#neurosexism

[woman-for-women]

Have you ever heard that claim that transgender people have brains of their chosen gender? Or the claim that men and women have completely different, dimorphic brains? Well, neither of those statements are true! Here's the explanation as to how neurosexism and bad science have hijacked our understanding of brains & sex/gender.

No information in these infographics mean you can't respect transgender individuals' chosen identities. It just means that "brain sex" is a neurosexist myth and neuroscience studies are insuffiecient to defend transgender identities as innate.

Feel free to repost these images or repeat the information next time you see someone claim that science has proved that brain sex is real or neuroscience explains why transgender people are the gender they say they are. Also, these take me a long time to make so a reblog is always appreciated :)

#neurosexist #cordelia fine #brain sex #sex binary #trans #transgender #w4w post #stats #w4w infographic #gina rippon #delusions of gender #gender and our brains #quotes #gender #gender vs. sex #neuroscience #neurosexism

[probablyasocialecologist]

When it comes to gender theory, scientists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who were informed by eugenics “made strong statements about the social and political role of women, claiming all the while to speak for the scientific truth.” They typically referred to women’s reproductive capacity as a natural indication of their divinely ordained social role. Social, political, and religious ideologies informed the scientific beliefs of this time period, which is not dissimilar to the widely held beliefs of current gender/sex psychologists. It can be argued that the father of modern psychology himself, Sigmund Freud, in his quest to validate psychoanalysis as a legitimate science, reproduced the social opinions of his time in his psychological theories. His theories about femininity, in particular, have been criticized by feminist thinkers for the ways in which his frameworks position femininity as fundamentally incompatible with subjectivity, thus cementing women’s passivity and subordination as a psychological disposition that explains and justifies their social position under patriarchy. Although psychology has developed considerably since Freud, his work remains foundational to the field, and informs the ongoing structural violence of psychiatric pathologization experienced by marginalized subjects. Psychoanalytic concepts have become embedded in clinical, academic, institutional, and colloquial language, influencing the epistemologies of neurosexists and feminists alike. We continue to see bioessentialist reasoning about sexual difference employed in the name of feminism. Notably, bioessentialism informs contemporary discourse about trans rights. For example, Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism (TERF) refers to a radical ideology that equates womanhood with biological sex, and maintains a bioessentialist stance to discriminate and incite violence against trans women, and to exclude trans women from women’s spaces.  Proponents of trans exclusionary radical feminist ideology espouse the conviction that women are a group with a singular shared experience of womanhood based on the patriarchal violence experienced by people with vaginas. It arose out of the work of anti-porn feminist writing like that of Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon in the 1970s, which centered the ways in which cisgender women’s bodies are uniquely subjected to sexualized violence. The objectification and sexualization of the cisgender female body was the main concern in this discourse, and as such, postmodern perspectives that disrupt bioessentialist ideas about gender and the body have been received as an existential threat to the objectives of this radical ideology. Third wave feminist discourse and theories, like intersectional feminist theory, have disputed the idea that bodily or physical similarities are experienced in the same ways socially and culturally (e.g., at intersections of race, class, ability, nation, gender identity, and sexuality). When it comes to trans discourse, it is important to recognize the ways in which non-normatively gendered bodies with any perceived association to femininity or womanhood are subjected to patriarchal and sexualized violence. Heteronormativity and rape culture affect more than just cisgender women. To weaponize a binary understanding of gender against women with diverse experiences of womanhood is to collude with the oppressive forces of the colonial, white supremacist hetero capitalist patriarchy.

#gender #bioessentialism #neurosexism #feminism

[radfemfox5]

What do u think about the arguments of the brains on transgender people? I have seen that the standard response is "brain sex is not a thing". But I have seen that there is a great discussion between scientists about this and there are proofs that brains between men and women are different in some little ways. I also see this through autism lens, because I'm autistic and females are underdiagnosed and there is a discussion about it too: socialization or brain differences that make more easy the masking and faking neurotypical behaviour.

