*Trigger warning* Association between abuse and gender dysphoria?

[rainecloude]

Ok, so I want to first say trigger warning.

Second I would like to say briefly that this is based on my experiences of being sexually and physically abused as a child and as a teenager.

With that being said I want to know if anyone who has a similar background ever got asked or implied by professionals (doctors, psychs, social workers, etc.) that their gender dysphoria could be linked to abuse.

I can't comprehend why they would suggest this as if being a girl at the time would have made it any less painful.

It's really left me feeling confused and upset and the thing is I don't know any other life so it's hard to figure out what is dysphoria and what is me being uncomfortable based on my past.

*Sigh* Any advice/shared experiences would be appreciated.

[Devlyn]

I was sexually abused at age eight. It came up during my visits but nothing was really made of it.

I'll trigger you back, have you worked through what was done to you then? Knowing it happened and making peace with it were two separate things with me. I had worked out my life and resolved my past before transgender came on my radar, so I was standing on firm ground to handle that.

Hugs, Devlyn

[Allison S]

I was sexually abused at age eight. It came up during my visits but nothing was really made of it.

I'll trigger you back, have you worked through what was done to you then? Knowing it happened and making peace with it were two separate things with me. I had worked out my life and resolved my past before transgender came on my radar, so I was standing on firm ground to handle that.

Hugs, Devlyn

Same thing with me. Oddly enough since transitioning every trauma in my childhood seems even more resolved and distant to me. I was in over 2 years of therapy before even addressing being transgender.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

[KathyLauren]

I was sexually assaulted in my teens.  But my transgender tendencies predated that by quite a few years.  So no association in my case.

Actually, there might be an association, but in the reverse direction.  I now believe that the guy targeted me because his defective gaydar picked up *something*.

[HughE]

I think we could often end up becoming targets of abuse because of being relatively shy and unassertive. There's plenty of evidence from cases such as that of David Reimer, that your gender identity is something that's hardwired into your brain, and already in place before you're even born, so I doubt whether childhood abuse made anyone trans.

I used to have gay men incessantly trying to pick me up when I was younger, which used to perplex me no end (because I'm attracted to women rather than men). I now think it's because the parts of my brain that generate my body language are female, and gay men were seeing what they interpreted as a man with female body language, and immediately assuming I must be gay. Interestingly, they've stopped trying to pick me up since I grew my hair out. I don't know if that's just because I'm older and less attractive, or because they're now interpreting me as a nonpassing trans woman rather than a gay man.

[Kylo]

Far as I know I have no history of sexual abuse, but I will second HughE that predators seek out those who are timid, or whom they see as being different. As a young adult I have a couple of experiences of individuals trying their luck in that department, and I do believe it wasn't attraction per se that enticed them, it was the fact I was an outsider, a loner, and they (wrongly) assumed I lacked confidence and the ability to defend myself because of that.

The extent to which we give out "signals" of our internal gender or vulnerability I am still learning all about and I do think it broadcasts to others sometimes, or maybe much more often than I've realized.   

[Rachel]

I had severe physical abuse from my father ( my brother was almost 7 years older and had it worse) . It was sporadic and it stopped when my mom told him he would leave him if he ever beat me to the severity he did the last time. I was about 5 and dropped an empty glass milk jug and it broke. He grabbed my shirt in a bunch in the back and beat me with a metal pole. I had blood coming down my back and my uncle grabbed my fathers arm and stopped him. My father had severe PTSD from being under long periods of stress while on the front lines.  He said he was afraid I was going to cut my feet from the glass.

After that he could not hit me closed fist or with objects other than a belt. My mother was physical too. My brother use to beat me severely and I would have hundreds of lines in my skin from the voids between the fingers from hitting me with a closed fist. That ended on day when a neighbor saw the marks on my arm and lifted my shirt.

There was sexual abuse.

When my brother died. I was informed by his wife over the phone. In my head my thoughts were it is over. I was not sad to hear of his death.

