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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38487 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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Yes, but doesn't this imply that if endocrine disrupters are the main cause of the explosion in gender dysphoria cases then we should also see an explosion in sexual development disorders (with e.g. changes to anatomy) that are also linked to endocrine disrupters? I'm open to being convinced that either (1) this is wrong or (2) such an explosion is occurring. Absent such an explanation, it at least seems like a potential inconsistency in the story.

The question of whether such explosion is occurring seems pretty relevant- have sexual development disorders increased? I’d thought at least precocious puberty was more common.

This is something I'd be really interested to learn more about. I had trouble quickly finding data about sexual development disorders, especially of the sort that cause opposite gender anatomical features. You do seem to be correct that there has been an increase in cases of precocious puberty and that fact does seem relevant (and I appreciate you mentioning it). On the other hand, precocious puberty is almost the opposite of changing gender. On the other other hand, it seems at least plausible to think that endocrine disrupters would just cause an increase in all kinds of disorders including disorders that increase sexual differentiation and those that decrease it. So I think overall I take this as mild evidence for the endocrine disrupters -> gender dysphoria theory but I'm also way out of my depth on the biology knowledge needed to know how plausible all this is and what would be good supporting or contradicting evidence.

One minor point of data is that I believe precocious puberty has risen most in girls, while sexual disorders are fairly male(I believe that most trans men are psychosomatic cases driven by fear of sexualization). It’s not implausible that the same set of mutagens could cause precocious puberty in girls and brain feminization in boys.

There seems to be some tension between this idea and the fact that the increase in reported gender dysphoria cases has been driven more by gender dysphoria in biological females rather than biological males.

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