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Beyond Dehumanized Gender Identity: Critical Reflection on Neuroscience, Power Relationship and Law

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Abstract

The gender movement comprising feminist and queer group movements addressed various issues of prejudices in the legal domain. This article discusses the question of power in the context of neuroscience, gender, and law. It elaborates on how the stereotypical view corresponding to the mythology and parasitic view prevalent in history was made as fact through discourse construction and scientific appropriations. Thus, identifying the simplistic psychology of one’s agency, societal framing of the methods of socialization, and institutionalizing the common sense of inferiority about one’s identity including the process of internalization along with the biological inferiority has maintained the gap in gender equality. The article further elaborates how gender and self-image have taken a turn with the voices of social change and critical engagement with the reified gender categories.

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Data Availability

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

Notes

  1. See David (2000 [1748]) An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding: A Critical Edition, ed. Tom L. Beauchamp. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

  2. Social behaviour, as per Mead (2011), can be ‘readily defined as that which responds to the attitudes and movements of other individuals (p. 185).

  3. Ledoux (2002). The self and the brain. Prospect. Retrieved from: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/theselfandthebrain.

Abbreviations

fMRI:

functional magnetic resonance imaging

LGBT:

Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender

dACC:

Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex

pACC):

Pregenual Anterior Cingulate Cortex

EBA:

Extrastriate Body Areas

FBA:

Fusiform Body Areas

DNA:

Deoxyribonucleic Acid

XY/XX:

Sex Chromosomes

MtF:

Male to Female Transsexuals

GIDC:

Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood

DSM:

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

STS:

Superior Temporal Sulcus

mPFC:

Medial Prefrontal Cortex

vmPFC:

Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex

dmPFC:

Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex

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  1. OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India

    Chetan Sinha

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Sinha, C. Beyond Dehumanized Gender Identity: Critical Reflection on Neuroscience, Power Relationship and Law. Integr. psych. behav. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-023-09814-8

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