Yesterday my ex-wife and daughter moved out. I did not sleep last night and thought about the abuse and GD when I was young. I did not think about my wife and daughter moving. Why I have no idea. I was very sad about my best friends moving out yet all I could think about was my childhood.

My mother died then no matter how hard I tried  to suppress my feelings I "hit the wall" in December 2012. All the abuse came up along with the trans identity I suppressed on a daily basis. The first 5 months of therapy we worked on confronting the abuse and my identity. Then (not now) I did not want to go on. It was unbelievable painful, I hated who I was and I felt tremendous guilt hiding who I am from my wife and daughter.

Many of my friends in community if not most have been the object of physical and sexual abuse. Perhaps almost all but I do not ask them. I listen to them when they bring it up. Then we compare how we were effected. The disconnect, compartmentalization, blocking and the acts of violence.

In therapy we did gestalt therapy to release the built up energy and make new endings. In the end it was their deaths, my ability to discuss it and write about it and my understanding (  making up reasons) of what drove them to commit such things to a child. 

I promised if I ever had a child I would never physically touch them either sexually or in anger. I never broke that promise. The cycle ended with me. I can never share with anyone other than my therapist the details in full. It took me 6 months to tell my first therapist and a year to tell my second therapist (she had the 1st therapist notes).

My therapists heard many trans tell of abuse and it is something we may have in common. Why I do not know.

[Devlyn]

I had severe physical abuse from my father ( my brother was almost 7 years older and had it worse) . It was sporadic and it stopped when my mom told him he would leave him if he ever beat me to the severity he did the last time. I was about 5 and dropped an empty glass milk jug and it broke. He grabbed my shirt in a bunch in the back and beat me with a metal pole. I had blood coming down my back and my uncle grabbed my fathers arm and stopped him. My father had severe PTSD from being under long periods of stress while on the front lines.  He said he was afraid I was going to cut my feet from the glass.

After that he could not hit me closed fist or with objects other than a belt. My mother was physical too. My brother use to beat me severely and I would have hundreds of lines in my skin from the voids between the fingers from hitting me with a closed fist. That ended on day when a neighbor saw the marks on my arm and lifted my shirt.

There was sexual abuse.

When my brother died. I was informed by his wife over the phone. In my head my thoughts were it is over. I was not sad to hear of his death.

Yesterday my ex-wife and daughter moved out. I did not sleep last night and thought about the abuse and GD when I was young. I did not think about my wife and daughter moving. Why I have no idea. I was very sad about my best friends moving out yet all I could think about was my childhood.

My mother died then no matter how hard I tried  to suppress my feelings I "hit the wall" in December 2012. All the abuse came up along with the trans identity I suppressed on a daily basis. The first 5 months of therapy we worked on confronting the abuse and my identity. Then (not now) I did not want to go on. It was unbelievable painful, I hated who I was and I felt tremendous guilt hiding who I am from my wife and daughter.

Many of my friends in community if not most have been the object of physical and sexual abuse. Perhaps almost all but I do not ask them. I listen to them when they bring it up. Then we compare how we were effected. The disconnect, compartmentalization, blocking and the acts of violence.

In therapy we did gestalt therapy to release the built up energy and make new endings. In the end it was their deaths, my ability to discuss it and write about it and my understanding (  making up reasons) of what drove them to commit such things to a child. 

I promised if I ever had a child I would never physically touch them either sexually or in anger. I never broke that promise. The cycle ended with me. I can never share with anyone other than my therapist the details in full. It took me 6 months to tell my first therapist and a year to tell my second therapist (she had the 1st therapist notes).

My therapists heard many trans tell of abuse and it is something we may have in common. Why I do not know.

Big hug! Same here. I knew that those who are abused go on to abuse, and I  swore to never let that happen. The cycle also stopped with me.

