What causes transsexualism?
http://www.cakeworld.info/home/gender-sex-and-all-that/What-causes-transsexualism
January 2014
Is there a plausible biological mechanism that can cause a mismatch between mental gender identity and physical sex characteristics?
Spoiler alert: The answers is yes. I have tried to answer the questions by making a list of observations and supporting them with evidence from current scientific research.
To clarify: The root cause for transsexualism has not yet been found. Similar to other conditions, such as homosexuality, autism, and diabetes, there seems to be a multitude of factors working together, which makes research more difficult. In case of transsexualism it seems that the major biological origins are genetics, epigenetics and pre-natal hormones. There might also be additional environmental triggers. The objective of this page is to show one or more possible, even plausible biological mechanisms that can cause gender dysphoria.
I was exposed to Diethylstilbestrol Hormone both in utero and I.V. post delivery. Informal studies have shown a high percentage of Transexualism, Homosexuality and other findings. I would vote "Yes" on exposure to hormones at critical formative events. :)
I have an extra chromosome
Quote from: Lana P on January 06, 2014, 07:07:45 PM
I have an extra chromosome
47XXY by any chance? I have had a karyotype test, but results are not in yet.
OOPS! Sorry, rude of me to ask. Forget the last. :embarrassed:
I have not had a chomisomal test. Is that the "trans" chromosome?
I posted a reply to this, I'm not doing it again. This is getting tiresome of losing posts.
Quote from: Sheala on January 06, 2014, 07:21:40 PM
I have not had a chomisomal test. Is that the "trans" chromosome?
One kind of extra chromosome irregularity is called "Klinefelter's Syndrome" (47XXY). It basically means you have a 47th (extra) chromosome. It makes every cell in your body (hair, cardiac, muscle, etc.) 50% male and 50%female. This is the one they are testing me for. Results take a while and mine are not done yet.
Ahhhhh interesting. If it comes out negative would you change anything?
Pretty much state of the art for science when it comes to being transsexual. Its the intellectual equivalent of saying dunno could be almost anything. What we need are more effective and readily available treatments, not intellectual masturbation.
Quote from: Sheala on January 06, 2014, 07:29:29 PM
Ahhhhh interesting. If it comes out negative would you change anything?
Nope! Not a thing. I still have the DES issue anyway. ;)
Quote from: amber1964 on January 06, 2014, 07:31:37 PM
Pretty much state of the art for science when it comes to being transsexual.
Not anymore with the current research into the Bed Nuclei of the Stratus Terminalis. Possible actual biological evidence of brain/body incompatibility. Only being proven post mortem right now, but looks good as far as being on the right track. :)
Yes, read that study. Mildly interesting, slightly suggestive but as you pointed out post mortem and sample size way too small to be meaningful.
There is a well known person, a trans woman, who posts all over the internet. She is a rocket scientist, just ask her and a self appointed expert in all science matters, studies, material, theories etc ad nauseating when it comes to the so called transsexual condition. She even invented a whole new syndrome to explain her sudden and spontaneous change of sex when fully mature and in her (i think) thirties. Heck, she might even be right.
For some, this knowing or trying to know why the have the feelings they do is very important. They need an explanation and will invest all kinds of efforts trying to find one. Like the one that has to do with that di whatever it is med that women took during pregnancy. Might be true for all I know. Im not a scientist but I can read and I have a working sense of smell.
All kidding aside. Its fine to be curious, I sometimes have the same curiosity. But all the well adjusted trans people I have ever met just dont care. Anytime someone takes an unusual interest in this topic they are telling you something about how they feel about themselves. If you are transsexual, you will know. You will either come to terms with it or not. If you get stuck, worrying that it may be some kind of moral defect then its not surprising you might want to invest unreasonable amounts of time desperately trying to find some other reason.
For myself, I could care less. I am what I am and I am okay with it. I dont know why I am this way, I just know the way I am. Thats all I need or care to know. Nothing anyone says, writes, researches or says will change that.
It does not bother me as well with the why we are like we are. I just think it is nice there are ideas and serious studies into the subject now. Back in my day it was hide the person, call it a mental illness and ostracize, not take it seriously. The Paramedic in me is curious about root causes of all things in our biological and physical make up, would like to know if there are medical relations to it, that's all. :)
For me, I'd put my money on DES, but even if I knew the precise cause of why I am transsexual, it wouldn't change anything. I'm still me and I'm moving on.
