how would you describe yourself in a few
words I am a sis man and I like fun
shirt you do our gender plays a big role
in how we define ourselves and others
but it's not something science fully
understands and funnily enough we don't
really know why I like fun shirts either
but no one questions that so let's just
move on a lot of us may never really
think twice about defining ourselves as
a man or a woman but there are many
people who do think about it a lot in
reality a lot of biological sociological
and psychological factors go into the
definitions of man or woman or neither
for example when babies are born at a
hospital they're assigned a sex based on
primary sex characteristics like
genitalia yeah someone literally looks
at the baby and makes a decision they're
mainly going by visual inspection and no
hormones like testosterone play a big
role in developing the primary sex
organs that you have at birth
sexual differentiation continues beyond
birth with a lot of outwardly visible
changes and awkwardness peaking at
puberty and these processes rely on a
whole host of hormones and receptors and
other factors that come from at least 70
different genes on different chromosomes
so really biological sex is not black or
white because there are so many
variables going into it that are not
necessarily correlated with one another
which is why there's good evidence to
say there are more than two biological
sexes for example testosterone is
important for developing the internal
genitalia but it needs to be converted
by an enzyme for the external genitalia
to be made so someone could have
testosterone plus all the effects that
leads to during development through
puberty and be male in a lot of ways
internally but because they're missing
one enzyme things might look a little
different on the outside the thing is
most people don't know their genetics or
what's going on inside of their abdomens
so how can anyone confidently proclaim
well anything when it comes to gender
when I say I'm a woman I'm actually
referring to my gender identity this
might be related to or influenced by
primary or secondary sex characteristics
but knowing our gender identity comes
from the brain the fascinating thing is
we don't really know a ton about what
influences this identity like how I
might say I'm a confident
or anxious person but I don't really
know what exactly in my brain makes me
like them there are a few regions in the
brain that are different between sexes
including the interstitial nucleus of
the anterior hypothalamus and the bad
nucleus of the stria terminalis which is
part of the limbic system in men these
areas are both larger and have more
neurons in them and studies to date al
biet small ones do show the sizes of
these areas correlate with the gender
identities of transgender men and women
other studies have found differences in
white matter micro structures between
men and women transgender men who have
not yet received hormone treatments had
patterns more similar to those sharing
their gender identity not what they were
assigned at birth in other words the sex
they were assigned at birth didn't
accurately predict their white matter
patterns well there are so many
different areas of the brain that seem
different between men and women some
researchers argue that there are more
similarities than differences and there
isn't really a typical male or female
brain but given that all of us have
incomplete information on our true
biological sex and that we don't fully
understand the neuroscience behind
gender or any complex trait like why you
like this fun shirt true it doesn't make
sense to burden some individuals with
proving how they feel because
scientifically none of us can explain
why we feel like a man or a woman and as
none of us can say that by making a
minority of people try to prove that
with a burden of proof we're causing a
lot of health problems for example the
suicide attempt rate among transgender
people ranges from 32 to 50 percent in a
number of different countries whereas
the overall population average in the
u.s. is estimated around point zero four
to one point one percent both of these
numbers are too high but the stats for
transgender people are particularly so
especially when recent studies show that
these numbers decrease when transgender
people are socially accepted well there
are of course a lot more scientific
questions to ask we could save hundreds
of thousands of lives by removing social
stigma we know that science will catch
up eventually but in the meantime we
should all recognize that this is more
complicated than man woman trans or
non-binary and as is the norm in science
the
we learn the more nuanced it gets and
that diversity in people and ideas is
what makes this world so cool if you
want to learn more about what your DNA
says about your sexuality it's different
than identity click here thank you for
watching I'm sure I'll have a comment on
this video so make sure you leave it
below and share the video too
thanks again bye