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 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It matters because if we, in the process of "fixing their body to match their brain", change how the brain works we could just have created an "un-fix", as it were, where one problem is replaced by the same problem in reverse.

But the point is that in the real world it doesn't work like that. We fix the body, the problem goes away. This is fact, not speculation, and has a history of success to support it. BeAfraid just keeps proposing all this bizarre technobabble "genetics" that has nothing to do with the real world. He's raising imaginary problems that could happen with imaginary treatment, and I really don't see the point.


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BeAfraid wrote:
Soooo many people tend to think that my questioning this issue is some sort of anti-trans, or homophobic attitude, when my goal is to provide people of any sexual orientation or body-image with the freedom to be who they want to be.

That might be your goal, but it's nothing more than wishful thinking, no matter how much useless technobabble you post to "support" your ideas about cat-people or whatever.

 Peregrine wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It matters because if we, in the process of "fixing their body to match their brain", change how the brain works we could just have created an "un-fix", as it were, where one problem is replaced by the same problem in reverse.

But the point is that in the real world it doesn't work like that. We fix the body, the problem goes away. This is fact, not speculation, and has a history of success to support it. BeAfraid just keeps proposing all this bizarre technobabble "genetics" that has nothing to do with the real world. He's raising imaginary problems that could happen with imaginary treatment, and I really don't see the point.

They are hardly "technobabble."

They are the primary focus of people actually working on this problem (gender-dysphoria).

You seem to be missing the point that changing the body is not changing the genes

Genotype=/=Phenotype in the case of people with gender-dysphoria.

This indicates a genetic issue of some sort.

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BeAfraid wrote:
Soooo many people tend to think that my questioning this issue is some sort of anti-trans, or homophobic attitude, when my goal is to provide people of any sexual orientation or body-image with the freedom to be who they want to be.

That might be your goal, but it's nothing more than wishful thinking, no matter how much useless technobabble you post to "support" your ideas about cat-people or whatever.

You aren't a biologist, are you?

MB

BeAfraid wrote:
They are the primary focus of people actually working on this problem (gender-dysphoria).

I don't think any serious researchers working on gender dysphoria are looking for ways to let furries become cat-people.

You seem to be missing the point that changing the body is not changing the genes

What's your point? Genes are invisible and irrelevant, what matters is the thing that they produce. If you can fix someone's problems by giving them a daily hormone pill then you don't need to screw around with trying to change all of their genes (which is probably impossible anyway) to make them produce that hormone "naturally".

You aren't a biologist, are you?

No, but you don't need to be a biologist to understand that transforming people into centaurs and dragons by magic "genetics" is science fiction, not reality.

I am so not understanding what is actually being discussed here, but I just think this story is absolutely hilarious.
She does look black (or rather, very light brown) to me though, apart from the eyes.

Here is a method of putting the issue that more people here might understand.

Epigenetics is kind of like a computer code, a series of if-then-else statements.

And, the issue of gender-dysphoria might (probably does, since that is what they teach us in class at UCLA) have an epigenetic basis.

So, to illustrate why this is a problem, follow the following pseudo-code to illustrate what MIGHT happen if we do not fully understand the genetic basis of the problem. With this pseudo-code, I make the assumption that gender is binary for the case we are using (it is either XX or XY, and ~XX = XY and ~XY =XX

IF (genderDysphoria = True)
. . . Let _genderGenotype = XX || XY
. . . Let _genderPhenotype = XX || XY
. . . Let _perceivedGenderPhenotype = ~_genderPhenotype
ELSE
_genderGenotype = XX || XY
_genderPhenotype = XX || XY
_perceivedGenderPhenotype = _genderPhenotype

This code is a very basic description of the problem, but the key line is:

• Let _perceivedGenderPhenotype = ~_genderPhenotype

To translate that into English, for any who do not know how to read logical symbols, it reads "Let the perceived gender appearance (phenotype) equal the opposite of the actual gender phenotype"

This means that if a person presents an appearance as a male, then they will see themselves as a female, and if they are female, they will see themselves as male.

