42 - Debunking Brain Studies - Part I
“I was born with a male brain in a female body.”
Perhaps you’ve heard that claim. On March 14, 2025, Colin Wright was joined by Samuel Stagg and Christina Buttons[1] in writing an article explaining the popularity of that assertion while debunking it. In this series, we’ll take things a step further and also review the shortfalls in brain studies of those who identify as gay or lesbian.
In “Transgender Brain Studies are Fatally Flawed,[2]” the authors share numerous incidents of family members buying into the idea that one can have a mismatched brain and body, thereby becoming convinced that medical intervention is necessary for their children who identify as transgender. For example:
On January 31, Wisconsin Public Radio featured an interview with a mother, Carri, concerned about President Trump’s new executive order banning federally funded medical and surgical “sex change” procedures for minors. Carri spoke about her daughter, who identified as transgender at 15 and was allowed to medically transition. She said, “Those hormones really helped match his brain with his body which, to me, that’s just the basic level of care we can provide individuals that identify as trans.”
What is particularly alarming is that many parents have heard this from mental and medical health care professionals. The article continues with reminders of this idea entering popular culture:
For instance, 2009 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, psychiatrist George Huang, played by B.D. Wong, explained that a trans-identified boy had a “female brain”: “For some children, something happens in utero where the brain develops as one gender and the body the other.” Children’s books have reinforced this idea, with the trans-identified protagonist in I Am Jazz declaring, “I have a girl brain but a boy body. This is called transgender. I was born this way!”
The authors also reveal how the claim that one can have a brain not matched to one's sex has made its way into legal battles:
In Talbott v. Trump, a legal challenge to the president’s executive order barring transgender individuals from military service, Nicolas Talbott—a transgender-identifying female and activist—joined six active-duty service members and two prospective enlistees in arguing that “[s]trong research supports the conclusion that gender identity has a biological basis” and that “transgender women and non-transgender women have similar brain structures, specifically in the volume of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.”
Factor Missing in Studies
Three studies are used as examples,[3] each reporting some degree of difference between those who identify as trans and those of the same sex who don’t identify as trans. The claim is often made that the brains of men who identify as trans frequently resemble those of women. (And those of women who identify as trans resemble the brains of men.) Colin et al. point out an overlooked factor in these studies:
The central flaw in current research purporting to validate the cross-sex brain hypothesis is an inconsistent—or complete lack of—control for individuals’ sexual orientation. Why does this matter? Because most people who identify as transgender are not exclusively heterosexual, and same-sex attraction has been linked to neuroanatomical differences that reflect a cross-sex shift—or, more broadly, to a reduction in typical sexual dimorphism (i.e., to having more androgynous brain structures). This raises serious methodological concerns about the extent to which sexual orientation might confound or interact with the neurobiological markers that “brain sex” studies routinely attribute to gender dysphoria. It also raises major ethical concerns about the use of “gender-affirming care” as a form of gay conversion therapy or as a maladaptive coping strategy for gay men.
We’ll return to the idea that attraction to the same sex is linked to specific differences in the brain in the second part of this series.
Colin Wright received a critique of his article, as someone complained that he was:
“deliberately ignoring all the studies that show a difference between trans and homosexual brains," and linked a paper. It 100% supports MY claims: "After controlling for sexual orientation, the transgender groups showed SEX-TYPICAL FA-values." The only differences they found in the "trans" groups were in "brain areas that mediate own body perception." So @NeuroSGS, @buttonslives, and I are 100% correct. The brains of people who identify as transgender don't exhibit a cross-sex shift when sexuality is properly considered in the analyses.[4]
Instead of finding a brain that resembles the complimentary sex, research shows the difference among those who identify as trans is in areas of the brain related to self-perception of their body.
Body Dysmorphia
Rather than attempting to change one’s body to adapt to one’s inner sense of gender, we could be helping those who identify as trans change their minds about their body. Of course, there are numerous underlying conditions associated with confusion or insecurity about one’s sex. This is one possible area of concern.
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), occasionally still called dysmorphophobia, is a mental disorder characterized by the obsessive idea that some aspect of one's own body part or appearance is severely flawed and therefore warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix it.
In BDD's delusional variant, the flaw is imagined. If the flaw is actual, its importance is severely exaggerated. Either way, thoughts about it are pervasive and intrusive, and may occupy several hours a day, causing severe distress and impairing one's otherwise normal activities. BDD is classified as a somatoform disorder, and the DSM-5 categorizes BDD in the obsessive–compulsive spectrum, and distinguishes it from anorexia nervosa.
