Quote Originally Posted by Satrana View Post
The idea of the hormone wash seems irrelevant to me. At the time when this happens, we only have about 1% of our eventual total brain mass. So unless you believe in a male/female gender switch in the brain that controls everything else, and science has found no such thing, then it does not matter in the slightest whether I was subject to extra estrogen for a couple of days in the womb or not.

My gender is determined by how my entire brain works, all the experiences, feelings and thoughts I have ever had. This is what constitutes me. My gender is not determined autonomously by a few brain cells. That seems like an abdication of responsibility for me being me.

Gender only makes sense by reference to the social roles biological men and women undertake in society. Apart from the sexual experience, all other roles men and women play are entirely dependent upon the rules society makes up for them, hence gender is nothing more than a social construct. Turn these rules upside down then all of a sudden biological females would be masculine and biological males feminine.
Quote Originally Posted by Satrana View Post
There is no way to define femininity because men naturally possess all these values. But we all recognize femininity when all these separate values are combined together and packaged into a product which we are conditioned to recognize as feminine. The "total package" changes from society to society, from time to time which means femininity is what society tells you it is and you are conditioned to recognize it as such.
IMO, you are mixing anatomical sexual roles and gender roles. The wash makes sense b/c it occurs in a flood when the clusters of the brain are formed -- and that is a whole lot more than a mere 1%. No medical research suggests that percentage! The wash also makes sense in that it explains the feelings of a dichotomous personna -- complexity v. that which is simplistic. GM's and GG's have distinct differences -- look at the evidence of language use for but one example, or the emerging size of a specific cluster of specialized brain cells. Socialization couldn't play a role in something as complex, regardless of society, time, and era.

Too many of us have the cd'ing dichotomous personality traits at such an early age for socialization and nurture argument to have any influence at all. That is why the current literature on treatment is finally, at long last, reaching the point where treatment is not considered an option, but rather acceptance and accomodation. If you could change this by adapting socialization, such would be a treatment whose efficacy would have been proven a long time ago.