If this code is analogous to what is happening with a person with gender-dysphoria, and we attempt to alter their genotype from XX to XY, or XY to XX without understanding how this mechanism works, then all we would be doing is changing the outward sex, but keeping the gender dysphoria intact, as it is keyed off of the existing genotype/phenotype COMBINATION, and not just the APPEARANCES of gender.

MB


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 Peregrine wrote:

BeAfraid wrote:
They are the primary focus of people actually working on this problem (gender-dysphoria).

I don't think any serious researchers working on gender dysphoria are looking for ways to let furries become cat-people.

You seem to be missing the point that changing the body is not changing the genes

What's your point? Genes are invisible and irrelevant, what matters is the thing that they produce. If you can fix someone's problems by giving them a daily hormone pill then you don't need to screw around with trying to change all of their genes (which is probably impossible anyway) to make them produce that hormone "naturally".

You aren't a biologist, are you?

No, but you don't need to be a biologist to understand that transforming people into centaurs and dragons by magic "genetics" is science fiction, not reality.

I see... You just missed the entire point, and are doing nothing more than PURPOSELY trying to miss the point, is that it?

If you would like, I could bury you under a series of links to papers where these very issues are taking place.

And, I would suggest you read up on genetic treatments for diseases, which do exactly what you claim is impossible (as do all viruses): alter our DNA (genetics).

And, I see DNA (the molecule) weekly. It is one of the few molecules that can be seen with an ordinary optical microscope. Genes are hardly irrelevant, nor "invisible."

They control literally everything about you, whether you like it or not.

MB


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 Iron_Captain wrote:
I am so not understanding what is actually being discussed here, but I just think this story is absolutely hilarious.
She does look black (or rather, very light brown) to me though, apart from the eyes.

Yes, it is, and what is being discussed isn't too closely tied to the article (it simply dealt with body-dysphoria). Just basically what could make a person think they were something else.

MB

BeAfraid wrote:
Here is a method of putting the issue that more people here might understand.

Why do you keep thinking that this is a case of not understanding you when I just don't agree with your absurd claims about making dragons and cat-people?

So, to illustrate why this is a problem, follow the following pseudo-code to illustrate what MIGHT happen if we do not fully understand the genetic basis of the problem.

Or, instead of speculating about what might happen with some imaginary treatment involving genetic changes we can look at what does happen with real treatments. And the answer is that fixing the body/hormones/etc to match the brain makes the dysphoria issue go away. I have no idea why you insist on speculating about hypothetical situations that have nothing to do with reality when we already know the answer to the question in the real world.

 Peregrine wrote:
I just don't agree with your absurd claims about making dragons and cat-people?

If his claim is reduced to somehow turning a genetic male into a genetic female or vice versa, does that change your opinion?

 Peregrine wrote:

BeAfraid wrote:
Here is a method of putting the issue that more people here might understand.

Why do you keep thinking that this is a case of not understanding you when I just don't agree with your absurd claims about making dragons and cat-people?

I am sorry, but are you really that stupid to not understand that the language I was using at the time was symbolic for the most part?

Yes, we can do things (currently, no need to wait) like alter people's genome to get the, to grow fur all over their body (even though it is illegal to do so in most places). It is a simple HOX gene alteration.

But you are obviously not understanding why genetics is important to an issue that has a genetic basis.

So, to illustrate why this is a problem, follow the following pseudo-code to illustrate what MIGHT happen if we do not fully understand the genetic basis of the problem.

Or, instead of speculating about what might happen with some imaginary treatment involving genetic changes we can look at what does happen with real treatments. And the answer is that fixing the body/hormones/etc to match the brain makes the dysphoria issue go away. I have no idea why you insist on speculating about hypothetical situations that have nothing to do with reality when we already know the answer to the question in the real world.

