression in kids with gender dysphoria. That is why healthcare experts prescribe the treatment in the first place.
@egonomics352 would he contribute to said suicide rates as much as the religiously sanctioned and societally condoned systematic dehumanization of homosexuality that leads to the permissive atmosphere that justifies contempt and hatred through subjective ( and, therefore, contextually unfair and invalid) comparison?
@@POWPOW-rn5uqCan you provide a link for research of long-term effects of puberty blockers and their positive effect in reducing suicide ideation?
Absolutely love how the genius I'm neuroscience pretty much affirmed trans existence and yet we still have bigots running around screaming about how wrong trans people are. I hope peoppe educate themselves and start their journey off on these peices of information. There is sooooooooo wayyyyy much more to neuroscience then just "what is between your legs".
The problem is that sports actually does care about what’s between your legs and their role in your development.
I’m pretty sure your just hearing what you want to hear.
I am currently reading his book and I am hooked!
Dear Professor Robert Sapolsky,
You are absolutely amazing teacher and lecturer, I am looking forward to hear every lecture and speech you have presented. I have bought an audiobook, and afterwards I could not stop myself from buying the actual paperback version of the book "Behave".
You have inspired me to dig deeper than I have ever imagined in the subject of evolutionary biology, and I am really grateful for it!
Big Thank you, and don't stop what you are doing! :)
Back to the topic. I think it can be considered as an "old-school" understanding that we are 100% male or females, because we are not. If people would consider understanding this fact, it would definitely shift linear thinking of majority. Or maybe not lol, paraphrasing Elon Musk "people are doomed, because they will not learn".
Fascinating detail about stem cells migrating from fetus to mother
Loved this.
This is so refreshing, i love biology but hate when it comes up in this subject just because of how basic and simple people make it look, thanks for bringing Sapolsky he made me excited again :)
Thank you 💛
Question: given these incredible overlaps and variations, I wonder if and how these expressions may or may not impact the Wellesley effect (regarding ovulatory sync/desync) -. (?)
First off, great information. As we try to create a more equal and just world this information should be disseminated to everyone.
Second, Ive seen over a dozen lectures by Dr Sapolsky. He is a brilliant man. I cant help feeling that he is having some difficulting with his emotions. Take care of yourself. Big hugs.
I am 67... Thanx to everyone.
The man, the legend! Very interesting stuff!
Yet again Sapolsky wows and amazes.
utterly fascinating
I don't know if you'll see this question but I'm interested in the question at the end of the video about what is the mechanism by which transgender people are detecting the mismatch between their mind and body.
I'm trans and while that doesn't make me an expert I've thought about this a lot. I'm wondering if it has something to do with proprioception, if perhaps some of the internal model of the self is genetic and not just learned, and so when picturing yourself and being confronted with the reality if that mismatch isn't the cause for distress. I've heard that trans individuals in vr simulations where they're are given the gender of their choosing they don't feel gender dysphoria or it's reduced. It would also make sense that presenting as your gender would offer relief.
For me the body/brain mismatch could explained a bit in the difference I feel when planning and picturing future events, like say plans for a party in two weeks. If I imagine that as my agab I feel nothing or discomfort and the imagined event is pretty detached, like if you were asked to consider an abstract thought experiment. If I picture future events as my gender I feel excitement, I can imagine how I'd look, what I'd want to do, and wear, who I might want to talk to. The entire scenario is much more vivid in ideas, emotions, and senses. It feels like me, rather than some abstract.
If you came across any interesting reading on the topic I'd love to know what you found.
Is that sexual excitement as in AGP?
@@moodyonroody5313 93% of cis women would qualify as being autogynephilic under the definitions used by transphobes lol
@@moodyonroody5313 We're here to discuss science, not Blanchard's porn obsession.
I've wondered the same, but I don't think its just a trans issue; I think that it's that people only ask this of trans people. I'm sure everybody has some sort of intrinsic sense of their gender from a young age that's intermingled with other parts of their identity. And i don't think it's much more or less mysterious or debatable than any other aspect of one's identity, preferences, or internal state. Where that sense comes from or what precisely causes the feeling or sensation of gender identity I won't speculate about, but it does seem ubiquitous and innate. I like the handedness comparison. It's just one of those strange things, like how do I know what kind of food I'm in the mood for, what sport i like to watch or what genre of music I prefer, or whether I would enjoy skydiving, or what it feels like to be intelligent or mature or a side sleeper or to just not want to be in this room right now, or why I prefer this shade of blue to that one.
The odd thing is that nobody ever debates or questions whether you're *really* aligned with that political party or whether you're just pretending to prefer chocolate over vanilla to look cool, or if you only like that sports team because of social pressure, or if maybe your enjoyment of playing guitar is just a delusion.
I think it's a really interesting question, but an unfair one because nobody can satisfactorily answer it, and certainly nobody can prove it, nor should they have to.
In my experience, I felt strong negative emotions when female coded language was applied to me, starting from when i was a tiny kid, or if I was required to wear a dress or if I got a doll for Xmas, and felt a strong yearning for my genitals to change their shape. When male coded language was applied to me, it felt right but also tainted if i was with family, because it became an awkward situation, made worse by the fact that i was a shy, autistic kid and couldn't tolerate having attention drawn to me.
To me, the "trans people insist they don't feel like their AGAB" was really misleading, because well, the body kept giving me signals that it was a certain sex, so like, clearly, that's what I felt like, right? Doesn't matter that I absolutely hated it and was praying in bed every evening to wake up as a girl the next morning since I was... 7 I think?.
I gotta say, having transitioned now, gosh, not being in constant agony due to hating what your body is telling you is really, really nice.
And yeah, there were other signs, like refusing to use any grammatically gendered inflections on myself, crying at the hairdresser, wishing I was intersex so I could have been justified in saying that they assigned me the wrong gender, literally complaining to my parents that the genitals I was stuck with are just so inconvenient... and that was all just pre-puberty. Puberty involved a lot of self hate and crying and being a danger to myself... but I couldn't be trans because the body kept telling me that it wasn't a girl.
Even now, the only thing that really hurts me is when people see my body for the disgusting monster that it used to be, because they don't know how much it is possible to change. Or that they think I have a male soul somehow.
Complicating matters is, if the Amygdala is/can be involved, so many non-Cis-Gendered/gender non-conforming, can be subject to abuse from every direction (family, society, etc.) This must cause gene expression phenomena in response to the sometimes constant threat of hostility from family and society. The high incidence of abuse among the Gender Non-Conforming can make it hard to establish causation, which is not uncommon when the Correlation is so high. Great lecture.
Imagine the extraordinary consequences for many, many generations of natal females who have been ashamed of their maturing bodies because males have felt free to publically comment on their breasts and buttocks or to freely - and as an assumed right to touch those erogenous zones (un my culture called ‘copping a feel’).
