do you feel like you have a male brain in a female body?

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My son identified as a lesbian during his teen years, even joined the school gaysoc. I think he was going through some weird sort of rebel phase against something or other. For the life of me, I just can't work out what though. Nor could his girlfriend...

I did that too... I've kept hoping people would forget about it.

well...what do they both "look" like?

male and female--

how could a person answer.

I drink beer, like some dirty jokes and can do minor auto repairs when I need to, and I get confused for a lesbian on a regular basis but I don't know if that qualifies my brain as "male". I somehow have got through 30 years thinking that that the way I am, the way I act and my interests in life aren't the domain of one gender or the other.

I think it's much more a case of nurture rather than nature. Cultural expectations make up the idea of what a male and female brain is. The uncoventional way that I was brought up probably has as much to do as AS with how I am, if not more.

I then would have to be a celibate gay male trapped in a woman's body..wait, that's not it.

I also get pegged as 'lesby'-- I have to say I assumed this is because of societies facination and thus 'overylay' and hope for such things.

But then I figure it's just because as stated elsewhere on wp gays and aspies are more open minded or accepting, maybe these are similar behaviors-


But, I'll cop--my brain is more male. I 'like' guy things AS WELL as girl things, but certainly more than. I prefer the company of men. Or privacy. I understand better what they are saying. And I hope to marry one someday.
So...it's gotta be someone who's alright with the girl cleaning up after the horses and fixing fences as well as pushing the vacuum and dialing for pizza.

You obviously take a prejudicial view of males in general, so I would have to agree with Enigmatic_Oddity's raising question. If you feel it is insulting for you as one of the "aspie women" to be somehow associated with a subset of males who have committed violent or abusive acts, then don't you think men in general would have cause to feel just as insulted for the atrocities that some of their sex commit? In other words, you make a faulty induction. You are forgetting the many male brains of people who have done very good things, and you are forgetting the viciousness and even violence found in some females too.

Analogously, African Americans are statistically more likely to commit crimes than Americans of European descent. Would you react with such venom if someone proposed a theory that suggested something about you is actually an extreme form of African-Americanism? You would probably reject such a hateful sentiment as racist and recall the socio-economic disparity between African Americans and white Americans. Why not do the same for your idea that being male is associated with sexual violence?

Also, with your belief that the difference between masculinity and feminity as being more environmentally controlled than biologically controlled, you fail to realize the subtleties in the interaction between biology and environment. Perhaps autistic spectrum disorders really are exaggerations of normal male brain development—even in female autistic bodies. For example, psychologists studying sex differences and autism have found that newborn boys tend to look at people's faces for less time than do baby girls, but they do tend to spend more time looking at inanimate objects like spinning mobiles than do newborn girls. Autistic babies (male and female) tend to show the typical male behavior to a greater degree. Perseveration and single-minded thinking, difficulty with social interaction, and facility with systems are all thought to be aspects of the autistic syndrome, and coincidentally (or not) this cognitive style tends to occur also (but to a lesser degree) in nonautistic males.

You seem to assume that this biologically male brain theorized to be behind this autistic, or male, cognitive style is the same as a hypermasculine or "macho" personality defined by aggressiveness, self-centeredness, emotional insensitivity, jealousy, and impulsive risk-taking behavior; it's not. In psychiatry, that disorder is called antisocial personality disorder (DSM-IV-TR) or dissocial personality disorder (ICD-10) and not autism. Some aspects of sociopathy may very much be culturally created exaggerations of the traditional masculine gender ideal (at least in Western countries) of being independent, assertive, and level headed. Some men (and women) may be genetically predisposed to behave aggressively (many more are perhaps influenced by social learning in those cultures that value it in males), but such a high level of aggression is no more typical of being male than being interpersonally dependent and depressed is part of being female.

Even it is assumed that the androgen hormone testosterone increases both sexual desire and competitive aggressiveness, these biological imperatives can be regulated through higher thought, and of course, the attitudes and beliefs used in our thinking are learned from our environment. With the right social conditioning, a hormonal predisposition to aggression can be sublimated acceptably, and of course, many males will not have high enough a level of testosterone to become readily aggressive anyway.

