That was dynamite! Fantastic. I had been studying the Substantia Nigra recently and this talk was wonderful to assist me with setting it all up. After the last 33 minutes of this talk, I feel that they are just getting better and better, if that is at all possible! THANK you so much - made my week!!! Tom.
3 minutes in and already learning, what a monster person to have that deep of a reservoir of knowledge. If Mr Levin and Mr Sapolsky each release new book this year, it would be a great month. Godspeed
"The world which we perceive is a tiny fraction of the world which we can perceive, which is a tiny fraction of the perceivable world." Terence McKenna
Although Prof. Sapolsky hasn't replied to this old San Franciscan living in London, his books opened up new chapters in my clarinet tutor. I'm even more convinced by the evidence that my life-long conviction that brain plasticity means that serious high art classical music and music-making makes people better human beings, much more than any other human activity.
i would have to agree i think there’s something really special about being alone with an instrument. i have to ask do you think other creative things like art or writing have the same effect, or is music special? also, i would be interested to learn the effect of different types of music. personally why do you think classical is better than, say jazz, in making your brain more plastic?
Thank you and for your two excellent questions, both of which have occupied me all my life. I began life as both a musician and an artist and made my lifetime decision to become both. I've been faithful to both and accepted huge testing sacrifices. The age old adage that music is "the mother of all art", really is true but more and more evidence continues to support that. An early realization was that the practice of serious high art music and music-making utilizes more area of the brain than any other human activity, measurable more than other forms of music-making. Other forms of activity help, yes, such as art and writing, but not as much or as deeply or inclusive of brain activity. Imagination, I feel, is key. Poetry is as close as writing can get to music. Serious high art music and music-making contain emotions that there are no words for at all. Language requires a translation from thought; music is direct. Other forms of music are limited. So, yes, I believe that the "work" activity of serious high art music and music-making is special for many reasons. We're only at the beginning of asking/answering many questions because of our being at the beginning of learning about the most complicated thing in the universe: the brain. The activity of hard multiple work activity and multitasking stimulates brain plasticity in the way that professor Sapolsky points out: experience changes us not the other way around. "It's complicated!" Being a life-long professional clarinet player of the highest world standards aspiration, I speak from personal experience. It's obviously impossible to answer your questions here, but, I've been researching, studying, asking questions and writing my MS for many years and it gets bigger not smaller! 😅
Dr Sapolsky, thank you for your clear and concise explanations. I know about your personal experiences and work revolving around depression. I would love to hear your thoughts on complex PTSD.
I could listen to Dr. Sapolsky all day. I never really understood the danger of free radicals (at a high doses) on our neurons. Are there pesticides that we can use at the industrial scale that causes less damage? I am wondering how we balance environmental toxins used in industry and feeding a modern population of billions of people.
The trans brain segment makes a lot of sense to me. I'm a trans man and my main thing was always "i'm not a woman". I don't care that much about being a man. I prefer being seen as a man to being seen as a woman. But it bothered me when someone called attention to me being a woman and i don't care either way if people acknowledge me being a man.
This is RELATABLE! I feel seen: Since 1993, I have identified as Psychologically Androgynous, which, at the time sufficiently explained my non-maleness. I told my mom, "I'm not going to be a man when I grow up" at age 3. My own transness wasn't apparent to me because 1) I'm confident that I began repressing my innate gender identity as a result of observing my mother's facial disapproval when she walked into her bedroom to see 4yo me looking at myself in a mirror, pleased, wearing her clothes. 2) since then, identifying myself by what I am not (not a man) felt as articulate as I could be. When my body hair grew on me, I felt like a monster. I don't recall ever wishing for femme parts, but i almost scrubbed my skin off while trying to remove hair on my limbs with a pumice stone. I was in such a state of despair, "how would anyone love me with such an ugly body?" I cried. I'm more into being seen as a trans woman now. I sometimes have dreams in which I appear to be female, but not all.
Always loved the support & validation of Dr Sapolsky for trans stuff when all the quacks like Dr Dawkins are just not getting it, all the love & blessings for Sapolsky & family being wonderful humans 🎉❤❤
'validation' there it is. The crux of the position is a desite to have other people reaffirm what you wish were true. dawkins is definitely on the side of reason on this one. even if Everything sapolsky said is correct- 'just not getting it' to you = just nt reafirming your over-validation of the concept of gender identity. a boy really wishes he was a girl, because something in his brain more leans towards the mould presented for that supposed dichotomy, and we are supposed to embrace the obsession with gender too and beyond extreme procedure- like embracing an anorexics self image rather than Helping them Reason through it girls who obsess with their femininity are immature, boys who obsess over their masculinity are immature, and the same goes for those who do so across the isle
@@Amethyst_Friend Oh no, i just have my own Writing Style. Capital letters are for Emphasis start of a sentence? capitalize it because its expected? no thanks
I'm on a website called Bunspacw and every now and then someone will note that their male neutered rabbit,every spring will build a nest ...They would always ask what's going on. I'd tell them that theior rabbit had the body of a male and the brain of a female and just to enjoy their house bunny. There's a few adorable pictures of a few of these little bunnies with hay in their mouthes ment for nest building...I do wonder how often this occurs across species. My best friend was trans btw (f to M).
I love this dialogues so much! Really looking forward each time more than for some Netflix hit. Thank you for sharing your pov on such interesting and sometimes polarising questions!
brilliant just brilliant sibling too.....thankyou for your total commitment to humanity am growing new nearal tissue at 81. see you cats soon......episode 38or9? bye.
I didn't think there'd be so many transphobes on this channel's comment section. People "trying to understand" trans people are often just making arguments in bad faith, because they simply don't want to understand it. Someone's gender identity doesn't affect you at all. Let people be who they want to be. You don't choose for them.
Admits you can't sex a brain... then goes on to support the utter nonsense of "trans" brains. Conflates people saying they are a different "gender" with people saying they are another sex as well. How do males feel? How do females feel? Never answered the question. It's utter and complete nonsense to even entertain that someone can "feel like the other sex" if none of you can even begin to describe what that even means or what standard is used in the evaluation of claiming one's "brain doesn't match the body". Because all it's about, is regressive sexist notions about what being male or female entails, and it's ridiculous that academics and researchers can be so blind to that fact.
Female rights and protections are sex-based. Why should males be allowed to "identify" into spaces and activities exclusively reserved for the opposite sex?
@@d3pr0fundis I agree as long as people support trans rights, despite not understanding how trans people work. It's like saying "I don't get being gay, because I'm not gay." So they want to take rights from gay people because they aren't gay themselves. It's the same thing, it's all you're doing.
It's total bs. Admits you can't sex a brain... then goes on to support the utter nonsense of "trans" brains. Conflates people saying they are a different "gender" with people saying they are another sex as well. How do males feel? How do females feel? Never answered the question. It's utter and complete nonsense to even entertain that someone can "feel like the other sex" if none of you can even begin to describe what that even means or what standard is used in the evaluation of claiming one's "brain doesn't match the body". Because all it's about, is regressive sexist notions about what being male or female entails, and it's ridiculous that academics and researchers can be so blind to that fact.
Hello! Carla Gikovate from Brazil! Love the channel! One question: I worked as a pediatric neurologist for 33 years, in an private office. The low mutability of behaviors considered problematic discouraged me to continuing. Would this be the same as the absence of free will? How should we manage and treat children and adolescent mental health problems considering this vision (of no free will)? Family counseling is one way, but parents often have the same biology and the same behaviors...and schools increasingly love medical reports. Some light at the end of the tunnel????
Thank you so much for the series! I think the question of free will and merit/fault is easily applied to the way we are now democraticly choosing a leader: the person that the majority considers the most worthy of the task. This worthiness is subject to a significant amonut of personal interperation and manipulation, therefore the imperfection of democracy. Do you think a technocracy would offer some solutions and how do you prevent it from tranforming into an oligarchy that serves the few powerful or into a relation of dominance or condescendence towards the untrained? Can you expand on the distinction between merit and expertise? PS I would vote for you as well :) Iulia from France/Romania
An interesting topic for Robert would be the formation of Ego, which must tie to Identify and gender, but more than that has a spiritual component when people realize they aren't their Ego, that their Ego is a formation of the brain. We use Ego to interact with others in Culture, in formal interactions we accept someone is a teacher, judge, toll booth operator, whatever, but that is not who they are really, those are social definitions. People often experience an Ego Death, when their false notions of who they thought they were disappear, so I wonder how much of Gender Identify and Trans could also be social constructs overly magnified, but also just the concept of Ego in status and social standing, the need for some to be on a certain peg of the ladder is quite fascinating.
Thanks so much! A big part of the “trans debate” is the thing with puberty blockers, and of course, there are a lot of spooky stuff being said about them. Can you please explain what they are, how they work and how safe they are? Thanks (Andrei from Russia)
Have you guys seen a little prodigy named Sean the Science kid? I think you might want to interview him . ( maybe you have already ? ) He asks the same questions and seems like he would really love you guys if you could have him on the show . I know , kid prodigy , blah 😑 but I’m really serious 🧐 it would be quite the dealio. Love the show and watch it religiously. All puns intended ❤
I remember reading that Native American tribes recognized the essence and cultural worth of "non-binary" members. This may indicate that smaller, more intimate groups are more accepting of individual differences.
Wow, amazing. So cultures of the past were sexist as well. Thinking that means it's legitimate to view the categories of men and women as sexist stereotypes and "social roles" instead of simply terms denoting sex and stage of maturity is absurd. It somehow slips all activists' minds that there is nothing to glorify about past cultures having such rigid stereotypes regarding the roles men and women could and should perform, that they had to create some new category for people based on "deviant behaviours". How are men or women "supposed" to think or feel, want to dress like or act? You must be able to provide specific standards for each sex for what you are contending to make any sense whatsoever. If there is no correct way of being a man or a woman, then how can there be a "mismatch" between what they are and how they feel?
yep, also in the indian subcontinent, today! like people from other cultures ( like 2 spirit folk), we have hijra folk, who are people under the trans umbrella. trans men, women, third gender, non-binary folks, etc.
