The Transgender Scientist

Transgender history to the 1980s. This episode traces development of and advocacy for transgender demographic groups from the turn of the 20th Century to the 1980s. Advocacy organizations were built for three demographic groups of transgender people (1) those who wanted to change their bodies, previously called transsexuals who were championed by the medical and mental health communities (2) non-transsexual transgender people who developed local peer-led support groups, spawning transgender conventions (3) transgender people forced to live on the street because their transgender behavior was rejected at home. These developments were independent but loosely connected through activities in San Francisco and by a transwoman named Louise Lawrence.

Prenatal Testosterone Theory of Transgender (PTTT) Causation: Origins and Evidence. Do low prenatal testosterone levels in males and do high prenatal testosterone levels in females cause being transgender? The origins of this theory in eugenics and the evidence refuting the theory. The PTTT is rooted in eugenics theory developed in the US during the first half of the 20th Century. With support from private foundations, eugenics developed and spread to Germany and Europe. After World War II, East Germant eugenic endocrinologists developed the PTTT as the way to get rid of transgender people in society by adminstering drugs to pregnant mothers. If a mother was carrying a male baby, testosterone booster shots were recommended; if a mother was carrying a female baby, testosterone blockers were advised. The scientific evidence refutes the PTTT.

This episode reviews the evidence for the prenatal estrogen theory of being transgender in natal males. Since estrogen does not readily penetrate the brain, the evidence cited for the estrogen theory involves the synthetic chemical diethylstibestrol or DES. This drug was given to pregnant females during 1940's through the 1980's but was eventually banned because it caused cancer in female offspring who were exposed through their mothers in utero. Because of this, most of the research was conducted with exposed natal females. Research with exposed males was initiated by DES-esposed researchers who believed that they were affected to become transgender. They started a website for DES exposed males and found that 150 of the 500 males who joined the website thought that they were transgender. This episode provides an answer as whether the evidence supports whether DES causes being transgender and the status of the estrogen theory of being transgender.

This podcast covers for transgender genetic gender behavior predisposition in the form of biomarkers and "natural experiments." Biomarkers include handedness, 2D4D finger length ratio and FTM anatomy. Natural experiments include the saga of David Reimer and the effects of raising males with cloacl extrophy in the feminine gender behavior category.

This episode provides a critical review of the recent by Lisa Littman of Brown University which claims that gender dysphoria originates in childhood trauma and can be triggered by information "contagion" from peers and the Internet in adolescence. The episode also provides the historical and scientific on background on this claim which indicates that it constitutes a non-scientific attack on affirmative treatment for transgender children and adults. The paper involved a survey, ostensibly from surprised and disgruntled parents which was used to claim based on flawed methodology that their children were not dysphoric in childhood but became dysphoric in adolescence. Littman cannot prove that the children were gender dysphoric because the parents were not asked about a critical criterion of debilitation and distress which is required for gender dysphoria and typically is used as a billing code for transgender transition. Two results were described which support hypotheses for more rigorous study: (1) because the transgender children had been diagnosed with anxiety and depression it is possible that this resulted from living in secrecy as being transgender from earlier childhood (2) because parents of natal female children were surprised by the emergence of their children as being transgender but were not surprised by earlier declarations of lesbian, bi or sexual orientation, the children may have deliberately come out with declarations of alternative sexual orientations that were more socially correct to prepare their parents for transgender emergence.