Not Biologically Male or Female Anymore?

[maxmattI]

Okay so,

One of my newer friends asked me if it was correct to say that I was a "boy trapped in a girl's body" (I'm an FTM, been on T for about 3 months now) and I quickly agreed, but realized afterward that that might not be correct anymore, seeing as I'm on testosterone now and all.

Is my body still a "girl's body"? Am I still considered biologically female, even though I'm on testosterone and I have the secondary sex characteristics of a male? I don't have male sex organs, but....you see my confusion? When do you stop being biologically one sex and become another? Or, does that even happen?

Is being trans on hormones anything like being intersex? Aren't intersex people people that have a hormonal imbalance that stops them from being one specific sex? Which presents with ambiguous genitalia and varied secondary sex characteristics? Isn't that kind of like a transman or transwoman on hormones?

All of this is really confusing and I hope that some of this confusion can be waddled through. I'd love to hear anyone's opinion on it all. I'm beginning to think that sex is just as much an abstract concept as gender is.

Thanks,
Miles 

[Ms Grace]

It depends on what you term as biological - at a chromosonal level nothing changes. If you were XX you remain XX. The same goes for a number of changes that happened to your skeletal structure during adolesence (like hip shape and size), HRT won't change that once it is set. FTM HRT might change a number of secondary sexual charateristics, and stop some reproductive functions however it is only a masculinisation process it doesn't really change your biology to male. But this is where a lot of TERFs and other haters get off telling us we'll "never really" be a man (or a woman for MTF), that's why I prefer not to focus on the physical aspect too much. Yes, we are taking HRT and maybe using surgery to align our physical appearance/structure/function/ability with our gender identity, and sure that doesn't change our actual biology but it is hardly the point since gender and biological sex are not the same thing.

[Carrie Liz]

If you identify as male, your body is a male body, and you are a "biological man," because that's how your brain is wired.

Gender is a social construct. It's humans, not science or biology itself, that labeled certain chromosomes and certain anatomy and certain secondary sexual characteristics "male" and "female," when the reality is that those features don't always appear exclusively on "male" or "female" bodies, it's simply a best-fit grouping of typical associations which usually correlate.

You are a man, therefore your body is a man's body. It doesn't matter whether you match society's definition of a "man" or not, or if you're on hormones or not, because in reality these are just the results of a genetic lottery then being filtered through the biased judgments and perspectives and preconceptions about what makes someone one gender or the other that other people might hold. Some people pass as cis without hormones and would still be considered to have a "man's body" even without them, while some people, even with hormones, still aren't perceived as having a "man's body." Does one have a man's body but the other one doesn't? Ultimately it's all about perception, and all about societal assumptions, which makes having a universal "you are now a man after this point" physical standard impossible, apart from one's own identity.

[iKate]

The Web comic "Assigned Male" has addressed this extensively and accurately. If you don't follow them I would suggest you do.

First of all, "biological male" or "biological female" does not mean the sex assigned at birth. What is happening in my body with hormones I take is biology. My gender which I had from birth (female) is biology. I'm not making it up. It's natural and nothing to be ashamed of.

Secondly, girls and boys have all kinds of bodies. If your identity is a boy then your body is a boy's body. If your identity is a girl then your body is a girl's body.

Simple as that

[maxmattI]

Huh, that was a lot more simple than I thought. I complicated something that wasn't really that tough to begin with. Thank you all for your input, I really appreciate it!!

I need to worry less about how to explain my gender to people and just...be me, I guess. I identify as male, therefore I am.

[stephaniec]

It took me a while to realize it, but I've been female ever since my brain was formed in my mothers womb. I've been masquerading as a male for way too long and I'm finally free with having the hormones that match my brain.

[sparrow]

You're a man.  Therefore, your body is a man's body.  You don't need hormones, different clothes, surgery, or anything else to make that true.  The power has been in you all along!

[AnonyMs]

I need to worry less about how to explain my gender to people and just...be me, I guess. I identify as male, therefore I am.

From everything I've ever heard, as FTM you've not going need to explain it to anyone for much longer. Give it some time and no one's going to look at you and doubt your a man.

[Lady_Oracle]

Okay so,

One of my newer friends asked me if it was correct to say that I was a "boy trapped in a girl's body" (I'm an FTM, been on T for about 3 months now) and I quickly agreed, but realized afterward that that might not be correct anymore, seeing as I'm on testosterone now and all.

Is my body still a "girl's body"? Am I still considered biologically female, even though I'm on testosterone and I have the secondary sex characteristics of a male? I don't have male sex organs, but....you see my confusion? When do you stop being biologically one sex and become another? Or, does that even happen?

Is being trans on hormones anything like being intersex? Aren't intersex people people that have a hormonal imbalance that stops them from being one specific sex? Which presents with ambiguous genitalia and varied secondary sex characteristics? Isn't that kind of like a transman or transwoman on hormones?

All of this is really confusing and I hope that some of this confusion can be waddled through. I'd love to hear anyone's opinion on it all. I'm beginning to think that sex is just as much an abstract concept as gender is.