And of not having a right to their own children, or to own property, not to have and manage money and open a bank account, or vote, and no recourse to law after rape, etc.
Now, after having righted many of those societal wrongs through decades of effort by thousands, women are losing some of those newly-won rights to males who self-id as women, and transgender MtF women who insist on a place in women’s sports, and face a whole new denigration when they speak out about their discomfort, fear and grief.
It’s a fact of life that one cannot always get what one wants (or even needs).
@@kyoglesage I am a great grandmother, Poly and one of my two female partners is a trans female. I have engaged in trans activism and am obviously a proud LGBT member. That said, a few trans females competing in sports along side cis-gendered competitors is ridiculous and I am very very angry at these individuals for their absolute selfishness. It's a lightning rod issue for those who are anti-LGBT and these actions make people mad. The damage to trans children across the world is on these selfish athletes hands. And for what? A few worthless trophies that will always be recorded with an Asterisk. It's not even the Olympics or something. It's not fair for them to compete.
@@shannonmcstormy5021there’s no such thing as a transgender child
If you are willing to spend 40 mins on this vid maybe you should look more into the trans athlete subject you will be suprised.
@@shannonmcstormy5021
@@shannonmcstormy5021should people really have to give up there passions because of the actions of other people? That is an extremely depressing idea and trying to shame transgender athletes for being selfish by pursuing their passions in life instead of the people actively trying to stamp out the voices well being and lives of an entire community should be at fault instead of the innocent competitors don’t blame the innocent people for the actions of the powerful
PROTECT THIS MAN AT ALL COSTS WE LOVE YOU ROBERT
I am wondering if I have also received a relatively small amount of stem cells from my older brothers and sisters from my time being part of my mom's body systems.
There was a question very much towards the end, from the organiser to Dr Sapolsky to have an idea what it feels like as transgender: Dr Sapolsky is absolutely correct when he states that it goes back to the earliest memories in life. For me it was at the age of 4 that I knew something wasn't the way I was told it should be. The thing is that at that age, and certainly in that era - mid 70s - there was nothing known about it and so for me it was a sense of unease and knowing that I was different but being clueless why that was. Growing up that way, you tend to hide because you don't know if it is safe to say that you're different. Ultimately, hiding like that, I managed for a long time...but the brain really does overpower everything else in your body. It took me time to accept it, but the turmoil that was there before is now gone. And no matter how much hate they throw at me, it doesn't even come close to thinking to give that peace of mind up again. Hope this helps. I know, feelings aren't scientific material, but they are helpful.
Yet if you go to the hospital and say you're feeling hot, a doctor won't tell you that you're wrong because the temperature is mild or because your body temperature is normal. Instead, they'll seriously look for the physical cause of your anecdotal report of self. It's only not scientific because it's subjective and not amenable to empirical measurement, but that doesn't mean it's false or illusory! Feelings are really all that truly matters - glad you found your path to accepting them and thereby accepting yourself!
@@Sparhafocbecause temperature is a measurable physical property. unlike gender which is a social construct and partially derived from sex!
@@nolo5220 I'm not convinced you understood what I wrote.
@@Sparhafoc feelings are all that matter... wow... plenty of people with screwed up feelings destroy their lives.
@@Robertsmith-un5cu So? Their lives to do with what they will - unless you think you're in a position to dictate how everyone must live their lives? Unless you have all the answers? I'd suggest it's up to each of us to find our own way.
I already believe in evolutionary neurobiology and behaviorology - the idea that all instincts and underlying causes of behavior are derived from ancestral functions and drives which evolved with the organism. That's one of the ways to relate humans' ancestors hunting by walking a herd of prey to death (a thing that physical evidence exists to say happened), to the modern behavior of relentlessly hounding an opponent over social media, for example (persistence hunting connected to social dominance and relationships between in/out groups).
It's nice to find someone I could potentially talk with about this sort of stuff on a level above the most-absolutely-basic, who also agrees with (and teaches) some of my own understandings regarding personal identity.
You are in a cult.
Great teacher
42:00 Find some 90-year-old neurobiologist that hasn't learned anything new since their residency. 😂 Savage, yet somehow still professional.
Dr Sapolsky is amazing. Imagine being a 20-something hosting this and calling him, Robert?
So , what is your point?
Maybe it's one of his teaching assistants and he prefers going by his first name among colleagues
So?
I have listened to this interview but have forgotten if Dr. Sapolsky named the studies as I like to read them myself...anyone know??
I think the word "exception" would be a good way to describe most of these variations.
Yep! That's basically just a subjective boundary. And even if it's an exception, I don't see how the invalidity of these people follows from that.
@@fghsgh the people definitely have a perfectly valid and real experience. And I personally hate that they have to suffer the experience of gender incongruence, aside from the cruelty of the way they are treated, gender incongruence SUCKS. The fact that it's an exception and the fact that it's such an awful experience to endure to me means that it's a travesty that we're not allowed to consider it a diagnosis and something that we could prevent future generations from having to suffer.
@@thatpaulschofield Oh, sorry, I misinterpreted your position.
I don't think anyone is arguing against it being a diagnosis? The term "mental illness" is contested because that word has bad connotations, but if you go strictly by "mental state of affairs that has an influence on your ability to function as you wish to" then it absolutely is one.
And regardless, then being trans wouldn't be the mental illness, the gender incongruence would be. Cis people can dislike their body's sexual characteristics too, and this can absolutely reach just as intense levels as for trans people (just well, in the opposite direction) (and well, it's rarer).
Though usually the reason for diagnosis tends to be to allow insurance coverage. And you could still argue that the fact that some people have a diagnosis is part of human variation. Some people get sick, some people have a birth defect. It's all natural human variation. But if it impacts them negatively, you want to resolve it, of course. And that's what a diagnosis is for.
@@fghsgh it's definitely a complicated subject. I am trying to learn as much as I can about it because there appears to be a significant number of people who consider it transphobic to even discuss how to prevent gender incongruence from developing in the first place. They liken the idea to eugenics or even genocide, which is really the opposite of what medicine does.
Anywhere, here is the video where a trans scientist unequivocally declares that it is not a diagnosis: ua-cam.com/video/u2BB3mc__tk/v-deo.htmlsi=bKU7iqbiBL2gcwoi
Forgive me for not having the timestamp of the quote.
@@thatpaulschofield I think I found it: 15:08. So, what I take from that is that being trans is not a diagnosis, but gender dysphoria (DSM-5) and gender incongruence (ICD-11) are. Like, they're clearly diagnoses, they're documented and psychs hand them out. That's what a diagnosis is. A psych won't tell you "I diagnose you with being trans". You go to the psych and tell them you're trans, and then they diagnose you with dysphoria. Of course, whether it _should_ be a diagnosis and whether the diagnostic criteria are valid is a different question.