BDD is estimated to affect from 0.7% to 2.4% of the population.[2] It usually starts during adolescence and affects both men and women.[2][3]
The BDD subtype muscle dysmorphia, perceiving the body as too small, affects mostly males.[4] Besides thinking about it, one repetitively checks and compares the perceived flaw, and can adopt unusual routines to avoid social contact that exposes it.[2] Fearing the stigma of vanity, one usually hides the preoccupation.[2] Commonly unsuspected even by psychiatrists, BDD has been underdiagnosed.[2] Severely impairing quality of life via educational and occupational dysfunction and social isolation, BDD has high rates of suicidal thoughts and attempts at suicide.[5]
Readers of R4R may recall coverage of an interview with Oli London, who traveled the world and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for surgeries he thought would help him:
OL: Well it was about four months ago…I got to a point where I was still unhappy. I was thinking, “Okay I became Korean, I became trans, I've had all this surgery. Now I'm thinking about doing more surgery, irreversible surgery that I really can't change. Is this what I want?”
You know I look in the mirror every day and I'd have the surgery and for two months I would be so happy. It's weird because when I have a swollen face I actually feel beautiful - sounds weird but that was when I feel my most beautiful. And then after that wears off I kind of feel like, “Oh I look too normal.”
So it got to a stage where I'm thinking, “Okay am I crazy? Like, have I got body dysmorphia? Why am I doing this?” You know, I was losing relationships with friends, family, you know. Everyone was moving away from me because they were so upset with what I was doing. And obviously people online um were upset with me and stuff. And I'm thinking, what am I doing to myself?
Others who have detransitioned have mentioned hyper-focusing on one area of their body, only to become fixated on yet another area after undergoing surgery. Screening for this and other associated diagnosis (depression, abuse, anxiety, etc.) should be standard practice rather than the “affirmation-only” approach dictated by numerous therapeutic professional associations.
The study Colin Wright pointed out was supportive of his claim stated this in their conclusion:
Homosexual orientation was found to be associated with less pronounced cerebral sex dimorphism, a finding that appeared more prominent among men than women. Although a less pronounced cerebral sex dimorphism was detected in transgender persons compared with heterosexual cisgender controls, this seems primarily due to the higher proportion of homosexual persons in the GD [Gender Dysphoric] groups, and does not seem to be the signature of GD. We suggest that GD is, instead, specifically linked to cerebral networks mediating self–body perception, possibly due to certain developmental and acquired changes.[6]
Notice the possibility of “developmental and acquired changes” to the brain in relation to self-body perception was mentioned among those who experienced gender dysphoria but not in regard to “homosexual orientation.” Yet, when reading the text of these studies of the brain, the researchers state they are not able to determine if any of the differences they have found are innate or due to environmental factors after birth:
“As such, our study considers both sexual orientation and gender (non)conformity and, thus, can help bring us closer to understanding which of these is more related to visuospatial skills. However, it cannot help settle the question of whether the observed differences are due to prenatal biological or postnatal psychosocial factors.”[7]
We’ll discuss this further in the next part of this series.
NOTE: For more details on the science of brain studies and much more please see:
“Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences,” Dr. Paul McHugh and Lawrence S. Mayer, M.B., M.S., Ph.D.
My Genes Made Me Do It: Homosexuality and the Scientific Evidence, Dr. N.E. Whitehead
Born or Bred? Science Does Not Support the Claim That Homosexuality Is Genetic, Robert Knight This paper is a revised and updated version of “Born & Bred: The Debate Over the Cause of Homosexuality”(last updated in June 2000) by former Concerned Women for America staff writer Trudy Chun
“Male sexual orientation, gender nonconformity, and neural activity during mental rotations: an fMRI study.” Folkierska-Żukowska, M., Rahman, Q., Marchewka, A. et al., Sci Rep 10, 18709 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-74886-0
[1] Colin Wright is an evolutionary biologist and fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Samuel Stagg is a Ph.D. student in neuroimmunology. Christina Buttons is an investigative reporter at the Manhattan Institute.
[2] https://www.city-journal.org/article/transgender-brain-sex-studies-flawed
[3] “Regional Grey Matter Structure Differences between Transsexuals and Healthy Controls—A Voxel Based Morphometry Study,” “Regional gray matter variation in male-to-female transsexualism,” and “Sex Dimorphism of the Brain in Male-to-Female Transsexuals.”
[4] https://x.com/SwipeWright/status/1900668278995120262
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_dysmorphic_disorder, Cororve, Michelle; Gleaves, David (August 2001). "Body dysmorphic disorder: A review of conceptualizations, assessment, and treatment strategies". Clinical Psychology Review.
[6] A Manzouri, I Savic, Possible Neurobiological Underpinnings of Homosexuality and Gender Dysphoria, Cerebral Cortex, Volume 29, Issue 5, May 2019, Pages 2084–2101, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhy090
[7] “Male sexual orientation, gender nonconformity, and neural activity during mental rotations: an fMRI study.” Folkierska-Żukowska, M., Rahman, Q., Marchewka, A. et al., Sci Rep 10, 18709 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-74886-0