Oh wait, what's that? It was the devil possessing me? Never mind. \m/
Hahahahaha. You made me laugh, needed that today. Its like minus 30 here today and windy as all hell. Gonna be even colder tomoro and I have to go into town. Awesome. Three pairs of socks at least.
Your clever and funny but not the rocket scientist i was thinking of.
Quote from: Jill F on January 06, 2014, 08:16:46 PM
Oh wait, what's that? It was the devil possessing me? Never mind. \m/
Thanks! Snorted hot chocolate out my nose. And I though electrolysis hurt. *giggle* ;D
I personally think that we will find that there are various causes, some identifiable, some idiopathic.
Most likely the causes are complex and multiple as the OP suggested. What really matters is that the basis for it is born and inate to our characters and personalities. Their is sketchy evidence to suggest that we have brains that are similar to females although perhaps not identical. If this is true, it is not curable because clearly we were intended to be male or female but ended up being a hybrid. So until we learn how to correct - operate - on the brain - we remain with treating the physical body as the only option. I say treatable as opposed to cureable because the technology does not exist to give us authentic female bodies. I also think that if not corrected when young it sets up the potential for a mental imbalance which is why so many of us struggle.
One thing all of us know. We do not choose to be this way. Now all we need to do is convince the rest of the planet. Should be easy.
DES
Joelene
Quote from: amber1964 on January 06, 2014, 07:31:37 PM
What we need are more effective and readily available treatments, not intellectual masturbation.
How is anyone supposed to know what those treatments might be without theory work?
I love solving mysteries! I am a DES baby but I have a couple other genetically related conditions that are puzzlers, albeit treatable ones. I have participated in about 20 research efforts in regard to being Trans*, and its not a burden on my time at all, mostly kinda fun. I was able to trace one study I participated back to my donated sample of genetic material by a research victim number they gave me, and it looks like I and most of the rest of proclaimed TS folks had a long version of some enzyme that in cis males is short. Beats me which enzyme, but I love being different!!
Quote from: amber1964 on January 06, 2014, 08:03:24 PM
Yes, read that study. Mildly interesting, slightly suggestive but as you pointed out post mortem and sample size way too small to be meaningful.
There is a well known person, a trans woman, who posts all over the internet. She is a rocket scientist, just ask her and a self appointed expert in all science matters, studies, material, theories etc ad nauseating when it comes to the so called transsexual condition. She even invented a whole new syndrome to explain her sudden and spontaneous change of sex when fully mature and in her (i think) thirties. Heck, she might even be right.
For some, this knowing or trying to know why the have the feelings they do is very important. They need an explanation and will invest all kinds of efforts trying to find one. Like the one that has to do with that di whatever it is med that women took during pregnancy. Might be true for all I know. Im not a scientist but I can read and I have a working sense of smell.
All kidding aside. Its fine to be curious, I sometimes have the same curiosity. But all the well adjusted trans people I have ever met just dont care. Anytime someone takes an unusual interest in this topic they are telling you something about how they feel about themselves. If you are transsexual, you will know. You will either come to terms with it or not. If you get stuck, worrying that it may be some kind of moral defect then its not surprising you might want to invest unreasonable amounts of time desperately trying to find some other reason.
For myself, I could care less. I am what I am and I am okay with it. I dont know why I am this way, I just know the way I am. Thats all I need or care to know. Nothing anyone says, writes, researches or says will change that.
Amber, I presume the rocket scientist you're referring to Zoe Brain. I've read her biography and how she spontaneously started changing sex. I don't think she's making up a story, I think she's just misinterpreted what actually happened to her. Something very similar happened to me in 2007, with similar symptoms to what Zoe describes and the same very abrupt onset. It wasn't "changing sex" though, it was my testosterone production (which has been below normal male all my life) finally shutting down, which resulted in my developing most of the symptoms of acute secondary hypogonadism. Some of those symptoms can include gynecomastica and other feminising effects, so, if what she experienced is similar to what happened to me, I can see why Zoe interpreted it as a spontaneous sex change.
I can see where you're coming from with your professed lack of interest in what made you trans. After all, there's absolutely nothing any of us can do about something that was hardwired into the structure of our brain before birth (apart from make the best of the situation). Nonetheless, I think it's important for trans people to know that we're not crazy or perverted, that there's an actual physical basis for why you identify as a woman even though you were born in a male body.