Because of your dogmatic rejection of the "male brain" and autism, anandamide, I suspect you may have a bit more of that masculine personality in you (you know those same tendencies that, in extreme form, lead to violence) within yourself. It's really quite ironic except the psychoanalyst has a theory to explain this anti-male revolt: projection.

I was going to make this analogy, but I've already been accused of hating blacks here before.

African Americans have been on the receiving end of said disparity. How does that relate to being male?

Well, what NeantHumain is trying to say is that rapists make up a small subset of the male population, yet most of the male population is not at all likely to rape. So it makes as much sense to judge males on the basis of the rapist subset as it does to blame African-Americans for the subset of African-Americans who commit crimes.

I got beat up plenty, only by boys. Girls may have talked about me but it was only ever boys who beat me up. I'm not sure if anyone still believes boys can't hit girls.

I’ll join the club the ranks of "I think a have a gender-neutral brain". There are a lot of things that men ask, "why do women do this?" and I don't do it or understand why women do it.
Here’s an example from coupling

What is this?
Susan: It's a cushion.
Steve: Right. Yes. Thank you for that. Very informative.
[to Jeff]
Steve: You got any of these?
Jeff: No.
Steve: Of course you haven't.
[to shop assistant]
Steve: You - are you married? Living with anyone?
Junior Shop Assistant: No.
Steve: Got any of these?
Junior Shop Assistant: No.
Steve: Of course not. Okay!
[to the women]
Steve: You bring these things into our homes. They sit on our chairs. They watch our televisions. Now, I just need to know, on behalf of all men everywhere, I just need to ask, please... What are they for? I mean, look at them! Look at the chubby little bastards! Just sitting around everywhere! What are they, pets for chairs?
[to shop assistants]
Steve: Come on, you sell them. What are they for?
Junior Shop Assistant: Well...
Senior Shop Assistant: You sit on them.
Steve: Ah! Ha ha ha! You see, that's where you're wrong! Nobody sits on them. Okay, watch this. Here's the cushion. I'm putting it on the sofa. Now watch me. I'm stting down. And what do I do on my final approach? I - oh! - move the cushion! You see? It's not involved! It's not part of the whole sitting process. It just lies there. It's fat litter! It's a sofa parasite!
Jane: It's, you know... padding.
Steve: Oh, padding! Now, that's interesting, Jane. See, I like padding. If I was, say, an American Football player, and all those big bastards running at me, I would say "give me some of that padding and be quick about it." If my job involved bouncing down jagged rocks I would say "in view of those jagged rocks down there, I'll have some of that padding, thank you very much." But Susan, Sally, Jane, this is a sofa. It is designed by clever scientists in such a way as to shield the unprotected user from the risk of skin abrasions, serious head trauma, and, of course...
[drops behind sofa, then sticks head out]
Steve: Daleks. Trust me girls, trust me on this one: you do not need padding to tackle upholstery. So please - once and for all, tell me why on Earth you would want me to sit on one of these?

I realise that rapists are not a majority among males, but I still don't get the reference to "socio-economic disparity" when it's being at the wrong end of that disparity that is a contributing factor to the crime rate among African-Americans. If anything, it's women who who have historically been on the same end of any similiar disparity between genders and yet we're the victims, how does that work? The numero uno reason that men commit sex crimes against women is because they're LOSING that socio-economic control.

Sometimes I feel like I have the brain of a male in a female body.
I like to do things that males like to do, I understand males more then females,
I have the feeling that I think more like a male about most things
But I am girly at times and I’m very girly when it’s about the way I look.
I love to wear make-up wear skirts and things like that.

I've never heard of that. What evidence is there that this would be true?

Huh? Rape has existed for thousands of years, even in extremely patriarchial societies.

It still exists today, in both egalitarian societies and patriarchial societies.

What you are claiming does not logically parse....

if there even a hint of threesomes down this evolutionary pathway, then i'm all for it!! ! maybe soon there'll be 3-way marriages... wow..

i think tomboys are hot! i prefer my systematizing male brain any day of the week... but i think the female body is hot, so personally i would prefer to have a male brain in a female body...! !!

best of both worlds LOL