Genetics vs Environment

[michelle82]

Hi all

I'm curious what everyone's take on this topic is with regards to being transgender anywhere on the spectrum. Obviously the common narrative for a transperson who undergoes complete transition claims that they felt this way from very early childhood. Which in my opinion would be a indication leading to the idea that genetics (or atleast some biological difference) plays a part in a person being trans.

However some of us never had any feelings of being in the wrong body in early childhood, and maybe not until the beginnings of puberty. Could this mean there are then not genetics at play, but rather environment effects?

I realize a as community we support each other regardless of whether we knew we were trans during childhood, adolescent, or midlife. And we don't prescribe to the notion of "am I trans enough?".  However i think its an interesting topic, and I wonder if some people truly have some sort of genetic difference that leads them to be trans. Whereas some people become trans due to their environment, , their social development over time, their upbringing, their willingness to conform, their views on the world, etc.

[CB]

I don't think its quite as clear cut as that. Just because someone does not have any TS feelings until later in life does not mean they were not there. They may have supressed them for a long time, either consciously or subconsciously. Of course if it is a strong dysphoria that will probably be manifested very early on but if it is more subtle it might be hidden. I think biological factors are the root cause and there seems to be some medical evidence pointing to this, but beyond that social and family factors play a role in how easy its is to let it come out. I don't believe that social factors are in themselves a cause. On top of all this there is huge amount of individual difference.

[michelle82]

good point CB, it would be hard to determine the reasoning behind why someone comes to the realization later in life, and whether they were in denial or not growing up. and the degree of dysphoria varying from person to person.

[Laura_7]

You might look up a brochure for the british NHS called "doh-transgender-experiences.pdf" . Only thing I would disagree with is page 7, where they state stress, instead many experience relief.
It states that being trans has biological causes, and there is a further reference inside which sums up evidence.

There might be different stages to this...

Looking back the last years, there is much more information available now and people are more accepting.

Accordingly people in transgender care say numbers have definitely gone up the last years...

hugs

[suzifrommd]

Current medical thinking is that it happens in the womb as the result of hormone levels. If it were genetic, we would see signs that it runs in families. No one has ever found any environmental link to any condition after someone is born.

However, I believe (with no scientific evidence whatsoever) that there IS a genetic ability bred into a lot of people to ignore our gender identity into middle age, allowing us to pass on our genes to a new generation. Certainly was that way for me. In the earlier part of my life, sex and romance were a much higher priority.

[Cat]

Obviously this is a topic where each person's opinion will be guided almost entirely by their (very subjective) personal experiences and anecdotal evidence, given that paucity of solid research and the absence of any conclusive answers.  That said, my own feelings -- unscientific as they are -- tend toward there being some kind of biological basis for my being this way.  I would make a distinction between the terms 'genetic' and 'biological', since it needn't be a genetic predisposition (although it could be), but might equally be something epigenetic or endocrine in origin -- the result of whether or not specific biological circumstances occured in prenatal development rather than (or in addition to) any predisposition.  Who knows?

But speaking for myself and my own case only, I can't identify any socio-environmental factors that led me here, only ones that confounded my full realisation of my 'trans-ness'.  I was not one of those kids who explicitly expressed themselves as female, although I was feminine and clearly remember identifying with female roles and imagining myself in those roles.  I wasn't socialised that way, though, and nor did I have any concept of 'transgender'.  From early puberty onward I spent a huge amount of time and effort reinventing myself to fit into a male role since it was expected of me and I had been made to feel like there was 'something wrong with me' (by peers mainly) owing to my femininity.  I don't ever remember thinking 'I am actually a girl', or 'I want to live as a girl', and yet I was never comfortable acting or being treated as a boy.   

