Boys, Brains, Schools and the "Trans Brain"

Dr Michael Gurian has spent decades studying the differences between male and female development. While I am not a neuroscientist and cannot comment on the scientific composition of brains, Dr Gurian has devoted his career to analysing brain scans and exploring what he argues are innate differences between males and females. He approaches this subject from what he sees as the perspective of hard science. Sex, he argues, is hard science; gender is soft science. Gender is a social construct, whereas sex is not. Accordingly, sex is hardwired genomically. There are roughly four billion ways to be male and four billion ways to be female, but we remain one or the other.

One of the concepts Dr Gurian has developed is what he calls the “bridge brain”. These individuals are still male or female but are nonconforming in their expression of masculinity or femininity. Throughout our conversation we return repeatedly to the distinction between sex and gender. Myself and Dr Gurian agree that sex refers to being male or female, while gender refers to masculine or feminine characteristics and we both lament how, in recent years, the word “gender” has become an omni-term, often replacing “sex” even when it is biological sex that is actually being discussed. In that respect, I wonder whether the term transgender may be more accurate than transsexual, because although we cannot change our sex, we can alter our gender presentation.

Gurian has been writing about these issues for decades. In Boys and Girls Learn Differently (2001), he outlined almost one hundred sex differences between boys and girls. He points out that the emergence of brain imaging in the late 1980s and early 1990s strengthened his view that male and female brains often function differently. According to Dr Gurian, males tend to connect more strongly within the left hemisphere, while females more frequently recruit both hemispheres. Whether or not every aspect of this research stands the test of time, these findings lead to thought-provoking discussion.

Following the publication of The Wonder of Boys (1996), Dr Gurian established the Gurian Institute. The Institute works with schools and other organisations to help them understand sex differences in learning and development. Rather than treating boys and girls as interchangeable, the Gurian Institute encourages systems that recognise their different developmental patterns while respecting both sexes. Over the past thirty-five years, the Institute has worked with schools across the US and has watched educational fashions come and go, from the androgyny movement to today’s focus on gender identity.

A major theme of our discussion concerns schools. Dr Gurian argues that many classrooms are organised around learning styles that better suit the average female brain than the average male brain. Girls have outperformed boys in schools since the late 1980s. Across much of the world, boys lag girls by roughly ten points in literacy. In the United States, boys receive around two-thirds of Ds and Fs, while girls receive approximately 40% of As. Of course, Dr Gurian repeatedly notes that there is a significant minority—around one in five—who do not fit these patterns. There are always exceptions and many boys thrive academically while many girls do not.

Dr Gurian discusses how between 85% and 90% of discipline referrals in schools involve boys. He argues that teachers often misunderstand typical male behaviour. For example, boys wrestling in the playground may be demonstrating what he calls “touch attachment” rather than aggression. When schools understand these differences, teachers spend less time on classroom management and more time teaching. Schools using Gurian Institute programmes typically see discipline referrals fall by between 50% and 70% within a year. Practical changes include allowing boys more movement around the classroom and relying less exclusively on verbal instruction.

This discussion naturally led us into counselling. According to Dr Gurian argues that traditional fifty-minute talking therapy is not well suited to many men. According to him, females generally use more white matter activity and have easier access to language, whereas males tend to rely more heavily on grey matter networks and often use fewer words. As a result, many men are less comfortable sitting still and talking about feelings. Gurian himself walks with male clients for the first fifteen minutes of the therapeutic session, believing that physical movement activates the male brain. Prolonged inactivity, whether in classrooms or therapy rooms, can place many boys and men into what he describes as a resting state. Again, he stresses the one-in-five exception to all this.

We also discuss how the counselling profession itself has changed over the past forty years. As psychology has moved away from more analytical approaches towards more empathic and emotionally expressive models, it has, in tandem, become increasingly female-dominated. I suggest that therapy itself has shifted from being a therapeutic process towards providing therapeutic support, and we consider whether this broader cultural change has also influenced the rise of affirmative approaches to gender distress.

It’s not only in school though; men and women often lead meetings differently. In his experience, women tend to spend longer affirming contributions, while male leaders are generally quicker to interrupt and move discussions forward. We also discuss Helen Andrews’ essay The Great Feminization, which argues that modern workplaces increasingly reward communication styles and interpersonal skills more commonly associated with women, often at the expense of traditionally male ways of working.

