TW: "Homosexuality/Transgender is caused by improper sexual experiences"

[WolfNightV4X1]

TW=Trigger warning, Ive always found this topic to be a very sad one or very uncomfortable for many people

But the thing is, Ive heard this as a topic to argue that these were mental illnesses,

Basically, the claim is that as children (or adults) people ended up in improper sexual situations with another person, which made them grow up as they were. This is the case for some cases where some people happen to be gay/trans and have that happen to them, a popular one being Chaz, and a less popular one being a gay kid Ive heard share his story of his experiences...

It makes me feel awful and hurt that people would use people's hardest experiences to justify their status as mentally ill from trauma, it always just seemed really low to me.

I, for one, havent had any particular issues with childhood sexual trauma, nor have a lot of other people I know. Nor have people who HAVE had those abuses enacted on them grown up to be gay/trans, I think


...oh, another one that bugs me "Divorce rates among same sex couples are high"
And heterosexual ones are not?

[Denise]

I questioned my gender at 4 years old.  There were no sexual situations involved.  Heck, at that age I didn't even know girls were different "down there".

[Colleen_definitely]

No childhood sexual abuse here either.  Some of my earliest memories involved gender problems going back to 3-4 years old as well.  I'm know there are LGBT(and all the other letters that I can't remember) folks who have been sexually abused, but considering how many there are that haven't I don't buy the LGBT=sexually abused line for a moment.

My father is a huge believer in (his words) "homos are just pretending to play house, that's why they don't stay together" but I shut him down pretty quick by pointing out that he has chalked up three divorces.

[jentay1367]

It's always interesting to see where the sources of these "studies" or "articles" spawn from. It's often quite easy to see their agenda. So much of this stuff is from prurient overly conservative group sponsorship and is generally replete of accepted legitimate scientific controls. It makes it easy to discount it all as the nonsense it is.

[KarynMcD]

My first therapist started with this crap.
I never went back.

[MeTony]

First person I fell in love with was a girl. I was 11 years old. I told her. It ruined our friendship. I knew I was a boy and lived as a boy until my chest started growing. I have no sexual abuse history. Physical abuse yes. A lot. But the beating can't make me more or less transgender. 

[JeanetteLW]

    Hogwash!
  This sounds like it came from someone without any understanding of the subject. There are too many studies that show otherwise.

  I too have to say I do not fit this theory either. I started experimenting with girl clothes when I was in elementary school.

  Hugs,
    Jeanette

[staciM]

I questioned my gender at 4 years old.  There were no sexual situations involved.  Heck, at that age I didn't even know girls were different "down there".

+1, but I was 5

[Kylo]

I experienced no sexual abuse and still had childhood gender dysphoria of the body. So I don't buy it.

For some people it does affect them, though. Friend of mine was molested by his mother as a child and has stayed away from women ever since. A different friend has a very difficult mother he had to care for and also stays away from women. I'm not sure they are gay rather than bi but they seem to have been influenced by their childhoods/traumas and experiences with mother figures. In the end though their dating habits and their sexual orientation may well be two different things.

[DawnOday]

No abuse, except the 5,000 times more estrogen than in a birth control pill DES, my mother was probably prescribed while I was in the womb. I say probably because there is no records but there is much historical precedent to think so. And while I was abused by Denver Dayton in Boy Scouts, I had already been crossdressing privately for 6 years. Because o my body parts and the thinking of the time I kept it in the closet and suffered for it. I married my longtime sweetheart and we lasted only two years because she found out. I remarried to my present wife of 34 years. It was because I told her early on. But my reckoning came when I started having a breakdown as I could no longer keep my anger and sense of self private, and I finally revealed myself to all. Now six months into HRT, my mind is at ease for actually the first time in my life. 

[Michelle_P]

Basically, the claim is that as children (or adults) people ended up in improper sexual situations with another person, which made them grow up as they were. This is the case for some cases where some people happen to be gay/trans and have that happen to them, a popular one being Chaz, and a less popular one being a gay kid Ive heard share his story of his experiences...

This has been demonstrated to be false.

Children born intersex, with symptoms such an enlarged clitoris and fused labia misidentified as male, a small penis and unfused scrotum, misidentified as female, cloacal exstrophy, have received 'corrective' surgery, generally before age 6 months, and were raised in the 'corrected' gender.  Somewhere around 10-15% were incorrectly identified based on external genetalia, and received 'corrective' surgery to the genitalia to place the child in a gender other than their internal biological gender.

Oops.

Doctors such as Dr. John Money insisted that gender identification was 'merely' a product of upbringing, and as such, correcting the appearance of genetalia and rearing the child in the target gender should result in a normal, well-adjusted child in that gender.