It was because of wondering why my brain seems to have partly developed as female instead of male, that I first started looking into how sexual development and masculinisation of the brain take place.
Although we have a sex chromosome (the Y chromosome) that ordinarily determines what sex we develop as, it only holds a few dozen functional genes, and all it actually does is instruct your undifferentiated gonads to turn into testicles. All the instructions for both male and female development are held elsewhere in your genome and everyone has the full set of instructions for both sexes. Something has to tell your body which set of instructions to follow, and that something is testosterone.
If, for whatever reason, the testicles fail to develop, the hormones that would ordinarily be produced in the testicles aren't produced, and the result is Swyers Syndrome, a condition which produces a person who appears to be female despite being genetically male. Something similar occurs in a condition called Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (or CAIS), where a mutation in a single gene produces a person who is to all intents and purposes a woman despite being genetically male. The defective gene in CAIS is for the androgen receptor, and it means that androgenic hormones (primarily testosterone and its derivative DHT) have no effect, so that development in people with CAIS takes place as if those hormones weren't there. With both these syndromes, despite being genetically male, those affected look and behave exactly like ordinary girls at birth and throughout childhood, to the point where the condition often isn't even picked up until, as teenagers, they fail to start menstruating.
What this shows is that, in humans, both physical male development and masculinisation of the brain are driven by the action of male hormones. Without these hormones, you'll develop as female rather than male, irrespective of what your genes might say.
In both Swyers syndrome and CAIS, the male hormones fail to act throughout the entire period of prenatal development. But what happens if the male hormones are produced normally to start with, and then something happens partway through the pregnancy to block their production? I think you end up with people like us, people who look male but are psychologically female (or in my case, partly male and partly female!).
I wasn't able to find anything in the medical literature dealing with what happens if fetal testosterone production is interrupted partway though the pregnancy. However, I did discover that quite a bit of research was conducted in the 1970s on sheep (and on birds, rodents and monkeys), in which external testosterone was used to create the reverse situation (genetically female animals that had partially developed as male).
Depending on the timing and duration of the exposure, you could give exposed female offspring male genitals, cause their part of their brain that controls hormones (the hypothalamus) to behave as if it were male rather than female, or you could change part or all of the courtship and mating behaviour of the animal from female to male. I'm not making this up, here's links to some of the sheep research, in which all of those things took place:
http://dev.biologists.org/content/36/1/87.long
"Effects of testosterone implants in pregnant ewes on their female offspring", August 1976 J Embryol Exp Morphol 36, 87-99.
http://www.reproduction-online.org/content/49/2/311.long
"The sexual behaviour of prenatally androgenized ewes observed in the field", J Reprod Fertil. 1977 Mar;49(2):311-5
http://press.endocrine.org/doi/full/10.1210/en.2002-220965
"Prenatal Programming of Reproductive Neuroendocrine Function: Fetal Androgen Exposure Produces Progressive Disruption of Reproductive Cycles in Sheep", Endocrinology 2003 144:4, 1426-1434
You might wonder what relevance this has to human beings, since doctors don't typically administer testosterone to pregnant women. What they do quite commonly do though, is administer feminising hormones (estrogens and progestins) during pregnancy, often in doses that would completely suppress testosterone production in an adult man if he were to be given the same.
This practice started around 1940 with the artificial estrogen DES. DES lost it's FDA approval in 1971, and, while doctors continued to prescribe it off label for several years after that, very few people born post-1980 should have been exposed to DES (or other estrogens). However, there's a second class of feminising hormones called progestins that never lost their approval, and continue to be used during pregnancies even now. Just as with DES, progestins are highly effective at suppressing testosterone production (spironolactone and androcur are both progestins). I've been looking primarily at the effects of DES on male development, but I think the same likely applies to other estrogens and to progestins too.
If you look at the CDC website, the official line is that the "DES sons", the male-born children of mothers given DES, came through their exposure virtually unscathed. That's completely contrary to what I've seen. Based on the personal stories I've read, DES sons appear to experience effects that are basically the mirror image of what happened in the sheep experiments. Where the exposure started relatively early in the pregnancy, you end up with genital abnormalities, somewhat later, you develop problems with fertility and hormone regulation, later still and the predominant effects are psychological. We're quite a bit more socially complex than sheep, and rather than producing obvious opposite sexed behaviour, you end up with a person suffering from gender dysphoria, whose life experiencess appear to be no different from those of any other MTF gender variant or trans identified person. The rates of MTF transsexuality among male-assigned DES babies appear to be hundreds of times higher than for the unexposed male population.
