Sorting Gender / Perception


© Li Sam Writing. All rights reserved.

You may not grasp right away everything I try to convey here, but we need to have some sort of reference to rely on and hopefully feel comfortable with if we are going to be able to sort this out. So here goes.

When we look at self-perception, trying to define what gender and gender identity are, there’s still an issue we need to address in order to reach a helpful understanding.

When we talk about self-perception, we seem to need to determine a very specific place that it comes from, something concrete that generates it. The reason I’m bringing this up is that science, or at least some scientists (definitely the Swedish ones), says that gender and gender identity are determined by a spot in the brain called the hypothalamus, and that one section in the hypothalamus, the BSTc (Bed nucleus of the Stira Terminalis) is anatomically different in men and women. Regarding transsexualism, this theory also says that all tests show that men who have changed gender have a female BSTc and vice versa for women who’ve changed gender, and that is regardless of hormone treatment, age when the patient changed gender, and sexual orientation.

Now, if this brain theory or scientific fact were true, would it be the only truth we have about gender? And how would that affect our sorting gender labels? But if it’s not entirely true or not true at all, what then can we rely on? Anyway we can’t accept or dismiss scientific reports and evidence without at least some understanding of their relevance.

So first:

I don’t know of any additional research that’s been done on this issue. For example, do we know if all people (transsexuals and everyone else) have this gender-determined section of the brain? Science can’t of course test all women and men, but what is the likelihood based on several tests, considering how different our bodies are and that our brains develop differently in so many aspects (which are anatomically visible, too)?

And then we have this dilemma about intersex people, people with a bodily mix of both genders: Do they have a mixed BSTc, too?

To me it doesn’t seem likely that one organ in our body, this BSTc, could be wired 100% one way or the other, bearing in mind how different, for example, women are from each other. And where do all those various gender expressions come from—does all this business about our gender and all we are originate from one tiny spot in the brain?

Second:

Is self-perception situated in the BSTc, too, and nowhere else? If so, how does this part of the brain connect with other parts so that we feel things according to our gender? How do we sense gender and what identity we are? And, if gender is centered in this one spot, what does the rest of our bodies (apart from the BSTc) have to do with gender? Doesn’t the rest of our bodies relate to gender, too, like when we understand a touch as being male or female, for instance? There has to be an awful lot of direct connections in that BSTc jelly blob in order to keep track of the rest of our bodies, sick or healthy, crippled or not, to make us perceive ourselves as and behave as one gender, 100% male or female. But again, we don’t quite behave 100% male or female, do we?

Third:

A crucial aspect to this understanding is how science determines what “male” and “female” is. There actually has to be some scientific data that can be identified and measured in order to make any conclusion about the BSTc blob and its anatomy. If science decides that this is a female BSTc, then is the data of that person female in all her appearance and self-perception? If her appearance doesn’t quite add up, then is she transsexual or what? If the person is born intersex and is confused over her gender identity, what then?

Isn’t it so that science very much relies on labels—which group is this and that—labels we in the previous chapter struggled about sorting? Could it be that scientists create and define labels to fit their “discoveries” and then present them to please those who fund their research? If that’s true even just sometimes, what is the goal of this kind of science—what or who is it good for? Where and on whom is it going to be practiced and used?

Fourth (and I’m going to end this listing here before I turn nasty or sound bitter):

Society, at least Swedish society, classifies transsexualism as a psychiatric disease, which then “scientifically” is what it is considered and therefore should be treated and furthermore regarded as such. This BSTc research uses transsexualism to prove that gender identity is located in the brain and most specifically in this BSTc blob.

So, what is sick when you’re a transsexual: the opposite gender brain blob or the mismatching body? There are several other psychiatric diagnoses that imply personality change, and some of those relate to gender. In those cases their bodies are assumed to be right, which then strongly should indicate that something is wrong in their BSTcs. What kind of male/female brain anatomy do these patients have, then? If and when they are cured, how does that affect their BSTc’s anatomy? If, according to science, gender identity is located in the BSTc, those patients perceiving themselves to be opposite their body gender: must they not have an altered brain one way or the other?

It’s strange that transsexualism is considered “cured” by correcting patients’ bodies to match their perceived gender, and so far nothing else we’ve tried has worked (and I can assure you that there have been a lot of brutal and humiliating attempts performed to alter patients’ gender self-perception instead.) When someone is not classified as transsexual but is still diagnosed as having some gender-disordered mental disease, and this person is treated and declared healthy again, shouldn’t that cure be anatomically visible in the BSTc, if they are both gender related as science says?

To me you can’t have both situations: 1) science identifying gender by the metrics of an organ, and 2) science unable to measure a gender-related illness in a patient through metrics of this organ. There must be something else (or more) within us affecting our self-perception.

Now, this small BSTc jelly blob—if it were removed by surgery, would that person have no gender then, with no gender identity whatsoever? Or would that person just die? And what about self-perception: Without a BSTc, how would that person’s personality turn out? There are those people claiming to be non-gendered, or in-between, or third gendered, and even more gender variants, yet they’re not classified as mentally sick by the profession as transsexual people are. What kind of BSTc do they have? It should show a measurable difference, shouldn’t it?

To me it seems that we are so much more than a jelly blob in the brain. Here I would like our hearts to represent that our soul and self-perception guide us to behave and act a certain way. If we are happy in life, if we are pleased with ourselves, our hearts won’t correct us from the path we are walking. If we’re not, our hearts will point out that error by the pain we feel, correcting us to not step any farther in that direction and telling us what we must do to reach back to our path and happiness again.

Self-perception is just like that: our body and soul, not our thinking, provide us with joy because of who we are. It’s through that joy that we become aware of ourselves. Then with our brains we can observe ourselves, like in a mirror, reflecting the joy and personality we emit. That is who we are, and even if the body (gender and/or looks) is wrong, as was the case with me, that mirror didn’t reflect that male error. Instead it reflected my emotions and feelings of a happy female me.

Now, I know that this doesn’t come easy, and that this kind of mirror doesn’t reveal the truth for all of us just like that. But imagine that you’re standing in an empty room, stubbornly staring into one and only one empty wall. That wall is trapping you, yes, but is it actually keeping you from going any farther in that direction? Is it making you feel stuck? For me, after many years of struggling, I finally turned and found the joy in myself on the opposite wall, where my mirror was hanging. And like a door, my mirror opened up and let me out to enjoy life among others.

To those of you who feel trapped, I’m not telling you to turn all the way, to change gender as I had to do. You may need to turn just slightly to find and feel that warm happy reflection of yourself representing self-perception, your true self. Which way to turn? Well that’s what these Across Borders seminars are supposed to be all about, to help you find direction from where you stand, to meet others, discuss these issues, and if you haven’t experienced it before, to meet and greet yourself.