And the reason trans people seem to mostly be scared of medical research finding a definitive marker of being trans is that it could be used against them. Imagine a person turns up at the gender clinic and wants to transition, so they get a brain scan and they get denied because they weren't "trans enough", because the marker they are using isn't accurate enough.
Now, I don't know how I feel about trans people not developing in the first place. Like, obviously, then I wouldn't have existed, and that's a pretty scary thing to think about (at least, at this point, now that I don't hate myself anymore). Or I would just have been a regular guy who was completely okay with being a guy, and that is even scarier.
Wanting to reduce our suffering is a noble goal, I think, but I'd argue that with proper support from family/environment and access to healthcare, experiencing sexual dysphoria does not need to involve much suffering and would actually be okay. Meanwhile, parents are aborting Down syndrome children, even though people with Down syndrome tend to be extraordinarily happy. A lot of people will want trans people to stop existing because they think being trans is wrong somehow, not because they want to reduce the amount of suffering in the world. I think currently possible solutions are an acceptable way of dealing with it (if they were done better) and these resources would be better spent elsewhere.
And of course, even if you find a way to prevent people from developing as trans, how do you know you didn't miss anyone? If you only eliminate one type of transness but not the other, then society will get even angrier at the second type, because they aren't even supposed to exist anymore. And now there's even fewer people left to fight for their rights.
So I think it's a noble goal but a very likely Monkey's Paw situation.
Fascinating. I've always wondered if my own sensitivity has come from my mother. I'm not trans but I feel like I've always sympathized with the female gender. I've related to the girls in my life more than the males. I love it. I love being a male with empathy towards females. I love my brain.
There's nothing odd with that at all. My daughter, who is in her late 20's, has always related to males more than females as friends. She preferred playing with them as a child as they seemed to share common interests like dinosaurs and technology (she is an amateur paleontologist and has a degree in computer science) and never played with dolls or cared about "girly" things. Her best friend is a straight guy. But she loves being a woman.
Neuroscience begins with Embryology: The Development of the Reproductive System…youtube/eKuO_526YCc by Ninja Nerd …aligns with Professor Sapolsky’s slide presentation. I suggest that the brain’s feeling about gender does not end with a neuroscience/neuroendocrine explanation. No matter the pathway of the development of the brain that gives rise to biological or mental feelings about gender…the brain can still be ‘hacked’! The Hacking of the American Mind by Robert H. Lustig. History is full of stories regarding the minds on the gender continuum, being hacked by cultists…many with very unpleasant results.
From a Jungian psychology point of view, the animus (more 'masculine') and anima (more 'feminine') are also relevant. We have both 'energies' within us, but their strength doesn't always correspond with the biological sex.
Im guessing gender ideologists will try using this, even though they have zero to do with intersex ppl🤦🏻♂️
@@thysdebeer4241 Except that’s more of a religion than actual science.
R. Sapolsky and Peter Joseph are two people who allowed me to get rid of a lot of prejudice in my pov. I've been waiting a long time for Robert to have an online lecture about transgender. Now how do we get Dave Chappelle to watch this???
I don't think Dave Chappelle would change his mind. He makes his money and put on a pedestal for his specific type of comedy
He's a comedian... Freedom of speech is the most fundamental value of a society
I don't think the science of transgender people matters to Chappelle. He gets paid to make jokes and roast people. As much as some of his trans jokes were definitely in poor taste, I think there's an argument to be made that most of his identity/group-focused comedy is somewhat tasteless, and that's by design. The only big reason he has this perceived feud with the trans community is because the online trans community (and to an even larger degree, overzealous LGBTQ allies) have been especially reactive to it. They have been continuosly engaged in this back-and-forth for years now, and it's making him money and keeping him trending. As long as people keep writing strident op-eds about Chappelle being transphobic, he's gonna keep making the jokes. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but it's the way a lot of comedians work (especially older, washed up/out of touch comedians in the age of cancelation)
Chappelle was friends with the transgender person he joked about, and the person he joked about was not offended about his jokes. Anyone else offended is just signaling their virtue, and wrong in doing so.
I can’t understand how people think Chappell is transphobic, unless they’re not genuinely hearing him
Oh my goodness!!!!!!
Prof. Sapolsky, if only your presentations had been available when I was growing up!!!
What you have said here accords 100% with both experience (as 65-yr-old MtF) and with my surmise. My gender dysphoria being the most dominant stressor in my life (by far), - I have debated the subject internally ever since I first became aware something was awry (back in 1962!).
I took a degree in Zoology, and the 'science' of how I came to be the way I am has always been of signal importance to me, even when little was known about it.
I was aware of the Van Gooren & Schwaab work on the BSTc nucleus, but not if the other brain gender differences.
There are soooo many neurons in the brain, that even a tiny little part of it can have a large number of neurons, and I guess that is why gender dimorphism in the brain has been so elusive: the differences are substantial in terms of neuron count, but tiny and hard to detect in terms of %ge of brain volume.
I particularly liked your simple cascade diagram for how gender develops from chromosome type.
I wonder if the gender differentiation of the brain should occupy a separate stage at the end.
I concur 100,000% with the primacy of the brain argument.
Our brain is who we are. Are amputees any less than a whole person? Does a university award a degree to your body or to your brain?
Would you rather fly in a plane piloted by someone with the body of a pilot and the brain of a librarian, or by someone with the body of a librarian and the brain of a pilot?
Thank you so much, Prof. Sapolsky!
The body is an extremely critical place of stored memories and capabilities. Muscle memory and innervation are EXTREMELY necessary when it comes to being able to think about and act upon a problem. For example, with amputees, they actually do feel like less of a whole person. Their missing limbs will often still feel and reach and experience pain even though the limb doesn't exist anymore. We aren't our brain, we are a cohesive organism and our brains abilities, thoughts, feelings, et al, are all extremely dependent on your body.
Using your pilot analogy, does the librarian have some type of muscular degeneration? In that case I could more easily tell the librarian brain how to fly a plane as opposed to teach the pilot how to adapt to the capability of their body's limitations if its even possible at all
Another good example is look up how many neurons you have in your gut and how your gut microbiome impacts your mental health.
@kevinbissinger respectfully, you take my parallels too far. I only intended them to convey a broad point.
The mind and body do indeed work together and influence each other, but that does not detract from the primacy of the mind.
Amputees may feel like less of a person, but that does not make them less of a person.
Any given person has precisely the same intrinsic value as any and every other person.
Utility is not the same as value.
Great person to have on. Have studied his work for years. Music bed makes it difficult to hear you though.