Dr Gurian believes these changes, alongside educational trends, have contributed to boys and men becoming increasingly disadvantaged in many institutions. It is notable that he also distinguishes aggression from violence. The two are often treated as synonymous, but Dr Gurian argues they are very different. Healthy aggression can be constructive and goal-directed, whereas violence reflects something far more destructive. During our discussion we also examine declining testosterone levels, with Gurian pointing to evidence suggesting that average testosterone has fallen by roughly 30% over recent decades. He argues that this has implications for male wellbeing and may even contribute to violence in some circumstances.

Dr Gurian also speaks about the damage caused by the constant cultural denigration of boys and men. Although he acknowledges that Western societies emerged from over 3,500 years of patriarchy, he argues that contemporary American culture is no longer patriarchal, even if some individual political leaders such as Donald Trump are patriarchal. In his view, society increasingly fails to appreciate male developmental needs.

Towards the end of the interview, however, our conversation takes a very different turn.

Dr Gurian argues that there are what he calls “trans brains”. Referring to neuroimaging research, he suggests that some individuals have patterns of brain structure and function that resemble those more commonly seen in the opposite sex. This reflects a body of neuroimaging research published over the past two decades, much of it led by researchers such as Guillamon and colleagues, which has reported that some brain regions in trans-identified individuals may be intermediate between typical male and female averages. However, these findings are mixed and inconsistent. While some studies have identified isolated regions that appear more “feminised” or “masculinised”, overall brain anatomy generally remains more similar to the person’s natal sex than to the opposite sex.

A 2021 systematic review of 39 neuroimaging studies (Frigerio et al., 2021) concluded that some neuroanatomical and functional features in transgender individuals resemble their experienced gender, but that the majority resemble their natal sex, with conflicting findings across studies and considerable methodological limitations. Likewise, a 2022 machine-learning MRI study (Kurth et al., 2022) found that transgender women’s brains were shifted modestly towards their experienced gender but remained intermediate rather than simply “female”. Researchers also emphasise that male and female brains overlap substantially, that no brain scan can diagnose whether someone is transgender, and that sexual orientation is a major confounding factor in much of the earlier literature, making it difficult to disentangle the neurological correlates of homosexuality from those of gender identity.

Dr Gurian distinguishes these individuals from people with “bridge brains”. He believes that bridge brains represent ordinary gender nonconformity, whereas a tiny number of people possess what he calls an “extreme bridge brain”—what he considers to be a genuinely “trans brain”. He believes this group represents much less than 1% of the population.

This is where we part company.

I argue that the brain scan findings often cited in this literature are more consistent with what have elsewhere been described as “gay male brains” than evidence of a distinct “trans brain”. I also question why an atypical brain pattern should necessarily imply that someone is transgender rather than simply gender nonconforming. Many detransitioners have told me they were once absolutely convinced they possessed a “trans brain” and were therefore “truly trans”. That conviction proved to be mistaken.

More fundamentally, I question how much brain scans can really tell us. We still know remarkably little about the human brain. If someone behaves in a more masculine or feminine way for many years, how much might that influence patterns of brain activity? Gurian argues that underlying brain structure remains stable. But what about brain function? What role does neuroplasticity play? These remain important unanswered questions.

I also refer to the work of Colin Wright from Reality's Last Stand and suggest that what Dr Gurian describes as some forms of “trans” may simply be gender nonconformity. My own position remains that it is generally healthier to learn to live within one’s body than to attempt to alter the body in order to resolve psychological discomfort.

The disagreement between us reflects what I believe will become one of the most important debates in this field over the coming years. Dr Gurian, Dr Hilary Cass and many thoughtful clinicians who are gender critical nevertheless believe in “tiny numbers theory” - that there exists a tiny group of people for whom medical transition may be the least harmful option. I, along with many others, remain unconvinced.

That is precisely why conversations like this matter. We need to be able to discuss these ideas openly, examine the evidence critically, disagree respectfully and continue thinking together. Whatever conclusions people reach, this debate is far too important to be settled by slogans or certainty alone.

Watch our conversation here:

References

• Frigerio A, Ballerini L, Valdés Hernández MC. (2021). Structural, Functional, and Metabolic Brain Differences as a Function of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation: A Systematic Review of the Human Neuroimaging Literature. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 50, 3349–3368. (The best overview.)

• Kurth F, Gaser C, Sánchez FJ, Luders E. (2022). Brain Sex in Transgender Women Is Shifted towards Gender Identity. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 11(6), 1582. (Often cited in support of the “brain shift” hypothesis, but actually finds an intermediate pattern rather than a female brain.)

• Santi, D., Spaggiari, G., Furini, C. et al. (2025). Temporal trends in serum testosterone and luteinizing hormone levels indicate an ongoing resetting of hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal function in healthy men: a systematic review. J Endocrinol Invest 48, 2721–2734. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40618-025-02671-9