27/11/2025
This is not a discussion invitation, simply an informative post. The reply echoes my lived experience as a trans man, and I invite you to read it and try to understand - if you do not already 'live' this (as a Transgender person) or 'support' this (loving and supporting a transgender person) ❤️🙏⭐
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I saw a comment on a Psychology page, under a post advertising a Gender Affirming study available for upskilling Gender mental health support.
The comment was:
A) “You can’t ignore the fact that evolution is ingrained in genders. You can’t take it apart from gender expression.”
B) “Evolution has favored only two genders; the others are DNA mistakes.”
C) “We classified incongruence with your gender that causes distress as a mental disorder. Politics doesn’t get to change science.”
Here was the reply, I feel it is a really balanced one. Respectful and informative as well.
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"I hear the intensity behind what you wrote, and I’ll respond in a way that stays grounded in current science rather than politics or culture. The claims you listed are common talking points, but each one misunderstands how biology, evolution, and mental health actually work. I’ll go through them one by one, clearly and calmly, without attacking you but without compromising the science.
A) “You can’t ignore the fact that evolution is ingrained in genders. You can’t take it apart from gender expression.”
You’re right that evolution shapes biological s*x traits. Where this gets mixed up is when people assume “gender” and “s*x” are the same category. They are not interchangeable in modern biology or psychology.
Biological s*x is a reproductive classification involving chromosomes, go**ds, and secondary s*x traits. Gender is a psychological and social construct: how a person experiences themselves and how they express that experience. Evolution heavily shapes biological s*x, but it does not dictate gender identity. Humans evolved highly flexible cognitive and social systems. This flexibility is part of our evolutionary success.
The existence of gender variance across cultures and across history isn’t a modern invention; it has been documented in Indigenous cultures, in ancient societies, and in primate behavior involving role flexibility.
Evolution shapes anatomy. It does not rigidly determine how every individual’s self-concept forms, because evolution also selected for neurological diversity.
B) “Evolution has favored only two genders; the others are DNA mistakes.”
This statement merges concepts that don’t belong together.
Evolution does not “favour” genders. It favours reproductive strategies. Even in species with two reproductive s*xes, biology contains variation, exceptions, and adaptive diversity.
Natural variation is not automatically an evolutionary error. Chromosomal variations like XXY, XYY, XO, or mosaicism are not “mistakes” in the sense of being outside nature. They are recurring, predictable parts of human biological diversity. The same is true for hormonal and developmental variations that occur in utero. About 1.7 percent of humans have inters*x traits, which makes s*x itself more biologically diverse than the binary suggests, even though the binary framework is still broadly useful.
Gender identity is not coded directly into chromosomes. DNA guides development of structures, not the psychological experience of gender. The brain develops through a combination of genetics, prenatal hormones, and postnatal factors. This produces diversity in gender identity, not because something “went wrong,” but because human neurobiology is not a simple on–off switch.
Calling these variations “mistakes” misunderstands how evolution works. Mutation and variation are the raw materials evolution relies on. Without variation, evolution cannot function.
C) “We classified incongruence with your gender that causes distress as a mental disorder. Politics doesn’t get to change science.”
This one needs careful unpacking.
Gender dysphoria is not defined as ‘internal incongruence.’
Medical systems classify distress, not identity.
A person being transgender is not considered a disorder.
The distress that comes from the mismatch between identity and body or from social rejection is what is clinically relevant.
Removing “gender identity disorder” from diagnostic manuals was not a political move.
It was a scientific correction based on decades of clinical outcomes and neuropsych research. The field learned that being transgender is not connected to psychosis, delusion, or cognitive dysfunction. Affirming care reduces depression, anxiety, and su***de rates dramatically. Coercive or suppressive approaches worsen mental health and cause trauma.
These conclusions came from thousands of peer-reviewed studies across neuroscience, endocrinology, psychology, and psychiatry.
Science updates its models when evidence changes.
That is not politics interfering with science.
That is science doing its job.
Political narratives certainly try to influence perception, but the scientific consensus on gender dysphoria and transgender identity is based on data, not ideology."