Another issue here is, all this talk about genotype and phenotype is not necessarily anything to do with gender.

 Manchu wrote:
Another issue here is, all this talk about genotype and phenotype is not necessarily anything to do with gender.

O.o

Genotype and phenotype ARE gender.

The combination produces our presented gender as well as our perceived gender.

That is the very core of our gender.

MB

BeAfraid wrote:
Genotype and phenotype ARE gender.

To paraphrase you, you're not a sociologist or anthropologist are you?

 Manchu wrote:

BeAfraid wrote:
Genotype and phenotype ARE gender.

To paraphrase you, you're not a sociologist or anthropologist are you?

No, Cognitive Scientist and Computational & Systems Biologist.

Although my first time through school I did study with Joseph Campbell, yet his work (and mine at the time) dealt with religious history, and mythology (but a huge amount of it was anthropological).

But that still does not alter the fact that gender is an artifact of our brain, which is a biological component. And that the brain's mechanisms are dictated by genes (whether directly, or in conjunction with the environment).

If gender-dysphoria had no genetic component, then it would simply be a choice made by a person during their life. Few people decide intentionally that they are in the wrong body.

Pathologies don't work that way.

MB

Well, first, I haven't argued that there is no genetic component to how a person feels about their gender. As you may recall, I have specifically pointed out that I am not saying that several times.

Second, what you are positing there is a false dilemma premised on a misunderstanding of gender.

 Manchu wrote:
If his claim is reduced to somehow turning a genetic male into a genetic female or vice versa, does that change your opinion?

Not really, because it's still incredibly speculative and based on science that is questionable at best.


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BeAfraid wrote:
I am sorry, but are you really that stupid to not understand that the language I was using at the time was symbolic for the most part?

You were not using it symbolically, you were making literal statements and saw no need to clarify until I called you on your scifi nonsense. But nice job adding a rule #1 violation to your poor communication.

Because ALL of my Trans friends (for which I have MANY) would like a fix that alters their genome to match their phenotype.

Really? This is the first I've heard of transgendered people really caring strongly that their genes (which they have no interaction with in their everyday life) matching their identity, compared to the importance of having their body match their identity. Are you seriously telling me that all of your friends really care strongly about having a genetic test (the only way to see whether they have male or female genes) give the right answer?

Current treatments will not allow a male->female transsexual to do things like get pregnant, or have a working clitorus.

And why do you think that changing someone's genes will allow that? Changing the contents of a person's genes doesn't reverse the results of years/decades of development, and it's incredibly unlikely that if you swapped XY with XX a person's body would remove all of the male attributes, restore them to their original sex-neutral state, and then re-develop them into the appropriate female attributes. You'd just have a person with a male body and XX genes.

You are not going to acclimate well to the future if you cannot understand how drastically humanity will be changing over the next half a century, and why genetic and epigenetic issues are so central to those decades.

IOW, "you don't like my science fiction story".

 Peregrine wrote:
Not really, because it's still incredibly speculative and based on science that is questionable at best.

I agree. I'm not sure what it would mean, if it even could be done, to suddenly transform a genetic male into a genetic female but I'm completely skeptical as to it being the same thing as turning a man into woman.

 Manchu wrote:
Well, first, I haven't argued that there is no genetic component to how a person feels about their gender. As you may recall, I have specifically pointed out that I am not saying that several times.

Second, what you are positing there is a false dilemma premised on a misunderstanding of gender.

What then am I misunderstanding about Gender?

MB

First step is to demonstrate that there is a difference. Let's just think about a trans person. Neither their genotype nor their phenotype matches their gender identity.

 Manchu wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Not really, because it's still incredibly speculative and based on science that is questionable at best.

I agree. I'm not sure what it would mean, if it even could be done, to suddenly transform a genetic male into a genetic female but I'm completely skeptical as to it being the same thing as turning a man into woman.

