`  ::You say no transwomen believe this, it has been called a riddiculous straw man.  Yet if one goes to tsroadmap.com and/or lynnconway.com and googles (in the search boxes you would see on their pages) ``brain sex`` they will get many hits.    Read ``The theory that prenatally established brain and CNS   structures determine innate gender feelings and gender identity.``  ``It appears that if those brain and CNS structures are masculinized   in early pregnancy by hormones in the fetus, then the child will   have male percepts and a male gender identity, independent of   whether the genes or genitalia are male. If those structures   are not masculinized in early pregnancy, the child will have   a female percepts and a female gender identity, again independent   of the genes or genitalia. As in the case of intersex infants   having ambiguous genitalia, there are undoubtedly many degrees   of cross-gendering of brain and CNS structures, so that while   some infants are completely cross-gendered others are only partially   cross-gendered.(verbatim)``  This is basically the feminine essence theory. When one adds that there is only one way to be cross-gendered in the brain, and that cross gendering must be totally separate in any and every way from sexualorientation. That there is in essence one way to be feminine; that is the feminine essence theory.  :Interestingly if I understood JamesCantor correctly in a conversation we had on my talk page.  This is very close to what he and sexologist like him belive. However they contend that the way in which a brain is cross-gendered depends on sexualorientation.  Thus take a homosexual male.  Homosexual males have been shown to think and have some brain structures like those of straight women.  A homosexual transsexual is just a case where there is more enough female brain structure present to make a person mentally female.  While non-homosexual transsexuals, if I understood correctly, also have cross gender structures in their brains, just not the same as a homosexual transsexuals.  The non-homosexual MTF transsexual brains retaining more masculine brain structure.  That is the crux of the problem isn't it now.  That Blanchard's theory not only contradicts the feminine essence/ female brain sex theory of MTF transsexualism....but it then says ok one kind of transsexual really does work that way.  So much heat and anger caused by so little.  -(      `