But of course, even if the brain argument is correct, I don't see how transition is the logical next step to take then. Like, is ur brain, u can take therapy and be gender nonconforming if that's the case anyway. Brain can be trained due to neuroplasticity and kids with gender dysphoria can be treated in a way to become more comfortable in their bodies.

Sorry for my poor english, I'm chilean.

Hi, thank you for your question. Don't worry, English isn't my first language either.

So, this is hard to answer. The short answer is that no, brain sex isn't real. If brain sex is not real, then trans-identified males cannot be born with a "female brain." I feel like this has been retired as an argument for transgenderism, as it's not only a nebulous concept but also goes against the concept that you can identify as anything you want (ie: no biological component to gender).

The long answer is that it's complicated. We don't know enough about the brain to fully understand which part does what, let alone what minute differences there may or may not be between the functioning of a male and a female brain. It's been proven that men and women use different parts of the brain to process the same information, so while there are no structural differences, there could be functional differences that we simply don't know about yet.

@woman-for-women has an excellent post about brain sex here (archive), and I'll use the sources she links as references for my next points. Go check out her posts, seriously, she's incredibly thorough and condenses difficult subjects into easy-to-digest infographics.

I'll first go over brain sex, why it's not real / not proven, and consequently why a male having a "female brain" is impossible. This turned out to be very long, so more under the cut.

In my opinion: the myth that males and females behave differently because of innate differences in brain structure comes from 2 things:

Logic / Common sense. If you present a man with a stressful situation, he will not react the same way a woman would. In our everyday lives, it's easy to assume that men and women are simply wired differently, since we have unique behaviours and thought patterns. Contrary to popular belief, most of this doesn't stem from innate biological differences, but rather from gendered socialization. It's hard for us to gauge what portion of our gendered differences is nature (innate) and which portion is nurture (socialization).

Anecdotal evidence and misconceptions about brain function. In the 18th century, it was discovered that a woman's brain weighs on average 5 oz lighter than a man's. This would lead the general public to assume that, since a woman's brain is smaller, this has an impact on her overall intelligence, which is not true.

Assumptions are often made in the general public and even in neuroscience when it comes to which part of the brain does what based on preexisting notions of what a man is and what a woman is. The study I just showed, for instance, was misconstrued in order to strengthen sex-based stereotypes.

What a surprise, my personal interpretation of my results just coincidentally happened to match gendered stereotypes that I was taught. How bizarre.

In all seriousness, this study and its methods have been ripped to shreds by people much smarter than I.

"As Gina Rippon, author of The Gendered Brain and outspoken critic of neurosexism shows, the hunt for proof of women’s inferiority has more recently elided into the hunt for proof of male–female ‘complementarity’. So, this line goes, women are not really less intelligent than men, just ‘different’ in a way that happens to coincide with biblical teachings and the status quo of gender roles. Thus, women’s brains are said to be wired for empathy and intuition, whereas male brains are supposed to be optimized for reason and action."

In reality, according to more recent studies with bigger sample sizes, men and women don't have significant differences in brain structure to conclusively say that brains are sexually dimorphic.

If you're a more visual person, here are the graphs from the first study, showing overall brain matter volumes and volumes for specific brain structures. The second study's visualizations are less easy to understand, as they're brain scans and brain tissue images.

These graphs are called bell curves, and they're used to demonstrate a distribution. Basically, the peak of the "bell" shape means that this is the most common value for a certain demographic, while the extremities are outliers or rarer values.

As you can see, "considerable distributional overlap" means that these bell curves are nearly identical in most brain structures. However, white matter, grey matter and total brain volume are different in men and women, with women in this study typically having lower numbers. This doesn't affect overall intelligence, as we saw earlier, or affect the overall proportional volumes of different brain structures. This is just a result of women having smaller skulls on average.

So, if there is so much overlap between the sexes, then why can't a male have a female brain? The graphs do have overlapping sections, don't they?

The thing is, brain structure is nearly identical in both sexes. Therefore, there is no typically "female" or "male" brain, but rather "unique mosaics of features" which aren't uniquely male or female.

A good analogy that woman-for-women gives is this: if a man's height is closer to an average woman's height, does that mean this man is now a woman? No, he is a short male. Being in the overlap of this graph doesn't mean that you aren't a part of your own bell curve.