Nice.
I love how he talks about all this with this matter-of-fact tone not giving a toss for what either ideology thinks about it. This is what all scientists should do. End of story.
Lol he's quite lefty. Sometimes gets very political.
@@FoxinTaiwanlike when?
the realest man in our times
Does anyone know if there are any videos or articles or whatnot of qualified academics having a differing interpretation on anything Dr Sapolsky has to say here?
That was a very good presentation. He explained everything the way I have understood it. I think I may have seen this video before. And I'm glad I've seen it again. Because it is very important.
Great video! Music a bit loud during the intro!
i would appreciate a discussion on whether the prevalence of these "mismatches" is changing over time, and if so, are there environmental factors that could be influencing such a trend?
A very concise presentation of the complexities involved with the human reproduction system. I differ of opinion on ' if the body is fully A but the brain says B' you would go with brain, I would go with body. But that might be because I'm a biologist rather than a neuroscientist. The reality is complex enough to have some room for discussion. Another thing I would like to stress is that binary and dichotomy are different concepts that should not be used as synonyms. Dichotomy is about results, binary about ingredients. So a binary system can result in a dichotomy down the line but doesn't have to. 1011, 001, 00, 11 are all binary code, what makes it binary is that it consists of but 1 and 0's. So sex chromosomes is a binary system eventhough it can result in xx xy xyy xxy x etc. Still only x and y's. But the result is not a dichotomy.
I'm 47 XXY with OvaTestis diesorder
I have a question: What's with the music?
I see a lot of comments have been deleted that were criticizing the total lack of preparation and respect for sapolskys time. Tut Tut.
What papers mention the brain sex phenomenon?
I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to find the 6-8 papers Dr. Sapolsky is referencing at around min 45 saying that their results are that transgendered individuals on average have the sexually dimorphic area of the brains closer to the gender they identify as. (sorry if I jumbled some of that up but I think I got the jist mostly right.) Thanks.
for those interested, I found this study, which uses/cites those papers (I think): www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7139786/
Thank you very much!
Thank you for a fascinating talk Dr Sapolsky. I am assuming that all males have some stem cells from their mothers??? Off to look it up.
That is what he said.
38:01 "binary brains is a misnomer"
I needed to hear this. Thank you for this video, very much.
Loved this thoroughly. A must watch for everyone, especially the bigots.
What if you don't feel male or female or human for that matter? I just don't know how to relate or talk to humans. I get in trouble all the time.
Nice to see so many people actually educating themselves and looking to run deeper into neuroscience instead of just being stupid and rude and assuming stuff of people that it's a "choice" or us trans people are just "stupid for being so".
the ironic thing is that the trans community is most vocal about gender being a choice.
@@degla232 No? Ive never heard someone trans say that "gender is a choice". Gender is just your brain's sex, and can be just as diverse as the bimodality of "biological" (non-neurological) sex
Is it possible that whatever part they've identified in the brain, is more related to femininity/masculinity, and not sex?
I can't get the idea out of my head that transgenderism comes down to that. And because in todays society, only females are accepted to be feminine, and males are accepted to be masculine, so the trans brain usually comes to the conclusion that it needs to change sex to fit in.
I have yet to see a masculine trans woman, and a feminine trans man.
@@degla232 pretty sure thats never happened. yeah i dont see trans people running around going around "its a choice". more less it is something that isn't a choice. just like the intersex condition or any more of a choice than your biological sex or skin color. yet here we are, still being blamed and shunned for something we can't even help. It's so crazy to think SO many people hate trans people yet neuroscience, biology and medical fields back up this information 1 million percent.
@@StonedTotheBones0000 self id = choice
tons of people in the trans community are saying that.
Please... can anyone give me some references for 13:04
I'm intrigued with the idea that you swap genes with your child whilst pregnant. I wonder if this helps explain some of the bonding that goes on between mother and child which, however you much you feel for non-biological children, is always stronger (I think Sapolsky's lectures on recognising relatives and behvioural genetics point to other reasons why but might be ignoring this).
It just makes me think, to know that I am carrying, in my brain, some of the genetic code of my 3 boys and 1 daughter, and they mine (are they possibly carrying the code of their older siblings since it was in my body?), Could it also change who I am with all this XY in my brain?
It also means that surrogate mothers, with no prior genetic link to the child they are carrying, become 'connected' in ways I don't think people thought about.
As a male with only a non-biological child, I have no access to any of this... but isn't that exactly the theme of this talk and your ideas? How can we know how others feel? Still, I find your ideas intriguing, although I think it's likely that the majority of bonding is emotional and cognitive more than anything genetic or chromosomal. But I've read many times about personality and emotional changes mothers experience during and after pregnancy, and join you in wondering whether this exchange of material with another's DNA could have lasting impact on the mother's sense of self.
@deja-view1017 That is indeed the theory of some medical professionals.
Surrogacy is glorified prostitution. I hate the idea of rich people hiring poor woman to ruin thier body’s for them it’s sick.
I love Robert Sapolsky
Starts at 2:29 😊
This may be off-base as a question, but it occurs to me, If gender is not dimorphic, how could someone recognize that they were the ”other” gender than the one they had been labeled as? Or are they simply objecting to the cultural frames in which they, and others, are put? In which case this is a question for anthropology: do people in this situation have different fates in other cultures?
On wiki look up "third gender", it will be very helpful.
Depends on which specific trans person you look at, probably. Some will feel strongly like they should be the opposite sex in the way we understand it, some wouldn't be happy with that either. Some have a vague sense of discomfort with their prescribed gender roles of which they fill in the details in accordance with how gender functions in their own society.
If cultures have a third gender, I can guarantee you that some would-be-trans people would identify as said third gender, but some wouldn't. From knowing a bunch of trans people and being trans myself.
The terms and labels we have now have been criticised by queer people themselves for being too strict in putting people into boxes. Though I think it's still better than only having a single option that isn't "cishet male" and "cishet female".
I wouldn’t describe it as gender, it makes more sense to describe it as sex. When I was a child before I knew what sex really meant I thought people were arbitrarily being prescribed genders by society, and at that point I didn’t really care about it and just went along with what society told me I was without thinking. But then I learned that there were real differences between the sexes, and once I learned that I realized society and my body were all wrong about what they thought my sex was, I was supposed to be the other sex all along. I still played along with society for a while because I was very afraid of what people would do to me if I didn’t appease them by being their image of what they thought was right for me.
I thought that internally my sex characteristics were correct and was both scared and hopeful that one day I’d get pregnant and then everyone else would be forced to accept the truth about me although I was still scared of what they’d do to me. It wasn’t until I realized that that definitely wasn’t going to happen and I’d have to act myself if I wanted a body that I could at all call home that I finally decided to tell others about this thing that I had thought for my whole early childhood was just a me thing.
