Hmm... well, okay. Here are a few of my thoughts.
I should state beforehand though that I have about as much experience with transgender/transsexuality issues, at least in terms of the wider world, as Alan does. All I can do is speak about my personal thoughts and experiences as they relate to me. I don't presume to speak for anyone else.
Believe it or not, the idea of my mother being too involved in my life has actually crossed my mind more than a few times. Heck, I've considered every possibility. I was raised by my mother pretty much singlehandedly and didn't have what you could say was a 'father figure'. He left when I was six.
Did I want to play with dolls and other things that could be considered 'girly'? No. But that was largely down to the fact that I never had the choice. I had, at the time, two brothers... my mother had to raise three sons. So everything of a toy nature in the house was geared towards boys. It had to be.
However, just because they were there, that doesn't mean I played with them, either. I actually preferred to sit at the side and watch my brothers play with the toys, wondering how they derived so much amusement and enjoyment from them.
I don't think the maternal involvement had anything to do with how I felt then, or feel now. For one thing, my brother is the most masculine person you could ever hope to meet. Army boxing champion, drinks like a fish, expecting a child with his wife, completely closed minded about everything that isn't black and white. He brags about his manhood, takes pride in being an alpha male. My other brother, before he died, was much the same. Yet we all had exactly the same upbringing. If anything, they had even less of a male involvement since my youngest brother was 2 years old when my father left.
So, in my case, I don't think that theory holds any water whatsoever.
If I'm honest, I didn't really start noticing the way I felt until I was in my teens, going through puberty. Up until then I'd felt... withdrawn, distant, apathetic I guess. Somehow separate from the people around me. But I had no idea why. Gender didn't even cross my mind. I never saw myself as a girl, or a boy. I was just... an 'it'.
But when things started changing, I knew something was wrong. It wasn't so much that I looked at all the girls around me and wondered why I wasn't growing the same way they were... it was more internal, I guess. Just an inner knowledge that it wasn't right, that my body wasn't the way it was supposed to be.
That's kinda how it's been my whole life. It's not really a case of comparing myself to other women and thinking "I want to be one of those". I don't want to be anything. I know I already am, I just have to get the outer me matching the inner me that's always been there.
In my case, the 'why does it happen' isn't important. At least... it doesn't matter. If you're interested in transgender/transsexuality and want to know more then there's a good chance that you've already read up on the tentative 'causes' of it. Biological, psychological... *shrugs* in my opinion it amounts to the same thing. And my sense of self is strong enough to the point where I neither want nor have to find out why I am the way I am, because I don't feel I have to 'prove' it to anyone.
I just am. Period. How I got here... doesn't matter. To me, at least.
It's instinct. The same way you crave food when you're hungry... or water when you're thirsty... it's a need to be myself, who I see myself as in my mind. And that hunger, that thirst for unity of body and mind gets stronger and stronger as time passes.
I doubt much of that was helpful to you, and for that I apologise. I think each person's experiences are individual to them, and there isn't really a set formula for what makes one person tick one box and one person tick another. But... all I can really say with any degree of surety is that the feeling of being female is far, far, far deeper and all-pervading than any external influence could ever have.