I see now that I always had dysphoria, but I didn't perceive it as such back then.  From puberty onwards I knew I hated myself -- how I looked, sounded, acted, but I just thought there was something fundamentally broken about me.  I lived for twenty years like that, being socialised and socialising as male, with male friendship groups, etc..  I never felt like I fitted in, the whole thing always felt like an act.  I cross-dressed in my teens but I couldn't understand why I was doing it and I ended up thinking I was some kind of weirdo.  Anyway, the intention here isn't to tell my life story so I'll skip over the rest.  But basically, after going through a lot of crap and coming out the other side, I discovered that the better my life got and the more issues I resolved, the worse I felt about myself.  Eventually I had to confront the root of my self-hatred and bring it out in the open.  That was almost exactly a year ago, and ever since then I've been in transition... and I feel like a new person, and I don't hate myself any more.

What I'm trying to say, I think, is that in my own case, my upbringing, socialisation and environment all lent themselves to the reinforcement of the gender role I was conditioned into having been assigned male at birth, and I spent a lot of my life consciously striving to live that role and meet those expectations.  And despite all that, here I am. 

My reading of my own story is that my true gender identity -- which I feel has a biological basis -- was already being repressed and hidden from me in my infancy by virtue of my upbringing and socialisation, and that I picked up that baton and repressed it myself -- both consciously and subconsciously -- thereafter.  And yet it was powerful enough, persistent enough, innate enough that it undermined all my attempts to live a normal life in the wrong gender and forced me to confront and accept the truth in the end. 

Sorry for the long post.  I've thought about this a lot in relation to myself and I find it interesting.

[ImagineKate]

Without question, no one prompted me to feel the way I do. In fact, quite the opposite. My gender identity was pushed back into the bottle from early on yet it still lingered. So yes, there is likely some biological basis. I don't know what the cause is but right now I'm leaning to either DES or a natural hormonal event in utero.

Environment, however, plays a huge factor. One of the reasons I waited until my mid 30s to transition was because I grew up in the Caribbean, arguably one of the most transphobic regions on the planet. So there was a lot of shame.

But in the end who cares. I'm here now and I'm on my journey and enjoying the ride.

[akegia]

For me I feel its Genetic more then something Environmental. I've had these feelings basically since the first memory I recall, so I don't feel my Environment played a part.

[Miyuki]

I don't think its quite as clear cut as that. Just because someone does not have any TS feelings until later in life does not mean they were not there. They may have supressed them for a long time, either consciously or subconsciously. Of course if it is a strong dysphoria that will probably be manifested very early on but if it is more subtle it might be hidden. I think biological factors are the root cause and there seems to be some medical evidence pointing to this, but beyond that social and family factors play a role in how easy its is to let it come out. I don't believe that social factors are in themselves a cause. On top of all this there is huge amount of individual difference.

I always wondered why it was that certain people seem to know they are transgender from their first memory, while others don't have strong feelings about it until later in life. I actually have an interesting story from my childhood about this. When I was very young (around three years old), based on the way I acted, the way I dressed, and of course, the long hair I refused to let my parents cut, most people who didn't know me gendered me as female. But the funny part is, I actually still identified as male. I wasn't really opposed to the idea of being a girl, it was just that I knew I wasn't, and that nothing I did could ever change that. I think my thoughts were something of the lines of "I am who I am" and I didn't really see gender as being something that would prevent me from being who I am. Yea, kids can be stupid that way...

It wasn't really a problem until I started school, and the merciless teasing began. There was an incident in preschool where I was being teased by a group of boys for basically being a girl, and I actually got so upset at them I pulled down my pants to prove I wasn't one. I had actually completely forgotten something like this had happened, until my mom told the story to my therapist during a session to try and prove that I couldn't possibly be transgender. Her "logic" was, that since I identified so strongly as male that I would pull down my pants in front of other people to prove it, that meant I couldn't possibly be transgender. But my response to her was, that normally, under typical normal circumstances, a non-transgender child does not have to pull down their pants in front of other people to get them to believe that they are the gender they were born as. I'm pretty sure shortly after that was when my mom decided to cut my hair, which set me down a path of denial, repression, and misery, that lasted more than twenty years. I guess the moral of the story is, we're all different, and we all experience our gender identity disorder differently. I probably could have been someone who thought of myself as a girl from an early age if my perspective on things had been slightly different. But with the circumstances being what they were, that's just not how things worked out.

