# Transgender - transracial. What is the essential difference? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 3, 2021, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117 "2021-02-03T10:45:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![mr\_jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ebca7d/32.png) [@mr\_jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr_jp)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/41 "2021-02-03T20:01:44Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > that trans people do literally have some aspects of the male version of the human brain in the female version of the body, or vice versa. Perhaps it could help me if you could be more concrete. What is an example of a trait of a male version of the human brain? ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/42 "2021-02-03T20:10:45Z")
> [@LordHarry](#): > > This whole binary idea of gender and sex is a very modern phenomenon, that is mostly categorical laziness, rather than social or biological reality. I’m sorry but this is absurd. The binary idea of gender was not created because modern bureaucracy invented forms and Booleans. Trans people have existed for a long time, that does not mean that Bronze Age people were more enlightened nor that they didn’t have a bias towards “men” and “women” as the standard forms. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/43 "2021-02-03T20:19:47Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > It was my understanding that the entire philosophical underpinning of transgender recognition was that gender is a social construct that’s distinct and separate from one’s biological sex. Gender roles are a social construct. There are objective bases to gender. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/44 "2021-02-03T20:22:43Z")
> [@mr\_jp](#): > > Perhaps it could help me if you could be more concrete. What is an example of a trait of a male version of the human brain? Men have a smaller corpus callosum. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/45 "2021-02-03T20:23:28Z")
> [@mr\_jp](#): > > Could you elaborate further on what a “male brain” is? Well, just off-hand, without Googling, I recall reading that men’s brains tend toward more specialization than women’s, which explains why statistically, women recover better from strokes and other brain assaults than men (better, not perfectly). Also, by weight and volume, the corpus corpus callosum is a larger part of the female brain than the male. Lastly, because men are on the whole, larger, their brains are, on average, slightly larger than women’s, but the volume is mainly motor neurons and supportive (non-neuron) tissue. Took a class on neurochemistry and behavior in college, and basic brain biology was the first week. Just as a caveat, though, this was 30 years ago. All I can say is that reading _Discover_, _Scientific American_, and watching _Nova_ in the intervening years has not revealed anything shockingly contradictory. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/46 "2021-02-03T20:30:47Z")
Will probably miss the edit window, so I’ll start a new post. Here’s one reason I can think of that could give a person, literally, a female brain in a male body, or vice-versa. If a person had chimera syndrome, and the two fused blastocysts happened to have different sets of sex chromosomes, with one set dictating brain formation, but the other dictating the organs that formed gonadal sex, then you could have the brain of one gender in the body of another, because the formation of either testes or ovaries at six weeks of embryonic development-- dictated by the presence, or lack, of a Y chromosome-- influences everything else, body-wise: formation of the genitals along one direction or another, and the development of secondary sexual characteristics at puberty, etc. ---
**Author:** ![mr\_jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ebca7d/32.png) [@mr\_jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr_jp)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/47 "2021-02-03T20:32:51Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Also, by weight and volume, the corpus corpus callosum is a larger part of the female brain than the male. > > Lastly, because men are on the whole, larger, their brains are, on average, slightly larger than women’s, but the volume is mainly motor neurons and supportive (non-neuron) tissue. This doesn’t really seem to work as an explanation of the matter though. Since female-to-male transgender people (I assume) still have these values closer towards the female brain averages. So it must be some other traits. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/48 "2021-02-03T20:43:54Z")
> [@mr\_jp](#): > > This doesn’t really seem to work as an explanation of the matter though. Since female-to-male transgender people (I assume) still have these values closer towards the female brain averages. So it must be some other traits. You assume, but you don’t really know. FTM transgendered people could have corpora callosa that are proportioned like men’s. And there are actually quite a few other differences, I just can’t remember them. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/49 "2021-02-03T20:50:14Z")
Blast! All the bookmarks I keep for such discussions are no longer good. I’m reduced to Wikipedia for now [Stria terminalis - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stria_terminalis) ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/50 "2021-02-03T20:51:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > A person with dark skin who regards themself as white and tries to act white and so on, and who might even have a significant amount of European ancestry, will still be subjected to anti-black discrimination. That’s no different than saying that a woman who regards herself to be a man and tries to act like a man may still face anti-women sexism. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/51 "2021-02-03T20:53:40Z")
To answer the OP: We’re currently in an in-flux period where society hasn’t made up its mind. In 10 or 20 years people may vote and get a consensus, but for now, there is no coherent reason why transgenderism and transracialism should be regarded differently, other than “that’s the way it is.” But as for Dolezal, the main backlash was that she was trying to gain an advantage, and perceived as doing so unfairly. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/52 "2021-02-03T21:03:45Z")
