Susan's Place Transgender Resources

'Born This Way' Is Probably Wrong — But It Doesn't Matter

By Jesse Singal

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/09/born-this-way-might-not-fully-capture-sexual-orientation.html

Their article, which was recently published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, is something of an all-you-can-eat buffet for anyone interested in the current state of scientific research into sexuality.

1. There's a connection between gender expression and sexual orientation that seems to show up just about everywhere. . . .

2. The best evidence for a nature-over-nurture explanation of sexuality comes from an accidental quasi-experiment involving surgically removed penises. . . .

3. "Born this way" is probably wrong, but it doesn't matter. . . .

Museveni's resistance to evidence might be a useful lesson: People seeking to demonize and stigmatize other people's identities and behaviors probably aren't particularly interested in the science underlying those identities and behaviors, anyway. They tend to be far more animated by political opportunism or fear or disgust than a desire to truly understand the full, fascinating range of the human experience.
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Although this is primarily about orientation, I think it is relevant.  It's also an extremely interesting article worth reading with the very strong conclusion I quoted above in the last paragraph.

Jesse Singal does not have a good reputation among trans activists.  E.g., an article by Julia Serano (https://medium.com/@juliaserano/detransition-desistance-and-disinformation-a-guide-for-understanding-transgender-children-993b7342946e).  He wrote an sympathetic to Dr. Kenneth Zucker (http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/02/fight-over-trans-kids-got-a-researcher-fired.html), implying that his firing was a defeat for science.

Also the fact that this article approvingly quotes J. Michael Bailey, author of The Man Who Would Be Queen and proponent of  ->-bleeped-<- leads me to give anything he writes a side-eye.

I mean, he might be saying some true things here and there.  But so might Janice Raymond or Germaine Greer.

For me this is the money quote of that article

Quotestudies on twins being the best large-scale way to tease out nature-nurture questions — it looks like about a third of the variation in sexual orientation in human beings comes from genes; 43 percent comes from environmental influences a given set of twins don't share (random factors that cause their brains and bodies to develop differently, such as different experiences); and 25 percent from environmental influences they do share (their general upbringing, developing in the same uterine environment, and so on).

I'm completely unable to tease out whether my gender is a product of nature or nurture and it's hard not to care when the predominant view among trans people is that it's nature -- I say to myself "if the abusive environment I grew up in is what made me this way, will I really be happier after I commit to GRS?".

Unable to know with certainty, this is really the central question in my ongoing decision whether to proceed with surgery.

Fortunately my therapist agrees if the result is the same, the cause won't matter. Still, even as much as I'm an inherently unconventional thinker, going against such a strong cornerstone of trans theory isn't an easy place to be. Knowing that this research has been done and says orientation has multiple determination is a huge help for me right now.

My problem is that I cannot see anything in my upbringing or environment that could have brought this on.  That, and the fact that my mother told me she took DES.  Maybe the answer is more complex than a single mechanism for everyone.

I do agree that it doesn't matter.  The only reason I would like them to find a definitive biological cause is to provide ammunition with which to tell the adversaries to F O.

It doesn't matter all that much.  How we get to this state doesn't really affect how we have to deal with it going forward.    Mutations, environmental prenatal effects, The FSM Did It, none of that really matters.

We're here.

The range of treatments available affects our future selves.  The past is what it is, immutable, and not really able to alter our future choices made from the place we find ourselves.

SadieBlake has it right.  The result is the same, the cause doesn't matter.

Knowing the possible causes for each of us may be comforting, or it may just be a handy way for someone to bang their ideological drum.  Pointing at possible causes isn't really much more than a distraction.