This is a complex topic that was very interesting to look into. If you have more questions about this, feel free to send another ask or look into the sources:

Sex beyond the genitalia: The human brain mosaic (archive)

The human hippocampus is not sexually-dimorphic: Meta-analysis of structural MRI volumes (archive)

Sex Differences in the Adult Human Brain: Evidence from 5216 UK Biobank Participants (archive)

Delusions of gender: How our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference. (archive)

#radfemfox #radblr #long #ask #brain sex #neurosexism #radfem #neuroscience #graphs #studies #study #rad fem #radfems #radical feminism #radfem safe #radical feminist community #radical feminist safe #radical feminists do interact #radical feminists do touch #radical feminists please interact #radical feminists please touch #radical feminst #trans exclusionary radical feminist #terf #terfs #terfblr #feminism #feminist #female anatomy #male brain

[expfcultragreen]

Ughhhhhhh "it has to do with brainwaves" what a memetic statement. Annoying and wrong, but somehow microcosmal.

Refutation from respected source:

#neurosexism #brain sex #gender #nbphobia

[amfetuum9mobile3]

yeah definitely not going 2 sleep soon

#cordelia fine #delusions of gender #neurosexism

[competingaccessneeds]

The main thing that changed my mind was really just a reminder of something I already knew: [1] most people, male or female, don't get "gender feelings" (not unless they're externally-imposed, anyway)--they're just "themselves," just "people," in their own eyes, and [2] gender roles aren't innate; they're socially/externally imposed (and as such, change often. Where's that post that's all, "Men will be loving toward each other and putting flowers in each other's hair... and still be violently oppressing women.")

#neurosexism #gendered brain myth #old-school feminism 101 #gender roles #goldtxt

[shrimpmandan]

genuinely people on this website need to realize “brain sex isn’t real!” is blatant TERF rhetoric and antithetical to actual decades of various neurological and psychological research pertaining to basic functioning, evolutionary biology, mental disorders, etc.

and no, some jackass thinking that it means male brains are “superior” or that the existence of neurosex somehow validates the existence of arbitrary stereotyping and gender roles doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking exist!!! for the love of god!!!

#killing people #neuroscience #neurosex #brain sex #psychology

[duckseamail]

[ID: A bright yellow book cover with two silhouettes from the shoulders up. One is pink and has a messy bun and the other is blue with short hair. The area that intersects is a fark blue. Black writing under the illustration says: Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference. Cordelia Fine” and small writing at the top says: “”[Fine’s] sharp tongue is tempered with humor and linguistic playfulness...Read this book and see how complex and fascinating the whole issue is.” - New York Times” End ID]

So I read Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine a few months ago, so I’m not able to remember all the details, but I really enjoyed it! The book is pretty much just her going through and debunking a bunch of theories/dumb ways people try and prove gender difference in the brain. She uses a lot of sources (there are so many pages of citations at the end) and even goes through and debunks the sources that the authors of the dumb theories use which is honestly pretty hilarious. I love how thorough she is because it makes it not too difficult to follow along with all the vocab.

Her conclusions were basically, that gender permeates so much of culture, that it’s hard to create scientific studies that find gender difference, because the researchers always have some sort of bias. Which means for now, gender in the brain is scientifically very wibbly-wobbly which I think is cool. The book is very binary, but I think that’s the nature of trying to show that gender prejudice exists in science. 

#Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine #cordelia fine #book recs #book review #image described #delusions of gender: how our minds society and neurosexism create difference

[edonee]

Having a conversation with trans-identified women gives me the same feeling as talking to a brick wall. They all go the same, so I'll just summarize a discussion I've had on here a while ago.

Socks (they/he/xe): "Oh, I identify as non-binary because I never associated with femininity, and I never felt attached to womanhood" (i.e. she doesn't like to conform to gender roles)

me: "You know womanhood isn't a feeling, right? Nobody, including myself, feels like a woman."

Socks (they/he/xe): "If you say that you should probably question your gender identity. You are probably trans. Gender is a feeling. You should read this (outdated) study about how trans people's brains are actually the opposite sex!"

me: "That's neurosexism. Also, it has been debunked. Don't you have any other arguments?"