Although DES is a thing of the past, if one synthetic hormone can produce these effects, the likelihood is that others can too, and that doctors are continuing to create people who are at high risk of being gender variant or trans identified later in life. For the last year I've been trying to get trans people, mainstream media and doctors to look at what happened with DES, but (apart from getting articles published on a couple of websites) so far without much visible success. This seemed like a suitable next place to try!
Quote from: Jamie de la Rosa on January 06, 2014, 11:52:46 PM
I personally think that we will find that there are various causes, some identifiable, some idiopathic.
idiopathic is just a medical euphemism for "we have not figured out yet"
I do agree with you that the cause is probably multifactorial. The data indicates that deregulation of several genes (estrogen, testosterone, estrogen receptors, testosterone receptors, aromatase, developmental genes), sub optimal or absent catalytic activity of several genes involved in the metabolisms of steroids, and epigenetic factors they all contribute to the syndrome.
A factor is mother nature love to mutate,to see what specie survive.
But we don,t let the sorting process work. The can say that because of the internet
we more speak out,but this grow in transgenders is world wide !
It never is because of the additives in our food,the (grow) hormones in meat.
The involuntary HRT to which we are subject to by greedy food producers.
Kia Ora,
Re: What causes transsexualism?
::) Well, the first cause is the "thoughts of sexual attraction", second putting those "thoughts into action", third "conception", forth "birth" ...After which it's anybody's guess... ;)
Metta Zenda :)
Well here's what I do know and mostly anyone with education.every egg starts female.after fertilization,the heart and then brain are created (in the embryo) after the brain,this is when the correct gender related hormones and development start.it triggers or 'tells' the external to follow suit,creating a match (mental and phsyical gender) then the hormones for that gender is ran/fused with the embryo as a whole.this allows said gender traits through out life BUT if you notice,Trans folk are female in some way or form.female brain and male body or female body and male brain.what could cause the mixed development? What stops it mid natal and continues with the wrong hormone and physica body? Understanding fetal development I believe will hold the key to this answer and provide clearer research.I myself suffered an accident during birth in which blood flow and oxygen was cut off for a long period of time.could this be part of it? Who knows and I honestly do not care but I do believe that said 'signals' from the hormone infused brain to the phsyical body,caused incorrect fetal development.but I keep hope that better reseach is done,to answer everyones question.
I believe a form of 'reboot' takes place,setting the 'default' back to female.best way to explain is like this and ill use me as an example.
During fetal development,the brain was created,being wired and swollen with the male hormone,creating my male idenity.after,a 'signal' as I call it,is sent so that the pshycal male body follows suit but it misses said (this is where research is needed) and because of that,it 'reboots' over the fact that further development with said can't occure.so now the brain is created male but it 'sets back to default female' and furthers development.as we know,if this didn't happened then testes,male penis and so on,is then created.setting a match as a whole.in which then the brain would release said hormones into the matching physical form.of course this is MY way of explaing but I'm sure you get the idea.this is my theory but if proven wrong,awesome-as long as progress was being made.
Quote from: HughE on February 08, 2014, 12:19:42 PM
However, there's a second class of feminising hormones called progestins that never lost their approval, and continue to be used during pregnancies even now. Just as with DES, progestins are highly effective at suppressing testosterone production (spironolactone and androcur are both progestins). I've been looking primarily at the effects of DES on male development, but I think the same likely applies to other estrogens and to progestins too.
My mother received injections of Gravibinon, I presume it is a German drug, unsure if it is used elsewhere. It is used to treat hormone deficiency during pregnancy and prevent abortion.
2ml Injection contain Hydroxyprogesteroncaproat (Progestin) and Estradiolvalerate (plus Benzylbenzoate and Rizinusoil)
I do not know when and how often the injections were done.
I want to point towards something else: Consider the possibility that it is a reverse correlation, meaning that something that goes weird with the mothers endocrine system during a pregnancy might cause transsexuality but at the same time increase the risk of an abortion (maybe a natural way to limit the number of trans- or intersexed people born who are - evolutionary speaking - less likely to reproduce). The application of hormone injections may thus be a result of this.