I think he was referring to Swyers syndrome. As I understand the issue the body is female, but at puberty hormones make her more masculiine. I am speculating that the transgender man who entered the Covenant Christian school, shot 3 9year olds, 3 staff and entered the church and shot (I think it was 7 bullets) into the glass representation of Adam had Swyers. The Christian man who wrote about the incident said "she" had been a girl student and seems to assume she was transgender male by choice I wonder what happened to that girl who came back to school over 2 decades later and shot bullets in that matter. I am delighted to find this lecture.
34:28 - wouldn't it be possible to do it with an MRI rather than be invasive?
Is there a link to the study about the relation between IQ and sexually ambiguous genitalia?
I feel I should raise some points of caution. I have enormous respect for Sapolsky, and this question is an interesting challenge to my ideas about transgenderism. I read 'Behave' a while ago, and was surprised by his views on the issue. He's made those clear. However, it's rather less clear what it all means as regards the big political debate going on about medical responses to trans reports. The transgender phenomenon is complex, and socio-political responses to it need to be nuanced and follow best medical practice and solid research, and a shallow understanding of the content of this talk might lead to wrong conclusions.
I am happy to accept Sapolsky's view that "on average" the sexually dimorphic parts of the brain show the opposite trend in those trans individuals who report always having felt themselves to be the other gender, but there's a lot to unpack there. The first thing to note is the "on average", which immediately means that some will show very little difference from their "assigned gender", while others will show more. Then there's the question - as he mentioned someone hypothesizing - of whether those who only "discover" they are trans in their teenage years, or as they approach puberty or adolescence, are simply having a delayed response, or - as has been asserted several times in the field - might be responding to social contagion, or a convenient way to avoid the fallout of childhood trauma, of abuse or neglect, or fears of one's expected gender roles in future, or internalized homophobia in cases of self-suppressed homosexual feelings, of simple teenage rebelliousness, etc., etc.
Then there remains the question of what these sexually dimorphic brain regions represent, in anyone. If we learn to play a musical instrument, our brain changes. If we get more or less exercise, or change diet, or join a book group - everything we do has some effect on the structure of our brain. So it follows that those regional differences in the sexes might correspond functionally - might be causally related to - all manner of thoughts, feelings and behaviours that we associate with the sexes. Indeed it seems obvious they will. Sapolsky criticised the literature from the 50s in which aberrant behaviour in females meant not wanting to play with dolls. Silly old sexist nonsense. But it follows that if these kinds of behaviours - which we now consider sexual stereotypes, and regarding which we now encourage freedom of sexual expression - correspond with the sexual dimorphism of the brain regions mentioned, then the "gendered brain" might not indicate, as one student put it, "being in the wrong body", but merely having one particular constellation of behaviours that either sex ought to be able to express. Indeed, interviews with trans individuals often include such stereotypes, which they consider indicators of their "wrong body", rather than thinking "I'm a tomboy" or "I'm a sensitive kind of guy".
This is extremely important, because we know that there are rising numbers of transitioners in the West (particularly the USA), and rising numbers of detransitioners criticising the one-size-fits-all, so-called "affirmative care" model, which took their self-reports of feeling odd in their social role and stuck them on puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones, and perhaps surgical procedures, which they now bitterly regret and see as completely erroneous. Those procedures often lead to a range of physical and psychological distress that could have been avoided, including sterility.
We also know from several other cases that social contagion is a real phenomenon and affects in particular pre-pubescent girls. We know that our frontal cortex takes twenty-odd years to come fully on line, the part of our brain that finds compromises and rational solutions to things that disturb our monolithic emotions without its sober cogitation. We know that its functioning is even more widly confused during puberty - younger children make better decisions than teenagers! All this should give us great caution about allowing private medical companies to trade in gender transition procedures without proper assessment of other possible routes. It should stop us hearing "brains are gendered, and trans brains are opposite-gendered; and the brain is the best judge of who we are" and thinking that's cleared up the gender debate and it's time to reach for the pills or the knife. A large percentage of "trans" kids grow up through puberty (if allowed to) to recognise they were going through a phase, and they're happy in their biological sex. A significant number turn out to be gay. So running down the trans route too fast, in some cases, seems to be a kind of dystopian, radical conversion therapy - for gay people, turning them into pseudo-straight people, by pretending they're the other sex.
Post script: it's also rather naive to say that the brain shows opposite sexual dimorphism and therefore this represents the reality of the person. If the condition of someone's brain is the cause of their saying, "I am Jesus Christ in my second coming," do we accept that they are Jesus Christ? Sapolsky gave no indication that we can be susceptible to wrong beliefs, but we can, and these must be reflected in our brain. Therefore, our identity cannot be read from what we think we are.
Thanks a lot, you explain very cogently some of the inconsistencies in the narrative wrt. which I also have reservations.
@@lettersquash Allow me to respond. A lot of the things you have said stem directly from conservative fearmongering and are not a cause for concern at all.
> of whether those who only "discover" they are trans in their teenage years, or as they approach puberty or adolescence, are simply having a delayed response, or - as has been asserted several times in the field - might be responding to social contagion
I assume this is referring to the Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria "study", which was in fact retracted due to poor science. The "researchers" went on online forums for parents who were unhappy about their children's transition and listened to their story uncritically.
Secondly, if a person is truly trans, but doesn't know that the concept of being trans exists, then they will feel terrible while not knowing why. Obviously, when they then (through their social circles) find out that it exists, they will see this as a solution. Now, given that trans people are starting to get more public recognition, it stands to reason that more closeted trans people will find out that it's an option and pursue transition. This is how homosexuality became more common a few decades ago. Go google "lefthandedness graph". As being lefthanded became more accepted, people stopped repressing themselves.
> a convenient way to avoid the fallout of childhood trauma, of abuse or neglect, or fears of one's expected gender roles in future, or internalized homophobia in cases of self-suppressed homosexual feelings, of simple teenage rebelliousness
Before you get access to transition, you need to undergo intensive therapy to evaluate whether you are "trans enough", snuffing out all of these possible other causes, and even then, if you're underage, the best you can get is puberty blockers. This treatment takes _years_ before you get to anything permanent, and I _guarantee_ to you, if you're undergoing it, you will be thinking about it literally every day. Probably having impostor syndrome about whether you're trans enough and deserve this. Really. No one is thinking more about whether they are really trans and they won't regret this than the trans person themselves.
