I am female, so why is my body male?

[BlueStar]

@HughE ,

Thank you for your thought-provoking comment. It's amazing how the scientific understanding of human development has become so much more sophisticated during my lifetime. Obviously, it's not the simple story that we were taught in high school anymore. Thanks for describing it so well.

I was born in the mid-50's. My mother was at the end of her child-bearing years, thus significantly older than most women when they give birth. My parents and their friends are long deceased, so the details of what happened back then are lost in time. If there was a story to tell - anything unusual about my early development - I don't think they would have told me; that wasn't the kind of thing they were particularly open about. But it did appear to me that I was the last of the couple hundred boys in my high school class to go through puberty. Even then, it seems to have taken a mysterious prescription to kick it off.

If being transgender is a flaw- an accident of biology- then maybe it was actually a fortuitous one for me. I like to think that living life as a transwoman, while awkward and uncomfortable, has put me in a unique position to see and to blend the best male and female qualities, and to come up with something better than each alone often experiences.

That said, I'm still anxious to transition!

<edited to fix typo>

[Tessa James]

Hello and welcome Beth,

I love your succinct and well written introduction that obviously resonates with more than a few of us.  I also want to add a bit to your question.  Why is being female not the same as being feminine?  I know myself to be a girl and female person.  We who recognize diversity as reality know some cis men who seem to exhibit the most feminine of expression or traits!

Being part of the queer community all my life there are any number of gay men I know that can do drag or act and appear far more feminine than some of us in trans world.  They remain men.  Fascinating and fun and sometimes perplexing too.  What is being female and what is feminine?  We are some of the best explorers i can imagine for answering such questions......

[Moonflower]

Why is being female not the same as being feminine?
What is being female and what is feminine?

Hi Tessa. I am intrigued by what you wrote, so I couldn't resist showing up at my sweetheart's thread to share my thoughts about the questions that you ask. May I explore them with you and others here?

My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that I am a female who is often not feminine, meaning that I often don't meet my understanding of society's expectations of me. And sometimes I do. I can choose to be feminine or not, but I always feel like I am a female, and expect others to perceive me as female. As I faced the questions that Beth was asking about herself regarding her identity, I had similar questions about my self, and concluded that I am a female. When I look in a mirror, I see a woman. When I close my eyes, I feel like a woman. When I fill out a form, I feel honest when I state that I am a woman. My female body parts all seem to fit me well, and I feel like I belong in them (even though my feet are too big, my arms are too long, my nails break too easily... but I digress).

My expressions of my feminine or non-feminine self vary widely. If I could take an "average reading", it might be near the middle of a feminine to masculine spectrum, but I still see myself as a female, so I would probably land a little on the female side of the middle. I attribute most of my androgyny to the freedom that women currently have for expressing ourselves in many ways that men are not allowed, such as wearing business pant suits to evening gowns to overalls; heels to flats; makeup or not; enjoying every color of the rainbow; reading romance novels to engineering textbooks; build muscles or curves... In my geographic location, and in the culture that is surrounding me, I can be feminine or masculine, and no one accuses me of fooling them, unlike men. I can even use a Men's Room when the line is too long for the Ladies' Room, and no one gets upset. I feel so privileged as a woman.

So, what do I mean when I use the word "feminine"? I hate to say it, but it might be entirely dependent on my understanding of what other people expect of a female, which they would not allow for a male. Examples include, but are not limited to evening gowns, heels, makeup, certain colors, certain books, and certain physical characteristics. So, I think that "feminine" is a sociological term. I can't find any meaning for it in my head right now that comes from within me. I can't think of anything that makes me feel more or less like a female. Simply, I think that "feminine" is dictated by our culture's demands from females, as opposed to what it demands from our males.

So, Tessa, I seem to be concluding that "female" comes from within me, and "feminine" comes from outside of me. If this is the case, then I'm not surprised that you and I know some men who appear far more feminine than many cis or trans women, but they remain men. After all, differences between members of a group of people are far greater than the differences between "normal" representatives.

On the other hand, my dear Beth (aka BlueStar) feels more honest when she is expressing her feminine characteristics. So, does "feminine" have some intrinsic power? Is society all wrong (or all right) about what it defines as feminine? Do feminine "things" put us in touch with our female selves? Of course we say a resounding, "Yes!" No?

[pamelatransuk]

It goes back to before you were even born.

