Reubs Walsh

Mentalizing is an important aspect of social cognition and people vary in their ability to mentalize. Despite initial evidence that mentalizing continues to develop throughout adolescence, it is unclear which neural mechanisms underlie individual variability in mentalizing ability in adolescents. Interactions within and between the default-mode network (DMN), frontoparietal network (FPN) and cingulo-opercular/salience network (CO/SN) have been related to inter-individual differences in cognitive processes in both adults and adolescents. Here, we investigated whether intrinsic connectivity within and between these brain networks explained inter-individual differences in affective mentalizing ability in adolescents. Resting-state brain activity was measured using functional MRI and affective mentalizing ability was defined as correct performance on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test performed outside the scanner. We identified the DMN, FPN and CO/SN, and within and between network connectivity values were submitted to a bootstrapping enhanced penalized multiple regression analysis to predict mentalizing in 66 young adolescents (11-14 years). We showed that stronger connectivity between the DMN and the FPN, together with lower within-network connectivity of the FPN and the CO/SN predicted better mentalizing performance. These novel findings provide insight into the normative developmental trajectory of the neural mechanisms underlying affective mentalizing in early adolescence.

Autistic traits are over-represented in transgender populations, and gender variance is high in autistic individuals. Furthermore, some evidence suggests that the autism/transgender overlap is limited to individuals sex assigned female. Few studies, however, have investigated the impact of this overlap on mental health. This study therefore sought to investigate whether the autism/transgender overlap confers an increased risk of depression or anxiety. An online study of 727 individuals revealed a substantial overlap between transgender identity and autism, with increased autistic traits found in trans men compared to trans women. Depression and anxiety were highest in autistic-trans individuals, but no superadditive effect was observed. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the wider healthcare system.

Prior research has shown an elevation in autism traits and diagnoses in individuals seen for gender related consultation and in participants self-identifying as transgender. To investigate this relationship between autism and gender identity from a new angle, we compared the self-reported autism traits and sensory differences between participants with autism who did or did not identify with their assigned sex (i.e. cisgender or trans and nonbinary, respectively). We found broad elevation of most cognitive autism traits in the trans and non-binary group (those who identified with a gender other than their assigned gender), and lower visual and auditory hypersensitivity. We contrast these data to existing hypotheses and propose a role for autistic resistance to social conditioning.

Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IQiDqOJe58

Please cite as: Walsh, R. and Einstein, G. (2016). (Trans)Feminism, Bodily Autonomy, and Situated Neuroscience: Separating Gender from Genitalia in Medicine and Feminism to Move Beyond the Binary. In Trans*Formations (pp. 16-18). 14-15 June 2016. Lisbon. Retrieved from https://transrightseurope.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/trans_formations-abstracts-and-bios3.pdf