Thanks,
Miles 

Technically there's a cut off point with hrt. Once you're past 2-3 years of hrt, your body chemistry is of a "biological male" the whole biological gender thing is just semantics really. In my opinion we're all biologically the gender we transition to already else we wouldn't transition in the first place.

[HughE]

Contrary to popular belief, genetics don't determine your sex. The Y chromosome is much smaller than any other chromosome in the human genome, and it only contains a few dozen genes. There's the SRY gene (which directs the gonads to develop into testicles rather than ovaries), while the remaining genes on it are mainly involved with spermatogenesis. Outside of gonadal tissue, the Y chromosome doesn't appear to do anything, so all the other cells throughout your body are effectively "gender neutral", and take their cue as to whether they're part of a male or a female body from what hormones are present. This is shown by conditions such as Swyer's Syndrome and Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, which cause people who are genetically male to develop as female, and by tetragametic chimerism, where people whose bodies contain a mixture of XX and XY cells nonetheless usually develop as one sex (unless both cell types make it into the gonadal tissue, in which case it does cause intersexed development).

https://www.quora.com/What-causes-a-person-to-be-transgender/answer/Hugh-Easton-1

Once you've been on HRT for several years, the cells throughout your body will have completely changed their metabolism over to whatever the HRT is telling them, so yes, you can consider yourself fully male.

[Kylo]

Is my body still a "girl's body"? Am I still considered biologically female, even though I'm on testosterone and I have the secondary sex characteristics of a male? I don't have male sex organs, but....you see my confusion? When do you stop being biologically one sex and become another? Or, does that even happen?

This is just my opinion but I think there's several layers of classifying oneself.

Scientifically, I would say my body is composed of female cells (all cells can be identified as female by the fact they contain Barr bodies which male cells do not) but if I was also on T I think I would be more of a hybrid. 'Female' cells, with 'male' blood so to speak. Over time the entire body would switch from female to male mode and would become more male than female. But I don't think there's really a clear cut-off there. There's still aspects of the body that would never be changed from the original "female" such as chromosomes and Barr bodies. But a female body on T will be in 'male' mode, aiming to fulfill all the physiological male functions that it possibly can.

In species that can change sex - such as sequential hermaphorditism in some fish - I guess science would classify a female fish that became a male fish as a protogynous hermaphodite. But I wouldn't be a protogynous hermaphrodite because my change would likely render me sterile and without the functional organs of a male.

Since science defines sex in the most basic sense by saying males produce sperm and females produce eggs, I can never be a 'true' male in the scientific sense - at least not until they find a way to clone functional testes from our cells. I would personally think of myself - on T - as a hybrid sex.

Mentally, I am a male.

Socially, I am whatever I look more like, or announce myself as.

Legally, I am whatever it says on my documents. They can be changed to what I say I am, with medical corroboration.

They're all just clunky labels at the end of the day. 

[Peep]

If i was in an anti social mood i would say that if someone's interested in the definition of biological gender and sex they can google it and draw their own conclusions from the vast amount of evidence, as my body and gender aren't up for discussion. If I'm using male pronouns that's what my gender + biological sex are. It's hormones, not robotics or magic.

[HughE]

...all cells can be identified as female by the fact they contain Barr bodies which male cells do not...

People with an XXY karyotype have Barr bodies, and they're usually assigned male at birth (although XXY is arguably a form of intersex, since people with the condition generally aren't producing full male levels of testosterone during their prenatal development). There are also XX men (De La Chappelle Syndrome), and AFAIK they have Barr bodies too. Then there's people with XX/XY chimerism, where the gonads developed from the XY cell line. Since their gonads turn into testicles, these people develop as male, even though parts of their body are made up of XX cells, which contain Barr bodies.

When you start looking into it, there's no magical combination of genes that you can use to unambiguously classify someone as male or female, there are always exceptions. This is because your sex isn't directly determined by genes, instead it's determined by hormones! All the genes do is tell your undifferentiated gonads to turn into testicles or ovaries, it's the hormones subsequently produced by those organs that determine your sex.

[Tyran]

I had a similar discussion about this with an acquaintance not too long ago when he said he felt like his body wasn't 'man enough' so I'll tell you what I basically told him.
Your body is that of a man because that is who you are and the same goes for all people. Ignoring the constructs of 'short hair equals male' or 'dress equals female' and all that bull which is really just expression you are biologically what you identify as. Of course your sex might be a different ballpark entirely but biologically you are what you are.

[suzifrommd]

Is my body still a "girl's body"? Am I still considered biologically female, even though I'm on testosterone and I have the secondary sex characteristics of a male? I don't have male sex organs, but....you see my confusion? When do you stop being biologically one sex and become another? Or, does that even happen?

I wouldn't want to call myself intersex, since that's usually a congenital condition

But I'm certainly ambiguously sexed. I'm walking around with a prostate and breasts. So neither male nor female accurately describe my body.

[GarryLynn]

Well your body doesn't matter, as a transgender but as a transsexual it would, we can't help the way we were born tho, but you don't need a penis to be a boy 👍🏼 I'm actually intersex, XXY I have a hormone imbalance where I have wider hips and breasts, which is good because I'm a pre HRT transgirl :3