What we define as a Gender Space* g?

Does the basal brain trigger a Catastrophe in Gender Space* g?

Below is a java applet for doing experiments and finding out what Catastrophe theory calls ``a CUSP Catastrophe'', applied to primate's basal brain - hypothalamus, amygdalas, stria terminalis, etc.. considering sexual/gender differentiation... (see Sarah W. Newman from the Department of Psychology at Cornell University paper at NYAS- Annals volume 877, June 1999, 242-257).
Imagine you are studying a system, a primate's basal brain and it's reactions considering testosterone (T) presence and testosterone action for example. You are doing experiments. You consider XX and XY brains. You consider testosterone amount and testosterone effective action. You vary T amount and T action (considering more sensitivity or insensitivity to T presence) and explore how they control the basal brain's answers - the output - that will determine or at least influence gender identity formation.

Consider the basal brain system would be a black box, as the black square below. Consider all INPUT to the system would happen inside the pink square - pink because all primate basal brain is potentially female - as the original primate condition due to the fact that in primates the female pole is the homogametic side of "Sex/Gender Space* g" (consider also that basal brain is the alive primate basal brain - and basal brain for us means the SBN structures defined by Sarah Newman). Consider at that square at an X axis, the amount of testosterone, increasing from the left to the right and at the Y axis the sensitivity of the system considering the presence of testosterone, decreasing from the upper level to the bottom.

What governs the basal brain inner characteristics?
Genetics, hormones, the womb environment due to external influences as mother stress - which affects T production... a very complex system. We will consider it as 3 simple geometric figures: a Black box square, an original pink square and a rectangular output figure.

The OUTPUT we will name "Core Gender Identity", defined as "How someone -human or not - feels more male or more female" . A sensation humans and non human primates experience surely (see Frans de Waal and Takayoshi Kano works with "bonobos" (Pan paniscus) and Jane Goodall with "chimps" (Pan trogloditas)). That feeling we feel, and also our Pongides Ancestors also feel... and also monkeys surely feel...
Only humans feel it in an human way of feeling... but each species feels male or female in its own way...

The data you obtain as output (Core Gender Identity) are sometimes very reasonable (kind of male input-male output) and sometimes very strange (when we consider a strictly sexist and only bipolar world - where intergender and gender dysphorias would not exist - or at least would be considered "mental disorders" or perhaps sometimes considered even worsest things a "sin" or as...) and you are astonished because you don't very well understand how the two considered factors - T presence and T action -, together, control the primate's basal brain behaviour!

In Germany, some 30 to 40 years ago, at Humboldt University, in the East Berlin, Dr. Gunther Dörner did exactly the same research with rat's brains, and later the same did Dr.Gorski at UCLA- University of California, and both were, then, astonished with their results. Later Dr.Resko at the Oregon Primate's Center, did the same research considering rhesus monkeys' brains, and also Drs.Bonsall & Michael researched in the same way rhesus monkeys basal brains at Emory University in Atlanta, and also they were astonished with their results.


Let me show you a game which mimics this situation - and their experimental laboratory results - (in some sense this game is a model for the primate basal brain's organization & behaviour):

You see below the 3 coloured figures I was talking about. One pink square figure at the left (the "basal brain" where our T inputs work), one black square at the right (our "black box" that will transform inputs to outputs), and below that black square a colored rectangle (our output place, as a remote controled answer, as "the core feeling of gender identity").

Consider the fist square, the pink one at the left side of the figure is the ALIVE primate's basal brain DURING ITS ORGANIZATION phase INSIDE THE UTERUS (for primates inside the uterus, for rats including during peri-natal periods), where testosterone influences. So we will INPUT situations at the pink left square, and the OUTPUT we will feel at the rectangle at the bottom of the black square.

Move the mouse (your mouse is the testosterone level & action! - the mouse is your experimentation device), enter the pink square (build the basal brain structure), and move the cursor inside the square, mimicking a lot of possible combinations of inputs... OR A DIVERSITY OF POSSIBLE BASAL BRAIN ORGANIZATION ... SMOOTHLY... as a Zen or a Tai Chi exercise... (sorry folks, I love Tai-Chi - and I believe Nature also loves it!)

The cursor coordinates simulate the two main factors which control the basal brain sex/gender behavior - for the applet the color of the rectangle simulates the "core gender identity" probably the macaque that have that brain would live, depending on the testosterone condition during the basal brain differentiation "in uterus" (depending on your mouse cursor position!).

Output more BLUE is a more male probable core gender identity and an output more PINK a more female gender identity.