Why would anyone think inequality was a problem? The more sophisticated a civilization is the more inequality, even though everyone is better off. The closest we have to equality is life in primitive conditions - the equality of poverty. I can only make money if I am surrounded by others who have money.
The thing is, you're never going to change someone who believes that all their success and wealth is due to themselves alone, even if they had a lot of external help. It's like a self perpetuating motor that keeps on continuously going forward. that can describe anyone with "good self esteem" to someone who's deeply narcissistic. It's likely from their biology or their early upbringing, but I doubt it's something you can change very easily. Just as it would be difficult to make one have good self esteem or prone to egolessness.
If you read these comments, I wonder if you could talk about pdfiles (and the inc--est taboo). why are people like this, is there a neurological connection or is it strictly psychological? thank you.
as a matter of off topic interest ‘the time travellers wife’.. they subscribed to a theory that parkinsons medication could help the traveler… heal.. the problem…
The current plan to make America great again is interesting from the POV of Philosophical Relativism, this idea that we/you are responsible for your well-being and your nearest acquaintances because in absolute functional fact of e-Pi-i 1-0-infinity instantaneous Perspective Principle, the unity-connection is the Thermodynamics of time-timing derivatives expressed in 3-ness laws of Math-Physics and the Gold-Silver Rule of interconnected relative-timing. Which is why parallel coexistence overlapping of personal experience requires teaching-learning Math-Phys-Chem and Geometry phenomena in the vertical integration of real-time Actuality heirachical levels of growth-development from Early Childhood to ancient wisdom tolerance for extenuating environmental influences. If you look carefully and listen to expertise like Prof Sapolsky's analysis of humanity's civil societies as they actually are, it's pretty great and very interesting. Vastly better than deliberately ignorant, reverse-inverted abuse of drugs etc.
I haven't looked the shows up yet. Do I need to? Robert, you said that you found it challenging to explain that the earth was round to the people who were near you when you studied baboons. was that because you believed the earth was flat but wanted to speak what the facts stated because you a scientist.....or do you really now believe it as you confessed a few shows ago at the start of the program and your offspring said after....that you heard it here first .......so that's my brains mystery.....If you do for some reason think its flat....I still need your knowledge on the biological brain that makes us ...us... Regards,Bob
hey sapolsky. i disproved free will. if you are selectively bred to believe in god, then its very unlikely that you will not believe in god. you cant go against a selective trait in most cases.
Nice talk. I want to see someone/someplace test some of the fish that change sexes as biological comparison and neuro chemistry and environmental stressor and such. A.I. tracking for larger groupings. Nice to see you go over the complexities of biology, not to get into the social constructs parts. Keep up the good work.
@ambientjohnny I never said people were fish. X and Y are genetics represented in animals. Fish, which is lower on the tree of life, have a couple species that change sexes due to reasons. It's like studying monkeys to relate to human behaviors. Genetics and biochemistry. It's more so like he went over fast. You have special cases. Though, if you don't want to use fish for modeling parts. Just use humans. There are enough of them, after all. lol As far as clown world. The name brings them out and good filtering in ways. The social constructs part I'll let other people play with. The genetics and biochemistry parts can be modeled in other species. ( fish, monkeys, ect.. ). There is a difference from humans and fish as one uses surgery and chemistry and the other naturally and biochemistry. Now if you want to make an argument for why fish modeling for some things might not work. Then make the argument without assuming I hold a set of thoughts/biases without asking or finding out first.
I appreciate Robert explaining trans and identity but what is legitimate treatment? It's strange that the embraced treatment in the U.S. encourages a binary rather than the Trans Activists being tolerant of a plurality. Maybe people would feel more comfortable with themselves if we understood plurality exists so commonly. Also, googling the percentage of sexual ambiguity shows .02-.05 percent not 1-2 as Robert quotes this is an area that can be manipulated to reflect desired outcomes. We have to think about health and welfare not ideology, many of the activists are ideologues.
Yes he is full-on lying, the prevalence of DSDs is 0.018%. It's actually quite shocking seeing someone lie so egregiously. Hew also admits brains cannot be sexed yet goes on to support the nonsense "trans" claims. The man never gets any pushback and it's ridiculous.
And also misogynists Single sex spaces, especially female ones, exist for good reason The vast majority of trans women are XY biological males,socialised as boys and men not people with DSDs As good as this guy is he doesn't examine why so many men who transition in midlife are AGP or girls,who transition young,are escaping from female conditioning and societal pressures
The reason the medical community has settled on gender affirming care is because it's been the only thing shown to help transgender people. Every kind of conversion therapy under the sun has been used on transgender people from the early 1900's all the way until this very day, and they've not helped a single transgender person. I really don't understand why people think the only treatment that's ever been tried\offered to trans people is the gender affirming care model. Also the US model does not encourage a binary as plenty of non-binary people receive gender affirming care. It's something that is absolutely explored during therapy. What a lot of people seem to make a mistake about is thinking that gender expression, and gender identity are the same thing. What's the trans ideology because as a trans person myself I have no idea what that is, or means when people say it. My stance is these things should be left between the person, their parents if they are still a a minor, and their healthcare professionals. I wish we had medicare for all in the US, so that trans people, or people who think they may be trans could have access a therapist to help them in figuring these things out, and gender affirming care if they need it.
This is exactly my position of things with regards to the trans thing. but when i hear 'i have all the characteristics of a male and i feel like a female' its about the cultural norms and roles and, as you said, the fact that something in them aligns more with that mold. but jumping from that to bobily mutilation and chemical alteration it goes into the territory of mental illness, by the same virtue that anorexia crosses a lone when it effects so much of a persons behavior, self image, and causes dysmorphia that is acted out. No hate. i think the same thing about breast implants or steroid use for muscle gain- Obsession with 'gender identity' - as in, the roles presented - is the problem. 'boys look like and act like this' etc etc etc base point, just be an individual. trans or cis is a pointless distinction to me. 'i have never FELT like my sex' what is it to FEEL like ones sex, doctor? is it not down to 'im told im supposed to act, think, talk, dress, and live like x because of y and i dont want to' like- ok, dont then? but why make the very term 'he' or 'she' be a Huge afront or statement? why then go on to shape yourself to fit the mold presented by the culture? up to and beyone mutilative 'surgeries'? that is the point at which this becomes a problem akin to anorexia or other self image disorders i have never Felt like a human.. or ape. or monkey.. or man.. or woman... and? so what.. its a shallow game of pink and blue, a false dichotomy through and through imo, listening honestly to all you have said here, its still not a good argument for obsession with gender identity. Overly masculine men are immature, overly feminine women are immature- reaching across the isle is immature all the same. its about the obsession with the proposed dichotomy to the point where it becomes a core part of a persons identity. has nothing to do with the reality that many people are androgynous or otherwise abnormal - My response to the below commenter keeps getting deleted by the Oh So Open Minded sapolsky family, so, here it is: @pansepot1490 no not at all :) and the fact that That is your takeaway shows the degree to which you comprehend my position. it seems as though you are just trying to strawman me in order to preserve you own flawed position. Obsession with gender identity is immature. On a psychological level. it a body dysmorphia akin to anorexia.. taking gender identity Super Seriously then telling everyone else they are bad people if they dont follow suit is definitely pathological though, yeah. so is the fact that comments like these get deleted, while comments like yours- an inflamitory strawman that doesnt even get my point or attempt to- stay up. its not about my standards or feelings... its about intellectual honesty and maturity, and the the question of the concept of 'identity' and what traits are worth putting front and center there.. 'gender identity' doesnt make the cut by virtue of the fact that it is a cultural meme. I take a male identifying as a female as seriously as i take a plastic girl with implants- which is to say, not very. I take them seriously in the context they ought to be- that of their psychological malformations. what '''i''' want is irrelevent, in all domains of my philosophy. Its like youre telling a psychologist they are pushing their opinions on others for trying to 'change someone' to not have an anorexic mindset... while you're advocating for people to 'be themselves' in a deeply unexamined way. what ''i'' want are sane, mature, psychologically stable people walking around. Not vain, shallow, mentally ill, or superficial people- not to say 'all trans people are vain' - but vanity unexamined is what leads to things like anorexia, breast implants, roid use, and 'trans surgeries'- i think All of those traits in the populace are Problems to be addressed (vanity, superficiality, etc) But nah. Project your hate onto me so you dont have to honestly process my reasoning- most mental illness started out as culturally rationalized- like.. religious fervor- so, considering how we are just at the start in psychology its no wonder this is a 'debate' people keep having
So you want everyone else to align to YOUR standards and way of feeling because you know that your standards and feelings are the right ones and what deviates too much from them is pathological? OK.
@@pansepot1490 no not at all :) and the fact that That is your takeaway shows the degree to which you comprehend my position. it seems as though you are just trying to strawman me in order to preserve you own flawed position. Obsession with gender identity is immature. On a psychological level. it a body dysmorphia akin to anorexia.. taking gender identity Super Seriously then telling everyone else they are bad people if they dont follow suit is definitely pathological though, yeah. its not about my standards or feelings haha. its about intellectual maturity, and the the question of the concept of 'identity' and what traits are worth putting front and center there.. 'gender identity' doesnt make the cut by virtue of the fact that it is a cultural meme. I take a male identifying as a female as seriously as i take a plastic girl with implants- which is to say, not very. what '''i''' want is irrelevent. Its like youre telling a psychologist they are pushing their opinions on others for trying to 'change someone' to not have an anorexic mindset... what ''i'' want are sane, mature, psychologically stable people walking around. Not vain, shallow, mentally ill, or superficial people- i think All of those traits in the populace are Problems to be addressed. But nah. Project your hate onto me so you dont have to honestly process my reasoning.