So anyway, who knows why some people seem to just know from a young age, and others don't? Who knows why is some cases the dysphoria is subtle enough to repress, and in other cases it's not. It's the environment, it's genetics, it's all of the above. But in the end it doesn't matter, because we are who we are, and the feelings we have are real.

[michelle82]

It would be interesting to hear from trans teens who transitioned before puberty to get an idea of their thoughts as a young child/toddler

[ImagineKate]

It would be interesting to hear from trans teens who transitioned before puberty to get an idea of their thoughts as a young child/toddler

Don't we do already? They usually throw tantrums and beg to wear dresses. Some even did not know they were boys (or girls in the case of FTM).

[Rejennyrated]

Firstly being trans is like having a cancer. There is not just one cause for cancer, there are many. There is not just one type of cancer, there are many. Some cancers are genetic, some are environmental, some are hormonal. However you don't hear a BRCA1 breast cancer sufferer berating a liver cancer sufferer that theirs is not genuine because it isn't genetic.

The causality of being trans is actually rather better understood than most people realise. Like cancer, it is undoubtedly a complex web of different causes. The genetics are beginning to be unravelled at least to the point that we are now being taught about them in medical school, however it appears that genetic and hormonal factors only predispose. There are other triggers which potentiate.

Speaking as an early prototype of an early transitioner I have to say that I don't think it really matters WHY or WHEN you developed these feelings. What matters is what course of action will best enable you to move forward with your life in an authentic and healthy way.

It would be interesting to hear from trans teens who transitioned before puberty to get an idea of their thoughts as a young child/toddler

And yes – I first transitioned well before puberty... then puberty came along, but back then there were no puberty blockers, and worse still the doctors in my part of the world would not treat patients under 21... so I ended up detransitioning, only to retransition and finally have GCS in my mid twenties.

What did I think I was doing? Well I would have told you, even back then, that I was being who and what I am. Kids inevitably would ask "are you a girl or a boy?" and I would always reply, "I'm a girl in disguise." All the surgery did was remove one layer of that disguise.

[Mariah]

Exactly it can be be both and I strongly believe in my case it was a combination of both that were the cause. It's just like the nature vs nurture debate. You can't pin point just one thing. Often it can be a combination of things that make us who we are.
Mariah

[pollypagan]

I'm not persuaded that it's environmental for at least these two reasons.

1/ Left handers are three times more likely to be transsexual.

2/ There is a case of identical twin boys who substantially shared environmental input but one expressed and voiced his transgender feelings at an early age.

I struggle to reconcile the environmental argument with the above.

[CB]

I'm not persuaded that it's environmental for at least these two reasons.

1/ Left handers are three times more likely to be transsexual.

2/ There is a case of identical twin boys who substantially shared environmental input but one expressed and voiced his transgender feelings at an early age.

I struggle to reconcile the environmental argument with the above.

I don't believe the environment has anything to do with it at all other than influence at what point and to what degree an individual starts to openly exhibit their dysphoria. For some it might be  a very long time or never.

[CB]

2/ There is a case of identical twin boys who substantially shared environmental input but one expressed and voiced his transgender feelings at an early age.

Like my brother and I. Although not twins close together in age and brought up together by parents who were never judgemental and never steered us into specific gender roles. They just let us do our own thing and be ourselves. We couldn't be more different. Me wanting to be  a girl from maybe 10/11 years old and my brother who is very male orientated and even freaked out out one time when asked to try on a womens sweatshirt!

[michelle82]

I don't believe the environment has anything to do with it at all other than influence at what point and to what degree an individual starts to openly exhibit their dysphoria. For some it might be  a very long time or never.

isn't that just another way of saying "Environment" is what caused me to realize I'm trans? I started to experience some mild form of dysphoria when I was a pre-teen. So what your saying is my environment influenced that initial internal feeling right?  prior to that i never had any feeling of gender dysphoria. It would seem to me that environment would have everything to do with it based on that statement?

Or are you saying environment influences the point at which I'm "come out" as a trans person.

[LizMarie]

Here's my convenient list, from my blog, of just some of the scientific peer reviewed papers that demonstrate hormonal in utero links to why we are trans.