Play with the applet (i. e. do experiments with the basal brain of the monkey and try to understand your results... as answers inside a Gender Space* g of possible results as a continuous possible diversity of core gender results!
What you could try in your laboratory? More Testosterone presence triggers more brain masculinization... more insensititvity to testosterone (not necessarily due only to AR-androgen receptor insensitivity typical AIS syndromes) triggers less masculinization...

Put the mouse cursor over the figure and click, or press Enter at your computer. That will liberate/charge the applet.

TRY THE CURSOR. Move slowly, as most of times Nature moves, smoothly ... as a Zen or a Tai Chi exercise...:
• With your mouse cursor at the right lateral of the pink square, move smoothly from the upper part to the botton near the black square... you will see the output ("core gender identity") is always blue... what means...a male stable brain! A lot of testosterone (the right of the pink square) and testosterone action in a male brain! A brain with no "insensitivities to T"! In other words, an old style very sexist male brain! The right side of the pink square is definitely a male pole inside Gender Space* g!



• Now try the other side of the pink square, the cursor of the mouse smoothly following the left part of the pink square lateral from the upper part to the botton part... all is pink/cyan... all is stable and female! The female pole in Gender Space* g! Thank God, a female pole also exists! almost no testosterone - nor estradiol also - structures a female brain (also estradiol due to the estradiol paradox discovered by Dörner in the 60's/70's in Germany!)



• Try the cursor now putting it smoothly at the near-center of the pink square; sometimes, with a small smooth movement to the right or to the left you get a blue colour and sometimes a pink/cyan one. Really here the blue is not so blue, and the pink it is not so pink. From that initial position the SYSTEM IS INSTABLE, really chaotic, structurally instable and the output fluctuates between a "more blue" and a "more pink" output, creating what in Chaos Theory we could say an structural instability that could generate "strange attractors", near-periodic attractors! Something as an intersex brain! Really a basal brain that will trigger an INTERGENDER basal brain, a brain that is not so stable (in the feelings to be a more male or more female)! Even starting from a XY macaque, or a XX one, we perceive the possibility of "INTERGENDER" brains that one day will trigger intergender emotions, intergender feelings... INTERGENDER IDENTITIES... for some genetic-neuro-endocrine/uterus environment conditions!... and possible other reasons! What is important here is to understand it is possible to have INTERGENDER identities in Gender Space* g!
  
  

• Try now the botton of the pink square. Start at the right side... the old blue male side... and smoothly, as your Zen exercise... when you come to the left side... as a catastrophe it suddenly changes the gender - a male original brain generating a female output as a structural and natural neurodiscordance of gender - hypothesis and terminology considered in 1998 by Torres, Quaglia, Jurado & Gomes! My God, a catastrophe! Mimics a "MtF Transsexual monkey!". We may feel a "resilience" against the catastrophic changing... as if the brain tryed to reject the catastrophe but... sometimes that may be inevitable! Than the small MtF monkey, if she could talk (SHE - because she feels female, so in respect for the poor monkey feelings we in Gendercare we identify her as SHE PERCEIVES HERSELF, and we are prepared to respect all (including not only humans but also monkeys) considering always a SELF-PERCEPTION CENTERED WAY, for our patient's as for our "applets" always respecting the inner self perception) she would say... I feel as a monkey girl inside a wrong body... since my first childhood! And I have not a mental disorder, I am an intelligent female monkey!!!
  
  
• Try now starting from the left to the right, at the botton of the pink square... as a Tai Chi exercise, smoothly... again as a catastrophe it changes abruptly from the female (pink/cyan) to the male (blue)... as a "Transsexual FtM monkey!"
  Some very unexpected things also happen in Gender Space* g
  
  
  
  
All experimental results studying rats & other species of mammals;
non-human primates and human primates shows that possibility is real... and also a lot of Gendercare gender dysphoric / intergender patients show these possibilities are real... and also intersex OII- Organisation Intersex International members also are very aware of their sometime intergender condition... what also confirms that possibility is real... WHY NOT?

Obviously humans later have also environmental cultural influences... but the original biologic PRIMATE structure exists... in non-human and in HUMAN PRIMATES.

To know more about gender identity formation CONTINUE HERE.

To know more about Catastrophe Theory click HERE.

To know more about HUMAN PRIMATES... try the mirror... and think about yourself... as a MEDITATION exercise... smoothly... as Nature moves... but be prepared for sudden CATASTROPHES... they may happen... even inside monkeys and human brains...