![]() ![]() This might be complicated as there is higher prevalence of bi- and homosexuality among transgender compared to cisgender (cis- denotes not trans-) populations 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. A distinction between these two entities is particularly important when trying to understand the biological underpinnings of gender dysphoria (GD, DSM-5 1), and its most common form, transgenderism, or transsexualism in ICD 10 2. Sexual orientation signifies the sex of the object of one’s sexual attraction, whereas gender identity denotes the sex and gender role one identifies with. Yet, their underlying mechanisms are still unrevealed. Gender identity and sexual orientation belong to the most interesting facets of human biology. Our findings suggest that the neuroanatomical signature of transgenderism is related to brain areas processing the perception of self and body ownership, whereas homosexuality seems to be associated with less cerebral sexual differentiation. ![]() ![]() The only exception was the right inferior fronto-occipital tract, connecting parietal and frontal brain areas that mediate own body perception. After controlling for sexual orientation, the transgender groups showed sex-typical FA-values. Previously reported sex differences in FA were reproduced in cis-heterosexual groups, but were not found among the cis-homosexual groups. We compared FA in 40 transgender men (female birth-assigned sex) and 27 transgender women (male birth-assigned sex), with both homosexual (29 male, 30 female) and heterosexual (40 male, 40 female) cisgender controls. The present study searches to find neural correlates for the respective conditions, using fractional anisotropy (FA) as a measure of white matter connections that has consistently shown sex differences. Transgenderism is associated with strong feelings of incongruence between one’s physical sex and experienced gender, not reported in homosexual persons. The two phenomena are, however, fundamentally unalike, despite an increased prevalence of homosexuality among transgender populations. Both transgenderism and homosexuality are facets of human biology, believed to derive from different sexual differentiation of the brain. ![]()
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