> then the "gendered brain" might not indicate, as one student put it, "being in the wrong body", but merely having one particular constellation of behaviours that either sex ought to be able to express
Yep! Not putting expectations on men and women about how they should behave would drastically reduce the amount of trans people. Sadly though, men are made fun of if they wear a dress. They get made fun of for not being "real men". Women are more socially accepted if they are gender non-conforming, but it still affects how people see them. This is not an argument against trans people's existence, but for reshaping society to be more accepting of gender non-conformity. In fact, trans people who only care about these social norms can absolutely just transition socially - that is, come out to people, present as they want, and that's it. Nothing medical at all. And you can't possibly say that, with the difficulty of undergoing all these treatments, that is not something they would already inherently want to do. And some people only wish to transition for social reasons, but they need medical help because their body looks too much like their assigned gender, and the vast majority of them still don't regret it.
(I will get to the "gender clinics pushing treatment onto people if they don't want it" later)
(I think youtube doesn't like that my comment is too long... I will continue in the next one)
continuation:
> Indeed, interviews with trans individuals often include such stereotypes, which they consider indicators of their "wrong body", rather than thinking "I'm a tomboy" or "I'm a sensitive kind of guy".
These are just them trying to justify their innate desire to transition. Which is a thing brains do all the time. If you want to ban cars because you find that cars are too loud, you are not going to campaign with just "I find cars too loud, we should ban them." No, you're going to come up with a bunch of logical arguments for why cars are a net negative to society and why banning them would benefit _everyone._ If I say I am trans and do not and have never acted in a gender non-conforming manner at all, that is not going to be very convincing. Often these people want to justify their desire _to themselves_ even, because after all, no one _wants_ to be trans. Trans people hate being trans. But it's better than being forced to be the gender you're not.
And no, no one is transitioning because they did a logical analysis on their behavior and found that they are 51% feminine. Okay, never say never, I'm sure it has happened at some point, but given that I know hundreds of trans people and none of them are like this, I would argue that this can't be responsible for the sudden rise in numbers).
> rising numbers of detransitioners
Yeah, transitioners continue to outnumber detransitioners 100-to-1. Just because it's not the correct treatment for 1% doesn't mean you're going to ban it for 99%. That's not how medicine works _ever._ So many medical treatments have regret rates well into the 20%. Transition is one of the most successful medical treatments that has ever existed.
Also, the number of detransitioners is artificially inflated by funding from conservatives. This has been exposed by some detransitioners who weren't anti-trans coming out about having been approached by the right wing with an offer to spread anti-trans rhetoric.
> criticising the one-size-fits-all, so-called "affirmative care" model, which took their self-reports of feeling odd in their social role and stuck them on puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones, and perhaps surgical procedures, which they now bitterly regret and see as completely erroneous.
Okay so, that is not what the affirmative care model is. The affirmative care model only says that, when a patient comes in and says they're trans, you aren't supposed to say "nope, you're wrong." Of course you're going to use the pronouns on them that they ask for. If you do anything else, trans people are going to avoid your clinic like the plague. But that's it. Purely social stuff.
I agree that it seems that there are some clinics which are overly eager to start people on medical treatments, and these should be toned down. That doesn't mean we need to ban trans healthcare literally everywhere though. And this is not what the affirmative care model entails at all.
> Those procedures often lead to a range of physical and psychological distress that could have been avoided
Denying patients these procedures leads to "a range of physical and psychological distress that could have been avoided" for literally 100x as many people. It is important to recognise detransitioners and support them as we can, but we cannot make millions of people miserable to save a few thousand.
Also, no matter how much you gatekeep transition, people who will eventually end up detransitioning will inevitably slip through the cracks. They will convince themselves that they should transition and go from therapist to therapist lying about their story until they eventually find one that will allow them to transition. Trans people have to do this too, because a lot of institutions have very conservative views about what are valid ways of being trans (often enforcing more strict gender roles than the trans people actually exhibit for instance, see above).
> including sterility.
Before transition, you are given the option to preserve (freeze) your gametes. At least, you are supposed to be. Often people cannot pursue this because it is too expensive (the NHS offers free fertility-preserving treatment if undergoing any medical treatment which could affect it, _unless_ it is sex transition), or because they are too hurried to stop their body poisoning itself (which I will get to later). And even if they do, most trans people don't end up using them. Adoption is a lot easier in a lot of cases.
> We also know from several other cases that social contagion is a real phenomenon and affects in particular pre-pubescent girls.
Yeah I repeat, unless you can present any _actual evidence_ (that is not the retracted ROGD study) that the rise in transitioners is due to social contagion, this is invalid.
> We know that our frontal cortex takes twenty-odd years to come fully on line
Yeah, but by the time you are that age, your body will already have been irreversibly damaged by the puberty that was wrong for you. Restricting medical transition to people over 26 will be _immensely_ harmful.
(more to come)
continuation:
> All this should give us great caution about allowing private medical companies to trade in gender transition procedures
Yep, I'm not a fan of private healthcare either. The rise in transitioners also exists in Europe though, where it is nowhere near as profitable. So this clearly isn't just companies' next nefarious scheme to make money.
> without proper assessment of other possible routes.
The way this generally plays out, is that parents sign their child up to "gender exploratory therapy", where they try to find all kinds of different explanations for why they might be dysphoric. And it's always "could it be this?" "no" "could it be this?" "no" and this keeps going until the kid turns 18 and they can no longer be forced by their parents to go there and can finally pursue the transition they've wanted for 6 years, but in the meantime have sustained irreversible damage to their body by not being allowed on puberty blockers.
> it's time to reach for the pills or the knife.
There is a huge amount of waiting involved in obtaining treatment. Will elaborate later.
> A large percentage of "trans" kids grow up through puberty (if allowed to) to recognise they were going through a phase, and they're happy in their biological sex.
The study you are taking this from compared _all kids with even the slightest amount of gender non-conformity_ with the amount of them that eventually ended up transitioning. Exhibiting gender non-conformity is not the same as experiencing gender dysphoria. Experiencing gender dysphoria is not the same as seeking out medical treatment. Seeking out medical treatment is not the same as getting the medical treatment. And getting the medical treatment is not the same as regretting it. Every step here reduces the amount of people involved by _an order of magnitude._
> So running down the trans route too fast, in some cases, seems to be a kind of dystopian, radical conversion therapy
Okay so. The way you generally get treatment as a trans kid:
First, you have to tell your parents. This is already a huge and really difficult step, even if you know that your parents are supportive. But no parents will ever see their little boy pick up a doll and immediately rush them to the gender clinic. It has to come from the child.
Then, the parents have to be supportive. This doesn't happen as often as it should, but okay. The parents also have to actually know about the gender clinic. Maybe their GP or something can refer them there.
