A biological case for transgender people
Quite often we hear those who oppose trans rights stating some iteration of there being no biological basis for transgender people. As I will explain in this, that is simply not the case. Biological factors such as prenatal hormone exposure and genetics determine the likelihood that a person will come out as transgender.
Prenatal exposure to opposite sex’s sex hormones impacts the likelihood that a person will come out as trans later on in life. One paper, published on the National Library of Medicine’s National Center for Biotechnology Information suggests that early development is sensitive for brain development, as hormone exposure helps organize the brain during this period. This paper, “How Early Hormones Shape Gender Development” by Sheri Berenbaum and Adriene Beltz, states that “early development represents a sensitive period for hormones to organize the brain”. Essentially, as stated above, the authors state that early development is a sensitive period as hormones help organize and shape the brain.
One other explanation for the cause of gender dysphoria in transgender individuals is genetics. One study, dubbed “Genetic Link Between Gender Dysphoria and Sex Hormone Signaling”, found an overabundance of alleles that code for Androgen receptors in their test subjects. These receptors are commonly found in cisgender men, as they activate when binding to testosterone. This study used Caucasian transgender individuals who were given a diagnosis of gender dysphoria or transsexualism as test subjects. Whilst the researchers did find alleles that code for estrogen receptors, they also found that “several allele combinations were also overrepresented in transgender women, most involving AR (namely, AR-ERβ, AR-PGR, AR-COMT, CYP17-SRD5A2)”. Conclusion? The researchers in this study found that there is a likelihood that genetics can cause someone to come out as transgender later on.
These are, of course, only a few examples, of the many that one can find. The entire point of this is to show that biological factors do play a role in one’s own gender identity, and claiming that being trans goes against biology is just asinine. Said claims go against what we already know about the human body, and go against what researchers have already found. All of this negates the fact that we intentionally differ between sex chromosomes (allosomes) and non-sex related chromosomes (autosomes) for obvious reasons, like such stated above.
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