Geez!!!

There are VAST numbers of biological processes that only occur in an XX or XY genotype (more for the XY than the XX, because MOST (but not all) genes in an XX genotype occur in both chromosomes).

Hormone regulation being the most important. Transsexuals have to take large amounts of hormones to retain the physical characteristics of their desired gender. Being able to alter their phenotype with a change in genotype is HARDLY "Science Fiction' because we have examples of Birds, Fish, and Frogs that do exactly that (turn from male into female or female to male - not to mention that any Plant can do it).

People don't seem to understand the unity of the gene. The same genes that produce hemoglobin in a human being produce hemoglobin in a wasp. The same genes that control body plan (HOX genes) exist in EVERY animal on earth, and are regulated by the same g-proteins and factors as well. The list of genes shared by all life is enormous.

So... If a fish, frog, or bird can alter its phenotype completely, and then give birth to live young, then the same thing is possible in a human being (with the right control genes).

In fact, if we were allowed to do so, we could take the genes that allow for gender-switching from one of these animals and insert it into a fetus RIGHT NOW and produce a human being that could switch gender. We do this all the time to produce transgenic plants and animals (although currently it is constrained to animals like insects and reptiles, with only a very few birds and mammals). But the technique has been shown to be incredibly simple, and effective.

But it is currently illegal to do so.

So, THAT is why this issue is of rather high importance to the transgendered, just to mention a few. Because not only are the genes that cause gender-dysphoria important to discovering how to best Complete the transition from one gender to the other, but it has rather drastic health issues as well (Gender reassignment comes with a LOT of risks, which could be minimized if we knew more about the endocrine system, and the genetic factors that regulate it. Simply flipping the genome would allow us to resolve ALL of those).

Addendum:

Because I cannot easily post links on my iPad (it has problems), I did not include a link to the protoandry or protogyny (sequential hermaphroditism) that I mentioned earlier. The Wikipedia article does not include the bird that changes gender (yet) because it was just discovered a few months ago (or maybe last year, I will have to ask my sister - she is an ornithologist/zoologist). But here is a link to the trait:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_hermaphroditism





MB

Just to be clear, you are talking about doing this to an adult?

 Manchu wrote:
Just to be clear, you are talking about doing this to an adult?

Eventually, yes.

We would use an inactive retrovirus to insert the necessary changes to their chromosomes.

Retroviruses can be programmed to do this, and it is one means of producing transgenic organisms.

There are a LOT of things that could be sped up by using a surgical intervention during the change brought on by their genome (which would take several years to complete - we can't change physics, just biology). But even these might be unnecessary in theory.

The only place where a surgical intervention might be preferred would be in genital reconstruction and possibly in skeletal reconstruction (it would be difficult to get the widening of the pelvis that occurs in women, which occurs during puberty, which would be incredibly painful to subject an adult to - just as an example).


But in the case of genitalia, in a male->female, the penis would transform into urethra and clitorus, and would remain. . . Pronounced.

It would probably be a good idea to perform a reductive and reconstructive (cosmetic) surgery to the new female vagina, labia, and clitorus.

For female->male you have exactly the opposite problem. The urethra and clitorus fuse to become the penis, which would be rather small. There are also problems that might need a surgical nudge or two concerning the formation of the prostate in the female from the base of the cervix.

There are other issues particular to each transformation that may require, or would benefit from surgical enhancements, that deal with issues surrounding other structural changes between the two genders.

AND.... There WILL be people who choose hermaphroditism, to be BOTH genders at once... They might choose to be an androgyn (someone who presents equally as either gender), or they could choose to present as predominantly male, or predominantly female, yet have the genitalia of both genders.

We know that hermaphroditism is possible because we see it all over the place (in both animal and plant kingdom).

But, yes... It would be in adults, or young children, depending upon when the epigenetic factors become fixed in determining gender perception.

MB

Again it seems like you are just talking about organs. I don't see anything about gender.