(I want to pull attention to the fact that going to the gender clinic is a huge step that already shows a significant amount of distress in the child's life, that they are willing to take such drastic measures)
Then, the kid gets to the gender clinic. There, they see a therapist (or a psych, or whatever qualifications it is that you need), who talks to them about this and explores their feelings. Of course, kids cannot properly evaluate their mental state (though most adults can't either, my parents who are in their 50s still struggle with it) and they will go with whatever answer they like. Good thing this therapist person is specialised in psychological care for children though.
When the child's puberty is about to begin, they get put on puberty blockers and they can continue exploring their gender. This is a good thing. Don't want their body doing irreversible damage to itself that would make them suicidal. Puberty blockers are completely reversible, and if they turn out to not be trans, they can just go off them and their natural puberty will begin.
They continue not undergoing any permanent medical steps until they are of an age where they are allowed to make these decisions in that country. Which is 16 years where I live, 15 years in some other places, maybe 18 in the US. At that time, they get the choice of starting hormone therapy.
Then, surgery is only allowed once they turn 18.
So to sum up, if a 9 year old "boy" asks to go to the gender clinic, they will go on puberty blockers when they're 12, hormones when they're 16, and get surgery when they're 18. _In the best-case scenario._ Often there are also year-long waiting lists that delay these things. And during all this time, they will present themselves to the world as a girl. If you have been living as a girl for _9 years_ (that is 3287 days), then you have definitely been able to form an opinion on whether you like it or not.
Also, I want to underline the importance of giving trans kids access to puberty blockers. Refusing a young trans girl puberty blockers because you are convinced she'll "grow out of it" is equivalent to forcefully injecting a cis girl with testosterone (turning her indistinguishable from a guy when she grows up) because she'll "grow up to like it." The things trans people say are not any less valid than the things cis people say. In fact trans people often have even more strong feelings on the matter of gender than cis people do. Transition continues to be an immense hassle that no one would undergo unless they had really strong feelings on the matter.
> it's also rather naive to say that the brain shows opposite sexual dimorphism and therefore this represents the reality of the person. If the condition of someone's brain is the cause of their saying, "I am Jesus Christ in my second coming," do we accept that they are Jesus Christ? Sapolsky gave no indication that we can be susceptible to wrong beliefs, but we can, and these must be reflected in our brain. Therefore, our identity cannot be read from what we think we are.
If someone insists to be Jesus Christ for years upon years upon years, and shows extreme, significant emotional distress when they are being denied this, then there is absolutely something going on in their brain. Sadly, I don't think they can be helped in that case. However, trans people absolutely can be helped. We have verified medical treatments that we know work. (However, giving them therapy to convince them that they're wrong tends to backfire.)
I think people might be more likely to find this if you fix the typo in his name in the title. :)
Biology I am good at, spelling not so much. Thanks!
@@liquidbiotv but you still haven't changed the title?
@@Rosedeclemence Change made. For some strange reason, I was looking at it and could not see the problem in the spelling.
I asked ChatGPT if there is a way to determine sex of a person just by looking at there brain. The answer is NO, there is no a reliable way to do this. Which invalidates the whole point professor is trying to make here.
I’m not sure why you think deriving your conclusions from an artificial intelligence is a good idea
Anyone can be struck with homelessness.
Oops. Everyone is different.
Crazy right? And at the same time I am continuously impressed by the range and creativity of those differences.
The problem is that the gender clinics historically saw pre-pubertal kids grow out of the feeling of being a different sex than their phenotype, as long as they were counselled and supported. No need to rush and alter the body permanently, since medicalizing the person leaves them as a lifelong patient.
2:29
I wish I could search comments so I could see if the answer is already in here, I'm wondering about people who use they them pronouns. What insights does neurobiology have for how that brain functions and how the brain might be influencing a they them identity?
This should totally change society's approach and empathy towards sex diversity. We are all different, that's all. Nobody deserves what some people have gone through just because of their sexual nature.
So is he saying that there is a way to see from the from the brain what gender a person is?
This is a study to prove
This reminds of the curious irony of the sign Marjorie Taylor Greene hung on her congressional office door:
There are TWO genders:
Male & Female
"Trust the Science"
I would guess Dr. Sapolsky has seen that and enjoyed a tragic chuckle.
That cracks me up, and makes me realize something. Greene probably feels that we are equally ignorant and that the truth is obvious.
@@liquidbiotv That's the million dollar question - Do these whackos really believe junk their garbage?
Depends on your definition, can they produce male or female gametes? Or some other definition? Because there are people that do not produce either.
@@nicholaswade6289 Good point. Of course the functionality of the plug or the socket would also be in play if we're concerned only with reproductive viability. But the conversation is also about sexual identity.
Gender doesn't exists because it's a political ''view''.
Sexual identity exists and it's the basis of human behavior. Sexual identity is in the brain because you're born that way. Transgenders are not transsexual, because they choosed to ''feel as if they were transsexual'', but they do that following an ideology, while ITOH, transsexual people do medicl atransition due to being born with a brain that have structures of the sex they know they are.
There are a population of transexuals who didn't choose to become transexuals, male prison inmates, I would like to know if these brain changes occur in these 'situational transexuals' to give insight if this is something that is born in to these folks or does the brains form adapt to the perceived identity of the individual. Another question that I thought of is I had read something that said they had discovered that a real time scan of a true male multiple personality individual showed that when they where in the alter ego of a female they had female like brain activity. If these are true then more explanation is required for me to understand this subject fully. Also if a social movement causes a huge population to adapt socially (to say for purely social reasons) adopt transexual identity will their brain change or Is there a 'true born' transexual and a socially created one?
There is a good documentary on Samoans I think. Its a cultural thing there for the 4th born son to be raised female. This documentary follows 2 Samoans. one was not a 4th born son but transgender and had to fight for acceptance, the other is a 4th born son who is not transgender but had that gender forced on him and had face lots of issues growing up. It was really well done.
This was very cool. I would LOVE to hear Dr. S weigh in on the more controversial theories behind gender identity like Autogynophilia and rapid-onset GD.
I doubt Professor Sapolsky would want to wade too deeply into the shark infested waters of gender identity, but I agree, it would be fascinating to hear his take on modern trans activism and the uncompromising 'trans women are women' dogma that underpins it.
I would like to know why in 2022 the vast majority of male-born, self-identified trans women retain fully functioning male genitals and have no desire to have gender reassignment surgery. This fact doesn't appear to be widely known by the public, and it contradicts what we were always told about transgender people having body dysphoria which made them hate their natal sex/body. It was once common to hear stories of male-born trans women so desperate to lose their hated penis, they were tempted to cut it off while awaiting the desired surgery.
Yet most trans women today are very happy with their penis and testicles and have no wish to lose them. So isn't it more accurate to say most of today's supposed 'trans women' are not transgender at all, but more accurately described as transvestites/autogynephiles (ie males who enjoy presenting as females some or all of the time, or men who have a sexual fetish for presenting as females?) After all, if they don't have gender dysphoria, how are they 'transgender'?
