I put "allies" in quotation marks because "ally" can range from someone who actually empathizes with us, to those whose sympathy rests on being in one political camp instead of the other and who, in fact, makes the situation worse, in ways that should be obvious to them (IE Agent Kochinski, QueerKidsStuff, the blyat that made the genderbreadman/GenderUnicorn that was everywhere when I was in middle school)
As much as it is more or less trve, stop saying "Trans women have female brains w/ male bodies" or anything of the sort.
It is far more accurate to specify that we have
qualitatively female brains whereas our brains are more androgynous or like neither sex on a quantitative level; the former is less dependent on receiving HRT as well.
To do otherwise is extremely misleading, and will turn people off from the movement.
>Studies showing that trans women show the same patterns as cis women, at least compared to trans men/cis men respectively (IE Trans women score higher on ECS compared to trans men, with overall difference compared to cis counterparts better explained by neurodivergence or environment)Nobili, A., Glazebrook, C., Bouman, W.P. et al. Autistic Traits in Treatment-Seeking Transgender Adults. J Autism Dev Disord 48, 3984–3994 (2018).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3557-2Spies, M et al. “Gender transition affects neural correlates of empathy: A resting state functional connectivity study with ultra high-field 7T MR imaging.” NeuroImage vol. 138 (2016): 257-265. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.05.060
Soleman, Remi S et al. “Sex differences in verbal fluency during adolescence: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in gender dysphoric and control boys and girls.” The journal of sexual medicine vol. 10,8 (2013): 1969-77. doi:10.1111/jsm.12083
~~~
Kevrekidis, P., Skapinakis, P., Damigos, D., & Mavreas, V. (2008). Adaptation of the Emotional Contagion Scale (ECS) and gender differences within the Greek cultural context. Annals of General Psychiatry, 7, Article 14.
https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-859X-7-14 Shirayama Y, Matsumoto K, Hamatani S, Muneoka K, Okada A, Sato K. Associations among autistic traits, cognitive and affective empathy, and personality traits in adults with autism spectrum disorder and no intellectual disability. Sci Rep. 2022 Feb 24;12(1):3125. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-07101-x. PMID: 35210528; PMCID: PMC8873508.
John N, Joel & L, Dino. (2025). Self-Compassion and Empathy Among College Students: Enhancing Emotional Resilience and Well-Being -A Descriptive Study. International Journal of Indian Psychology. 13. 4802- 4809. 10.25215/1302.424.
Peng, Li, Yu Jiang, Jing Ye, and Zhiheng Xiong. 2024. "The Impact of Empathy on Prosocial Behavior Among College Students: The Mediating Role of Moral Identity and the Moderating Role of Sense of Security" Behavioral Sciences 14, no. 11: 1024.
https://doi.org/10.3390/bs14111024
>BONUS: Trans women are more likely to receive an excess of prenatal estrogen than peers, indicating a more female brain prior to puberty Gaspari L, Soyer-Gobillard MO, Kerlin S, Paris F, Sultan C. Early Female Transgender Identity after Prenatal Exposure to Diethylstilbestrol: Report from a French National Diethylstilbestrol (DES) Cohort. J Xenobiot. 2024 Jan 12;14(1):166-175. doi: 10.3390/jox14010010. PMID: 38249107; PMCID: PMC10801508.
More broadly speaking, it is better to stop fighting/advocating for trans people specifically than it is to risk more bad activism or science miscommunication making our reputation worse; evidently, visibility towards trans people specifically is generally a bad thing, as everyone, by default, will see us as sub-human and incompatible with life, and the burden is on us to prove otherwise. I'm kinda preaching to the choir here, but it needs to be relayed that identity still has to related to broader material, political, and social phenomenon (IE extraction, climate change, AI, the legacy of imperialism) which most people have a shared experience with, and I hope this site continues this tradition, and that it spills over into everywhere else.
The point of being trans is that it is an anti-identity, and that you necessarily have both male and female responsibilities, and let's keep it that way.