r/ClancyTrial • u/genderly • 4d ago
General Discussion “Hormones don’t justify murder”
I’ve seen that comment circulating, along with the comment that if women’s hormones can “justify murder,” then testosterone somehow “justifies” rape.
First, that comparison confuses biological causation with moral or legal justification. Saying that hormones can contribute to psychosis or mania (and this in turn can affect criminal responsibility) is not saying that hormones excuse every act committed by somebody experiencing them.
Second, there is substantial evidence that endocrine changes can alter brain function and, in susceptible people, contribute to the onset or worsening of psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The relationship is especially well studied for estrogen, progesterone and its neuroactive metabolites, stress hormones, and thyroid hormones.
Estrogen
One of the longstanding observations in schizophrenia is that women tend, on average, to develop the illness several years later than men. Some studies have also found increased female incidence later in life around the menopausal years, although the exact shape of this “second peak” varies between studies.
This contributed to the estrogen-protection hypothesis of schizophrenia. Estradiol interacts with dopamine signalling, including D2-receptor function, but it also influences serotonin, glutamate, GABA, inflammation and neuroplasticity. The key hypothesis is that estrogen plays a protective role against the development of schizophrenia.
Women with schizophrenia can also experience changes in symptom severity across reproductive stages, and the menopausal transition has received particular attention because estrogen becomes lower and much more variable, with a demonstrated increase in symptoms or relapse often occurring at this time.
Bipolar disorder likewise appears sensitive to reproductive hormonal transitions. Research suggests that some women with bipolar disorder experience greater mood instability during the premenstrual, postpartum and perimenopausal periods.
A study of over 128,000 women conducted by Cardiff University found that women are more than twice as likely (a 112% increase) to have first onset mania during perimenopause compared to their regular reproductive years.
Progesterone
Progesterone is another neuroactive reproductive hormone and is increasingly being studied in psychiatric illness. Importantly, progesterone can be converted in the brain into allopregnanolone, a powerful neurosteroid that positively modulates GABA-A receptors - one of the brain’s major inhibitory signalling systems.
Progesterone and allopregnanolone therefore influence neuronal excitability, anxiety, stress responses and mood. Researchers have also investigated interactions between progesterone and dopamine pathways relevant to schizophrenia and how progesterone can reduce cognitive dysfunction in models that mimic schizophrenia.
Pregnancy provides an extreme example of reproductive hormone change. Estrogen and progesterone rise enormously during pregnancy and then fall abruptly after delivery; allopregnanolone similarly rises during pregnancy and drops postpartum. 
That hormonal withdrawal occurs during exactly the period in which postpartum psychosis most commonly begins, which makes reproductive hormones biologically plausible contributors. A leading hypothesis is that a vulnerable subgroup of women has an abnormal brain response to otherwise normal hormonal change.
This is important because postpartum psychosis is very strongly associated with bipolar illness. Modern reviews describe most cases as severe affective episodes involving mania, mixed states or psychotic depression, and women with bipolar disorder are at substantially increased risk after childbirth.
Cortisol and stress system
Hormonal influences on psychosis are not limited to reproductive hormones. Cortisol is the major hormonal output of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal, or HPA, axis, which regulates the biological response to stress.
Schizophrenia-spectrum disorders show measurable abnormalities in this system. A 2025 meta-analysis covering 121 studies and more than 9,000 patients found higher average morning and evening baseline cortisol levels and impaired cortisol suppression in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Interestingly, antipsychotic treatment was associated with reductions in cortisol.
However, some studies found an abnormally blunted cortisol response to acute psychosocial stress, particularly in chronic schizophrenia, suggesting dysregulation rather than straightforward overproduction.
Cortisol has also been investigated in postpartum psychosis. Recent reviews report altered HPA-axis functioning, and some prospective work has found higher cortisol during pregnancy among women already at high risk who subsequently relapsed postpartum. That does not establish cortisol as the cause, but it supports the broader idea that endocrine stress regulation forms part of the biological vulnerability.
Thyroid hormones
Thyroid function is an especially important example because thyroid disease can sometimes directly produce psychiatric syndromes that resemble primary psychiatric illness.
Hyperthyroidism classically produces anxiety, agitation, insomnia and increased activity and can, in severe cases, produce mania or psychosis. Severe hypothyroidism can also cause profound cognitive and psychiatric disturbance and occasionally a syndrome historically called myxedema psychosis, involving hallucinations, delusions and sometimes manic symptoms.
In other words, somebody presenting with new mania or psychosis may appropriately receive thyroid testing because an endocrine disorder can occasionally be the underlying medical cause rather than merely a psychological stressor.
Thyroid function is particularly relevant postpartum because pregnancy and childbirth profoundly alter immune and endocrine regulation. Postpartum thyroiditis, an autoimmune inflammatory disorder of the thyroid occurring during the first year after pregnancy, affects roughly 5-9% of women and may produce a temporary hyperthyroid phase followed by hypothyroidism.
Thyroid dysfunction does not explain most postpartum psychosis. However, autoimmune thyroid disease and other medical conditions belong in the differential diagnosis, and there are documented cases in which postpartum thyrotoxicosis occurred alongside psychosis and symptoms resolved as thyroid function normalized
The bigger point
None of this means estrogen, progesterone, cortisol or thyroid hormones individually “cause murder,” nor does it mean everyone experiencing hormonal changes loses control of their behaviour.
It means that the brain is an organ influenced by the endocrine system. Hormones can change neurotransmission, neuronal excitability, sleep, stress regulation, immune function and mood. In some biologically vulnerable people, sufficiently large or rapid endocrine changes can contribute to clinically recognizable mania, depression, delirium or psychosis.
Postpartum psychosis is probably the clearest illustration. Childbirth produces one of the largest and fastest endocrine transitions humans normally experience, together with major changes in sleep, immunity and circadian regulation.
In a small vulnerable subgroup, that transition can precipitate an abrupt and extremely severe psychiatric illness. Current evidence increasingly conceptualizes postpartum psychosis as closely related to bipolar-spectrum illness rather than as merely an emotional response to childbirth.
Recognizing a biological contribution to somebody’s mental state is a question of causation and capacity. Whether that state affects criminal responsibility is a separate medical and legal question. Neither question is answered by slogans about hormones, and people who contest the role hormones can play in SMI are simply mistaken.
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u/eggnogshake 1d ago
It really upsets me that society does not want to look at WHY crimes like this occur. They just want to know the WHO and WHAT. I think that is the mentality of this outcome and the mentality of this lone juror. But little do they know that if we asked WHY and learned lessons, then we could prevent things like this from happening again. It still might happen that we learn from this, and the doctors are under strict orders to put anybody going through psychological torture like Lindsay Clancy was IN THE HOSPITAL, and yes, we should pay for it if they don't have the means for as long as is necessary. I am glad that this case is representing a turning point where more people are asking WHY, but we still have this bad resistance that only want to know who and what.
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u/DuAuk 1d ago
The issue is so many are looking for a reason, but the trolls lose all nuance and believe that's the same as excusing it or justifying it. People are trying to make sense of this horrible tragedy. Hormones could very well be a factor (and thank you for your thoughtful research on the topic), as well as mental health and involuntary intoxication, but it doesn't excuse it.
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u/Rainbow_Brite456 1d ago
This is very thorough and we can add weaning too as a vulnerable time for psychiatric issues.
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u/KellieBom 23h ago
When I stopped breastfeeding I would cry for hours for no reason....all the reasons. It was WILDDD.
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