Hugs, Devlyn

[flytrap]

VA raising hand as HAVING gender dysphoria as a result of childhood sexual abuse. I am not transgender. This trauma led to my developing Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and a system of five alters, one of whom is a girl. It took 3 years of therapy to discover that the dysphoria she experienced when she became self aware and found herself in a 48 year old man's body was a symptom of trauma based DID, not transsexualism related gender dysphoria.

A doctor would suggest that gender dysphoria might be linked to abuse because the likelihood of a person experiencing gender and/or sexual confusion as a result of their sexual abuse is much greater than them being transgender. The trauma related to this abuse must be resolved to rule it out as the underlying cause of dysphoria before moving on to treatment as a gender related condition.

Lots of good info in my old posts if you would like to read more.

[CarlyMcx]

My parents physically abused me until about age 9.  Dad liked to spank with the bristle side of a hairbrush that had very stiff plastic bristles.  Mom just liked slaps in the face or really hard flicks in the cheek.  Psychological and economic abuse continued until they were no longer healthy.

No matter how hard I tried to be the boy and man they wanted, they always acted like whatever I did either wasn't good enough and merited punishment, or if I managed perfection it was just barely good enough and it was time to raise the bar.

[Roll]

Simple Answer: I would say don't overthink it, being abused does not define your identity in any way. Don't let people performing lazy psychology get to you, this used to be the top thing the same people would claim with gay and lesbian individuals until it became readily apparent to everyone it was nonsense(and politically incorrect). (Growing up the child of a psychiatrist and now working IT with them, I've heard so many horror stories about supposed experts doing crap like this, you have no idea.)

Long Answer: From what I've found, there seems to be a positive (statistical positive, not beneficial positive of course) correlation between abuse and being trans, that is true, however the data is not often put into context and the "chicken or egg" discussion is quite prevalent.

I could make several arguments that go against the notion that being abused causes being transgender. First and foremost, being transgender has a far clearer statistical causal effect to being abused. This is evident in the number of hate crimes, parents disowning children, and so forth. That alone could account for the entirety of the correlation between being transgender and being abused. Second, the rate of abuse of children is far, far higher than the rate of being transgender. If it was a more direct causal effect, you'd probably see far more people who are transgender as a result. Third, there is no indication that anything remotely approaching a majority of transgender individuals were abused as children, despite potential abuse later in life (as a teenager or older, after the trans identity has been formed, as per the trans causal correlation to abuse above). This proves that, quite definitively, being transgender is a state that can exist independent of abuse, and therefore there is absolutely no reason to assume a causal effect for those who were abused as children. Lastly, it is entirely impossible to guess the reason for much abuse, and in many cases it may very well be that the child showed transgender tendencies early on, prior to recognizing their own status (as of course, it is disturbingly common, or at least was in recent history, for fathers to try to make their sons act more masculine through the thread of violence).

Any mental health professional who insinuates being transgender was caused by abuse needs to head back to school and take an Introductory Stats course and learn the difference between correlation and causation. They also need to look at the studies and notice the little n= number that often show a whopping sample size of a whole 72 people or some such, and then don't even bother specifying cohorts or provide details such as age of abuse. Those are completely unreliable samples that can in no way be indicative of causation, and even simply from a correlation standpoint are at any remotely decent confidence level wind up with margins of error greater than 10%, and are effectively worthless.

(It also comes into issue with the single most common flaw with measuring the transgender population in anything, as we by and large prefer to stay invisible, and the visible trans population is in all likelihood quite different than the invisible population, creating a pool of candidates that share more in common with samples of convenience than they do a proper sample group.)

Sorry, nerded out there a bit, but bottom line is those studies are stupid, and don't question yourself over someone using bad science as a basis to ask amateur hour questions in therapy or during a medical appointment.

[Sno]

Hi hon,

This sounds much like, if all I have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail tbh.

Yes, I have an abusive past - as fragmented as that has left my sense of identity and my self esteem, there are aspects that are unclear of what *I* am in terms of identity, countered by some clear certainties of what I am not

7 sessions of therapy so far and we have yet to step out beyond trying to manage my PTSD and CPTSD symptoms.

