Mental Conditioning

[katy19]

i was speaking to my counselor the other day and we were talking about my past and how i was raised.  I was the youngest of 3, i was the only boy and my two older siblings were my sisters.  I had a somewhat dominant mother and a passive father.  I was kind of the one looked down on as the one who needed protection and advice from everyone esle.  My counselor suggested that maybe this upbringing has a bit to do with why i want to transition.  That perhaps i was raised to believe that to be strong and have an opinion was to be female.  I don't disregard the idea by any means, i wouldn't be suprised if it had a bit of an influence,  but i don't think it was a very major influence but who knows.  all in all this discussion really made me thing.  I wonder how much someone should allow mental conditioning to influence their lives.  Obviously the way parents raise their children has a certain amount of influence on the outcome of the children to an extent, but once the child is on his/her own they make their own choices.  But i think upbringing is a hard barrier to break as far as personal decisions go.   

[christine01803]

I have to say I agree with you.  My upbringing certainly has a lot to do with my GID.  I was the youngest of six and my mother was absolutely in charge.  I know that I have to make my own choices now but who you are now has a lot to do with the road you traveled to get here.

[Kaelin]

Even if your assigned gender is correct, GID can still creep up.  While personal factors can play a role, society (including parents) can set up rules/norms/mores/laws that tend to condition certain responses, and if a particular person violates these standards, then that person is subject to adverse treatment that can condition dysfunctional feelings and behavior.

As for whether "mental conditioning" is a good thing, I would say it depends on the behavior or feeling that is being conditioned.  The idea that hard work tends to be productive is a useful idea to condition, because it helps you remain motivated.  The insistence idea that females are stronger than men, however, is counterproductive, just as the reverse is; the idea discourages men (just as the alternative does to women) from working as hard as they should (or at least as much as their counterparts) to develop and demonstrate their strength.

If you want to look at conditioning that is productive, you should look to factors that you can control and decide what you want to do with them.  On the other hand, one should be wary of the "effect" of other factors, because many such pairings (such as gender and strength) lack a direct cause-and-effect relationship, the methodology can be flawed, and such pairings are not absolute truths (even if there is a cause-effect relationship).

To determine who you really are, you should try to ignore social roles (including family roles) and try to evaluate yourself on a more basic level.  I don't know how this really works, but one approach is to ask yourself how you feel about your boy-bits.  Does it seem reasonable for them to be a part of you (whether you are ashamed of, neutral to, or proud of them), or do they seem to be more like a mistake?

It is perfectly acceptable for you to be a man even if you violate 20%, 55%, or even 100% of social norms/stereotypes for a man, so do not be ruled by society's or your family's idea of what a man is supposed to be.  Instead, you need to determine what a person should be, and do your best to be that kind of person, while still embracing the particular factors that make you unique.

[Nicky]

Is how you were raised all that relevant here? I think we have enough examples of transgendered people that were raised in stable 'normal' homes, no abuse, no traumatic events, happy homes, and brothers and sisters that turned out 'normal', to debunk the theory that we learnt to be the way we are. 

But I guess it comes down to the whole nature nurture debate. I'm in the nature camp i.e. you are born with some kind of ->-bleeped-<-. But I do believe how you were raised does influence how this expresses itself and how well you deal with it.

Perhaps if you transition you might end up a woman like your mum, strong and dominant. That would seem a much more logical result of your upbringing to me.

[imaz]

I'm with Nicky in the Nature camp. My upbringing should have made me the most macho man on the planet, it failed...
Post Merge: May 05, 2009, 04:30:30 PM

Perhaps if you transition you might end up a woman like your mum, strong and dominant. That would seem a much more logical result of your upbringing to me.

That's what happened to me three times. Only this last year have I realised the reasons behind the bad mistakes I made there...

[findingreason]

I think it is possible that the conditioning you got when growing can have an effect on you. I had a pretty controlling mother that liked to put down men, or say that things in a way that was demeaning of them. Myself being the sensitive child, I was under huge influence of other people in my life; namely them for a good long while. I always had an inferiority complex, something of which is taking many years to debunk, and I deal with to this day.

