Psychology like so many other sciences is seen as the study of life from birth to death. One thought in my being a Transgender Woman, is that my psychology may have different attributes than my physiology containing a penis. Is this the confusion that having an "other than what we are born with" psychology than the physiology we are born with may define, we are somehow thinking about, or expressing ourselves in ways which can be contradicted. On one hand our psychologies comprise of the entire lives we live. There are determinants that can be shown to be purely physiological, but is that what we have come to believe is our experience as Transgendered people. My question in this sense is do thoughts about our experience as one gender define our genders, and if they are only thoughts what does that prove about our bodies; mentally, physically and spiritually?
I think the mind is not possibly separate from the body in this sense; the brain is influenced by genetics, epigenetics, ingested chemicals, secreted hormones, uterine hormones while it initially developed, and formed new connections and shapes uniquely as it developed once born while being influenced by all of these things. That our thoughts are in some way independent of any of this I have increasing difficulty in believing, especially since my experience of the effect of hormones on perception, motivation, mental activity in dreams, etc.
I am tending now to believe that if a person feels a certain gender that is no invention of their own, but of their body's make-up. One can manufacture an imagined state - as in role-play or acting - but to feel this entirely unprompted, persistently and powerfully, is a consequence of the body. It's also apparently evident that one's chromosomes are not the full story, nor are the secondary sex characters they might have caused. Far more is behind the functioning of the body and brain than the rudimentary designations of sex, although of course, they have effects upon it. Does our experience of gender define our genders? Yes and no. There are things going on in our bodies and brains we know nothing about or are unaware of... I'd say 95% or more of what goes on in the body goes on without our consent or control. So when we talk about our experience, are we talking about the conscious experience only? If so, I would say we do our best to define ourselves appropriate to our physical and emotional experience, and within borders we can cope with processing. Physically, I believe we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what's actually going on and yet to be discovered about transgenderism and transsexualism. Spiritually, I think we have much leeway for interpretation.
But on the whole, I think the body is calling the shots for the most part. If likened to a computer, our consciousness is the local program running on software that our hardware allows to does not allow to be run. What is within our experience in the program is very much - in my opinion - down to the nature of the hardware. Nor can the program alter or upgrade the hardware it must run on.