#absc

Today we’re taking a step away from the terminology and looking a little bit into the science behind the mystery.  We know identifying as transgender means that your brain and the body you were born in aren’t in alignment.  But why is that? How is this really a “thing” and not some made up liberal nonsense?

I’m going to be taking this in very small, bite-sized chunks.

First you need to know that the medical diagnosis is Gender Dysphoria (GD) and is in the The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems,10th revision (ICD-10).  This replaces the outdated Gender Identity Disorder (GID) which fell into the psychological purview.  Take Away: Being diagnosed as transgender is a medical diagnosis not a psychological one.

We are able to make this transition from diagnosis type--psychological to medical--now that science has been able to learn and to better understand more aspects of this condition.  Medical experts are better able to diagnose GD, and we, the lay people are better able to understand this condition, because GD has actual physical evidence.  

This is ONE example and explanation for the many causes and reasons for identifying as transgender. I will provide a link to other medical causes next week. 

First off, brain scans have found patterns across gender identity.  This is recent exciting news!  It is a fact that there are differences in the appearance of the male and female brains. ”It is known.” (Nod, to my Game of Thrones peeps.)  Looking at brain scans, doctors have been able to locate portions of the brain which look totally different in the male brain from the female brain. Now here’s the cool part:  a transgender man will have a brain scan that matches a typical male brain, regardless of the fact that the genitalia assigned to him was female at birth. And ditto in reverse for transgender females.

The following is a picture from a blog by Katherine J. Wu, Between the (Gender) Lines:  the Science of Transgender Identity

And that’s the news for this week.  Next week I’ll talk about fetal development and how it’s not just a simple matter of XX or XY.