Did it make me trans.? No - that responsibility possibly falls on the shoulders of DES, or some other quirk of the fates

Rowan

[big kim]

Some sad stories here, hope you all OK now. I got off light, I was the  bullies punchbag til I was 13 & learned to fight back. I did have a creepy teacher come on to me as a 14 year old, I was a timid, tall skinny kid with no self esteem, no confidence with an eating disorder (skipping meals), self harming & already drinking. I was born in  England in1957, Mum had a miscarriage a couple of years before & it's very likely she took DES. This is what made me transexual not abuse

[rmaddy]

There's plenty of evidence from cases such as that of David Reimer, that your gender identity is something that's hardwired into your brain, and already in place before you're even born, so I doubt whether childhood abuse made anyone trans.

With respect, the Reimer case is, by definition, anecdotal.  We know when gender identity typically solidifies, but we don't know when or why it sometimes doesn't.  There isn't "plenty of evidence" to support any theory of origin.

Almost every transgender person I've met either in person or online who has shared his/her/their story with me describes some degree of an evolving understanding.  I concede that there are exceptions or perhaps even different sub-groups, but the fact that so many of us, particularly trans women, come out relatively late in life seems to beg for a better hypothesis than "born this way".

In the end, it doesn't matter why we are trans.  It's just something that we are.

[Roll]

With respect, the Reimer case is, by definition, anecdotal.  We know when gender identity typically solidifies, but we don't know when or why it sometimes doesn't.  There isn't "plenty of evidence" to support any theory of origin.

Almost every transgender person I've met either in person or online who has shared his/her/their story with me describes some degree of an evolving understanding.  I concede that there are exceptions or perhaps even different sub-groups, but the fact that so many of us, particularly trans women, come out relatively late in life seems to beg for a better hypothesis than "born this way".

In the end, it doesn't matter why we are trans.  It's just something that we are.

Odds are it is some complex interplay between "nature" and "nurture" (varying levels of genetic predisposition shaped by environment) we can't possibly hope to pin down to one single cause or definitively state even a single individual's cause, and it is certainly a fallacy to do so (Hume style skepticism being the best approach). So you are 100% dead on, the why doesn't particularly matter, and the discussion is largely academic. Unfortunately, far too many ivory tower types and medical professionals fail to grasp that, and attempt to apply ideas from their bubble within academia (and the fallacies thereof) to the real world as per Rainecloude's original issue. 

[Paige]

Almost every transgender person I've met either in person or online who has shared his/her/their story with me describes some degree of an evolving understanding.  I concede that there are exceptions or perhaps even different sub-groups, but the fact that so many of us, particularly trans women, come out relatively late in life seems to beg for a better hypothesis than "born this way".

In the end, it doesn't matter why we are trans.  It's just something that we are.

Hi Rmaddy,

I think my understanding evolved because the understanding of being transgender evolved.  When I was young most thought it was some creepy perversion.   I know exactly why I have not come out yet.  It has nothing to do with me not figuring it out.  I haven't come out because, I'm pretty sure a large portion of family, friends and society will be very negative to me transitioning and I'm not sure I can handle that.

Yes I was abused physically and emotionally as a child, but I think much of it was to beat the femininity out of me.  My brother never got anywhere near the beatings I would get.  My father really didn't like my feminine side.   When you grow up with that sort of abuse, you become really gun shy about exposing your true self.

So to turn this around, I wonder how much abuse has kept people in the closet.

Take care,
Paige

[rmaddy]

Paige,

Your story is yours to tell and yours to interpret. 

All I am saying is that if one were to look at the droves of trans people, who, like myself, lived for decades with at least some degree of objective success in the masculine role before transition, then mere shrug and say, "They were all born this way, but couldn't show it out of fear"--it strikes me as a lack of scientific curiosity and/or openness to alternative explanations.

