And now we got to something a very complicated, if not downright confusing. Many transgender people report that they experience themselves from early childhood as belonging to a gender that does not match their biological sex.

Trans women will often speak in shorthand, for example, to say that they were born with male genitals but a female brain — that their brain is “wired” for womanhood. This isn’t exactly gender essentialism, but it can be pretty darn close.

Trans people say no amount of socialization can change how they experience their own gender. Indeed, gender dysphoria is the term used for the distress trans people feel when forced to live the wrong gender or to inhabit a body whose sex does not match their gender.

This is not the same as saying brains are wired for particular behaviors or societal roles, of course. Indeed, many trans people are on the front lines of resisting stereotyping, although they can face particular challenges when doing so. It can be very hard to transgress gender norms when you’re trying to be embraced as the gender you know you are.

Not all trans people embrace the “born this way” model, which implies some level of brain involvement in how their gender identity formed before socialization, but I believe most do, and their experiences sound compelling enough to make brain involvement sound plausible or even likely.