Sex and gender are often conflated or equated in everyday conversations,
and most American adults believe a person�s gender is determined by sex
assigned at birth. But a new study of nearly 5,000 9- and 10-year-olds
found that sex and gender map onto largely distinct parts of the brain.

The research gives a first insight into how sex and gender may have
�measurable and unique influences� on the brain, study authors said, just
as other experiences have been shown to shape the brain.

�Moving forward, we really need to consider both sexes and genders
separately if we better want to understand the brain,� said Dr. Elvisha
Dhamala, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Feinstein Institutes
for Medical Research and the Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks,
California, and a co-author of the study, published Friday in the journal
Science Advances.

The researchers on the new study defined sex as what was assigned to the
child at birth. In the US, clinicians make this assignment based on
genitalia. Most people are assigned either female or male, according to
the research; the rest are intersex, a person whose sexual or reproductive
anatomy doesn�t fit this male/female binary.

The researchers defined gender as an individual�s attitude, feelings and
behaviors, as well as socially constructed roles. They noted specifically
that gender is not binary, meaning not all people identify as either
female or male.

Both sex and gender are a core part of human experience. They�re key to
how people perceive others and how they understand themselves. Both can
influence behavior as well as health, the study authors say.

The researchers looked at brain imaging data from 4,757 children in the
United States, 2,315 assigned female at birth and 2,442 assigned male at
birth, who were ages 9 and 10 and were a subset of the Adolescent Brain
Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, the largest long-term study of brain
development and child health in the United States. Over a period of 10
years, the children in the ABCD study underwent comprehensive
neuroimaging, behavioral, developmental and psychiatric assessments.

Beyond tests such as MRIs, the scientists did surveys of the children and
their parents that were focused on gender, both at the beginning of the
research and then a year later. The children were asked about how they
expressed their gender and how they felt about it. The parents were asked
about a child�s sex-typed behavior during play and whether the child had
any gender dysphoria, a term that mental health professionals use to
describe clinically significant distress felt because a person�s sense of
their gender does not match their sex the assigned at birth.

Parents were a key part of the study, said study co-author Dr. Dani S.
Bassett, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania with appointments
in the Departments of Bioengineering, Electrical & Systems Engineering,
Physics & Astronomy, Neurology, and Psychiatry.

�When kids have a particular kind of gender behavior or gender expression,
that will influence how their parents and also other caregivers and
friends and family � et cetera interact with them,� Bassett said.
Information about a parent�s perception of a child�s gender gives
researchers a better sense of the child�s social environment and how it
may affect their brain development.

The authors used a kind of artificial intelligence called machine learning
that built a model that could predict a child�s sex and reported gender
from their brain scan. When the researchers looked the children�s brain
scans, the results seemed to show that sex influenced different regions of
the brain that are involved in visual processing, sensory processing and
motor control and some regions involved in executive function, which lets
an individual organize and integrate information across time.

Gender seems to influence some of the more sensory-specific networks that
are associated with sex, but it also seems to have a broader influence and
can be detected on different brain networks involved in executive
function, including things like attention, social cognition and emotional
processing.

�The fact that we�re able to capture how gender maps onto the brain
basically just tells us that gender is influencing our brain,� Dhamala
said.

The structure of the human brain can be shaped by expertise and
experiences. Research on London taxi drivers � who must take extensive
tests to show that they can navigate the city�s streets without maps or
GPS � seems to show that they have significantly larger posterior
hippocampi, the part of the brain related to spatial memory and
navigation, than in people who aren�t taxi drivers.

�Similarly, as individuals and as humans, we are experts about ourselves
and our genders. So it makes sense that gender will also be mapped within
our brains,� Dhamala said.

What the new study cannot do is predict what gender a person may identify
with beyond one limited snapshot in time captured by the scans and
surveys. Gender, the authors note, is not something that is necessarily
static, and a person�s understanding of their gender can change throughout
their lifetime.

The study also can�t determine what things in someone�s environment will
influence their brain function in terms of sex or gender, nor can it
identify what a person�s sexual orientation might be.

�Sexual orientation is independent from gender and from sex,� Bassett
said, and it may be differently mapped in the brain.

The researchers say they hope to someday learn more about how sex and
gender interact in a person�s life and how they influence one another and
the brain throughout a lifetime. They also hope to see how different
cultures affect a person�s gender and their brain development.

A 2022 poll showed that most American adults � and the vast majority of
conservatives � believe that a person�s gender is determined by the sex
assigned at birth. The distinction is key to gender-affirming care,
medical treatment for people who identify as a gender that is different
from the one they were assigned at birth. Conservative politicians have
pushed for a record number of bans on such care, and nearly half of US
states have enacted bans on gender-affirming care for minors.

The study did not look at whether sex or gender were congruent or
incongruent in any study participant. Rather, it looked at the child�s
binary sex and gender across self- and parent-reported measures. The study
couldn�t provide any specific findings if sex and gender were incongruent.

�Going forward, the hope is that we can motivate other scientists to
consider science and gender in their analyses in the data collections in
their programs and research,� said study co-author Dr. Avram Holmes, an
associate professor of psychiatry at Rutgers University.

The field of neuroscience has only just begun to acknowledge and address
the presence of biases and barriers to inclusivity within research, Holmes
said.

A fuller understanding of the way the brain works in terms of sex and
gender could also have practical implications and potentially help
scientists find better ways to treat people with brain-related illnesses.
For instance, the study pointed to how people assigned male at birth are
more likely to be diagnosed with substance use and attention deficit
disorders.

�It�s not that sex and gender necessarily drive illness rates, but the
cultures people are embedded in can also influence the likelihood they may
or may not develop a particular illness,� Holmes said. �So the types of
environmental pressures a child undergoes across development could
increase or decrease their risk for experiencing illness, independent of
their initial brain biology.�

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/12/health/sex-gender-child-brain/index.html

So the short end of this is fucked up educational systems and weak-assed
left-wing parents are responsible for kids being all screwed up sexually.

HINT: Don't let your kids watch Disney movies at young ages either.
Charlee Corra is a sick person and will ruin your children's lives.