Abstract:
A recurring problem for many marginalised groups is the ubiquitous trend to use sex and sexuality as a site for
sensationalism and moralisation. The barriers to equitable societal circumstance for stigmatized sexual expressions
- lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer (LGBQ) people and sex workers - centre on a social construction of a norm
defining the acceptable nature and context for sexual congress, the boundaries of which are policed by public and
private discourses. A similar and well documented issue exists for transgender people for whom a focus on their
genitals as the site of gender identification polices their gender. One outcome of this is that because genitals are
viewed as binary, sexual identifications are viewed as binary and trans individuals are expected to tell a story about
their ‘transness’ that is either male or female. This constrains gender and allows a very small box in which to fit one’s identity, and may lead to trans patients being indirectly pressured into a more binary gender and transition than best suits their identity. Another outcome is that the practice of transitional medicine becomes engulfed in a focus on genital binarism which then corrupts both research and clinical practice. For example, a majority of standardised diagnostic questionnaires for ascertaining gender identity are built on an assumption that desires for surgical and endocrinological transition will be central to the experiences that define a person as trans. These questionnaires may therefore fail to highlight other, perhaps more important, factors in the experience of gender identity such as social dysphoria (concerns with how one is perceived by self or others, in respect of one’s gender), or the surprisingly prevalent other forms of gender variance which do not conform to the dominant narrative of trans* genders, and in which gender identification contrary to assigned birth may not present dysphoria of the sort these surveys tend to anticipate. For example, upwards of 35% of presumed-cisgender individuals questioned with a non-dichotomous gender identity questionnaire identify to some extent as the ‘other’ gender, both or neither (Joel et al., 2013). Thus, the assumption that needs to be challenged is that identification with a gender (in terms of group identity or perceived traits) is the same as identification as a gender (personal identity), and that either of these implies a particular sex-identity, or even a particular body map. These assumptions are born of the three cornerstone misconceptions of cisgenderism: (i) that in a state of natural good health the human body is sexed in a dichotomous way that has only two forms; (ii) that the sex of the body is directly equivalent to the gender of the person; and (iii) that the external characteristics of sex (especially the genitals) are the sole signifiers of sex and gender, and are themselves therefore binary. Surprisingly, important theoretical parallels and contrasts may be drawn between trans people who seek or have undergone surgical changes to their bodies that reflect their sex- identity and women with female genital circumcision/mutilation/cutting (FGC) showing that the focus on genitalia as determining gender creates categorical binaries that haunt other groups as well. In fact, on some accounts and cultures, FGC is carried out in order to instantiate a gender binary where one was not thought to exist prior; establishing gender by modifying the genitalia is one important reason that cultures practice FGC. (One might say that this is also why cis women undergo ‘cosmetic’ surgery.) In turn, women with FGC face similar issues as trans people vis à vis researchers' and clinicians' preoccupation with their genitals in almost every aspect of research about them. FGC intervenes upon their genitalia, as the presumed location of gender. An interesting overlap between the group of women with FGC and male trans individuals is their very literal meeting in Trinidad, Colorado where both go to modify their genitalia to match their gender; women with FGC go for clitoral ‘restoration’ and trans men go to receive phalloplasty or similar ‘masculinising’ gender-reaffirming surgeries – all undergone because gender is linked in the collective social consciousness to genitalia. How do we move beyond this binary? Using feminist principles such as a mixture of approaches which blended reflexive awareness of the personal narratives of participants (first person), and the interpersonal spaces in which interviews and physiological examinations took place (second person), with the impersonal, traditionally "objective" measures of physiological states and changes (third person) Einstein (2012) examined the neuroplastic changes beyond the genitalia that followed FGC in a group of Somali-Canadian women living in Toronto. She called this ‘situated neuroscience’ and through this mixture of methods she was able to bring the subjective under scientific scrutiny - a platform previously reserved for 'objective' observations - or rather, observations made through the hegemonic and consequently hidden subjectivity of white, cis-het, male privilege. As the nervous system may become a locus of change by FGC, some trans individuals identify an aspect of their brain (somewhat or sometimes in its relation to their society) that requires them to modify their bodies, thus involving the brain and nervous systems in both these performances of gender. the phenomenon of phantom genitals in pre- and post-surgery trans persons as compared to cisgender persons with similar modifications to their body for other medical reasons (e.g. penectomy for the treatment of cancer), wherein the presence of such a phantom is positively correlated with the extent to which the individual identifies with those genitals and their functions as social signifiers of gender (Ramachandran and McGeogh 2007). We believe that feminist approaches may be helpful in eliminating the focus on genitals and the accompanying sensationalism and moralization and as a corollary, a reification of gender binaries. For example, if we move beyond the genitals alone, to their connection with the nervous system, we see the reciprocal relationship of the nervous system and the rest of the body expanding to omnidirectional influences of brain, body and society upon each other and thus, opening pathways for imbrigation of every body system with each other and with the world. As an occasion for demonstrating their utility, this paper aims to use feminist approaches to address the methodological and ethical implications of the reciprocity between body, brain and society that these similarities and differences between the corporeal interplay experienced by both Somali-Canadian women with FGC and transsexual persons, and develop an understanding of the role of feminist science in the pursuit of social connectedness and bodily autonomy for both these groups. In this way we hope to move beyond the simplistic binary account of genitalia equals a binary notion of gender to one which is properly situated (as in Haraway 1988) in the intersecting systems of the corporeal body (includes the brain, Grosz) and society, and so to enhance bodily autonomy.