@@pansepot1490 no not at all :) and the fact that That is your takeaway shows the degree to which you comprehend my position. it seems as though you are just trying to strawman me in order to preserve you own flawed position. Obsession with gender identity is immature. On a psychological level. it a body dysmorphia akin to anorexia.. taking gender identity Super Seriously then telling everyone else they are bad people if they dont follow suit is definitely pathological though, yeah. its not about my standards or feelings haha. its about intellectual maturity, and the the question of the concept of 'identity' and what traits are worth putting front and center there.. 'gender identity' doesnt make the cut by virtue of the fact that it is a cultural meme. I take a male identifying as a female as seriously as i take a plastic girl with implants- which is to say, not very. what '''i''' want is irrelevent. Its like youre telling a psychologist they are pushing their opinions on others for trying to 'change someone' to not have an anorexic mindset... what ''i'' want are sane, mature, psychologically stable people walking around. Not vain, shallow, mentally ill, or superficial people- i think All of those traits in the populace are Problems to be addressed. But nah. Project your hate onto me so you dont have to honestly process my reasoning
@@pansepot1490 no not at all :) and the fact that That is your takeaway shows the degree to which you comprehend my position. it seems as though you are just trying to strawman me in order to preserve you own flawed position. Obsession with gender identity is immature. On a psychological level. it a body dysmorphia akin to anorexia.. taking gender identity Super Seriously then telling everyone else they are bad people if they dont follow suit is definitely pathological though, yeah. - then deleting comments like this beacuse 'oh no, they disagree!' its not about my standards or feelings haha. its about intellectual maturity, and the the question of the concept of 'identity' and what traits are worth putting front and center there.. 'gender identity' doesnt make the cut by virtue of the fact that it is a cultural meme. I take a male identifying as a female as seriously as i take a plastic girl with implants- which is to say, not very. what '''i''' want is irrelevent. Its like youre telling a psychologist they are pushing their opinions on others for trying to 'change someone' to not have an anorexic mindset... what ''i'' want are sane, mature, psychologically stable people walking around. Not vain, shallow, mentally ill, or superficial people- i think All of those traits in the populace are Problems to be addressed. But nah. Project your hate onto me so you dont have to honestly process my reasoning go ahead and remove this sapolsky family! is says a lot that you refuse to address my reasoning, yet leave the inflamitory strawman im responding to up. thought youd be beyond groupthink
@@pansepot1490 looks like you get to pretend you win by virtue of your opposition being censored :) classic modern discourse (edit: oh leave This comment in, sure haha)
My first job 50+y ago was sprayed insecticides for a summer. I've been around chemicals at different jobs. My brother and father had prostate cancer. I exercise alot and so far, no cancer.
Sorry, I don't agree with your conclusion to the trans debate at all. Firstly you indicate that it is impossible to look at regions of the brain to determine sex. You then say that the regions that do vary are overlapping bell curves of statistical averages. From this you conclude that "wrong body" is a thing, and it applies to most trans people. Firstly, it's a tiny minority of people who have had their brains examined. If you were to propose that anyone claiming to be trans have their brain tested, I would be more inclined to listen, however you take a giant leap of faith to confirm your own bias. Secondly, there is a high probability that there are people with the exact same results who do not claim to be trans, from both sexes. That's the nature of overlapping bell curves, especially when the sample sizes are a) very small, and b) guarenteed to be biased through self selection. If you want to do the experiment again, I'd suggest using a control group that is 99% of the sample size. Lastly, this is your opinion and interpretation of data that is still highly debated and controversial, and needs much more research.
@@Zuumville His opinion is confirmed in his language choice and the conclusions he reaches from the research data. His bias is shown in that he doesn't present just how sketchy the data is.
@@Zuumville You mean the one with a sample size of 72 people, fully 2/3rds of which were trans? It should never have been published. All of the trans women fit within the normal distribution of men, which overlaps considerably with that of women, so the conclusions represent wishful thinking over real science.
It's politically trendy to exaggerate the extent to which science (not the lay public) viewed sex as binary, and to exaggerate the degree to which it is a continuum. This is socio-political spin, not science. Sex is and will continue to be a system of reproduction based on two types (sexes). Nothing has changed about that. There is no third or fourth sex involved in the process. It has always been, at the level of expression in the individual, a continuum, but at the system level it is a binary. As a system, it would not be able to function if the vast majority did not fall into one of the two categories. Those are facts, and people should stop this politically biased bull. Nothing in nature is a true binary, that only exists in mathematics. We've known that for centuries. I don't know any scientist that said these things are true binaries. You're attacking an imaginary idiot.
100%. As a functioning system it is completely binary. The outliers could be considered "natures mistakes" since they wouldn't be able to procreate and pass these genes. With medical intervention some can, but ... wouldn't happen without technology. It brings up a lot of ethical questions. Sapolsky keeps himself aligned with California political/cultural trends typically
There's a technicians POV of emitter-receiver log-antilog inclusion-exclusion timing-phase resonance bonding proportioning chemistry that has understood the orchestrated coherence-cohesion sync-duration component(s) of all relative-timing structures to be a made-of-making elemental infinite space, eg AdS/CFT real-time nodal-vibrational emitter-receiver quantization cause-effect floating in/on absolutely nothing in No-thing Relativity. (therefore condensation-coordination vanishing-into-no-thing => perception[s] of Relativism)
This would mean a trans Person is on the Level of the brain much more a female or a Male, as he explained that it is very difficould to distinguish between cis male or female on the Level of the brain. I am Not sure If this makes sense to me. I like him He explained everything very nicely.It refreshed my knowledge
I have issues with the trans stuff, and I'm not expecting Sapolsky to read my comment, but whatever. 1. I'm aware of the research he was referring to about the BSTc from the research group out of Amsterdam, and this research is commonly mentioned in neuroscience textbooks in chapters on sexual dimorphism. What's commonly not mentioned, is the incredibly small sample size used in those studies, and also that later studies of the same research group debunked or at least put into question the earlier studies that made it into the textbook. So people can look into that if they want to. 2. A philosophical issue: We all know that sex, as a matter of fact, does largely exist on a spectrum. There are people that fall in between what is commonly seen as male or female. My issue is that it is just natural variation that some brains in male bodies fall more on what is on average on the female end of the spectrum (most things about ordinary male and female brains, and I mean ordinary as in males or females that do not have intersex conditions, exist on a spectrum, except for things like motor maps etc., which are usually fairly binary). But what does it then mean to "be a woman", as an example, and what is the difference between a male that "feels" feminine or behaves in a feminine way, but is perfectly fine and comfortable with the idea of being a man, and a male that "feels" feminine or behaves in a feminine way and is not comfortable with the idea of being a man? And there also seems to be a discrepancy when you say that your gender "expression" (behavior) of being masculine somehow informs you about something biological, when these gender expressions are highly influenced by culture and are variable across them. You cannot claim that being trans is a biological thing if it's because the person is male but has feminine body language when the body language of females is culturally determined (just one discrepancy as an example). Is the crucial difference self identification? You see where I'm going at, right? Words like "man" and "woman" need to have reasonably intelligible descriptions, and cannot just be something that is based on self identification alone - that would sort of make it a proper noun, which is ridiculous. The idea of identifying as something means that you have name for some underlying characteristics. Say a person says "I am a Marxist", but the person believes in private property and for all intents and purposes agrees with the ideas of capitalism. We would say that the person is misidentifying himself. Here self identification is not enough, because the term "Marxist" has a vector that requires at least some essential properties that are intelligible to us about what it means to be a Marxist (say holding the view that private property should be abolished etc.). So people who say that a male "is a woman" because their brain on some parameters falls more so on the female spectrum, need to justify what it means to be a woman and take into account males that are fine with identifying as men but have the same condition of their brains. If you think about it, they are basically using "woman" as a synonym for "feminine" - and that is superfluous. Self identification is not enough. This is a philosophical issue.
And yet there are records of Transgender people throughout history. More in accepting cultures, but you would expect that. So here is my take on your "philosophy". If someone is profoundly unhappy and making some changes makes them happy, and it harms NO ONE, who are you to say they have to conform and be miserable? Why do you even care? I think the effort you put into your comment says way more about you than it does about transgender people. Essentially, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. Keep your nose out of other people's privates.
I think you might be missing the social aspect of gender. I think its a common error in speech that people (even trans people) often make when they say that 'a woman/man is someone who identifies as a woman/man,' when what they really mean is that a woman/man is someone who identifies with some personal or societal idea of what is feminine/masculine. I understand that "identification" is a difficult concept to measure (as people can feel comfortable behaving femininely while identifying as man, for instance), but that's why we say that gender can be fluid, and why we don't ascribe gender to others - we ask. If this amorphous conceptualization of gender disturbs you, I would ask why similarly amorphous conceptualizations of "masculine" and "feminine" do not. If the idea of "self identification" being the weak hinge that connects femininity/masculinity to "woman"/"man" seems unsatisfactory, I'd point you to the fact that all of the linguistic boxes we put the world in are wiggly and imprecise. The reason I choose to use identification with masculinity or femininity as my definition for what a "man" or a "woman" is is because it is far and away the most reflective of how we understand gender casually. We do not wait until we have intimate knowledge of one's morphology to refer to them as "she." Nor do we tally up their masculine behaviors and compare them to their feminine behaviors before we can be certain he's a "he". There is no arbitrary biological marker we can depend on to inform us of one's gender - not practically. Instead, I'd suggest we utilize this more inclusive and casual understanding of gender which also acknowledges its social aspects. While we do so we can also appreciate the fact that it allows us to respect one's subjective experience of their gender identity.
