Evidence for being born TG?

[Princess_Jasmine]

Okay so this is my first post on these forums, which I am so thankful I found! It makes me so happy to find other people going through this just like me. I am a teen and came out to my mom about being transgendered and how I am positive that I was born wrong and I should have been born a girl. I found an amazing gender therapist which me and my mother have been seeing and so far we had blood tests done and a chromosome analysis.

The results of my test, I have around 200 estrogen and about 350 testosterone. Also, on my chromosome analysis, she said that the first strand of mine (the x strand) is twice the normal length for a male, and that the second strand (y chromosome) doesnt have a tail to make the y shape so it looks like another line. My therapist said she would send the results to a specialist for a diagnosis....

My question is, is there evidence to prove transgendered are born this way? Or are there only a small % that can be proven with blood tests, like me. I am so confused! And if this helps at all, I have a well developed male genitalia yet have female characteristics, such as big eyes, feminine lips, small jaw, etc. I am not a hermaphrodite because I dont have a vagina, but is there such thing as a hormonal hermaphrodite or something? And is that even possible? I am so confused

[soldierjane]

Well, transgender and intersex are normally two separate categories although there's some overlap. An intersex person is someone who is born with an unusual chromosomal configuration. I don't know enough to figure out what your results mean, but if they do mean something it'd be that you're intersex probably.
A transgender person is someone who feels that the gender they were born in doesn't make justice to everything they are. A transsexual person is someone who strongly identifies with the sex opposite the one they were born and who feels varying degrees of body dysphoria (feeling alien in one's own body).

These are very basic definitions to convey to you the idea that there's no "required" biological characteristics to be transgender.

Welcome to the forums, by the way

[Beyond]

Okay so this is my first post on these forums, which I am so thankful I found! It makes me so happy to find other people going through this just like me. I am a teen and came out to my mom about being transgendered and how I am positive that I was born wrong and I should have been born a girl. I found an amazing gender therapist which me and my mother have been seeing and so far we had blood tests done and a chromosome analysis.

The results of my test, I have around 200 estrogen and about 350 testosterone. Also, on my chromosome analysis, she said that the first strand of mine (the x strand) is twice the normal length for a male, and that the second strand (y chromosome) doesnt have a tail to make the y shape so it looks like another line. My therapist said she would send the results to a specialist for a diagnosis....

My question is, is there evidence to prove transgendered are born this way? Or are there only a small % that can be proven with blood tests, like me. I am so confused! And if this helps at all, I have a well developed male genitalia yet have female characteristics, such as big eyes, feminine lips, small jaw, etc. I am not a hermaphrodite because I dont have a vagina, but is there such thing as a hormonal hermaphrodite or something? And is that even possible? I am so confused

My suggestion to this and other similar threads is:

Does it make any difference?  No, it doesn't because this is something you feel.  You transition because you feel this way, not because of some test.

At present there are no definitive tests.  There are interesting sudies out there, but I for one hope they never come up with a test.  Why?  Because I don't think there is any one cause for transsexuality.  So any test would invariably leave many people out.

Forget the tests, go with your feelings.




I was going to leave this part out..... but

X chromosomes are always much larger than the Y's.  Y's are always missing a leg, that's what makes them Y's.  Best to wait for a formal analysis before jumping to any conclusions.

[Kim]

Hi Princess,
  Firstly, I have to say I understand a need to know. I was tested and found to be IS without setting out to do so. I wore nylons for intimacy reasons with my wife but always felt there was a woman in me. I never dressed more than just nylons when we went to bed though. My wife and I became puzzled about cramps I was suffering. The first few times it happened we didn't become alarmed, but after a while we did. It was very often and continuous over time ( lasts anywhere from a few hours to a couple days then fade out and disappear). We went to our doctor and he did an MRI to see if there was any ' growth' in my abdoman to account for the cramps. He called me back for another appointment and put me through a battery of tests (saliva, blood, another MRI, x-rays) without telling us why. Then we went to him for the follow up. When we walked in my wife told him we thought I was TS and wondered if the stress from my family was causing this. He smiled and said the only way I am TS is if I was f2m. Then he told us the results. I have lived and was raised as a male, but I seem to have more female parts than I do male parts. This explained a lot of mysteries my wife and I were trying to solve about my body. In this way I understand a need to know.(my cramps are my normal period by the way)
    However, on the other side I learned quickly labels suck and make things worse for us. I am woman and that is it. My wife is happy and is not going anywhere (her words not mine). In the same idea, do not label her a lesbian. She knows she loves a woman and doesn't mind being intimate with me, but she prefers if people call us life partners, or the happy couple. But she can spit teeth when you label us lesbians. We just feel labels are what keeps groups segregated.
      So yes it wouldn't hurt to know in that some things that you may not understand about yourself might get explained, just don't get hung up on having to label yourself. It's an ever so easy trap to fall into. I almost did. I took a break from the forums for that reason. The more I read and heard the labels the more I leaned to using them. I found myself after a break and now stay clear of using them. If your brain tells you beyond a doubt that you are woman then you are woman. It doesn't matter if you are TS woman or IS woman, you are just woman and that's it.
                                  Good luck,
                                          Kim   

[Princess_Jasmine]

I really appreciate all of your replies, and especially since all of you  highlight a different point of view. The reason I am wanting some type of proof is not to assure my own self that I am TG, but to give my parents some type of factual evidence that can't be denied so that I won't be kicked out of their lives forever. I just want to keep my family is I guess what I'm trying to say, and I know that if there is something out there that can prove we are born this way, then maybe my parents wont blame me and say I am doing this because of my own decision...Im just a young girl who is not ready to be separated from her family and I dont think ill ever be...