In the past, this submission would be flagged instantly. The fact that hasn't gives me hope that we could have reasonable discussion on this topic instead of unproductive flamewars.
It's already flagged. I flagged it too, but not even for the inflammatory title, but because the article itself is almost entirely devoid of content. There are no interesting specifics to discuss.
It does link a few papers, but I assume those papers are only a tiny fraction of the research being done.
I thought the same and was irritated that it talks about the study without linking to it whereas at the same time providing several other links (irrelevant to me). Finally, they did it at the very bottom.
So basically, for a casual reader, they discuss the main findings and explain their significance whereas the study just present the facts. On HN, we could just post the link to the study I guess, but for the general public it makes sense to explain what the white matter is etc.
Don't get your hopes up too much, it has been flagged already. It will take a while still for the censorious fraction of this (and other similar) site's population to realise that an open discussion on 'contentious' subjects does not cause 'harm' and that studies like the one mentioned here are part of the normal progress of research into these subjects.
As other commenters have notes, the massive amount of overlap makes it difficult to use it to justify any kind of discrimination.
It does, however, suggest that transgender identities could have a biological basis. Studies already hint that trans people have brains more like their gender than their sex. It's nowhere near giving us a diagnostic tool, but there's reason to think that it's not a fad or meme or whatever else anti-trans activists are claiming this week.
Some trans people think of transgender as an intersex condition. I'm not sure the studies really justify that yet, but it's worth looking into. It's not necessary to have a biological basis to justify their identity, but it would shortcut a lot of useless arguments.
There were some early studies that seemed to show brains of the trans-identifying are atypical for their sex, and perhaps closer to the opposite sex in some measurements, but these didn't control for sexuality, and many used exclusively homosexual cohorts.
It turned out that these were brain differences relating to homosexuality. Later studies that controlled for sexuality (that is, by including both same-sex and opposite-sex attracted transsexuals in the cohort) couldn't replicate the earlier findings of sexually dimorphic brain structures being associated with transsexuality itself.
Instead, researchers found functional differences in brain regions associated with bodily perception, similar to what is seen in body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) patients. Which I think is a more interesting finding, perhaps suggesting that gender dysphoria is a subtype of BDD, or at least has some neurological commonality.
Fascinating to see that there are differences on average, but there is a massive amount of overlap. Scroll down to the diagrams and you can see that 90-99% of the ranges could be either gender (depending on which factor we're talking about).
I think most people would agree we're all wired differentely on individual basis, and some traits are clearly associated with being male or female come from the brain itself. One documentary comes to mind is Marwencol https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1391092/ where a transvestite man lost his memory after a violent attack and truma to head and the new him becomes disgusted at the idea of wearing women clothes!
Are the people upvoting this getting ready to pop popcorn... for when the techbro man-children wake up, eager to share their insights into who can be good at what, in the workplace?
going with ideology (in any direction) in this type of research is useless, it misses potential discoveries that can enhance both women and men lives and even improve equality between sexes. The press article is quite shallow, I agree, but the actual research is linked there: https://bsd.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13293-024-00...
You can look at the charts, the distributions clearly overlap a lot, but there are also clear differences. Can't say what the implications are, if any, this is up to research to figure out.
PS: it would be very interesting to study brains in transexual people to see if any of those patterns are confirmed and how.
> going with ideology (in any direction) in this type of research is useless
The only point of this type of research is to go with girlbrain ideology. Otherwise they'd be studying functional differences between people with different ratios of white matter and grey matter, and not obsessing about sex.
Instead, what they're doing is looking at any statistical differences that they can find between men and women, and assigning "differences" in the female direction with stereotypes about girls. Typical:
> You may know some boys who are very sensitive, immensely talkative about feelings, and just generally don’t seem to fit the “boy” way of doing things. As with all gender differences, no one way of doing things is better or worse.
I disagree that "The only point of this type of research is to go with girlbrain ideology". The paper doesn't provide suggestions about what it means to have those differences, it just shows that such differences exist, even with some large overlaps. The article in the original post jumps to conclusions, which, I agree, are based on prejudices about what it means to be male/female.
Research on differences between sexes is useful and often needed for providing tailored health services and even for fighting prejudices or reducing systematic biases in society. Pretending we are all the same doesn't help anybody.
I see your opinion but the fact that some people interpret things as they like doesn't mean the research should be stopped. This journal (Biology of Sex Differences) helps us to understand the biological differences between sexes to provide better therapies etc. It has nothing to do with any ideology as you can understand from the home page itself:
On the opposite - this is factual presentation of the data from the study that contains substantial overlap as clearly stated in the study itself. What is so trashy about it?
I mean, any sort of data about a population with be distributed along a bell curve. I read "typically" and "generally" as meaning in the center of the distribution.
To give a geometric intuition, men orthogonalize (in a fractal sense) whereas women parallelize. Together they angularize.
---
If you have been in a large annoying chat group with a large number of active women, you will quickly see how they broadly value empathy over logic. And just forget about expecting nuanced systemization from them; it will never happen.
In the past, this submission would be flagged instantly. The fact that hasn't gives me hope that we could have reasonable discussion on this topic instead of unproductive flamewars.
It's already flagged. I flagged it too, but not even for the inflammatory title, but because the article itself is almost entirely devoid of content. There are no interesting specifics to discuss.
It does link a few papers, but I assume those papers are only a tiny fraction of the research being done.
> almost entirely devoid of content
I thought the same and was irritated that it talks about the study without linking to it whereas at the same time providing several other links (irrelevant to me). Finally, they did it at the very bottom.