There's a popular misconception that the sex you develop as is determined by X and Y chromosomes. In fact, all being XX or XY does is determine whether you develop ovaries or testicles, everything from that point forward is driven by hormones. More specifically, in the presence of testicular hormones, a foetus develops as male. In the absence of those hormones, it develops as female instead (ovarian hormones aren't actually necessary for female development to occur, female development is what always happens if there are no testicular hormones present). This is easily demonstrated by a condition called Swyer's syndrome, in which the testicles of a genetically male (XY) foetus fail to develop. People with the condition look female at birth, and they grow up to look and behave just like ordinary women. Often, the condition isn't even spotted until, as teenagers, they fail to start menstruating.

The genitals undergo their development from week 7 to week 12 after conception, so by the end of week 12, you already have male or female genitals, something which can no longer change (unless you have GRS later in life of course!). The brain is different though. The early stages of brain development involve very rapid cell division (to produce the enormous numbers of cells that will ultimately make up the brain), and the migration of those cells to where their final place in the brain will be (which is often far distant from where they formed). Those early steps don't appear to have any major sex differences, so hormones during that part of brain development don't make any difference to the eventual sex of the brain.

By about week 16, the very first cells have reached their final position in the brain. Once in position, they start to grow the nerve axons that will permanently connect them to the other brain cells they're supposed to be interacting with. More and more cells reach their final position and begin to grow their permanent connections to other cells, and by week 21, the cell migration stage of brain development is over, and the main task (ongoing for the remainder of prenatal development) is the growth of nerve axons and dendrites (the "wires" that connect up brain cells), and synaptogenesis, or creating the junctions between those wires. During that time, a process of programmed cell death takes place as well, in which brain cells surplus to requirements are removed. This also appears to be the time when hormones have the biggest impact in determining the sex of your brain, so I'm guessing that there's a male way and a female way of connecting up brain tissue, which are subtly different at the microscopic level. It may be that different cells are removed during the programmed cell death stage if high levels of testosterone are present (testosterone is the main testicular hormone that drives male development), than if there's little or no testosterone there.

So, what appears to make people MTF transgender is that their testicles developed as normal and, to begin with, were producing enough testosterone for male genital development to occur. However, things then went south, and their testosterone production slowed or stopped altogether, so that during the crucial week 16 to birth period for determining whether the brain gets wired up along male or female lines, there wasn't enough testosterone present for the brain to be wired up as male. Instead, it got the patterning that happens by default, the female kind.

As to what can cause testosterone production to go wrong, any of the conventional genetic causes of intersex can. However, so can environmental factors, for instance exposure to external estrogens. Unfortunately, doctors didn't realise this, and for several decades during the mid 20th century, they were giving pregnant women high doses of an artificial estrogen called DES, a drug which acts as a chemical castration agent in men. Many of us in the older age bracket either know or suspect we were exposed to that drug. My own view is that the effect probably isn't limited to just estrogens though, and any hormones or other drugs that interfere with testosterone production in adult men will, if they're administered during pregnancy, run the risk of producing MTF transgender babies. This is a hugely controversial thing to say of course, because an awful lot of hormones and other drugs used in medicine do interfere with testosterone production!

Anyway, hopefully that answers your question. You actually are the person you perceive yourself to be, someone whose body developed along male lines, but whose brain developed along female lines instead.

Thank you Hugh for such a detailed scientific explanation.

I am sure you are correct in your summary both on the general reason for being born transgender (para 2-5) and on the subject of DES (para 6).

Hugs

Pamela

[pamelatransuk]

@HughE ,

Thank you for your thought-provoking comment. It's amazing how the scientific understanding of human development has become so much more sophisticated during my lifetime. Obviously, it's not the simple story that we were taught in high school anymore. Thanks for describing it so well.

I was born in the mid-50's. My mother was at the end of her child-bearing years, thus significantly older than most women when they give birth. My parents and their friends are long deceased, so the details of what happened back then are lost in time. If there was a story to tell - anything unusual about my early development - I don't think they would have told me; that wasn't the kind of thing they were particularly open about. But it did appear to me that I was the last of the couple hundred boys in my high school class to go through puberty. Even then, it seems to have taken a mysterious prescription to kick it off.

If being transgender is a flaw- an accident of biology- then maybe it was actually a fortuitous one for me. I like to think that living life as a transwoman, while awkward and uncomfortable, has put me in a unique position to see and to blend the best male and female qualities, and to come up with something better than each alone often experiences.