Yes, I recognize gender variance in my early memories.  I also recognize choices, or at least the appearance of choices along the way which brought me to where I am today.  It would be a bit disappointing if this were not the case.  Who really wants to be a wind-up toy who merely marched in the direction she was pointed. 

Fixed identity at birth is only a hypothesis, and the evidence toward it still derives principally from a group of people who are plausibly interested in society's acceptance of a narrative which holds our gender to be no more complex than that of people who never question theirs.  I remain skeptical of potentially self-serving intellectual short cuts.  I believe in equal protection under the law regardless of how we got to where we are, and I don't feel any compulsion to bandwagon with those who, I believe, have merely adopted a theory of convenience.

Remember Hitchen's Razor:

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

My corollary would be:

What is asserted based on scant evidence is highly vulnerable to replacement by a more plausible explanation.

Renae

[Paige]

Paige,

Your story is yours to tell and yours to interpret. 

All I am saying is that if one were to look at the droves of trans people, who, like myself, lived for decades with at least some degree of objective success in the masculine role before transition, then mere shrug and say, "They were all born this way, but couldn't show it out of fear"--it strikes me as a lack of scientific curiosity and/or openness to alternative explanations.

Yes, I recognize gender variance in my early memories.  I also recognize choices, or at least the appearance of choices along the way which brought me to where I am today.  It would be a bit disappointing if this were not the case.  Who really wants to be a wind-up toy who merely marched in the direction she was pointed. 

Fixed identity at birth is only a hypothesis, and the evidence toward it still derives principally from a group of people who are plausibly interested in society's acceptance of a narrative which holds our gender to be no more complex than that of people who never question theirs.  I remain skeptical of potentially self-serving intellectual short cuts.  I believe in equal protection under the law regardless of how we got to where we are, and I don't feel any compulsion to bandwagon with those who, I believe, have merely adopted a theory of convenience.

Remember Hitchen's Razor:

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

My corollary would be:

What is asserted based on scant evidence is highly vulnerable to replacement by a more plausible explanation.

Renae

Hi RMaddy,

Perhaps but I would think another theory would need some sort of proof too.  As far as I know, no such plausible theory has been put forward.  I would suggest more effort has been put into proving that transgender weren't born this way.  Society's treatment of our community up until very recently has consider us just people with mental disorders.  Any change to this has been fought vigorously especially by religious and conservative people and they continue to fight this to this day. 

It's interesting the LGB community for years had to battle the same thing.  There are still people that think you can make someone gay.  As far as I know, there's still no test to determine if someone is or is not LGB, but it seems to be accepted that LGB were born with their sexual orientation.  Probably because all the other theories, didn't work.  So by process of elimination people are believed to be born with their sexual orientation.

Maybe we shouldn't need proof either.  It's who we are, it moderates or removes dysphoria, it makes us happier for the most part and we are no threat to anyone else for being who we are.   

Take care,
Paige

[HughE]

With respect, the Reimer case is, by definition, anecdotal.  We know when gender identity typically solidifies, but we don't know when or why it sometimes doesn't.  There isn't "plenty of evidence" to support any theory of origin.

David Reimer was the "index case" on which the gender neutrality theory was based (the theory that people are born "gender neutral", and learn their gender identity from early childhood experiences). When word got out about how badly wrong the David Reimer case had gone, scientists did studies of other natal male babies who'd been reassigned to female in infancy. Those studies made it abundantly clear that your gender identity is something you're born with, and neither genital surgery nor sex of rearing can change it.

Here's an example:
"Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1421517/

...Eight of the 14 subjects assigned to female sex declared themselves male during the course of this study, whereas the 2 raised as males remained male. Subjects could be grouped according to their stated sexual identity. Five subjects were living as females; three were living with unclear sexual identity, although two of the three had declared themselves male; and eight were living as males, six of whom had reassigned themselves to male sex. All 16 subjects had moderate-to-marked interests and attitudes that were considered typical of males...