You raise multiple points about sex, gender, and identity, particularly in relation to neuroscience and self-identification. Here’s a structured rebuttal: 1. Scientific Discussion on the BSTc and Its Research While it's valid to critique studies, especially when it comes to sample sizes and reproducibility, the argument that later studies debunked the original findings about the BSTc is not entirely accurate. The research on the BSTc and its correlation to transgender identity has not been wholly invalidated; rather, scientific understanding in this area has become more nuanced. There are still significant findings linking neural structures to gender identity, but the complexity of sex and gender in the brain goes beyond any single brain region or a small sample. Many studies, including those with larger samples, continue to explore the biology of gender identity in ways that show it isn't purely "psychosocial." Thus, while critiques are important, they don’t erase the body of research that continues to evolve the understanding of how biology and identity interact. 2. Sex as a Spectrum and the Meaning of "Being a Woman" The point about sex being a spectrum is not controversial, as there is a growing consensus in both scientific and social realms that sex, like gender, exists on a continuum, not as a strict binary. Intersex people are an example of natural variation, but it’s important to note that variations in sexual differentiation are not just "in between" male and female but exist in different forms that don’t fit the binary mold. The fact that some people may fall closer to what is traditionally perceived as the opposite sex biologically doesn't invalidate their identity as the sex they identify with. The second part of this argument-what it means to "be a woman"-raises philosophical questions, but these are based on outdated, essentialist notions of gender. A feminist or constructivist view would argue that gender is a social and cultural construct that goes beyond physical traits or behaviors. So, it's not just about whether someone exhibits feminine traits or behaviors, but how they identify and navigate the world through that identity. Just as a person who identifies as a Marxist must align with certain core tenets of Marxism to be seen as such, the same applies to gender identity. However, with gender, there is far more fluidity, and people may embody a range of characteristics that don’t necessarily match traditional expectations of their sex or gender role. 3. Self-Identification and Its Role in Defining Gender The philosophical question about self-identification is central to modern gender theory. The statement suggests that terms like "man" and "woman" should have fixed, intelligible descriptions, which reflects a belief in a rigid, essentialist view of gender. However, gender is socially and culturally constructed, and definitions change over time. Self-identification, for many, becomes a more meaningful marker of gender because it reflects an individual's internal understanding and experience of themselves. In contrast, relying solely on fixed, external definitions of what it means to be a "man" or "woman" excludes and invalidates those who don’t fit those molds, particularly transgender and non-binary individuals. The comparison to Marxism, in which someone could "misidentify" by embracing capitalist views, is not an appropriate analogy here. Gender identity is not a political ideology with a set of externally defined beliefs but an intrinsic part of a person’s sense of self. "Being a woman" is not merely about conforming to a set of behaviors or biological traits but about self-understanding and social recognition. This is why self-identification is such a powerful and necessary tool for many, as it acknowledges the complexity of individual experiences and rejects rigid categorizations. 4. The Meaning of "Woman" and "Feminine" The concern that using "woman" as a synonym for "feminine" is superfluous or problematic stems from a misunderstanding of gender identity. Gender identity is not merely about matching physical traits to behavioral patterns, like femininity or masculinity. A person can have a brain that might lean toward "feminine" traits but still identify as a woman because their experience of their gender is shaped by far more than just these attributes. It is possible for a male-identified individual with a more feminine brain structure to identify as a man-just as it’s possible for a person with a more masculine brain structure to identify as a woman. These identities are not solely based on biology or behavior but on a combination of physical, psychological, and social factors. Conclusion The argument overlooks the complex, multifaceted nature of gender identity and focuses too heavily on essentialist and binary notions of what it means to be a "man" or "woman." Modern gender theory recognizes that identity is not rigidly tied to physical traits or behaviors but involves a broader spectrum of lived experiences. In this context, self-identification is not merely a "philosophical issue"-it’s a necessary, meaningful way for individuals to express their lived realities.
Hi! I find your comment interesting and wish to respond. I'm a woman who is trans, but by no means am I an expert of any sort other than an expert of being me, full disclosure. Nonetheless, I can offer you what I think about your comments. Regarding your point 1, the sample size of the BSTc research was small; no argument there. I would really like to see a great deal more studies with larger sample sizes. I would love nothing more than to get to the bottom of why I have felt the way I feel for as long as I remember (since I was three or four). The way I have felt must have some sort of biological impetus, and I suspect more study would reinforce this assertion. The feeling of dysphoria is no joke, and the discomfort only gets worse the older you get. I had tried everything I could think of to alleviate the discomfort, even forced myself for years trying to be what people expected me to be, but the only thing that worked was surgery and HRT. The difference is great. I could hardly function before, and now I feel free and sociable; it's hard to describe the confidence and euphoria I feel. All of this to say, anecdotally of course, that gender dysphoria is not something that we've made up for fun or for any suspicious reason or whatever. Now for point 2: You assert that sex exists on a spectrum, which by that I assume you refer to the biological peculiarities that defy the traditional rigid binary, whether those peculiarities are in the brain, sex organs, endocrine system, etc. May we agree that scientific endeavors constantly elucidate those peculiarities, adding to the ontology of animal biology with specific descriptions that evolve based on discovery? We can shoe-horn a bit of those scientific descriptions under some traditional words and concepts like man and woman, but in general its intelligible (for now) for the purposes of discovery. Awesome. Then you pivot towards asking how these peculiarities influence social categories of man and woman, specifically demanding "reasonably intelligible descriptions" that are not derived solely by self-identification. Well, to that I would answer those biological peculiarities add to those social descriptions. If scientific ontologies can expand, why can't social ontologies expand and change as well? They can and have. My biological impetuses have to meet up with social definitions and I look and feel in ways that match those social descriptions. Both influence me to feel specific ways that fit into some of those social categories. It's not really self-identification. Your description of the so-called "Marxist" has no biological impetus to fit the socio-political definitions of the various interpretations of Marxism. It's a mistake of category. Plus, you could define their belief "in" private property as personal property, which is not antithetical to many variations of Marxist systems. But I digress and am being slightly facetious here. You sound a bit like Plato. I think you want essential definitions to exist, but how would you know what those are? Do they exist in Forms? Has a deity told you? Do you want history to inform you? There's an epistemological question for you. Please, let me know if you feel I misinterpreted something. I look forward to your answer. Cheers!
But they are not simply becoming "more feminine", they are trying to live as the opposite gender entirely. There are different social roles ascribed to feminine men and women and we obviously make differentiations between them. If you are at the point of using cross sex hormones, changing your name, dress, social roles, pronouns, etc., and presenting with the intention to pass, and feeling happier with this life, this is not just being a "feminine man", this is living as what society understands to be a woman. You cannot philosophically wriggle your way out of trans people existing.
No one can be "born in the wrong body", our brains ARE our body just as much as any other part of it. We are the sex we are, regardless of what our personal relationship is with the sexist stereotypes in society. "Trans" ideology, is regressive and sexist, as there is no "correct way" of being a boy or girl, man or woman, all those terms do is indicate sex and stage of maturity - decoupling sex and gender and trying to make gender into this ludicrous concoction of personality and sexist stereotypes is beyond regressive - it actively harms people who buy into it - the idea that there is something wrong with a kid's body that needs to be chemically altered because they believe living up to sexist stereotypes is some real measure of whether they are a boy or a girl (and man or woman for adults obviously), is insanity. Explain what specific standards “trans” people are measuring themselves against to determine that there is a "mismatch" - THEY are the ones with a regressively sexist idea of what it means to be a boy/girl or man/woman and that is the issue causing all the problems - their own misunderstanding and severely limited perspective/sexist misunderstanding of what sexist stereotypes/"gender norms" actually entail - they are not rules, they are not real boundaries, they are regressive ideas and generalisations - no one needs to live up to any such nonsense or feel comfortable with those stereotypes to be a boy/girl/man/woman - all those terms represent, and all they should represent, is sex and stage of maturity - by creating this whole "gender identity" nonsense they create an unnecessary distorted framework which needlessly causes distress. How are men or women "supposed to" think or feel, want to dress like or act? You must be able to provide specific standards for each sex for what you are contending to make any sense whatsoever. If there is no correct way of being a man or a woman, then how can there be a "mismatch" between what they are and how they feel? Female rights and protections are sex-based. Why should males be allowed to "identify" into spaces and activities exclusively reserved for the opposite sex?
My female rights and protections are being stripped away- and women are dying from being FORCED to carry nonviable pregnancies. Some dying or too injured to carry a baby to term. You make me sick.
Trans-brains lol. It’s like saying black brains… just slightly off but you guys are to cute. Speaking of black, Digging the black sweater on dad Sapolsky. I think blacks his color.
People identifying as trns have an extremely high rate of csa in their histories. Of course not all, but its hugely more common than in those not identifying as trns. Theres a lot thats conveniently ignored with the "born in the wrong body" religion
Anyone interested in neuro science should be watching this channel. Sapolsky is way to slept on.
sapolsky is the goat! and he don’t even bahhh
Excellent episode! My wish is that more people learn the lessons about sexual dimorphism from great discussions like yours!
Wow, that Parkinson’s segment was mind blowing! And so was the trans - cis segment! Ya explain everything so clearly 👍
That was dynamite! Fantastic. I had been studying the Substantia Nigra recently and this talk was wonderful to assist me with setting it all up. After the last 33 minutes of this talk, I feel that they are just getting better and better, if that is at all possible! THANK you so much - made my week!!! Tom.
3 minutes in and already learning, what a monster person to have that deep of a reservoir of knowledge. If Mr Levin and Mr Sapolsky each release new book this year, it would be a great month. Godspeed
Great episode. The alarming effects of industrial chemicals 😢
Another fascinating episode. Thank you.
Thx. for bringing neuroscience to RUclips. Excellent.
Thank you for the open mind explanations Dr. Sapolsky.
Neuromelanin is a new to me concept I just googled it. Apparently it is protective, and helps your brain flush toxins. I love these talks.
Thank you for this episode. I really appreciate it. Please keep making them.
Great! We are trembling 12 oscillations per second!!
"The world which we perceive is a tiny fraction of the world which we can perceive, which is a tiny fraction of the perceivable world."
Terence McKenna
Brilliant as always thank you
Although Prof. Sapolsky hasn't replied to this old San Franciscan living in London, his books opened up new chapters in my clarinet tutor. I'm even more convinced by the evidence that my life-long conviction that brain plasticity means that serious high art classical music and music-making makes people better human beings, much more than any other human activity.
i would have to agree i think there’s something really special about being alone with an instrument. i have to ask do you think other creative things like art or writing have the same effect, or is music special? also, i would be interested to learn the effect of different types of music. personally why do you think classical is better than, say jazz, in making your brain more plastic?