BeAfraid wrote:
People don't seem to understand the unity of the gene.

No, you don't seem to understand how genes work. Let's give you an example to work with:

You (presumably) have the genes for having two arms. In the developmental process where you went from a single cell to an adult those genes produced two arms and allowed them to grow until they reached their full adult size. Now let's say you suffer a horrible accident and lose an arm. You still have the genes for two arms, but your body isn't going to grow another arm to match those genes. You would have to find a way to reactivate the growth process, rebuild the starting point that your arm develops from, and somehow get a new arm to grow properly without interfering with any other parts of your body (which need to remain in "adult" mode). That's MUCH more complicated than just saying "you have the genes for two arms".

Same thing with transgendered people. Simply swapping some genes doesn't mean that the body will change to match those genes. It's theoretically possible that you could combine a genetic change with a way to reverse and redo the development process, but that is a much more difficult problem to solve and there's no guarantee that it can be solved.

So... If a fish, frog, or bird can alter its phenotype completely, and then give birth to live young, then the same thing is possible in a human being (with the right control genes).

...

You really don't understand biology. I'm beginning to suspect that your supposed PhD in biology you're working on is a lie. And TBH your credential bragging in general is starting to look pretty suspicious.

LOL so you mean if we injected you with a retrovirus that re-wrote the part of your DNA responsible for the development of two arms, one of your arms (which one?) wouldn't simply wither away?

 Manchu wrote:
Again it seems like you are just talking about organs. I don't see anything about gender.

If you want to talk "gender," it is a perception, seated in a combination of our lateral temporal lobes, and in the lambic system (with a combination of the amygdaloid, hypothalamus, and basal brain stem).

It is a combination of a great many things, but it is THE BRAIN which controls our perceptions of gender.

In most people the perception = reality (physical appearance).

But in some small number, the perception seems to be exactly opposite that of the physical (presented) gender. Something happened in their brain that caused them to perceive themselves as being the gender they do not physically possess.

Since the brain is a physical system, it is a physical reason that things happen within it. For ALL of those things, there is a genetic basis (either directly, or as an epigenetic trait).

Basic cognition is an aspect of genes. Our higher cognitive abilities are a function of genes. The actual thoughts themselves are a bit more involved than to say they are just a function of genes, but the genes are what allows the superstructure for these thoughts to occur, and the genes can force some thoughts.

For instance, if I remove a gene from your thalamus to produce adequate amounts of dopamine, you will begin thinking about killing yourself until you eventually die from either suicide or some form of seizure (dopamine prevents our muscles from locking up due to the signaling of achetocholine in the amygdala to contract all muscles (all the time - dopamine is an interrupt for this process, telling the amygdala to NOT send the "contraction" signals. An error in this pathway is what causes Parkinson's Disease/Syndrome. This pathway also controls your emotional responses to things).

Somewhere in that tangle of neurons is a system of neurons that controls what gender you perceive yourself to be, as I have said, and what gender you ARE (your physical, sexual traits) affects what hormones run through the brain, which in turn affect what gender you perceive yourself to be.

Systems do not reduce to one single cause, they are a network of variables that affect each other.

Gender perception and choice happens to be one such system. And central to every node of that system is a selection of genes (possibly a System of genes) which control it.

I wish that I had my sexual genetics textbook with me, this would be easier to explain.

You cannot untangle gender from sex. Nor can you separate either from genes (even if the genes are not an immediate, proximal cause of some sexual or gender trait).

MB


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 Manchu wrote:
LOL so you mean if we injected you with a retrovirus that re-wrote the part of your DNA responsible for the development of two arms, one of your arms (which one?) wouldn't simply wither away?

Yep. HOX genes 3 - 6 would do that.

And we have done that on rats.

Addendum:

Oh! And which arm it would be would depend upon which gene and what you told it to do.

