Watching retoots of people saying 'sex differences exist' and like, ok but there is only marginal evidence.
There are physical effects from HRT and those exist, but it isn't really clear how much is that is from going through puberty for a second time. Maybe everyone would have (beneficial) psychological differences, we don't know. (Sidenote! Maybe those wouldn't work on cis people. If you argue that trans women have different brains you're arguing that there are different psychological effects for putting a cis man on hormones than there is a trans woman, and that also needs to be tested.)
A lot of the other studies depend on fMRI research which has severe problems and it's not clear that fMRI and it's place in research was ever credible in the first place. I would be extremely wary of those unless they're very well replicated and even then, as I understand it modern scientists have decided to throw out most fMRI research and start from scratch.
The stuff that depends purely on the structure and nature of the brain is no better than 1800s racism. Like some papers literally use tables drawn up by racists, for racist purposes (to purport the difference between poc and white people), to purport the differences between men and women! It depends on how you actually choose to divide the brain, the 2D and 3D cross-sections you choose to bother to look at, and a hundred other things.
And even when you get to physical studies there is very little empirical evidence and more importantly ***replication***. The study groups are very small (most of the papers I could find had less than 30 people in total), and I don't think there are any with strong replication, a large N, and with proper methodology.
There are physical effects from HRT and those exist, but it isn't really clear how much is that is from going through puberty for a second time. Maybe everyone would have (beneficial) psychological differences, we don't know. (Sidenote! Maybe those wouldn't work on cis people. If you argue that trans women have different brains you're arguing that there are different psychological effects for putting a cis man on hormones than there is a trans woman, and that also needs to be tested.)
A lot of the other studies depend on fMRI research which has severe problems and it's not clear that fMRI and it's place in research was ever credible in the first place. I would be extremely wary of those unless they're very well replicated and even then, as I understand it modern scientists have decided to throw out most fMRI research and start from scratch.
The stuff that depends purely on the structure and nature of the brain is no better than 1800s racism. Like some papers literally use tables drawn up by racists, for racist purposes (to purport the difference between poc and white people), to purport the differences between men and women! It depends on how you actually choose to divide the brain, the 2D and 3D cross-sections you choose to bother to look at, and a hundred other things.
And even when you get to physical studies there is very little empirical evidence and more importantly ***replication***. The study groups are very small (most of the papers I could find had less than 30 people in total), and I don't think there are any with strong replication, a large N, and with proper methodology.
@alexandria "there are brain differences between men and women" is a bad take that dates back to aristotle
