The brains of transgender people are wired in a way that matches the gender they identify with rather than their biological sex, according to a new study.
Researchers found that whether a person identifies as transgender could be tied to how their brains develop in the womb. A person might identify as transgender when the gender they are assigned at birth according to their sex does not match how they feel inside. For instance, a person with a penis who is told they are a boy at birth could later grow up to identify as a woman.
To arrive at their findings, researchers at the VU University Medical Center in the Netherlands analyzed the brain activity of young transgender people using MRI scans. Around 160 young people were involved in the small study, including adolescent boys and girls with gender dysphoria.
The team assessed how their brains changed in response to a pheromone that prompts gender-specific activity in the organ. They found that the transgender adolescents had parallels with the brain activity of cisgender participants of the same gender. Cisgender is the term used to describe a person who identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth.
Professor Julie Bakker, an expert in neuroendocrinology at the University of Liege and lead author of the study, told Newsweek: “The earlier it [being transgender] is detected, the better the outcome of the treatment.
by Kashmira Gander, Newsweek.com, May 22, 2018
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Source: Time for Families