That said, I'm still anxious to transition!

<edited to fix typo>

Hello again BlueStar

We have yet more in common.

1. My mother gave birth to me aged 33.

2. I was born in 1955.

3. I was late going through puberty which I quite frankly dreaded before and during it.

4. My mother and father never told me anything about my birth apart from being a couple of days late.

My mother regularly told me that I had told her I wished to a girl aged 2 in 1957 which I cannot remember saying as too young. However I do remember telling my grandmother I wished to a girl aged 4 in 1959!

Hugs to you Beth and to Moonstar

Pamela

[BlueStar]

@Tessa ,

I've never thought there was any great correlation between female (the physical sex) and femininity (the gender). I wouldn't be surprised if there is less correlation there than there is between males and masculinity. But these are treacherous waters for me to be wading in, never having thought too deeply about the precise definitions of all of these terms.

I've always thought that our society allows women a much wider range of expression than it does men, but I suppose that's relative to what qualities one wants to express; trans men, for instance, might not agree with me. I've often marveled at the many women who, compared to almost all of the men that I've known, seem to have wonderful, if not stunning skills of communication and expression. To my eyes, their skills along these lines, have often approached the genius level.

But there are so many different kinds of talents people can have. So I'm not surprised there are men, not themselves trans, who can express feminine qualities as perfectly as you describe. Maybe one thing that says is that it takes a very special combination of biological factors to make a transwoman.

Beth
<edited to fix typos>

[BlueStar]

@pamelatransuk ,

I've been meaning to thank you for your additions to this thread, and I've set aside today for that purpose. As my trans consciousness ascends, communication is becoming more and more important to me.

I thought that your November 23^rd post, here, very nicely clarified what I was trying to say in my post. You made my points better than I did, I think. Thank you. On to your November 25^th post: if my parents were still alive, I'd love to ask them what they saw. I'm guessing that they saw something: my mother seemed concerned, and my father downright alarmed, by my lackluster male development.

I've been thinking: suppose I had been born with my physical sex and gender both female. I wonder if I would have understood and appreciated that opportunity - to enjoy being a feminine woman, to make an art out of it - as that life unfolded? Would I have taken full advantage of that time to express my feminine qualities... those qualities that, from my current vantage point, I value so much? Or would I have taken it for granted and wasted the experience?

Would I have been a kind woman, one who seeks a universal kind of love and who strives for higher consciousness? Or would I have been a petty and hurtful woman, like some I've seen over the years?

Would I have simply gone with the flow - enjoying being a housewife with no education beyond high school? As far as I know, that's how life turned out for most of my female high school classmates. Or would I have developed my love for mathematics and science, which is the direction that my life took, if only because of the opportunities that were available to me as a male?

I have a metaphysical bent to my personality, which leads me to wonder if this experience as a male, while uncomfortable for me, was just what my soul needed. It has led me into two exciting and rewarding careers, both of which required higher education and a healthy degree of self assertiveness. Perhaps in the future, in a female body (however that comes about - transition in this lifetime, or reincarnation into another), this time as a male will help it to succeed beyond my wildest expectations: feminine, but not caustic or powerless; masculine, but not dull or oppressive. That is, a female life that balances the best qualities of both genders.

Beth

[pamelatransuk]

Hello again Beth

Thank you for your kind words.

Now here I can see a difference between our lives. Certainly in our parents generation (mine were born in 1920s) the norm was such that only the husband worked and the wife stayed at home as did my mum. However when I was 18 in 1973, it was becoming customary for the wife to work aswell and to have just as a much a right to a career as a man. Therefore if I had been born a girl as I have always wished and reached adulthood in 1970s, I believe I would still have had no desire to be a housewife but at least to find a job. I was never ambitious and spent my career in taxation finishing in middle management. I am the average person in this respect; I had some happy years and some unhappy years. I took early retirement in 2013 to look after my mum; she sadly passed away in 2015.

However I agree with everything else you state. I would have looked forward to adulthood as a woman instead of dreading it. I would have been more sociable. I probably would have still been a private person but not reclusive. I would not have had so much bitterness and aggression due to GD. I would have been able to appreciate emotions whereas I spent most of my life just existing and wishing my life away. This includes a willingness both to give and to receive love. Yes I think we would all like to turn the clock back if we could and be born in the correct gender but alas that is not possible.

