It's not my fault. I'm on testosterone.

Too much testosterone kills brain cells

This article has been circulating on trans mailing lists. Maybe it's worth being a little concerned about the effects of testosterone on FTMs brains, but generally speaking, haven't we been at least a little concerned since we started T about the other health risks posed by testosterone?

There's lots really interesting stuff going on here around the gendering of biology as well. Lots of feminist theorists would remind us that our understanding of sex is always already gendered. That is, the way we understand masculinity and femininity strongly influences our scientific approach to sex and biology. Emily Martin, feminist medical anthropologist has written an article called "The Egg and the Sperm" where she talks about how scientific and medical textbooks talking about eggs and sperm gender those cells. Sperm gets characterized as aggressive and active--swimming and the like--while the egg is passive and waiting like a damsel in a castle.

I see evidence of those things in this article as well. Testosterone "destroy[s] the nerve cells" (KaBlam!) while "it actually looks like estrogen is neuroprotective." Estrogen nurtures brain cells, much like moms.

I point most of those things out, though, in the interest of destabilizing the supposed objective authority of science. More importantly than all that is this quote in the article:

"Next time a muscle-bound guy in a sports car cuts you off on the highway, don't get mad -- just take a deep breath and realize that it might not be his fault."

This is a statement made by Barbara Ehrlich, the scientist interviewed about these findings. I feel like its true that testosterone has had certain effects on my behavior since I started taking it (though I mostly think those effects are the result of adjusting to new doses that to testosterone itself). Maybe there are some behaviors that testosterone facilitates. Whatever effect testosterone may have on its own is nothing compared to what we as a culture condone in terms of male behavior. Even if testosterone does increase aggression and increased sex drive, that's not at all an acceptable reason to excuse men from all bad behavior.