Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by janef0421 on Thursday December 01, 2022 @10:08PM (#33826268)

It might be the case that endocrine disruptors may be increasing the likelihood a person is trans, but what you are proposing is almost certainly incorrect and would not work. Using sex-aligned hormones to cause a person to become cisgender is sometimes tried and does not appear to be effective, and I am not aware of any evidence that transgender people's pre-transition hormone levels are substantially lower than their cisgender peers. Also, this theory would suggest that eunuchs, self-identified men who voluntarily undergo gonad removal, would generally come to identify as women, but this is not the case; Similarly for men who have their testosterone suppressed as part of cancer treatment.

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Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by faximile on Thursday December 01, 2022 @10:56PM (#33826573)

> Also, this theory would suggest that eunuchs, self-identified men who voluntarily undergo gonad removal, would generally come to identify as women, but this is not the case; Similarly for men who have their testosterone suppressed as part of cancer treatment.

Could that be explained by the unfortunate lack of trans acceptance?

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Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by janef0421 on Thursday December 01, 2022 @10:58PM (#33826590)

Maybe, but I find that unlikely, particularly for eunuchs; Being a Eunuch is arguably more socially stigmatised than being a transsexual.

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Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by TexanFeller on Thursday December 01, 2022 @11:06PM (#33826642)

> Also, this theory would suggest that eunuchs, self-identified men who voluntarily undergo gonad removal, would generally come to identify as women, but this is not the case

Not necessarily, there are other possibilities, for example the mechanism might not be lack of male hormones, but elevated female hormones, or environmental contaminant analogs thereof.

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Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by kelseyfrog on Friday December 02, 2022 @02:30PM (#33835577)

If true, it would likely be much more complicated than simply hormone levels. Many trans people have their hormones tested before HRT[1] to establish a baseline and then again after starting to dial in the correct dosage. If it were that simple, baseline testing would reveal it en mass.

The hormone panel is typically T,E1,E2, but human hormonal pathways are complex[2] and not fully understood. There are, for examples, hypotheses involving "backdoor" pathways that should/could be verified, but aren't due to lack of research funding directed toward an admittedly small group of people.

1. That's not to say all or even most, but it is very very common.

2. https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_of_Medicine/Diag...

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Re:Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought by TexanFeller on Thursday December 01, 2022 @11:16PM (#33826705)

< Using sex-aligned hormones to cause a person to become cisgender is sometimes tried and does not appear to be effective

How well documented is this, like when this has been tried has it been done as part of a formal medical study? What I'm really hoping is someone can say something like "here's the randomized controlled trial comparing treatments".

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