Thank you and for your two excellent questions, both of which have occupied me all my life. I began life as both a musician and an artist and made my lifetime decision to become both. I've been faithful to both and accepted huge testing sacrifices. The age old adage that music is "the mother of all art", really is true but more and more evidence continues to support that. An early realization was that the practice of serious high art music and music-making utilizes more area of the brain than any other human activity, measurable more than other forms of music-making. Other forms of activity help, yes, such as art and writing, but not as much or as deeply or inclusive of brain activity. Imagination, I feel, is key. Poetry is as close as writing can get to music. Serious high art music and music-making contain emotions that there are no words for at all. Language requires a translation from thought; music is direct. Other forms of music are limited. So, yes, I believe that the "work" activity of serious high art music and music-making is special for many reasons. We're only at the beginning of asking/answering many questions because of our being at the beginning of learning about the most complicated thing in the universe: the brain. The activity of hard multiple work activity and multitasking stimulates brain plasticity in the way that professor Sapolsky points out: experience changes us not the other way around. "It's complicated!" Being a life-long professional clarinet player of the highest world standards aspiration, I speak from personal experience. It's obviously impossible to answer your questions here, but, I've been researching, studying, asking questions and writing my MS for many years and it gets bigger not smaller! 😅
I've always wondered what happened to the dopamine after being "used". Thanks for that explanation in question one!
What Professor Sapolsky explained about the identification of sexes in humans should be taught in schools. Not only for biology and medicine students.
Dr Sapolsky, thank you for your clear and concise explanations. I know about your personal experiences and work revolving around depression. I would love to hear your thoughts on complex PTSD.
me too how we get a question to him ?
@@noturbo Have a look at the description of the video. There is a link.
I could listen to Dr. Sapolsky all day. I never really understood the danger of free radicals (at a high doses) on our neurons. Are there pesticides that we can use at the industrial scale that causes less damage? I am wondering how we balance environmental toxins used in industry and feeding a modern population of billions of people.
Wooo dam that was a good one!!!! Thank you both.. i needed that!
The trans brain segment makes a lot of sense to me. I'm a trans man and my main thing was always "i'm not a woman". I don't care that much about being a man. I prefer being seen as a man to being seen as a woman. But it bothered me when someone called attention to me being a woman and i don't care either way if people acknowledge me being a man.
This is RELATABLE! I feel seen:
Since 1993, I have identified as Psychologically Androgynous, which, at the time sufficiently explained my non-maleness.
I told my mom, "I'm not going to be a man when I grow up" at age 3. My own transness wasn't apparent to me because
1) I'm confident that I began repressing my innate gender identity as a result of observing my mother's facial disapproval when she walked into her bedroom to see 4yo me looking at myself in a mirror, pleased, wearing her clothes.
2) since then, identifying myself by what I am not (not a man) felt as articulate as I could be.
When my body hair grew on me, I felt like a monster. I don't recall ever wishing for femme parts, but i almost scrubbed my skin off while trying to remove hair on my limbs with a pumice stone. I was in such a state of despair, "how would anyone love me with such an ugly body?" I cried.
I'm more into being seen as a trans woman now. I sometimes have dreams in which I appear to be female, but not all.
Always loved the support & validation of Dr Sapolsky for trans stuff when all the quacks like Dr Dawkins are just not getting it, all the love & blessings for Sapolsky & family being wonderful humans 🎉❤❤
'validation'
there it is.
The crux of the position is a desite to have other people reaffirm what you wish were true.
dawkins is definitely on the side of reason on this one. even if Everything sapolsky said is correct- 'just not getting it' to you = just nt reafirming your over-validation of the concept of gender identity.
a boy really wishes he was a girl, because something in his brain more leans towards the mould presented for that supposed dichotomy, and we are supposed to embrace the obsession with gender too and beyond extreme procedure- like embracing an anorexics self image rather than Helping them Reason through it
girls who obsess with their femininity are immature, boys who obsess over their masculinity are immature, and the same goes for those who do so across the isle
@@NihilisticRealism You have a weird understanding of capital letters.
@@Amethyst_Friend
Oh no, i just have my own Writing Style.
Capital letters are for Emphasis
start of a sentence? capitalize it because its expected? no thanks
Both Dawkins AND Sapolsky are right snd correct. The validation is in your line of reasoning and the belief system you drive.
@@TMK1450lol
Brilliant - thank you
I'm on a website called Bunspacw and every now and then someone will note that their male neutered rabbit,every spring will build a nest ...They would always ask what's going on. I'd tell them that theior rabbit had the body of a male and the brain of a female and just to enjoy their house bunny. There's a few adorable pictures of a few of these little bunnies with hay in their mouthes ment for nest building...I do wonder how often this occurs across species. My best friend was trans btw (f to M).
Gracias y enhorabuena por el magnífico trabajo que hacéis al difundir la ciencia de forma tan intensa como amena.
Thank you for sharing this....
Well done!!!
This is fascinating! Thank you ❤❤❤
Would love to see a more detailed lecture/explanation on the trans brain…the idea of getting the “wrong body” is so intriguing!
It's complete and utter nonsense.
@@ambientjohnnySo are you. You are ridiculous.
Find another channel to bother people on...
Just GO AWAY
@@ambientjohnny me when i deny science and facts because they do not care about my feelings:
@@ambientjohnny ambientjohny says so :DDD
Absolutely outstanding lecture. "Listen to the BRAIN, in spite of one's biological markers!" Thank you so much for this.
Um....the brain is biology...
@ Excellent point. Listen to the brain In spite of the body’s nonbinary, ambiguous, physiological sexual markers.
I love this dialogues so much! Really looking forward each time more than for some Netflix hit. Thank you for sharing your pov on such interesting and sometimes polarising questions!
Another great interview
Thank you, in the name of science and the beard
BRILLIANT!
Quiet genius!
Legendary, again? Always.
would love to see more on the trans brains
brilliant just brilliant
sibling too.....thankyou for your total commitment to humanity
am growing new nearal tissue at 81.
see you cats soon......episode 38or9? bye.
I didn't think there'd be so many transphobes on this channel's comment section. People "trying to understand" trans people are often just making arguments in bad faith, because they simply don't want to understand it.
Someone's gender identity doesn't affect you at all. Let people be who they want to be. You don't choose for them.
Admits you can't sex a brain... then goes on to support the utter nonsense of "trans" brains. Conflates people saying they are a different "gender" with people saying they are another sex as well.
How do males feel? How do females feel? Never answered the question. It's utter and complete nonsense to even entertain that someone can "feel like the other sex" if none of you can even begin to describe what that even means or what standard is used in the evaluation of claiming one's "brain doesn't match the body". Because all it's about, is regressive sexist notions about what being male or female entails, and it's ridiculous that academics and researchers can be so blind to that fact.
Female rights and protections are sex-based. Why should males be allowed to "identify" into spaces and activities exclusively reserved for the opposite sex?
Seems like a pretty reasonable request to me.
@d3pr0fundis what's a reasonable request?
@@d3pr0fundis I agree as long as people support trans rights, despite not understanding how trans people work.
It's like saying "I don't get being gay, because I'm not gay."
So they want to take rights from gay people because they aren't gay themselves.
It's the same thing, it's all you're doing.
I think my mind was expanded on the topic of trans brains by watching this video.
It's total bs. Admits you can't sex a brain... then goes on to support the utter nonsense of "trans" brains. Conflates people saying they are a different "gender" with people saying they are another sex as well.
How do males feel? How do females feel? Never answered the question. It's utter and complete nonsense to even entertain that someone can "feel like the other sex" if none of you can even begin to describe what that even means or what standard is used in the evaluation of claiming one's "brain doesn't match the body". Because all it's about, is regressive sexist notions about what being male or female entails, and it's ridiculous that academics and researchers can be so blind to that fact.
Hello! Carla Gikovate from Brazil! Love the channel! One question: I worked as a pediatric neurologist for 33 years, in an private office. The low mutability of behaviors considered problematic discouraged me to continuing. Would this be the same as the absence of free will? How should we manage and treat children and adolescent mental health problems considering this vision (of no free will)? Family counseling is one way, but parents often have the same biology and the same behaviors...and schools increasingly love medical reports. Some light at the end of the tunnel????
I learned something, as I always do with you. Thank you.
Thank you so much for the series! I think the question of free will and merit/fault is easily applied to the way we are now democraticly choosing a leader: the person that the majority considers the most worthy of the task. This worthiness is subject to a significant amonut of personal interperation and manipulation, therefore the imperfection of democracy. Do you think a technocracy would offer some solutions and how do you prevent it from tranforming into an oligarchy that serves the few powerful or into a relation of dominance or condescendence towards the untrained? Can you expand on the distinction between merit and expertise? PS I would vote for you as well :) Iulia from France/Romania
An interesting topic for Robert would be the formation of Ego, which must tie to Identify and gender, but more than that has a spiritual component when people realize they aren't their Ego, that their Ego is a formation of the brain. We use Ego to interact with others in Culture, in formal interactions we accept someone is a teacher, judge, toll booth operator, whatever, but that is not who they are really, those are social definitions. People often experience an Ego Death, when their false notions of who they thought they were disappear, so I wonder how much of Gender Identify and Trans could also be social constructs overly magnified, but also just the concept of Ego in status and social standing, the need for some to be on a certain peg of the ladder is quite fascinating.
At least two episodes per week are required😅
What are ways to build empathy and connection in humans?
Good morning sir Sapolsky
Shahid from India
sir Shahid,
We miss your weekly greeting on this week's episode! Hope all's well.
Father/Offspring
@Robert.Sapolsky
😢😢 Yes all is not well Sir. Sapolsky
My sister took her own life 💔
@@curiousreporter4292sorry for your loss😢
LETS GO SAPOLSKYS!!!!!!!! Woo!?
Thanks so much! A big part of the “trans debate” is the thing with puberty blockers, and of course, there are a lot of spooky stuff being said about them. Can you please explain what they are, how they work and how safe they are? Thanks (Andrei from Russia)
Possibly the best thing on YT! Thank you!
Have you guys seen a little prodigy named Sean the Science kid? I think you might want to interview him . ( maybe you have already ? ) He asks the same questions and seems like he would really love you guys if you could have him on the show . I know , kid prodigy , blah 😑 but I’m really serious 🧐 it would be quite the dealio. Love the show and watch it religiously. All puns intended ❤
Would PFOS be considered as one of the causes of epigenetic changes that results in formation of free radical DNA damage and Parkinson’s disease?
I remember reading that Native American tribes recognized the essence and cultural worth of "non-binary" members. This may indicate that smaller, more intimate groups are more accepting of individual differences.
Wow, amazing. So cultures of the past were sexist as well. Thinking that means it's legitimate to view the categories of men and women as sexist stereotypes and "social roles" instead of simply terms denoting sex and stage of maturity is absurd.