The other little-known fact about most modern trans women, is that they are heterosexual, ie sexually attracted to females. Historically, trans women were a subset of gay men, so sexually attracted to males, and therefore no potential risk of sexual violence to women and girls. The combination of modern trans women being both fully male bodied and heterosexual, makes them a clear potential risk to the safety of women and girls. This is becoming very clear on the issue of female-only public spaces - Google 'Karen White' for just one example of a predatory male who talked his way into a women's prison claiming a trans woman status, despite being a convicted rapist. Not surprisingly, while there the 6ft tall, stockily built White, aka Steven Wood,, sexually assaulted two women inmates.
This new breed of 'trans women' is a critical reason modern trans activism come into direct conflict with the rights to safety and dignity of females.
@@glamdolly30 can you add some citations to your comment? I would like to see where you learned of these trends that you are suggesting.
@@sunshinedenney8695 I've tried to reply to you twice, and both times my replies did not appear. Sadly any gender critical comments get censored by UA-cam, as on Twitter and much social media. It is deeply sinister! I will try again, responding not to you but to the original poster in this thread. I think it's important you look into this important subject, and that there is better, more widespread understanding of it. Please look out for my reply to the OP (in response to your post), which I will write here soon. Thanks.
@@sunshinedenney8695 it's really very easy to find explanations of those terms with a quick Google search. A lot has been happening in the GC space since you made this comment and I wonder if you had taken the time to look into it.
@@elephaux5671 I understand the terms. I've just never seen anything but b******* surrounding them. I've never seen any actual studies of any validity.
Doctor Sapolsky I think I hear you say there is no link between hormones and brain development. What about how development is staged in gestation: by around week 9 genitalia have differentiated, but around week 10-11 most XY people receive a wash of testosterone over their brains that causes connections to die-off in the corpus callosum.
Now, I am a DES (Diethylstilbestrol) child: my mother confirmed that she started taking DES to prevent another miscarriage early in then first trimester. Estradiol whether endogenous or exogenous will down-regulate testosterone production via the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis and will shut it off at the levels of DES mothers received. I am also (confirmed) XY and I had some to have some surgical adjustment to my genitalia as a young child.
As an adult woman in my early sixties, I know going back into early childhood that I has never a "boy" despite how I looked; and I went through a weird and crushing (first) puberty where I developed _eunuchoid habitus._
Eventually in my early fifties I transitioned, blossoming into my womanhood. From all the note comparing and (years) of research I've done, my brain is far more like a cis female than cis male. (BTW, as a doctoral student, I _do_ know what real research is.)
At the same time, I also sense that I am both sexes and neither one exactly - though I am most "me" expressed as a woman. Because there are quite a large number of other transssxual women I have communicated with who are also DES children, I suspect that endocrine disruption in gestation has made us effectively intersex.
I have not seen any signicant refutation of the endocrine disruption model of transsexual etiology, so I am puzzled by your insistance that there is no link. Is it that there is _no_ evidence, or is it that there is insufficient evidence to establish a causal connection? What about correlation? 👩🦳🏳️⚧️
What of Savic et al?
_Savic I, Garcia-Falgueras A, Swaab DF. Sexual differentiation of the human brain in relation to gender identity and sexual orientation. Prog Brain Res. 2010;186:41-62. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-444-53630-3.00004-X. PMID: 21094885._
Are these high school students? Or college students? I'm in my twenties and kind of deteched from that maturity level. :(
These are high school students!
'sometimes you get acne, sometimes you get a penis" - gold!
15:45 Savic, Arver "Sex Dimorphism of the Brain in Male-to-Female Transsexuals" 2011, Luders, Sanchez, et al. 2009 and many other studies does not support that, Dr Sapolsky!
😍🧠
16:00 - any citations on those brain studies? Also, I wonder how detrans folks would fit into this? Do they also have cross sex brains? Now, some detrans folks say they never really were dysphoric and transitioned for other psychological reasons. So to make sure someone is truly trans, should trans-identifying folks require a brain scan for diagnosis? Also, if someone is sex A yet has a brain B, is that in terms of WHICH various dimorphic markers? Can females have a brain made up of XY chromosomes? If not, then how could an XX brain be a male brain?
Detrans consist of between 1% and 3% of an already tiny population. When you look at reasons for detransitioning, the vast majority of those state that their reasons are lack of supportive transition healthcare, and lack of societal acceptance.
So it would seem that the difference by and large between trans and detrans people, is being the target of bigotry without a social safety net, and without healthcare.
Saying that the brain is the most important part, does not deduce that we know enough to know how, best, to reconcile psychosomatic discordance. At the least, we should say that we are experimenting to provide some rare number of individuals, immediate happiness, assuming they can be made happy, and it seems that some can. But we, who want to understand this problem, should also acknowledge that this is an experiment, and that the whole phenomenon is confounded by this ostensible mimetic behavior which is creating an epidemic, and creating an exploitative growth industry within medicine.
This is what you looking for: 26:41
The doctor is 100% materialistc, so everithing should come from the quemistry of the brain somewhere, you don´t need to listen it all to know his answer, he can only have this one. But, they don´t have any clue.
I am right handed, however my left hand does not just dangle by my left side. I can dribble a basketball with both my right and left hand, and I can even shoot left, but not well. I try to keep my left hand, and all its attachments, engaged in activity…equal opportunity handedness, so to speak! When hiking, I often bring along a hiking pole. I am consciously switching the hiking pole to my left hand…to keep my left hand engaged. However, when the terrain gets steep and uneven, or when I’m crossing a river with a rocky bottom, I subconsciously switch to my right hand. My brain ‘feels’ more secure and safe with my right handedness for ‘some’ not so clearly defined reasons. Yes I identify as right handed…however…that does not prevent my brain and right hand from doing some very stupid things…like…like splitting my left thumb wide open with a hammer. And the moral to the story is???
Isn’t gender still a theory? Is there a biological test for gender or gender dysphoria?
Nice musical intro
Respect to Professor Sapolsky, I love his lectures. Some questions:
What is the role of neuroplasticity in gender expression?
What percentage of the population has each of the differences listed?
Humans are primates. How, and how often, do these conditions manifest in other primates?
Why do some people who identify as transgender change genders from day to day?
Why do transgender people with dementia detransition?
How can the 4000% increase in teenage girls wanting to be boys over the last decade, coinciding with the rise of social media, be explained?
How does this information explain the tens of thousands of detransitioners?
Where did you get any of these numbers? 4,000% increase in teenage girls? Tens of thousands of detransitioners? Will you please add citations
@@sunshinedenney8695 this lol. absolutely absurd claims. we NEED sources.