Two Possible Obscure Connections to being Transgender (MTF)

[pamelatransuk]

Now we all know being transgender means our body does not align with our mind and most of us including me also that gender is a completely separate issue to sexual orientation.

However just a couple of obscure points I am wondering about:

1. Some cismales have feminine mannerisms
2. Some cismales have a face that would not look out of place for a girl.

Obviously neither of these are necessarily transgender and are likely not to be but I think it may apply the other way round:

1. Some of us MTFs may have feminine mannerisms subconciously before we realise we are in fact transgender.
2. Some of us MTFs may have to some degree a feminine face before we take any transition action.

Food for thought. Have others considered these aspects? I am inclined to think just an obscure rather than direct connection.

[Phoenix1742]

I've often thought about it - there's a lot we still don't fully understand about genetics and the biology of the body. We don't really understand how the physical and mental and genetic all interact.

For me, I know I have a genetic translocation - part of my #4 is on my Y, and part of my Y is on my #4. Especially since the Y is one of the sex chromosomes, I've wondered if it's somehow related to why I have such a strong female side. It hasn't had any other physical effects, but I dunno, is it related?

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[Kylo]

According to studies I saw, men with more feminine features, narrower or smaller face and jaw and lower amounts of facial/body hair especially are often lower in T than those with more masculine faces. We know the lower the T, the less "masculine" a person's behavior tends to be as well.

It's just another thing related to hormones that complicates the picture a bit since you can also have some more masculine-looking male bodies that belong to MTF, and very feminine-looking FTM as well.

I don't doubt hormones play a role somewhere, but there seems to be more than that involved too. You can be high in T or E and still have the opposite inclinations. Hormones affect some people in terms of how they view themselves, and on some people they don't seem to affect them at all. I can't seem to find a study that hints of a link that takes everything we know about the trans condition into account. Just tenuous links here and there but no big picture yet. 

[Morgan78]

It's an interesting observation, one I've been wondering about myself recently. I'm FTM and have had a more masculine build since puberty. I've worn men's pants for the last few years (long before I admitted to myself and accepted that I'm transgender) simply because they fit me better than women's pants. I have wide, man-shaped hands; longer ring fingers than pointer fingers; and unusually broad shoulders. I grow a visible moustache and a peach fuzz beard if I don't stay on top of plucking them. I know quite a few women with some similar physical traits (particularly the moustache), but not a single one with as many as I do. It makes me wonder if there's a link somewhere.

That's not to say someone needs to have physical features that are typical of the opposite sex to be transgender, but for some of us it might be a contributing factor.

[KathyLauren]

There are a ton of influences that determine which parts of us are masculine and which parts are feminine.  Genetics is an obvious one, but it is not the only one, and it is by no means as definitive as many people believe.  There are also hormonal influences, some of which originate in the genetic material and some of which are influenced by environmental factors.  These factors affect different parts of the body differently, so there are many possible combinations of masculine/feminine characteristics possible in one person.

The obvious combination that is relevant to us is a masculine brain and female genitals, or vice versa, which is pretty much the definition of being trans.  But even that is complicated because there are about half a dozen different areas of the brain that show gender dimorphism, so some parts of the brain can be masculine and other parts feminine.

Then there are various intersex variations of the genitals and reproductive organs, in numerous combinations.

And the various secondary sex characteristics like facial hair, body hair, pubic hair, alopecia, bone structure, etc., can occur in multiple gender combinations.

So we are all a mosaic of masculine and feminine characteristics.  It is actually pretty amazing that some people think there are only two genders!