One Stop Trans Brain Research List

In addition, I've not yet linked it there, but I also recently read about a study in genetics that show there are two genes that can regulate how testosterone receptors behave and the longer receptors (a recessive gene) processes testosterone less efficiently. So... if a mother has initial issues with hormonal levels in utero between the 8th and 24th week of pregnancy (especially between the 8th and 16th week), and if the child has the recessive gene for less efficient androgen receptors, then that child might have a heightened chance of turning out trans.


Critical things to remember.

1 in 30,000 females at birth is XY. Most are sterile but rarely some are not, can conceive and give birth. (See link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190741/ )

1 in 25,000 males at birth is XX (de la Chapelle syndrome). They grow as little boys and never think of themselves as anything other than male usually.

Klinefelter's babies are XXY and were long thought to be exclusively male but that's not true. What happened was XXY males had medical complications so were seeking out medical treatment. XXY females generally don't have medical complications so weren't seeking out doctors, but now that biologists know they are out there, they are looking for them.


Medically, the NCAA and the IOC both consider MTF as women once they've been on hormone replacement therapy for two plus years. In addition there is a wealth of medical evidence showing trans women not only do not have an advantage against cisgender women but may actually have a disadvantage because of lower natural testosterone levels.

Medical Information about Transwomen in Sports


Then there is this little gem (from one of the studies I linked on another of my blog entries):

Why Transition is the Overwhelming Treatment of Choice




As to why it can take so long, consider what I went through when young:

1. parental and grandparental shock and horror at expressing myself
2. physical violence directed at me by other kids and encouraged by adults because i was a "sissy"
3. constant reminders that anyone not completely straight and "normal" was "queer" and automatically labeled a pervert, an abomination, and a monster
4. friends who were "queer" experiencing even more ostracism and violence than I did.

Now what kind of message do you think a child in that situation might be receiving?

And finally, sometimes dysphoria manifests in other was, trying to get our attention. Zinnia Jones wrote about that so look at your own life. Did you do things that weren't "normal" to "escape" from yourself? OCD behaviors? Generalized obsessions? Undefined depressions?


"That was dysphoria?" 8 signs and symptoms of indirect gender dysphoria


The whole situation is really, really complicated but I hope these links provide a little bit of insight into some aspects of that complicated topic. I know that these links have helped me personally.

[BunnyBee]

Just because we use one word to describe something we don't understand that well doesn't mean it couldn't be more than one thing.  And even if gender discomfort is one singular condition, there is nothing saying more than one thing couldn't cause it.  Most things in this world are more complicated that one effect for one cause.

[BunnyBee]

Here's my convenient list, from my blog, of just some of the scientific peer reviewed papers that demonstrate hormonal in utero links to why we are trans.

One Stop Trans Brain Research List

In addition, I've not yet linked it there, but I also recently read about a study in genetics that show there are two genes that can regulate how testosterone receptors behave and the longer receptors (a recessive gene) processes testosterone less efficiently. So... if a mother has initial issues with hormonal levels in utero between the 8th and 24th week of pregnancy (especially between the 8th and 16th week), and if the child has the recessive gene for less efficient androgen receptors, then that child might have a heightened chance of turning out trans.


Critical things to remember.

1 in 30,000 females at birth is XY. Most are sterile but rarely some are not, can conceive and give birth. (See link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190741/ )

1 in 25,000 males at birth is XX (de la Chapelle syndrome). They grow as little boys and never think of themselves as anything other than male usually.

Klinefelter's babies are XXY and were long thought to be exclusively male but that's not true. What happened was XXY males had medical complications so were seeking out medical treatment. XXY females generally don't have medical complications so weren't seeking out doctors, but now that biologists know they are out there, they are looking for them.


Medically, the NCAA and the IOC both consider MTF as women once they've been on hormone replacement therapy for two plus years. In addition there is a wealth of medical evidence showing trans women not only do not have an advantage against cisgender women but may actually have a disadvantage because of lower natural testosterone levels.

Medical Information about Transwomen in Sports


Then there is this little gem (from one of the studies I linked on another of my blog entries):

Why Transition is the Overwhelming Treatment of Choice

Thanks for the links