When I see women coming back at men for all the idiots out there that put them down in several years of history, I can understand why, but all I see is a rebound waiting to happen, only the other way around again. So, just as Kaelin said, it is counterproductive what is happening.

But working around to what Nicky said, the nature bit about it is also true too. For one, I've known a few guys that got the same bullcrap that I received....but did it demean them for being a man? Hell no. Another member I was talking to here on Susan's asked me the question that why would such stuff being affecting me, and you too, so if it weren't for it being something inside you that was being rattled by the fact of what your upbringing was doing.

Just a thought on the whole thing.

[Janet_Girl]

I was raised in a 'normal' home of the 50s.  Dad worked, Mom was a housewife.  They met during the war.  I am an only child with may or may not have any bearings.  Mom raised me with the female side of things.  Housecleaning, cooking etc.  Dad did the guy side.  Mow lawn, clean garage, etc.


Janet

[nathan]

Very interesting thread, katy.  I've always kinda wondered what role my upbringing played in my own TG feelings.  Nicky and Kaelin both brought up some good points as well, and for the most part mimic what I would've said.  This would be a great thing to bring up with my shrink later, so consider the thread bookmarked. 

[Just Kate]

I recognize the effect of my cognitive processes on the development of my GID.  While I believe that there is a definitive biological predisposition (nature), I believe that environment and our own cognitions can influence how and if our GID expresses itself.

For me personally, I exhibited very feminine tendencies for which I was punished by society for having.  As a child, as a result of the persecution, I believe I developed the notion that I MUST be female because my actions were more in line with what was an acceptable female norm and being female would allow me to act more naturally and thus be myself.  Believing this to be impossible however, I attempted to be more masculine and act against my nature which only made my GID worsen.  I believe this disconnect between my natural feminine tendencies and societal expectations for my gender are what provoked me to believe that I should transition - in order to be what I perceived to be myself.

So yes, I believe nurture can have a profound effect so long as there is an existing biological inclination toward GID to start with.

[MasterAsh]

So yes, I believe nurture can have a profound effect so long as there is an existing biological inclination toward GID to start with.

And this is where I'm having difficulty: attempting to define in no uncertain terms who I am and how I feel.

I've had (and still have) influential female and feminine positive examples in my life. I've had (and once again still have) influential male and masculine negative examples in my life. I was raised by a loving, nurturing mother and an angry, self-loathing father. Though on top of it all, I live in the US, where everyone, regardless of gender (for the most part), is encouraged to be anything. Then comes the biological angle, of which little seems proven (at least to the best of my knowledge).

I'm amazed how any of us convey (and convince those "who matter" of) who we feel we are and why we want what we do. This ambiguity makes me long for a more strictly structured (almost posted "binary") world if only for the solace of "unquestionable" definition.

[stacyB]

I always identified with being female, and my upbringing didnt so much help define me, but rather helped to confuse and frustrate me. Growing up as a boomer we were indoctrinated from birth how boys and girls are supposed to behave and act. If we deviated from the norm we would be punished for that by being ridiculed and ostracized.

At best we develop a healthy rebellion and hopefully positive sense of identity, even if that identity does not match our biological gender. At worst, we become insecure and  start to believe we are sick and/or damaged, and then suffer terribly trying to hide, justify and even correct this "abhorrent" behavior. For myself, I never doubted my identity, but I grew to be ashamed of it and even hated it for a time. Self worth and self esteem suffers for it too.

There is no doubt that mental conditioning can have an effect in how we turn out. But I doubt it will change who we are or who we are to become. You cant change a persons sexual orientation, and by the same token, you cant change a transgendered person's identity.

[Ms.Behavin]

well I had a "normal childhood, in that my parents tried to raise a boy, even when I was sneeking off and playing with the next door girls dolls at age 5.  My parents did everything to make me think I was a boy and I tried it for a while, but it NEVER EVER felt right.

So for me I always knew I was a girl inside, but kept it hidden for just a very long time.

Beni