At least we both do not have to live our entire lives as the wrong gender and we may now look forward to life as a woman. I am now 9 months HRT and will publicly transition in 2019.

I wish you every success on your transition journey.

Hugs

Pamela

[BlueStar]

@pamelatransuk ,

I grew up on a farm deep in the country. I think very few people there had any education beyond high school. The young men graduated and usually went right on to jobs in the local mills, marrying their high school sweethearts. Only a very few went on to college. It wasn't the culture. Almost all of those who did, I believe, were from nearby villages: children of doctors, lawyers, or local mill management. I think that era was only just beginning to come to an end, and going off to college was becoming more commonplace, as I was reaching adulthood.


I would like to offer my condolences to you on your mother passing away. My mother's passing was a terrible loss for me. It still is, though it's been so many years now.


And thanks for the encouragement regarding my trans journey. I'm in a lull, waiting for counseling, which is coming in a few weeks. My counselor is a transman - the first other transperson I will have ever met in person. I'm curious to find out if we look at each other with deep empathy or complete incomprehension - each of us born with (and rejecting) what the other values so dearly. I expect that it will be the former.


And a disclaimer that I meant to put in my last post: that I love math does not imply that I'm particularly good at it! But I do work at it a bit every day.

Beth

[pamelatransuk]

Many thanks for your kind words, Beth, and I offer you my condolences for the loss of your mother.

Pamela

[Anjanette Miranda]

Hi Beth
Glad your are here at Susan's place where the cool ladies hang out.
I just got here myself and sure am happy I found Susan's.
Your S/O is a wonderful caring person you can see it in all her posts. She loves you very very much!
Hope we become good friends on S/P.

Hugs AJ

[BlueStar]

@Moni ,

Thanks for your recent posts on this thread. In one of them, you mentioned that you hoped I would soon begin to live my authentic life. On that note, Moonflower took me Christmas shopping a few days ago. We found a beautiful dress, which I love, and which fit well. Then, when we came home, she did my face and nails. I have always liked wearing dresses, but I never thought I'd care about cosmetics - a bit of a bother for someone like me, who, deep down, is a bit of a slob. But I'm growing to really enjoy them. I love the nail polish, especially; when I'm out and about, I feel like a piece of living art. In any case, this is me, and it brings me peace.

You also mentioned being paired up with the man when a hetero couple comes to visit. That's familiar, for sure, and it never plays out very well. In fact, it usually goes over with a big thud. I'm definitely becoming more social as my transition progresses, and I've seen my wife raise her eyebrows in surprise several times now. But I doubt I'll ever be a social butterfly.

Beth

[Beverly Anne]

My experience is similar to yours, BlueStar. I had lived a dual life since childhood, feeling comfortably female and being that in private, and uncomfortably pretending to be male in the expected societal role. I thought of myself as an actor, or actress in this case, playing the role of my life. Because I looked like a girl and didn't experience normal male puberty, my teenage years were marred by verbal and physical abuse and depression. Life is so much easier and more fulfilling being my real self all the time and dumping the male facade. Glad to know a kindred spirit.

[LizK]

Moni,

Thanks for your recent posts on this thread. In one of them, you mentioned that you hoped I soon began to live my authentic life. On that note, Moonflower took me Christmas shopping a few days ago. We found a beautiful dress, which I love, and which fit. Then, when we came home, she did my face and nails. I have always liked wearing dresses, but I never thought I'd care about cosmetics - a bit of a bother for someone like me, who, deep down, is a bit of a slob. But I'm growing to really enjoy them. I love the nail polish, especially; when I'm out and about, I feel like a piece of living art. In any case, this is me, and it brings me peace.

You also mentioned being paired up with the man when a hetero couple comes to visit. That's familiar, for sure, and it never plays out very well. It always goes over with a big thud. I'm definitely becoming more social as my transition progresses, and I've seen my wife raise her eyebrows in surprise several times now, but I doubt I'll ever be a social butterfly.

Beth

Hi Beth I have been reading your thread since you started, as well as your partners and have to say you are both amazing people. it was heartening to read of your escapades in shopping and especially the encouragement you are receiving from your biggest supporter.

I probably fell into the slob category myself...mainly because I had no interest in my appearance at all...I didn't care. That has all changed and I love to wear nice clothes, makeup and especially jewellery I would not even look in a jewellers window as it used to break my heart that I could never have the pretty things I saw.