Socks (they/he/xe): "Kill yourself TERF!!! You're probably just a trans man in denial!! Stop being transphobic!!"

#radblr #radical feminism #radical feminists do interact #radical feminist safe #terfsafe #terfblr #transgender #gender critical #gender performance #gender stereotypes #nonbinary

[burningtheroots]

Women — people of the female sex class — are victims of the most heinous individual and collective crimes on earth. And it‘s been going on like this for thousands of years.

This includes:

female genital mutilation, girls and women of all ages can become victims, and it‘s even performed on baby girls

female infanticide; people abandon and murder female babies because of their sex

forced pregnancy and abortion, even worse in the combination with rape/incest; having a child by choice is self-sacrifice but by force it‘s literal torture, what it does to the body and psyche goes beyond the imaginable for the average person

generally the entire role of reproduction and the world‘s unwillingness to accommodate to women‘s unique contributions; motherhood penalty

child marriage, followed by marital rape and forced pregnancy/childbirth

menstruation taboos and period huts

suttee (femicide in Hindu communities)

honour killings

legal and social disadvantages and oppressions have been installed on the basis of our female bodies

the vast amount of medical (and general) research is centered around the male body — in fact, the whole world is built around the male body

health care for the female body and especially reproductive system is neglected massively; women suffering from female-specific conditions aren‘t taken seriously or there aren’t enough resources to help them

pain and other symptoms specifically affecting the female body are dismissed and/or normalized

high rates of femicide (sex-based crimes, male on female)

rates of women trafficked in prostitution and exploitated for their female bodies (prostitution, pornography etc.)

over-sexualization of the female body; the ideal of "small, thin, fragile" is forced upon us

rape culture and the flawed justice system which treats women like predators for speaking up

denied education and neurosexism

normalization of misogynistic slurs, caricatures and misogyny itself (it‘s treated like a secondary problem whenever oppressive systems are discussed and even defended under the prospect of "choice", which is heavily influenced by the very patriarchy that wants to silence us into obedience)

women during and especially after wars are raped and used as incubators to create new people who can later be used and abused (or use and abuse others)

rape is one of the most prevalent and strategically practiced war crimes through history and mostly aimed at the women ("marking territory by violating/claiming someone‘s property" is their motto)

The list could go on and on and on. Sex-based violence and oppression is REAL. And everything attributed to the female sex (gender roles) only serves to ensure that women remain at the bottom of the hierarchy. Wake up!

#feminism #radfem #radfems do interact #radfems do touch #radical feminism #radfems please touch #women deserve better #womens rights #radblr #sex based oppression #sex based rights #women rights #female liberation #misogyny #sex not gender #female labor

[diddyrivera]

additional resources to marxist feminism:

living a feminist life by sara ahmed

the rise and decline of patriarchal systems by nancy folbre

this bridge called my back: writings by radical women of color by cherrie moraga and gloria anzaldua

delusions of gender: how our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference by cordelia fine

close to home: a materialist analysis to women's oppression by christine delphy

(pdf) the feminist standpoint: developing the ground for a specifically feminist historical materialism

(medium) on women as a class: materialist feminism and mass struggle by aly e

(sagejournals) capital and class: the unhappy moments of marxism and feminism: towards a more progressive union

(substack) the marxfem pulpit by abigail von maure (earth2abbs on tiktok)

if anything else related to marxist feminism, just let me know :)

additional resources to eco feminism:

gossips, gorgons, and crones: the fates of the earth by jane caputi

parable of the sower by octavia e butler

neither man nor beast: feminism and the defense of animals by carol j. adams

bitch: on the female of species by lucy cooke

fresh banana leaves: healing indigenous landscapes through indigenous science by jessica hernandez

the intersectional environmentalist by leah thomas

right here, right now by natalie isaacs

feminism or death by francoise d'ealibonne

violent inheritance: sexuality, land, and energy in making the north american west by e cram