Another one:
Psychosexual development in genetic males assigned female: the cloacal exstrophy experience.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15183379

...Studies of 29 children revealed that despite the absence of the typical postnatal and pubertal androgen surges and the presence of female genitalia, all female-assigned subjects displayed a marked male-typical shift in psychosocial and psychosexual development. Nearly half of them have declared themselves male...

Another one:
A 7-year experience of genetic males with severe phallic inadequacy assigned female.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15538277

...All patients demonstrated marked male typical behaviors and interests. Of the 15 female assigned patients 1 died, 1 refused to declare sexual identity or orientation, 1 converted to male before initial evaluation, 1 was reassigned male by the parents and 5 others declared male sexual identity. Thus, of 17 living patients 10 live as males and 6 as females. Of patients 17 years or older only those living as male lived independently. The 4 oldest patients living as male but only 1 patient living as female would discuss sexual orientation-all 5 declared orientation toward females, and 3 of these 4 males had girlfriends or were married...

Remember, these are all children who were male at birth, but surgically reassigned to female during infancy and raised as girls. Despite having a vagina, a female appearance and a female sex of rearing, most of them have adopted a male identity as soon as they were old enough to do so. From these cases and others, it's abundantly clear that your gender identity, like your sexual orientation, is hardwired, not learned.

Almost every transgender person I've met either in person or online who has shared his/her/their story with me describes some degree of an evolving understanding.  I concede that there are exceptions or perhaps even different sub-groups, but the fact that so many of us, particularly trans women, come out relatively late in life seems to beg for a better hypothesis than "born this way".

When I was young, openly transgender people were very rare, and it was something you never heard about.  Furthermore, if you had a male body, the social pressures on you to "act like a man" were immense. As a survival mechanism, I think most of us learned to imitate normal male behaviour from a young age, without even consciously realising that's what we were doing.

From there, it's easy to get stuck in a state of denial that lasts for decades, during which you try to convince everyone around you (and most of all yourself), that you're just an ordinary man. I know, because it happened to me. I can totally understand why there are a lot of late transitioners. Just because transition often happens later in life, it doesn't mean the underlying neurological basis for it wasn't there from the outset.

In the end, it doesn't matter why we are trans.  It's just something that we are.

I disagree, especially since for many of us the culprit appears to be artificial hormones (such as DES), that were given to our pregnant mothers. Although DES itself was pulled of the market long ago, there are other hormones that continue to be used during pregnancy, and good theoretical reasons for thinking that they also could be making people trans.

[rmaddy]

Hi RMaddy,

Perhaps but I would think another theory would need some sort of proof too.  As far as I know, no such plausible theory has been put forward.  I would suggest more effort has been put into proving that transgender weren't born this way.  Society's treatment of our community up until very recently has consider us just people with mental disorders.  Any change to this has been fought vigorously especially by religious and conservative people and they continue to fight this to this day. 

It's interesting the LGB community for years had to battle the same thing.  There are still people that think you can make someone gay.  As far as I know, there's still no test to determine if someone is or is not LGB, but it seems to be accepted that LGB were born with their sexual orientation.  Probably because all the other theories, didn't work.  So by process of elimination people are believed to be born with their sexual orientation.

Maybe we shouldn't need proof either.  It's who we are, it moderates or removes dysphoria, it makes us happier for the most part and we are no threat to anyone else for being who we are.   

Take care,
Paige

You're essentially saying that "born this way" is the default position.  It isn't.  Claiming that something always was offers the incentive of absolution, given that few people would blame a baby.  This, not evidence, is what drives the claim.  A more intellectually honest position is to say that why don't know why or how people become transgender.

You also seem to be saying that accepting that trans people are born this way is a route to lessening dysphoria.  I would counter that self-acceptance and/or shame reduction does not depend on any one particular theory of origin.  It does not matter why you are trans.  It only matters that you are, and that this is ok.