Generally, one HOX gene controls both sides of the body, but there is another gene controlling for bilateral symmetry. You can code it for one side or the other (it is another HOX gene, but since I have not got that deep into developmental genetics yet - saving it for grad school - I cannot recall which one).

MB

This is a family friendly forum, keep it cleaner than that. motyak

My impression is, your most basic premise is that gender and sex are the same thing. But nothing you have posted actually shows as much. So for you, truth is chemical. But biochemical processes can malfunction and this creates contradictions, basically disorders or falsehoods, that can be repaired to get back to truth. In this schema, gender just means what is perceived, whether it is objectively (that is, chemically) true or false. In other words, you would seem to hold that a transgendered person is malfunctioning -- either (some part of) the brain is malfunctioning or the body is. Whichever one doesn't really concern you, because you think you can fix this contradiction/falsehood from either point. So long as the body matches the mind brain in the end, this would be a restoration of truth.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I am so not understanding what is actually being discussed here, but I just think this story is absolutely hilarious.
She does look black (or rather, very light brown) to me though, apart from the eyes.

Apply some shoe polish, curl hair --> black face

 Manchu wrote:
My impression is, your most basic premise is that gender and sex are the same thing. But nothing you have posted actually shows as much. So for you, truth is chemical. But biochemical processes can malfunction and this creates contradictions, basically disorders or falsehoods, that can be repaired to get back to truth. In this schema, gender just means what is perceived, whether it is objectively (that is, chemically) true or false. In other words, you would seem to hold that a transgendered person is malfunctioning -- either (some part of) the brain is malfunctioning or the body is. Whichever one doesn't really concern you, because you think you can fix this contradiction/falsehood from either point. So long as the body matches the mind brain in the end, this would be a restoration of truth.

No, gender and sex are two different things, but are deeply connected.

Just like your thoughts are not your brain, but are rather your brain + time (patterns of neurons firing, and ephaptic coupling, reverse action potentials, and other temporal processes give rise to specific thoughts).

So, like thoughts and the brain (you cannot have thoughts without the brain) you cannot have gender without sex (gender is an expression of sex - whether it is an identical expression of sex is what concerns gender-dysphoria).

Addendum:

You seem to be putting value loaded terms into the discussion that are causing problems.

YES, gender-dysphoria is a "malfunction" in the sense that it is a deviation from what we call typical, normal operation of the brain.

If it were not, then we would see Significant numbers of the population with these issues.

It is a malfunction in the same way that a person who has some form of depression is malfunctioning. Or that a person who has Parkinson's Syndrome is malfunctioning.

This does not mean that there is any value judgment for the person, or that there is an attempt to devalue them.

And it is not about establishing "Truth" but about establishing WHY gender-dysphoria occurs, and what to do for people who suffer from it (ask anyone who is transsexual if their life has been easy - i.e. Have they "suffered" as a result of it - and they will say "yes").

Simply altering the physical appearance is not enough for most transsexuals. They wish to have more than just a cosmetic change.

To do that, you must have a genetic change.

Yet if you alter the genes without understanding the dysphoria, you could be wasting your time, or, worse, doing damage to the person that could kill them.

Most people have a hard time with this issue because they cannot wrap their heads around the fact that biology is governed by genes (even things like our thoughts) and they begin to put value judgments on discussions about genetic issues (which is a real danger, because the answers to some genetic questions have been shown to give ammunition to people with toxic and outright evil goals and intentions or beliefs).

Without knowing the cause, or the systemic model/equation for something biological, we cannot produce the desired goals for people who happen to possess some trait which they find undesirable.

So... Stop trying to think of this in terms of good/bad/true/false as if it were a value judgment.

This is just about WHAT IS and what people who have some form of gender/body-dysphoria would like done to have a body image or gender that matches their perception.



MB

Gender is not an expression of sex. The correlation is pervasive but not necessary.

How is this remotely on topic?


She seems like she's a version of Uncle Ruckus on opposites day.