Enjoy the experience and I encourage you to explore your feelings this is a time of learning, renewal and doing,

Take care

Liz

[pamelatransuk]

Hello again BlueStar

Hugs to you Beth and to Moonstar

Pamela

I apologise to you both for my mistake and I correct accordingly:

Hugs to you Beth and to Moonflower.

Pamela

[Moonflower]

I apologise to you both for my mistake and I correct accordingly:

Hugs to you Beth and to Moonflower.

Pamela

No problem. The hug for Moonstar got to me without any notice of being misaddressed.

Thanks and hugs,
Grace

[BlueStar]

@Beverly Anne

Thank you for your post and for telling me something of your story. The last few lines you wrote are ringing so true to me:

Life is so much easier and more fulfilling being my real self all the time and dumping the male facade. Glad to know a kindred spirit.

It leads me to tell this story... I had my annual physical exam recently, which meant of course that I had to have blood drawn. I decided not to remove my nail polish before the blood draw, which would mean that the nurse would see my painted nails. I was OK with that.

It wasn't until I was sitting down in the chair, and the nurse - a rather stern faced young woman - was approaching with the syringe, that it occurred to me that maybe this wasn't the best time or place to have tried this out. But, much to my surprise, when she saw my fingernails, her face softened. She seemed disarmed - much more relaxed than I'd ever seen her before. For the rest of the time I was with her, she spoke to me with surprising kindness and respect.

It was a completely different story, though, when I got back into the waiting room. There sat a man, a little older than I, maybe in his 70's. I hadn't put my gloves back on yet and he immediately caught sight of my painted nails. I saw him gawking at me, from the corner of my eye, the entire time I was crossing the room. From the look on his face, it was clear to me that he considered me to be an utter abomination. He seemed to have lost his ability to control himself - unable to stop gawking and unable to hide his contempt. (Hopefully, after that encounter, he'll handle his next meeting with a transwoman a little better!)

I think the man represented the past - what attitudes were like, here, when I was a child. Those were the days when I first wanted to be female but didn't dare speak of it to anyone. I think the nurse represented the softening of those attitudes - how younger people, at least, are beginning to make a place in their world for transpersons like us.

I'm looking forward to hearing more of your story,
Beth

[BlueStar]

I probably fell into the slob category myself...mainly because I had no interest in my appearance at all...I didn't care. That has all changed and I love to wear nice clothes, makeup and especially jewellery I would not even look in a jewellers window as it used to break my heart that I could never have the pretty things I saw.

@LizK ,

The other day my wife bought me a pretty little hair clip. It's actually not meant for an adult, she says, but even so, it's a beautiful thing to me. Maybe this seems strange, even to some other transpersons, but I felt a deep sense of healing and inner peace when I put it on, completely out of proportion to the cost of the gift.

As we continued shopping, it occurred to me that if I'd always been free to wear the clothes, accessories and colors that were beautiful to me, they would have always come the women's side of the stores. I would never have set foot in men's departments; nothing there has ever appealed to me.  And I would have taken great pleasure in appearing in these beautiful things. That probably explains the lack of interest that I'd taken in my appearance, prior to beginning transition.

When I decided to transition, I thought that, being a fully mature man, I'd transition into a fully mature woman; I wouldn't be the kind to get excited about nail polish and hair clips. Wrong again! I do need to enjoy these things (for awhile, at least).

Beth

[Maid Marion]

@LizK ,

The other day my wife bought me a pretty little hair clip. It's actually not meant for an adult, she says, but even so, to me, it's a beautiful thing. Maybe this seems strange, even to many other transpersons, but I felt a deep sense of healing and inner peace when I put it on, completely out of proportion to the cost of the gift. Beth

It is the priceless acceptance that it represents.

[HappyMoni]

Beth,
   My partner has been telling me I was a teenage girl for the last two years. I am now up to my early twenties in her estimation. I used to be able to get ready and be out of the house in 5 minutes. Now, lol, it is do my hair, do my skin care regiment, put on make up, pick out my clothes, yikes, it gets involved. I usually don't mind it. Don't be surprised if you do a revisiting of things you missed. You may also find yourself being that social butterfly more. Actually, being on Susan's has helped me be more social. You are going to surprise yourself in many ways, I think.
   Who is this BlueMoon you speak of? Sounds like a drink! lol
Moni
   Wow my 3000th post. See how social you can get?