animal crisis: a new critical theory by alice grary

unsettling: surviving extinction together by elizabeth weinberg

land of women by maria sanchez

sexus animalis: there is nothing unnatural in nature by emmanuelle pouydebat

windswept: walking the paths of trailblazing women by annabel abbs

andrea smith - rape of the land

andy smith - ecofeminism through an anticolonial framework

carolyn marchant - nature as female

charlene spretnak - critical and constructive contributions of ecofeminism

heather eaton - ecological feminist theology

heather Eaton - The Edge of the Seat

janet abromovitz - biodiversity and gender Issues

joni Seager - creating a culture of destruction

karen warren - ecofeminism

karen warren - taking empirical data seriously

karen warren - the power and promise of ecological feminism

l. gruen - dismantling oppression

martha e. gimenez - does ecology need marx?

n. sturgeon - the nature of race

petra kelly - women and power

quinby - ecofeminism and the politics of resistance

rosemary radford ruether - ecofeminism: symbolic and social connections

sherry ortner - is female to male as nature is to culture?

sturgeon - the nature of race

val plumwood - feminism and ecofeminism

winona laduke - a society based on conquest cannot be sustained

if anyone has any other recommendations related to eco feminism, plz let me know :)

additional resources related to trans feminism:

the empire strikes back: a posttransexual manifesto by sandy stone

(chicago journals) trapped in the wrong theory: rethinking trans oppression and resistance by talia mae bettcher

(philpapers.org) trans women and the meaning of woman by talia mae bettcher

the transgender studies reader by susan stryker and stephen whittle

if anyone has other recommendations related to trans feminism, plz let me know :)

additional resources related to anarcha feminism:

the anarchist turn by jacob blumenfeld

we will not cancel us and other dreams of transformative justice by adrienne maree brown

burn it down: feminist manifestos for the revolution by breanne fahs

reinventing anarchy, again by howard ehrlich

anarcho-blackness by marquis bey

a little philosophical lexicon of anarchism from proudhon to deleuze by daniel colson and jesse cohn

joyful militancy by nick montgomery and carla bergman

wayward lives, beautiful experiments by saidiya v. hartman

we won't be here tomorrow and other stories by margaret killjoy

writing revolution by christopher j. castaneda

paradoxes of utopia by juan suriano

twelve fingers by jo soares

for a just and better world by sonia hernandez

if anyone has other recommendations related to anarcha feminism, plz let me know :)

#feminism #intersectionalfeminist #intersectionality #anti terf #anti swerf #womens rights #marxist feminism #eco feminism #anarcha feminism #trans feminism #queer feminism #pro lgbtq+ #pro disabled #pro trans #pro palestine #pro sex worker

[duckprintspress]

National Non-Fiction Day: 31 Titles to Get Your Queer Learn On!

In the past year, we’ve posted a lot about our favorite queer fiction titles. We wanted to take Non-Fiction day to talk about the non-fiction titles that have impacted us! Whether self-help, memoirs, psychology, history, sociology, or a different non-fiction genre, these are books that have helped us learn, helped us teach, helped us improve, helped us see and be seen, and helped us be more informed. So join us as we introduce our thirty-one recommendations for National Non-Fiction Day!

Fine: A Comic About Gender by Rhea Ewing

Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender-Nonconforming Children by Diane Ehrensaft

Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen

Here For It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America by R. Eric Thomas

Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians by Austen Hartke

Bitch: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke

Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi

transister: Raising Twins in a Gender-Bending World by Kate Brookes

!Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons by John Paul Brammer

Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century by Graham Robb

London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885 – 1914 by Matt Cook

Queering Your Craft: Witchcraft from the Margins by Cassandra Snow

Female Husbands: A Trans History by Jen Manion

The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities by Janet W. W. Hardy and Dossie Easton

The New Queer Conscience by Adam Eli

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam

Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society by Cordelia Fine

Peculiar Places: A Queer Crip History of White Rural Nonconformity by Ryan Lee Cartwright

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine

Queer Budapest, 1873 – 1961 by Anita Kurimay

LGBTQ-Inclusive Hospice and Palliative Care by Kimberly D. Acquaviva

Queering Colonial Natal: Indigeneity and the Violence of Belonging in Southern Africa by T. J. Tallie

