Cross-gender identity and expression is as old as humanity. In different societies, it has had different implications. I can't credibly speculate on how my life would have been in a different culture, and it's hard for me to believe the speculation of others. Sure, I have always thought that the bits didn't match, but if I had never been forced to live as a boy, if I had known from the day I became aware of gender that I could live in the gender that felt right rather than the one everyone else assumed was right -- would I have cared all that much? I just don't know.
Conversely, imagine a time years hence after the development of some stem-cell based therapy that can give you the bits that match your gender -- fully functional, no dilation needed, none of the compromises the guys have to make. Those privileged ones who could pull it off might very well wonder how life was worth living back in the "bad old days" of 2009 given the limited options. What looks like an impossible burden sometimes looks that way because you never expected you would have to carry it.
So, to answer the question -- yes, I absolutely think that western culture (the one that dominates the world, led by America and Europe), or whatever culture you grow up in, strongly influences how you respond to your gender mismatch, and the way we transition is a response specifically to the the cultural environment in which that mismatch becomes the major problem that it is, that we call GID.
Post Merge: June 12, 2009, 01:58:12 AM
I think trans women in Iraq (I don't want to say "transsexual" or "transgendered" because those are so specifically Western constructs) prove my point: given the risks they take to live as women, can anyone deny that their dysphoria is milder? And yet, many seem to think life is worth living -- because they keep on living it -- despite no chance that they'll ever be able to get SRS.