I forgot to address the OP. If we disect human brains, we find that they are sexually dimorphic. There are differences between a male brain and a female one. Somebody with the right training could identify if a give brain was male or female. There are, correct me if I’m wrong, no differences between a ‘black’ brain and a ‘white’ one. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/53 "2021-02-03T21:12:48Z")
> [@mr\_jp](#): > > there haven’t been that many mixed race societies historically. That’s not true. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/54 "2021-02-03T21:25:16Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > I forgot to address the OP. > > If we disect human brains, we find that they are sexually dimorphic. There are differences between a male brain and a female one. Somebody with the right training could identify if a give brain was male or female. > > There are, correct me if I’m wrong, no differences between a ‘black’ brain and a ‘white’ one. Then, if anything, this should indicate that society ought to consider transgenderism to be _ **more** _ far-fetched than transracialism, not less. A man transitioning to becoming a woman should be considered much _further_ a long shot than a white person transitioning to being black. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/55 "2021-02-03T21:26:58Z")
I think what you’re missing is that a trans-woman has always been a woman, even though she was earlier identified as male due to physiology. The transition is where everyone else also accepts that she’s a woman. I could be wrong here and welcome correction. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/56 "2021-02-03T21:33:25Z")
Did you read my linked cite? " The authors (Jiang-Ning Zhou, Frank PM Kruijver, [Dick Swaab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Swaab)) also examined subjects with hormone-related disorders and found no pattern between those disorders and the BSTc while the single untreated male-to-female [transsexual](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexual) had a female-typical number of cells. They concluded that the BSTc provides evidence for a neurobiological basis of [gender identity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity) and proposed that such was determined before birth." Short version- while not completely settled, evidence points to transgender individuals having a brain that matches the gender they feel, rather than one matching their chromosomes and reproductive organs. ---
**Author:** ![mr\_jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ebca7d/32.png) [@mr\_jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr_jp)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/57 "2021-02-03T21:37:28Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Short version- while not completely settled, evidence points to transgender individuals having a brain that matches the gender they feel, rather than one matching their chromosomes and reproductive organs. I am skeptical. Maybe in this one respect. But I don’t think with regards to overall size etc. Also n = 42, it’s only about a specific region, and it doesn’t say the p-value in the abstract. Smells like p-hacking. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/58 "2021-02-03T21:40:48Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Short version- while not completely settled, evidence points to transgender individuals having a brain that matches the gender they feel, rather than one matching their chromosomes and reproductive organs. One thing to keep in mind is that there is no purity test or requirements that need to be met to self-identify as a gender. While this brain difference may be true in some (most?) transgender people, it isn’t necessarily true in all transgender people. If someone considers themself a transwoman, they are a transwoman. There is no dependency on having a certain kind of brain in order to be transgender. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/59 "2021-02-03T22:02:45Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > One thing to keep in mind is that there is no purity test or requirements that need to be met to self-identify as a gender. While this brain difference may be true in some (most?) transgender people, it isn’t necessarily true in all transgender people. There are likely many sexually dimorphic features, some of which are physiologically apparent, some of which are not. Given the diversity of human gender identity and sexuality, it’s surely likely that there is wide variation in which subset of features are present in any individual, whether cis or trans. And non-binary people are just part of this spectrum of human nature. So you are correct - nobody is suggesting any kind of physiological “test” of whether someone has a certain identity. The best way to discover someone’s identity will always be to interact with their functioning mind in a far more reliable way - by talking to them. Buy regarding this: > [@filmore](#): > > If someone considers themself a transwoman, they are a transwoman. Well, I know what you’re getting at, but I don’t think that’s quite right, or at least more needs to be said. Given the claim that gender identity is just as much an objective phenomenon as our genitalia, not some whimsical roleplaying, to be trans _is_ actually something more substantial than justing making the claim. For example, somebody immature could be mistaken about their own identity. In practice, of course, people who are trans are generally consistent and persistent about their identity, and I agree with your primary point - that the way we discover someone’s identity is by talking to them. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117/60 "2021-02-03T22:05:13Z")
If I really feel it and I want to be Jewish, or Chinese, or Maori, or a Mackintosh, it seems like this is possible but acceptance is less or more difficult depending on the group in question, and it also does not hinge merely on my say-so. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgender-transracial-what-is-the-essential-difference/932117.md?page=4)