It somehow slips all activists' minds that there is nothing to glorify about past cultures having such rigid stereotypes regarding the roles men and women could and should perform, that they had to create some new category for people based on "deviant behaviours".
How are men or women "supposed" to think or feel, want to dress like or act? You must be able to provide specific standards for each sex for what you are contending to make any sense whatsoever. If there is no correct way of being a man or a woman, then how can there be a "mismatch" between what they are and how they feel?
@@ambientjohnny kindly keep quiet.
yep, also in the indian subcontinent, today! like people from other cultures ( like 2 spirit folk), we have hijra folk, who are people under the trans umbrella. trans men, women, third gender, non-binary folks, etc.
Forward to GOP
I love these stories
Why would anyone think inequality was a problem? The more sophisticated a civilization is the more inequality, even though everyone is better off. The closest we have to equality is life in primitive conditions - the equality of poverty. I can only make money if I am surrounded by others who have money.
the goat
Comments should be fun!
Please, I need to sleep
❓
Everyone needs to sleep.
Obsessive Sapolsky Syndrome needing REM for some synaptic repair so I can get more dopamine from the knowledge.
"I long to sleep, but Robert Sapolsky must dance."
I'm still awake at 4am 😢
I love Q2
I could stop right there but predictably I won't. 18:36
The thing is, you're never going to change someone who believes that all their success and wealth is due to themselves alone, even if they had a lot of external help. It's like a self perpetuating motor that keeps on continuously going forward. that can describe anyone with "good self esteem" to someone who's deeply narcissistic.
It's likely from their biology or their early upbringing, but I doubt it's something you can change very easily. Just as it would be difficult to make one have good self esteem or prone to egolessness.
"I could stop right there... but predictably I won't." Could? Will not?
If you read these comments, I wonder if you could talk about pdfiles (and the inc--est taboo). why are people like this, is there a neurological connection or is it strictly psychological? thank you.
It was extremely interesting! Thanks for your videos!
as a matter of off topic interest ‘the time travellers wife’.. they subscribed to a theory that parkinsons medication could help the traveler… heal.. the problem…
The current plan to make America great again is interesting from the POV of Philosophical Relativism, this idea that we/you are responsible for your well-being and your nearest acquaintances because in absolute functional fact of e-Pi-i 1-0-infinity instantaneous Perspective Principle, the unity-connection is the Thermodynamics of time-timing derivatives expressed in 3-ness laws of Math-Physics and the Gold-Silver Rule of interconnected relative-timing.
Which is why parallel coexistence overlapping of personal experience requires teaching-learning Math-Phys-Chem and Geometry phenomena in the vertical integration of real-time Actuality heirachical levels of growth-development from Early Childhood to ancient wisdom tolerance for extenuating environmental influences.
If you look carefully and listen to expertise like Prof Sapolsky's analysis of humanity's civil societies as they actually are, it's pretty great and very interesting.
Vastly better than deliberately ignorant, reverse-inverted abuse of drugs etc.
Say again???
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I always learn s0 much fr0m these vide0s. Thank y0u.
Rare is the operative word here.
I'll never go to the clubs again
Or it could backfire and lead people to say life is injust and that's how it should be.
if its still there
I haven't looked the shows up yet. Do I need to? Robert, you said that you found it challenging to explain that the earth was round to the people who were near you when you studied baboons. was that because you believed the earth was flat but wanted to speak what the facts stated because you a scientist.....or do you really now believe it as you confessed a few shows ago at the start of the program and your offspring said after....that you heard it here first .......so that's my brains mystery.....If you do for some reason think its flat....I still need your knowledge on the biological brain that makes us ...us... Regards,Bob
BPA endocrine disruptor
hey sapolsky. i disproved free will.
if you are selectively bred to believe in god, then its very unlikely that you will not believe in god. you cant go against a selective trait in most cases.
Nice talk. I want to see someone/someplace test some of the fish that change sexes as biological comparison and neuro chemistry and environmental stressor and such. A.I. tracking for larger groupings. Nice to see you go over the complexities of biology, not to get into the social constructs parts.
Keep up the good work.
get a life and a functioning brain. you will ALWAYS be the gender you were born. my autistic body is so triggered by all this stupidity damn
Humans aren't fish. Clownfish behaviour literally reinforces the binary nature of sex btw.
@ambientjohnny I never said people were fish. X and Y are genetics represented in animals. Fish, which is lower on the tree of life, have a couple species that change sexes due to reasons. It's like studying monkeys to relate to human behaviors. Genetics and biochemistry. It's more so like he went over fast. You have special cases. Though, if you don't want to use fish for modeling parts. Just use humans. There are enough of them, after all. lol
As far as clown world. The name brings them out and good filtering in ways. The social constructs part I'll let other people play with. The genetics and biochemistry parts can be modeled in other species. ( fish, monkeys, ect.. ). There is a difference from humans and fish as one uses surgery and chemistry and the other naturally and biochemistry.
Now if you want to make an argument for why fish modeling for some things might not work. Then make the argument without assuming I hold a set of thoughts/biases without asking or finding out first.
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Oh, crap. Familial Parkinson's? My dad has Parkinson's, and I already have suffered from chronic headaches for years. I'm doomed.
I appreciate Robert explaining trans and identity but what is legitimate treatment? It's strange that the embraced treatment in the U.S. encourages a binary rather than the Trans Activists being tolerant of a plurality. Maybe people would feel more comfortable with themselves if we understood plurality exists so commonly. Also, googling the percentage of sexual ambiguity shows .02-.05 percent not 1-2 as Robert quotes this is an area that can be manipulated to reflect desired outcomes. We have to think about health and welfare not ideology, many of the activists are ideologues.
Yes he is full-on lying, the prevalence of DSDs is 0.018%. It's actually quite shocking seeing someone lie so egregiously. Hew also admits brains cannot be sexed yet goes on to support the nonsense "trans" claims. The man never gets any pushback and it's ridiculous.
And also misogynists
Single sex spaces, especially female ones, exist for good reason
The vast majority of trans women are XY biological males,socialised as boys and men not people with DSDs
As good as this guy is he doesn't examine why so many men who transition in midlife are AGP or girls,who transition young,are escaping from female conditioning and societal pressures
The reason the medical community has settled on gender affirming care is because it's been the only thing shown to help transgender people. Every kind of conversion therapy under the sun has been used on transgender people from the early 1900's all the way until this very day, and they've not helped a single transgender person. I really don't understand why people think the only treatment that's ever been tried\offered to trans people is the gender affirming care model. Also the US model does not encourage a binary as plenty of non-binary people receive gender affirming care. It's something that is absolutely explored during therapy. What a lot of people seem to make a mistake about is thinking that gender expression, and gender identity are the same thing.
What's the trans ideology because as a trans person myself I have no idea what that is, or means when people say it. My stance is these things should be left between the person, their parents if they are still a a minor, and their healthcare professionals. I wish we had medicare for all in the US, so that trans people, or people who think they may be trans could have access a therapist to help them in figuring these things out, and gender affirming care if they need it.
This is exactly my position of things with regards to the trans thing. but when i hear 'i have all the characteristics of a male and i feel like a female' its about the cultural norms and roles and, as you said, the fact that something in them aligns more with that mold.
but jumping from that to bobily mutilation and chemical alteration it goes into the territory of mental illness, by the same virtue that anorexia crosses a lone when it effects so much of a persons behavior, self image, and causes dysmorphia that is acted out.
No hate. i think the same thing about breast implants or steroid use for muscle gain- Obsession with 'gender identity' - as in, the roles presented - is the problem. 'boys look like and act like this'
etc etc etc
base point, just be an individual. trans or cis is a pointless distinction to me.
'i have never FELT like my sex'
what is it to FEEL like ones sex, doctor?
is it not down to 'im told im supposed to act, think, talk, dress, and live like x because of y and i dont want to'
like- ok, dont then? but why make the very term 'he' or 'she' be a Huge afront or statement? why then go on to shape yourself to fit the mold presented by the culture?
up to and beyone mutilative 'surgeries'?
that is the point at which this becomes a problem akin to anorexia or other self image disorders
i have never Felt like a human.. or ape. or monkey.. or man.. or woman... and? so what.. its a shallow game of pink and blue, a false dichotomy through and through
imo, listening honestly to all you have said here, its still not a good argument for obsession with gender identity.
Overly masculine men are immature, overly feminine women are immature- reaching across the isle is immature all the same.
its about the obsession with the proposed dichotomy to the point where it becomes a core part of a persons identity.
has nothing to do with the reality that many people are androgynous or otherwise abnormal
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My response to the below commenter keeps getting deleted by the Oh So Open Minded sapolsky family, so, here it is:
@pansepot1490 no not at all :)
and the fact that That is your takeaway shows the degree to which you comprehend my position. it seems as though you are just trying to strawman me in order to preserve you own flawed position.
Obsession with gender identity is immature. On a psychological level. it a body dysmorphia akin to anorexia.. taking gender identity Super Seriously then telling everyone else they are bad people if they dont follow suit is definitely pathological though, yeah. so is the fact that comments like these get deleted, while comments like yours- an inflamitory strawman that doesnt even get my point or attempt to- stay up.
its not about my standards or feelings... its about intellectual honesty and maturity, and the the question of the concept of 'identity' and what traits are worth putting front and center there..
'gender identity' doesnt make the cut by virtue of the fact that it is a cultural meme. I take a male identifying as a female as seriously as i take a plastic girl with implants- which is to say, not very. I take them seriously in the context they ought to be- that of their psychological malformations.
what '''i''' want is irrelevent, in all domains of my philosophy.
Its like youre telling a psychologist they are pushing their opinions on others for trying to 'change someone' to not have an anorexic mindset... while you're advocating for people to 'be themselves' in a deeply unexamined way.
what ''i'' want are sane, mature, psychologically stable people walking around. Not vain, shallow, mentally ill, or superficial people- not to say 'all trans people are vain' - but vanity unexamined is what leads to things like anorexia, breast implants, roid use, and 'trans surgeries'-
i think All of those traits in the populace are Problems to be addressed (vanity, superficiality, etc)
But nah. Project your hate onto me so you dont have to honestly process my reasoning-
most mental illness started out as culturally rationalized- like.. religious fervor- so, considering how we are just at the start in psychology its no wonder this is a 'debate' people keep having
So you want everyone else to align to YOUR standards and way of feeling because you know that your standards and feelings are the right ones and what deviates too much from them is pathological?