Handbook of LGBT Elders: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Principles, Practices, and Policies edited by Debra A. Harley and Pamela B. Teaster

LGBT Transnational Identity and the Media by Christopher Pullen

Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations by Serena Nanda

LGBTQ Cultures: What Healthcare Professionals Need to Know about Sexual and Gender Diversity by M. J. Eliason and P. L. Chinn

The Terrible We: Thinking with Trans Maladjustment by Cameron Awkward-Rich

Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community edited by Laura Erickson-Schroth

You can view this list as a shelf on Goodreads!

It can be so difficult to find good non-fiction resources on queer topics. Which titles to DO you recommend?

#duck prints press #book recs #queer non-fiction #national non-fiction day #book recommendations #rec list

[kthulhu42]

I'm not going to argue with anons anymore

"I don't want to be harassed" for what, your neurosexism? Or your denial of biology (when it suits)? Or do you think the mean terfs are going to pick on you for cherry-picking studies paid for and performed by trans organisations?

You're not worried about harassment. You're worried about being called out.

#To be totally fair though I don't care if by some miracle they found the girliest most feminine flower-engraved brain in a male head #They could do a biopsy and find fucking pink glitter and a signed photo of Dylan Mulvaney #And it would still be a male brain in a male body with male hormones and male conditioning

[thodi]

OCTOBER ‘23 READINGS

Hamonshu: A Japanese Book of Wave and Ripple Designs (1903) • art

Neurosexism: the myth of the male and female brain • prose

The tenderness of trying • prose

The Memory Picture • prose

Women are superstars onstage but still rarely get to write songs • interactive

The Dark Legacy of Scientific Research Using Marginalized Bodies • prose

A Letter to My Mother That She Will Never Read • prose

Personal Growth • prose

Blue Skies and Tailwinds • prose, art

Shah Rukh Has Spoken • prose

We’re all lurkers now • prose

How Apple Defies Consumer Logic • prose

In 50 years, rap transformed the English language • prose, music

You Have Such A Pretty Face • prose (tw: eating disorder)

Teeth • prose

Harambee, a way of gratitude • prose

a clock where the time is in a song title • music

The Woman on the Line • prose (tw: substance abuse)

The Transgender Family Handbook • prose

I Never Called Her Momma • prose (tw: substance abuse, sexual assault)

a clock where the time is mentioned on YouTube • video

Everyone is Traumatized • prose (tw: mentions of sexual assault)

Meeting Mumbai Again After a Life-Changing Loss • prose

How Making a Joylist Made it Easier to Relax • prose

Singapore in Colour • prose, graphic

The Trouble with Willpower • prose

The surprising reason birds sing • video

rotating sandwiches • graphic

Pocket Full of Walnuts • prose, illustration

Student Hunger Is An Issue On College Campuses • comic

Three ways of translating a poem • poetry

Cats Tattooing Other Cats • illustration

ofhouses (old forgotten houses)• photography

Lunar Codex • website

The Changing Room Illusion • video

#j.recs #reading recommendations #reading list #essay recommendation #to be read #words #October #Halloween #art #feminism #prose #narrative #literature #culture #medicine #science #November #travel #rap #history #music #taylor swift #new music #singapore #time #substack #newsletter #Ukraine #longreads #ocean vuong

[genderstarbucks]

a thing that went without noticing is that in many countries ftm/mtf terminology doesn't make sense or is untranslatable. at least where I live, common trans activists usually criticize these terms as imported from anglophones. they enforce innate transness narratives all the time, usually linked to neurosexism.

i'm an amab ftm, but I wish there was a way to communicate this where I live without neologisms or sounding strange or wrong.

I've actually never heard of being amab ftm, I've heard of amab transmascs but never amab ftms

You are still so valid and swag

I don't understand why so many people think the terms ftm and mtf are bad, they're just terms to describe yourself

[femme-ressentiment]

neither the biosocial nor neurosex model can really adequately explain my case of transness. i was implanted into a boy as a larva and emerged chestburster style after eating him from the inside out