Male Sense of Direction - Will it change?

[melissa42013]

So I was discussing with a TG friend today how we both can navigate by a innate sense of direction while our wives are lost without GPS. I know this is a common male trait.

I am interested in hearing from other girls if they lost this ability with HRT and from the guys if they gained it on T.

I was also wondering about spacial reasoning. I have the ability to manipulate, zoom, and deconstruct just about anything I see at any time in my brain. I know other guys that can do the same. Did anyone loose or gain this train in the process of HRT?

I will take whatever HRT has to offer me but am curious.

-M

[Wraith]

I'm not on T but I have those male brained traits that you speak of. I can turn and manipulate things accurately in 3d in my head(which includes navigation), am very good at appraising distance, measurements and alignment, spotting patterns etc. While I'm usually quite bad at the typical female brained traits. I'm diagnosed with asperger syndrome though and it's known for the "extreme male brain", so that's the explanation.

I would actually be surprised if those kinds of things change, but I'm curious to hear people's answers here.

[Lee]

I'm pre-T too, but I have great spacial reasoning.  The other guys in my family tend to be jealous of it. 

[thestory]

I think it has less to do with hormones and more with brain pattern because my strongest trait is spatial reasoning. I am one out of two genetic females to have specialized in character modeling in my entire college. It is a male dominated profession because its geometric and spacial. Pretty much we build CG characters for games and film.

But yeah I've always had a better sense of space and direction than my female friends and family. There is a geometric board game my family plays now and again (my entire family is mostly women) and when we play it they groan because they know I'll usually win. I haven't played it with my dad yet. I'll have to test the theory further...

[Cindy]

When my wife and I travelled around Australia we bought maps etc. None of them made sense to either of us. In the end we said, lets keep the water on the left. Perfect navigation.

Cindy

[RachelH]

I'm ex Army, UK officer. My navigation is exemplary, still, although I'm only early days. What is worrying is I have some engineering examinations for my new career, in which spatial reasoning is required, I'm slightly concerned as I used to excel at them,  I hope I still do.  However,  I did read about the  girl in the Para's who ended up struggling with her spatial reasoning and map reading after successfully transitioning. I'm hoping that the effects are individual, I've known a few genetic girls who have put us all to shame, although they where extremly rare.

[aubrey]

My spatial reasoning was horrible until I started meditation in my late teens. It was so hard to clearly internally visualize but with practice I got o.k. at it. After that I was able to do the typical zoom, focus etc... It hasn't gone away with HRT but takes a tiny bit more conscious effort now.

[kyril]

I'm sort of odd here. I'm good at things that require spatial reasoning (I'm a math/geophysics major, spent 5 years in the Navy as an aircraft structural mechanic, play videogames, can outnavigate almost anyone) but I don't seem to do them in the same way as other people who are good at them do. My spacial visualization is nonexistent; I rely a lot on verbal reasoning and intuition.

I can't tell left from right, can't read a clock, and on those 3-d block rotation puzzles I can't even begin to "see" the block turning in my head...but dammit, I just know that place we're looking for is right over thataway about 3 blocks and up the hill, this part goes in this space if you turn it just so and slide it between these fuel lines, and block C is the only one that could possibly be the same as the original. Don't ask why, just do it, you'll see I'm right.

So my brain works kind of funny to begin with. Can't say I've noticed hormones making a difference in my spatial skill. I have noticed other things, like I actually have visual dreams now (I used to think my entire visual imagination function was broken) but I'm not any better at math or map reading or any of that. I suspect most of that is fixed by adulthood.

[Cindy]

Sorry but I think most of this is c**p,

You may lose some things in wanting to think differently but core doesn't change. My post was true but a joke. It didn't matter.  As far as I have ever found is that females and males may think differently but they still get to the same spot. Even if the woman has to drag him there. (Sorry ).

Cindy

[Medusa]

I have no problem with manipulating things at imaginings.
But navigation is terible, when I look to map everything is clear, but when I go there Im lost    When I drive without navigation result is chaos, but finally I miraculously find my destination 

[findingreason]

I know a lot of guys with good and bad sense of direction, just the same as I know a lot of women with either...it kinda all varies really, I think. Growing up I was extremely horrible at directions, and I could get lost in my own hometown that I lived in for a decade! It took practice and trying to learn it in my own way before I started getting better at it, and now I can get around fairly well; but give me directions to read to a friend and your in trouble!

I figured I had to use one of my better traits, deductive reasoning and the ability to line up logically sequences in my head, to apply it in some way to finding my way around, and after a while it started to work...

[justmeinoz]

Who cares, I'll be able to ask for directions now instead!

I have a pretty good sense of direction, and can navigate my way around a previously unvisited area with a map, until I went to the UK.  Being in the Northern Hemisphere played hell with my sense of direction because they kept putting the Sun in the wrong place!

[Donnie B.]

I'm Pre-T, and I apparently have excellent spatial skills (I can easily manipulate an image in my head, tell where I am in the layout of a building without references, etc.), but I'm absolutely horrible with verbal/written directions. If someone tells me to go into such-and-such district with verbal directions or only a place name if I live close to there, I always get lost like nothing else. The person has to remind me of a building there, or something like that. Then I can remember how to get there.

I hate maps with a passion because they are so confusing to me. Hence, I never use them.

...I kind of hope mine will go to superhuman levels if I transition, if there's any change whatsoever. I'm satisfied right now, though.

[Sean]

I've always been very good with directions and spacial skills. I see no noticeable difference, though for my own curiosity's sake, I do wish I had done a series of timed experiments with a game like "rush hour" to see if I did have any improvement that didn't come from more experience with the game.

What is interesting to me is how many of us seem to have a "Flowers for Algernon" sense of our HRT. Waiting to see what we get better at, waiting to see what we get worse at, which skills we fear losing more and which we hope to improve.

For me, I imagine that someday I'll look at my writing, as I've been on T longer and longer, and see myself get less articulate or verbal or something, even though I know how unlikely that is.

[GinaDouglas]

I didn't lose any skills I had.  Many of them have improved, because now I am using my entire brain to live with, instead of using half my brain to suppress the other half.

[Northern Jane]

Well I am 37 years post-op and god knows how many years on HRT and my orientation skills have always been incredible and that never changed. I DO think it is a matter of "natural inclination" and independent of hormones or gender.

The only thing that screws up my internal "GPS" is being indoors for awhile (like at a mall) or sleeping in a moving vehicle - it takes me 15 to 30 minutes to regain my sense of position.

Some of the other visualization skills I think I have kept because of my work (technical) because I do okay in reality but I really do terrible on any kind of "written test".

[Rock_chick]

My sense of direction is decidedly scenic...i.e. it consists of bumbling around until I find a land mark i recognise (or is on the map).

[K8]

I have always had an excellent sense of direction and still do.  My daughter's mother could get lost going around the block.  When my daughter was 3 and 4, when we went somewhere I would ask her what direction to go to get home.  She would think for a little and then point in the correct direction.  She has a pretty good sense of direction now.  I think it is basic brain mapping - innate ability - combined with practice and need.  I really doubt it is on the X chromosome or is an effect of testosterone.

- Kate

[Lee]

I forgot to add that my cis brother is the exact opposite.  We jokingly call him "The Great Navigator" because he could get lost on the way down the driveway.  So yeah, I don't think it has much or anything to do with gender.

[melissa42013]

Well it is a relief to know these things are hard wired now and HRT won't mess with them. Plus as a woman I can ask for directions without any social pressure....lol