OK.
@@pansepot1490 no not at all :)
and the fact that That is your takeaway shows the degree to which you comprehend my position.
it seems as though you are just trying to strawman me in order to preserve you own flawed position.
Obsession with gender identity is immature. On a psychological level. it a body dysmorphia akin to anorexia..
taking gender identity Super Seriously then telling everyone else they are bad people if they dont follow suit is definitely pathological though, yeah.
its not about my standards or feelings haha. its about intellectual maturity, and the the question of the concept of 'identity' and what traits are worth putting front and center there..
'gender identity' doesnt make the cut by virtue of the fact that it is a cultural meme. I take a male identifying as a female as seriously as i take a plastic girl with implants- which is to say, not very.
what '''i''' want is irrelevent. Its like youre telling a psychologist they are pushing their opinions on others for trying to 'change someone' to not have an anorexic mindset...
what ''i'' want are sane, mature, psychologically stable people walking around. Not vain, shallow, mentally ill, or superficial people- i think All of those traits in the populace are Problems to be addressed.
But nah. Project your hate onto me so you dont have to honestly process my reasoning.
@@pansepot1490 no not at all :) and the fact that That is your takeaway shows the degree to which you comprehend my position.
it seems as though you are just trying to strawman me in order to preserve you own flawed position.
Obsession with gender identity is immature. On a psychological level. it a body dysmorphia akin to anorexia.. taking gender identity Super Seriously then telling everyone else they are bad people if they dont follow suit is definitely pathological though, yeah.
its not about my standards or feelings haha. its about intellectual maturity, and the the question of the concept of 'identity' and what traits are worth putting front and center there.. 'gender identity' doesnt make the cut by virtue of the fact that it is a cultural meme.
I take a male identifying as a female as seriously as i take a plastic girl with implants- which is to say, not very.
what '''i''' want is irrelevent. Its like youre telling a psychologist they are pushing their opinions on others for trying to 'change someone' to not have an anorexic mindset...
what ''i'' want are sane, mature, psychologically stable people walking around. Not vain, shallow, mentally ill, or superficial people- i think All of those traits in the populace are Problems to be addressed.
But nah. Project your hate onto me so you dont have to honestly process my reasoning
@@pansepot1490 no not at all :) and the fact that That is your takeaway shows the degree to which you comprehend my position. it seems as though you are just trying to strawman me in order to preserve you own flawed position.
Obsession with gender identity is immature. On a psychological level. it a body dysmorphia akin to anorexia.. taking gender identity Super Seriously then telling everyone else they are bad people if they dont follow suit is definitely pathological though, yeah. - then deleting comments like this beacuse 'oh no, they disagree!'
its not about my standards or feelings haha. its about intellectual maturity, and the the question of the concept of 'identity' and what traits are worth putting front and center there.. 'gender identity' doesnt make the cut by virtue of the fact that it is a cultural meme. I take a male identifying as a female as seriously as i take a plastic girl with implants- which is to say, not very. what '''i''' want is irrelevent.
Its like youre telling a psychologist they are pushing their opinions on others for trying to 'change someone' to not have an anorexic mindset... what ''i'' want are sane, mature, psychologically stable people walking around.
Not vain, shallow, mentally ill, or superficial people- i think All of those traits in the populace are Problems to be addressed. But nah. Project your hate onto me so you dont have to honestly process my reasoning
go ahead and remove this sapolsky family! is says a lot that you refuse to address my reasoning, yet leave the inflamitory strawman im responding to up.
thought youd be beyond groupthink
@@pansepot1490 looks like you get to pretend you win by virtue of your opposition being censored :)
classic modern discourse
(edit: oh leave This comment in, sure haha)
My first job 50+y ago was sprayed insecticides for a summer. I've been around chemicals at different jobs. My brother and father had prostate cancer. I exercise alot and so far, no cancer.
Why does Sapolsky look so pretty here?
Sorry, I don't agree with your conclusion to the trans debate at all. Firstly you indicate that it is impossible to look at regions of the brain to determine sex. You then say that the regions that do vary are overlapping bell curves of statistical averages. From this you conclude that "wrong body" is a thing, and it applies to most trans people.
Firstly, it's a tiny minority of people who have had their brains examined. If you were to propose that anyone claiming to be trans have their brain tested, I would be more inclined to listen, however you take a giant leap of faith to confirm your own bias.
Secondly, there is a high probability that there are people with the exact same results who do not claim to be trans, from both sexes. That's the nature of overlapping bell curves, especially when the sample sizes are a) very small, and b) guarenteed to be biased through self selection. If you want to do the experiment again, I'd suggest using a control group that is 99% of the sample size.
Lastly, this is your opinion and interpretation of data that is still highly debated and controversial, and needs much more research.
@@Zuumville His opinion is confirmed in his language choice and the conclusions he reaches from the research data. His bias is shown in that he doesn't present just how sketchy the data is.
@@Zuumville You mean the one with a sample size of 72 people, fully 2/3rds of which were trans? It should never have been published. All of the trans women fit within the normal distribution of men, which overlaps considerably with that of women, so the conclusions represent wishful thinking over real science.
It's politically trendy to exaggerate the extent to which science (not the lay public) viewed sex as binary, and to exaggerate the degree to which it is a continuum. This is socio-political spin, not science. Sex is and will continue to be a system of reproduction based on two types (sexes). Nothing has changed about that. There is no third or fourth sex involved in the process. It has always been, at the level of expression in the individual, a continuum, but at the system level it is a binary. As a system, it would not be able to function if the vast majority did not fall into one of the two categories. Those are facts, and people should stop this politically biased bull. Nothing in nature is a true binary, that only exists in mathematics. We've known that for centuries. I don't know any scientist that said these things are true binaries. You're attacking an imaginary idiot.
100%. As a functioning system it is completely binary. The outliers could be considered "natures mistakes" since they wouldn't be able to procreate and pass these genes. With medical intervention some can, but ... wouldn't happen without technology. It brings up a lot of ethical questions.
Sapolsky keeps himself aligned with California political/cultural trends typically
There's a technicians POV of emitter-receiver log-antilog inclusion-exclusion timing-phase resonance bonding proportioning chemistry that has understood the orchestrated coherence-cohesion sync-duration component(s) of all relative-timing structures to be a made-of-making elemental infinite space, eg AdS/CFT real-time nodal-vibrational emitter-receiver quantization cause-effect floating in/on absolutely nothing in No-thing Relativity.
(therefore condensation-coordination vanishing-into-no-thing => perception[s] of Relativism)
This would mean a trans Person is on the Level of the brain much more a female or a Male, as he explained that it is very difficould to distinguish between cis male or female on the Level of the brain. I am Not sure If this makes sense to me.
I like him He explained everything very nicely.It refreshed my knowledge
I have issues with the trans stuff, and I'm not expecting Sapolsky to read my comment, but whatever.
1. I'm aware of the research he was referring to about the BSTc from the research group out of Amsterdam, and this research is commonly mentioned in neuroscience textbooks in chapters on sexual dimorphism. What's commonly not mentioned, is the incredibly small sample size used in those studies, and also that later studies of the same research group debunked or at least put into question the earlier studies that made it into the textbook. So people can look into that if they want to.
2. A philosophical issue: We all know that sex, as a matter of fact, does largely exist on a spectrum. There are people that fall in between what is commonly seen as male or female. My issue is that it is just natural variation that some brains in male bodies fall more on what is on average on the female end of the spectrum (most things about ordinary male and female brains, and I mean ordinary as in males or females that do not have intersex conditions, exist on a spectrum, except for things like motor maps etc., which are usually fairly binary). But what does it then mean to "be a woman", as an example, and what is the difference between a male that "feels" feminine or behaves in a feminine way, but is perfectly fine and comfortable with the idea of being a man, and a male that "feels" feminine or behaves in a feminine way and is not comfortable with the idea of being a man? And there also seems to be a discrepancy when you say that your gender "expression" (behavior) of being masculine somehow informs you about something biological, when these gender expressions are highly influenced by culture and are variable across them. You cannot claim that being trans is a biological thing if it's because the person is male but has feminine body language when the body language of females is culturally determined (just one discrepancy as an example).
Is the crucial difference self identification? You see where I'm going at, right? Words like "man" and "woman" need to have reasonably intelligible descriptions, and cannot just be something that is based on self identification alone - that would sort of make it a proper noun, which is ridiculous.
The idea of identifying as something means that you have name for some underlying characteristics. Say a person says "I am a Marxist", but the person believes in private property and for all intents and purposes agrees with the ideas of capitalism. We would say that the person is misidentifying himself. Here self identification is not enough, because the term "Marxist" has a vector that requires at least some essential properties that are intelligible to us about what it means to be a Marxist (say holding the view that private property should be abolished etc.).
So people who say that a male "is a woman" because their brain on some parameters falls more so on the female spectrum, need to justify what it means to be a woman and take into account males that are fine with identifying as men but have the same condition of their brains. If you think about it, they are basically using "woman" as a synonym for "feminine" - and that is superfluous. Self identification is not enough. This is a philosophical issue.
And yet there are records of Transgender people throughout history. More in accepting cultures, but you would expect that. So here is my take on your "philosophy".
If someone is profoundly unhappy and making some changes makes them happy, and it harms NO ONE, who are you to say they have to conform and be miserable? Why do you even care? I think the effort you put into your comment says way more about you than it does about transgender people. Essentially, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. Keep your nose out of other people's privates.
I think you might be missing the social aspect of gender. I think its a common error in speech that people (even trans people) often make when they say that 'a woman/man is someone who identifies as a woman/man,' when what they really mean is that a woman/man is someone who identifies with some personal or societal idea of what is feminine/masculine.
I understand that "identification" is a difficult concept to measure (as people can feel comfortable behaving femininely while identifying as man, for instance), but that's why we say that gender can be fluid, and why we don't ascribe gender to others - we ask.