Oops again.

This turns out not to be the case.  There appears to be an intrinsic gender identification in each individual that is not affected by reconstructive surgery or by child-rearing practices.  Sexual abuse or upbringing do not appear to affect this intrinsic gender identification.

Some people still cling to the mythos, as it provides a comforting rationale, a way to assign 'blame' for what they perceive as a sinful or imperfect state in a person, rather than having to accept that this is simply the way some of us are wired.  That perpetuates the social damage associated with being transgender, unfortunately, allowing us to be viewed as 'damaged goods' rather than human beings.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2004/06/the_cutting_edge.html
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/12935/title/Reevaluating-Sex-Reassignment/
http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/1961to1999/1998-pediatric-ethics.html

There is in fact more to us than a Phall-O-Meter reading.  (An actual thing!)

[FTMax]

I didn't have any kind of sexual trauma until after I already knew I was trans. I know a few trans people who were abused or sexually abused as children, but of all the trans people I know, those I can count on one hand. I don't think you could draw any kind of statistically significant data from it.

[Laura_Squirrel]

    Hogwash!
  This sounds like it came from someone without any understanding of the subject. There are too many studies that show otherwise.

  I too have to say I do not fit this theory either. I started experimenting with girl clothes when I was in elementary school.

  Hugs,
    Jeanette

Same here. That sounds like your typical BS to me.

[Dena]

I am a 65 year old virgin and I am still waiting for the first improper or any sexual experience that made me transsexual. I know my gender identity was set well before my teens even though I didn't feel it until I was 13. That idea is outdated and totally false.

[Michelle_P]

I am a 65 year old virgin and I am still waiting for the first improper or any sexual experience that made me transsexual. I know my gender identity was set well before my teens even though I didn't feel it until I was 13. That idea is outdated and totally false.

Hee, hee!    My first thought on reading this was that you were waiting for an improper sexual experience!

Yes, please!


Yeah, I didn't have any improper sexual experiences til well after I thought I should be a girl.  That happened around age 6, playing dress up with the girls up the street.    Bad stuff didn't happen to me til I was around 12, much much later.


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[HappyMoni]

Do you remember, "Gay marriage will hurt the institution of marriage." Gay marriage is gonna cause straight marriages to fail? Really? Now my existence, my human rights as a trans person, violate someone else's religious freedom. Are we really surprised that we would be deemed mentally ill by those who hate anything different than their values? You know, I hear that left handed people masturbate with their left hand. They surely must be deviants. Maybe we need water fountains for left handed folks and separate ones for the normal, right handed people. Lunacy, it's pure lunacy!
Monica

[Amy1988]

TW=Trigger warning, Ive always found this topic to be a very sad one or very uncomfortable for many people

But the thing is, Ive heard this as a topic to argue that these were mental illnesses,

Basically, the claim is that as children (or adults) people ended up in improper sexual situations with another person, which made them grow up as they were. This is the case for some cases where some people happen to be gay/trans and have that happen to them, a popular one being Chaz, and a less popular one being a gay kid Ive heard share his story of his experiences...

It makes me feel awful and hurt that people would use people's hardest experiences to justify their status as mentally ill from trauma, it always just seemed really low to me.

I, for one, havent had any particular issues with childhood sexual trauma, nor have a lot of other people I know. Nor have people who HAVE had those abuses enacted on them grown up to be gay/trans, I think


...oh, another one that bugs me "Divorce rates among same sex couples are high"
And heterosexual ones are not?

Nonsense!  I've never had a sexual experience in my 22 years of life but here I am....transgender.

[Deborah]

Let's see.  I figured out I was trans when I was around 11.  I didn't have any halfway sexual experiences until 5 years later.  I didn't have an all the way experience until 8 or 9 years later.  I was never sexually abused either.  This theory fails.


It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.
André Gide, Autumn Leaves

[Amanda_Combs]

I was abused sexually by a peer at 15 years old.
It makes me feel really terrible that I seem to fit that assertion.

Of course those people will happily ignore the fact that I've  been devastated by my envy of women since I was 10.


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[Janes Groove]

That was actually kind of a prevailing attitude when I was growing up.  I remember reading the encyclopia entry for homosexuality in my local library when I was young.  It was a fairly lengthy entry and the main thesis of the encyclopedia article was as follows:  homosexual males are the way they are because they are the product of weak fathers and strong mothers.  It made sense to me at the time because it perfectly described my parents' marital dynamic and gave support to my inner feelings of shame about my same sex attraction orientation.  Later, as part of my coming out process, I learned what utter hogwash it all was.  It did serve, however, to make me aware of how stupid a lot of supposed scholars are tho.