So basically, for a casual reader, they discuss the main findings and explain their significance whereas the study just present the facts. On HN, we could just post the link to the study I guess, but for the general public it makes sense to explain what the white matter is etc.
Oh yes, there’s so much value in discussing pop science gender issues on a majority male technology forum. I’m sure we’ll crack the case, fellas!
just need to keep tryin'
Don't get your hopes up too much, it has been flagged already. It will take a while still for the censorious fraction of this (and other similar) site's population to realise that an open discussion on 'contentious' subjects does not cause 'harm' and that studies like the one mentioned here are part of the normal progress of research into these subjects.
As other commenters have notes, the massive amount of overlap makes it difficult to use it to justify any kind of discrimination.
It does, however, suggest that transgender identities could have a biological basis. Studies already hint that trans people have brains more like their gender than their sex. It's nowhere near giving us a diagnostic tool, but there's reason to think that it's not a fad or meme or whatever else anti-trans activists are claiming this week.
Some trans people think of transgender as an intersex condition. I'm not sure the studies really justify that yet, but it's worth looking into. It's not necessary to have a biological basis to justify their identity, but it would shortcut a lot of useless arguments.
There were some early studies that seemed to show brains of the trans-identifying are atypical for their sex, and perhaps closer to the opposite sex in some measurements, but these didn't control for sexuality, and many used exclusively homosexual cohorts.
It turned out that these were brain differences relating to homosexuality. Later studies that controlled for sexuality (that is, by including both same-sex and opposite-sex attracted transsexuals in the cohort) couldn't replicate the earlier findings of sexually dimorphic brain structures being associated with transsexuality itself.
Instead, researchers found functional differences in brain regions associated with bodily perception, similar to what is seen in body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) patients. Which I think is a more interesting finding, perhaps suggesting that gender dysphoria is a subtype of BDD, or at least has some neurological commonality.
There's so much overlap that gender is a useless signal.
In the aggregate men are better at math, but my wife is better at it than 99.9% of men.
Fascinating to see that there are differences on average, but there is a massive amount of overlap. Scroll down to the diagrams and you can see that 90-99% of the ranges could be either gender (depending on which factor we're talking about).
In almost all situations regarding humans, the difference between groups is smaller than the difference within groups.
I think most people would agree we're all wired differentely on individual basis, and some traits are clearly associated with being male or female come from the brain itself. One documentary comes to mind is Marwencol https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1391092/ where a transvestite man lost his memory after a violent attack and truma to head and the new him becomes disgusted at the idea of wearing women clothes!
Are the people upvoting this getting ready to pop popcorn... for when the techbro man-children wake up, eager to share their insights into who can be good at what, in the workplace?
> Female newborns typically have more grey matter in their brains.
> Male newborns generally have more white matter in their brains.
Yet again. This is trash.
going with ideology (in any direction) in this type of research is useless, it misses potential discoveries that can enhance both women and men lives and even improve equality between sexes. The press article is quite shallow, I agree, but the actual research is linked there: https://bsd.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13293-024-00...
You can look at the charts, the distributions clearly overlap a lot, but there are also clear differences. Can't say what the implications are, if any, this is up to research to figure out.
PS: it would be very interesting to study brains in transexual people to see if any of those patterns are confirmed and how.
> going with ideology (in any direction) in this type of research is useless
The only point of this type of research is to go with girlbrain ideology. Otherwise they'd be studying functional differences between people with different ratios of white matter and grey matter, and not obsessing about sex.
Instead, what they're doing is looking at any statistical differences that they can find between men and women, and assigning "differences" in the female direction with stereotypes about girls. Typical:
> You may know some boys who are very sensitive, immensely talkative about feelings, and just generally don’t seem to fit the “boy” way of doing things. As with all gender differences, no one way of doing things is better or worse.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hope-relationships/2...
Girlbrain and the law of averages as a defense against accusations of misogyny. The standard cocktail.
I disagree that "The only point of this type of research is to go with girlbrain ideology". The paper doesn't provide suggestions about what it means to have those differences, it just shows that such differences exist, even with some large overlaps. The article in the original post jumps to conclusions, which, I agree, are based on prejudices about what it means to be male/female.
Research on differences between sexes is useful and often needed for providing tailored health services and even for fighting prejudices or reducing systematic biases in society. Pretending we are all the same doesn't help anybody.
I see your opinion but the fact that some people interpret things as they like doesn't mean the research should be stopped. This journal (Biology of Sex Differences) helps us to understand the biological differences between sexes to provide better therapies etc. It has nothing to do with any ideology as you can understand from the home page itself:
https://bsd.biomedcentral.com/
> Yet again. This is trash.
On the opposite - this is factual presentation of the data from the study that contains substantial overlap as clearly stated in the study itself. What is so trashy about it?
What is your point? That is similar to saying that males are generally taller than females.
In my country, they claim that women would be as tall as men if not for misogyny.
I mean, any sort of data about a population with be distributed along a bell curve. I read "typically" and "generally" as meaning in the center of the distribution.
Additionally, you should read it as meaning in the center of a largely overlapping distribution, especially when controlling for size.
To give a geometric intuition, men orthogonalize (in a fractal sense) whereas women parallelize. Together they angularize.
---
If you have been in a large annoying chat group with a large number of active women, you will quickly see how they broadly value empathy over logic. And just forget about expecting nuanced systemization from them; it will never happen.
This has risks for juries.