If this amorphous conceptualization of gender disturbs you, I would ask why similarly amorphous conceptualizations of "masculine" and "feminine" do not. If the idea of "self identification" being the weak hinge that connects femininity/masculinity to "woman"/"man" seems unsatisfactory, I'd point you to the fact that all of the linguistic boxes we put the world in are wiggly and imprecise.
The reason I choose to use identification with masculinity or femininity as my definition for what a "man" or a "woman" is is because it is far and away the most reflective of how we understand gender casually. We do not wait until we have intimate knowledge of one's morphology to refer to them as "she." Nor do we tally up their masculine behaviors and compare them to their feminine behaviors before we can be certain he's a "he".
There is no arbitrary biological marker we can depend on to inform us of one's gender - not practically. Instead, I'd suggest we utilize this more inclusive and casual understanding of gender which also acknowledges its social aspects. While we do so we can also appreciate the fact that it allows us to respect one's subjective experience of their gender identity.
You raise multiple points about sex, gender, and identity, particularly in relation to neuroscience and self-identification. Here’s a structured rebuttal:
1. Scientific Discussion on the BSTc and Its Research
While it's valid to critique studies, especially when it comes to sample sizes and reproducibility, the argument that later studies debunked the original findings about the BSTc is not entirely accurate. The research on the BSTc and its correlation to transgender identity has not been wholly invalidated; rather, scientific understanding in this area has become more nuanced. There are still significant findings linking neural structures to gender identity, but the complexity of sex and gender in the brain goes beyond any single brain region or a small sample. Many studies, including those with larger samples, continue to explore the biology of gender identity in ways that show it isn't purely "psychosocial." Thus, while critiques are important, they don’t erase the body of research that continues to evolve the understanding of how biology and identity interact.
2. Sex as a Spectrum and the Meaning of "Being a Woman"
The point about sex being a spectrum is not controversial, as there is a growing consensus in both scientific and social realms that sex, like gender, exists on a continuum, not as a strict binary. Intersex people are an example of natural variation, but it’s important to note that variations in sexual differentiation are not just "in between" male and female but exist in different forms that don’t fit the binary mold. The fact that some people may fall closer to what is traditionally perceived as the opposite sex biologically doesn't invalidate their identity as the sex they identify with.
The second part of this argument-what it means to "be a woman"-raises philosophical questions, but these are based on outdated, essentialist notions of gender. A feminist or constructivist view would argue that gender is a social and cultural construct that goes beyond physical traits or behaviors. So, it's not just about whether someone exhibits feminine traits or behaviors, but how they identify and navigate the world through that identity. Just as a person who identifies as a Marxist must align with certain core tenets of Marxism to be seen as such, the same applies to gender identity. However, with gender, there is far more fluidity, and people may embody a range of characteristics that don’t necessarily match traditional expectations of their sex or gender role.
3. Self-Identification and Its Role in Defining Gender
The philosophical question about self-identification is central to modern gender theory. The statement suggests that terms like "man" and "woman" should have fixed, intelligible descriptions, which reflects a belief in a rigid, essentialist view of gender. However, gender is socially and culturally constructed, and definitions change over time. Self-identification, for many, becomes a more meaningful marker of gender because it reflects an individual's internal understanding and experience of themselves. In contrast, relying solely on fixed, external definitions of what it means to be a "man" or "woman" excludes and invalidates those who don’t fit those molds, particularly transgender and non-binary individuals.
The comparison to Marxism, in which someone could "misidentify" by embracing capitalist views, is not an appropriate analogy here. Gender identity is not a political ideology with a set of externally defined beliefs but an intrinsic part of a person’s sense of self. "Being a woman" is not merely about conforming to a set of behaviors or biological traits but about self-understanding and social recognition. This is why self-identification is such a powerful and necessary tool for many, as it acknowledges the complexity of individual experiences and rejects rigid categorizations.
4. The Meaning of "Woman" and "Feminine"
The concern that using "woman" as a synonym for "feminine" is superfluous or problematic stems from a misunderstanding of gender identity. Gender identity is not merely about matching physical traits to behavioral patterns, like femininity or masculinity. A person can have a brain that might lean toward "feminine" traits but still identify as a woman because their experience of their gender is shaped by far more than just these attributes. It is possible for a male-identified individual with a more feminine brain structure to identify as a man-just as it’s possible for a person with a more masculine brain structure to identify as a woman. These identities are not solely based on biology or behavior but on a combination of physical, psychological, and social factors.
Conclusion
The argument overlooks the complex, multifaceted nature of gender identity and focuses too heavily on essentialist and binary notions of what it means to be a "man" or "woman." Modern gender theory recognizes that identity is not rigidly tied to physical traits or behaviors but involves a broader spectrum of lived experiences. In this context, self-identification is not merely a "philosophical issue"-it’s a necessary, meaningful way for individuals to express their lived realities.
Hi! I find your comment interesting and wish to respond. I'm a woman who is trans, but by no means am I an expert of any sort other than an expert of being me, full disclosure. Nonetheless, I can offer you what I think about your comments.
Regarding your point 1, the sample size of the BSTc research was small; no argument there. I would really like to see a great deal more studies with larger sample sizes. I would love nothing more than to get to the bottom of why I have felt the way I feel for as long as I remember (since I was three or four). The way I have felt must have some sort of biological impetus, and I suspect more study would reinforce this assertion.
The feeling of dysphoria is no joke, and the discomfort only gets worse the older you get. I had tried everything I could think of to alleviate the discomfort, even forced myself for years trying to be what people expected me to be, but the only thing that worked was surgery and HRT. The difference is great. I could hardly function before, and now I feel free and sociable; it's hard to describe the confidence and euphoria I feel. All of this to say, anecdotally of course, that gender dysphoria is not something that we've made up for fun or for any suspicious reason or whatever.
Now for point 2: You assert that sex exists on a spectrum, which by that I assume you refer to the biological peculiarities that defy the traditional rigid binary, whether those peculiarities are in the brain, sex organs, endocrine system, etc. May we agree that scientific endeavors constantly elucidate those peculiarities, adding to the ontology of animal biology with specific descriptions that evolve based on discovery? We can shoe-horn a bit of those scientific descriptions under some traditional words and concepts like man and woman, but in general its intelligible (for now) for the purposes of discovery. Awesome.
Then you pivot towards asking how these peculiarities influence social categories of man and woman, specifically demanding "reasonably intelligible descriptions" that are not derived solely by self-identification. Well, to that I would answer those biological peculiarities add to those social descriptions. If scientific ontologies can expand, why can't social ontologies expand and change as well? They can and have. My biological impetuses have to meet up with social definitions and I look and feel in ways that match those social descriptions. Both influence me to feel specific ways that fit into some of those social categories. It's not really self-identification. Your description of the so-called "Marxist" has no biological impetus to fit the socio-political definitions of the various interpretations of Marxism. It's a mistake of category. Plus, you could define their belief "in" private property as personal property, which is not antithetical to many variations of Marxist systems. But I digress and am being slightly facetious here.
You sound a bit like Plato. I think you want essential definitions to exist, but how would you know what those are? Do they exist in Forms? Has a deity told you? Do you want history to inform you? There's an epistemological question for you.
Please, let me know if you feel I misinterpreted something. I look forward to your answer. Cheers!
But they are not simply becoming "more feminine", they are trying to live as the opposite gender entirely. There are different social roles ascribed to feminine men and women and we obviously make differentiations between them. If you are at the point of using cross sex hormones, changing your name, dress, social roles, pronouns, etc., and presenting with the intention to pass, and feeling happier with this life, this is not just being a "feminine man", this is living as what society understands to be a woman. You cannot philosophically wriggle your way out of trans people existing.
Is Robert dying his hair? 🤔
No one can be "born in the wrong body", our brains ARE our body just as much as any other part of it. We are the sex we are, regardless of what our personal relationship is with the sexist stereotypes in society. "Trans" ideology, is regressive and sexist, as there is no "correct way" of being a boy or girl, man or woman, all those terms do is indicate sex and stage of maturity - decoupling sex and gender and trying to make gender into this ludicrous concoction of personality and sexist stereotypes is beyond regressive - it actively harms people who buy into it - the idea that there is something wrong with a kid's body that needs to be chemically altered because they believe living up to sexist stereotypes is some real measure of whether they are a boy or a girl (and man or woman for adults obviously), is insanity.
Explain what specific standards “trans” people are measuring themselves against to determine that there is a "mismatch" - THEY are the ones with a regressively sexist idea of what it means to be a boy/girl or man/woman and that is the issue causing all the problems - their own misunderstanding and severely limited perspective/sexist misunderstanding of what sexist stereotypes/"gender norms" actually entail - they are not rules, they are not real boundaries, they are regressive ideas and generalisations - no one needs to live up to any such nonsense or feel comfortable with those stereotypes to be a boy/girl/man/woman - all those terms represent, and all they should represent, is sex and stage of maturity - by creating this whole "gender identity" nonsense they create an unnecessary distorted framework which needlessly causes distress.
How are men or women "supposed to" think or feel, want to dress like or act? You must be able to provide specific standards for each sex for what you are contending to make any sense whatsoever. If there is no correct way of being a man or a woman, then how can there be a "mismatch" between what they are and how they feel?
Female rights and protections are sex-based. Why should males be allowed to "identify" into spaces and activities exclusively reserved for the opposite sex?
My female rights and protections are being stripped away- and women are dying from being FORCED to carry nonviable pregnancies. Some dying or too injured to carry a baby to term.
You make me sick.
YOU think that would happen to a MAN?!?
NEVER. HE WOULD INSTANTLY GET WHAT HE DEMANDED.
YOU MAKE ME SICK.
@@kellyberry4173 What has any of that got to do with what I wrote?
Trans-brains lol. It’s like saying black brains… just slightly off but you guys are to cute. Speaking of black, Digging the black sweater on dad Sapolsky. I think blacks his color.
People identifying as trns have an extremely high rate of csa in their histories. Of course not all, but its hugely more common than in those not identifying as trns. Theres a lot thats conveniently ignored with the "born in the wrong body" religion
I enjoy your programs here and on your Stanford RUclips page.
What hellish mishmash created someone like trump?