Editor: My name is Tyler Legare and I am the vice president of the Centre for Inquiry Vancouver.

In response to the very definite anti-transgender messages being smeared throughout the media in this province, I would like to publicly debate anybody who pushes the view of transgendered individuals being somehow responsible for their own gender identity.

Despite mounting evidence in support of transgender equality and a clear genetic component, the debate about transgender equality continues to surface year after year, poisoning the well with arguments that have been debunked time and again.

I believe that through debate I can show these misinformed people that science actually supports transgender as being a legitimate neurological condition, while doing away with the pseudoscience and misinformation permeating the media today.

One 2014 study published in The Journal of Neuroscience used diffusion-based magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) to scan the brains of non-transgender men and women and trans-men and trans-women.

What they found was that 鈥渢he brain movement of a trans-woman is significantly different from that of a cis-man, even though they biologically have the same sex, and that trans men and trans women differed significantly as well.

The brain shows a wide range of gender based differences rather than just male or female.

They concluded that, 鈥渢he white matter micro-structure in FtM and MtF transsexuals falls halfway between that of [cisgender women] and [cisgender men].鈥�

This is not all in their minds, this is not something they can choose, this not just some trend or phase, this is not something they can just shut off.

This is something so completely a part of whom they are as people that their neurology, the very structure of their brain is different and we can visually see those differences. That study can be found .

, published in a 2011 psychiatric journal found, 鈥淥ur results show that the white matter micro-structure pattern in untreated (pre-transition) FtM transsexuals is closer to the pattern of subjects who share their gender identity (males) than those who share their biological sex (females).鈥�

The science is clear, these are people who literally have male brains in female bodies or vice versa.

This is something that can be tested and observed scientifically, beyond their claims.

People can claim to be a moose or a dog, but it won鈥檛 be believed in less they can provide physical evidence that they鈥檙e brain is uniquely more similar to that of a moose or a dog.

Tyler Legare,

Centre for Inquiry Vancouver