I consider it the less likely option but if you find a correltaion, always think about a reversed causality as the one you are suspecting as well ;)
I was born after a long string of miscarriages in the late seventies. I would guess that anti-miscarriage drugs occurred, but my mother isn't the best at recalling facts. Other factors include exposure to pesticides, fertilizers and other farm chemicals. My mother also has multiple sclerosis. My sister has a couple of interesting mutations too- an extra set of adult teeth (lucky for her) and an enlarged breast (not so lucky). We all have food intolerances.
I have a varicocele in my testes (something other trans girls share). What if this was present as a flaw early in foetal development? Would a developing flaw constrict the androgen release for a critical period, but then unblock as it developed further?
I find the post mortem sufficient to confirm a neurological basis for the condition in my mind, and that gives me a lot of self acceptance. It certainly helps people understand and accept me as transwoman when I explain that all it is is ' having a brain that developed in the default female mode because of a hormone problem during pregnancy'. It is so much easier to leave it at that initially, and say it is hard trying to be a man when you are not wired up that way.
Quote from: anjaq on February 11, 2014, 02:50:49 AM
My mother received injections of Gravibinon, I presume it is a German drug, unsure if it is used elsewhere. It is used to treat hormone deficiency during pregnancy and prevent abortion.
2ml Injection contain Hydroxyprogesteroncaproat (Progestin) and Estradiolvalerate (plus Benzylbenzoate and Rizinusoil)
I do not know when and how often the injections were done.
I want to point towards something else: Consider the possibility that it is a reverse correlation, meaning that something that goes weird with the mothers endocrine system during a pregnancy might cause transsexuality but at the same time increase the risk of an abortion (maybe a natural way to limit the number of trans- or intersexed people born who are - evolutionary speaking - less likely to reproduce). The application of hormone injections may thus be a result of this.
I consider it the less likely option but if you find a correltaion, always think about a reversed causality as the one you are suspecting as well ;)
Going on what I've read, Gravibinan and other formulations containing hydroxyprogesterone caproate are normally given weekly, since the biological half life of hydroxyprogesterone caproate is long enough so that you don't get large swings in the blood level of it with weekly injections. I wasn't aware that there was a double strength version of it too. That amount weekly is a colossal dose of any hormone (especially a progestin), and per week of intramuscular estradiol valerate is well into the range that is used for MTF HRT! My bet is that you could actually use Gravibinan, in the same dosage and following the same administration schedule as is used for preventing miscarriage, and get decent breast development, suppression of testosterone, and all the other effects of MTF HRT!
I agree with what you're saying about the possibility that hormonal problems in the mother could be contributing to the development of transsexuality. However, the fact is that pregnant women are being given very high doses of feminizing hormones, drugs which are known to be able to suppress testosterone production in adult men. If anything else had been shown to have a certain adverse effect on adults, the natural assumption would be that it does the same (or worse) to an unborn baby. Why are these hormone treatments so special?
I'm not sure of what stage of the pregnancy Gravibinan is typically administered, but the prescribing guidelines for Makena (another branded version of depot hydroxyprogesterone caproate) state that treatment should be started between 16 and 21 weeks after conception and continued for the remainder of the pregnancy. That's after genital development has completed, but during the time most sexually dimorphic brain development takes place. You could hardly imagine a treatment better suited to creating people with male bodies but female brains!
I'm sure there are people who know all about what happened with DES, and by now it must surely be known (in some circles at least) that the treatments that replaced it are also causing transsexuality. My guess is that because of the disquiet many people feel about intersex and transsexuality, and because the numbers potentially affected are so large, that it's got to the point where nobody in authority is prepared to own up to what's happened (and is continuing to happen). It's much easier for them to all keep their heads down and pretend not to see anything, and the status quo is going to continue indefinitely until someone outside the medical and pharmaceutical establishment does something about it. That's my take on it anyway!
Quote from: HughE on February 12, 2014, 10:07:16 AM
Going on what I've read, Gravibinan and other formulations containing hydroxyprogesterone caproate are normally given weekly,..... I wasn't aware that there was a double strength version of it too. 500mg weekly is a colossal dose of any hormone.....
the prescribing guidelines for Makena (another branded version of depot hydroxyprogesterone caproate) state that treatment should be started between 16 and 21 weeks after conception and continued for the remainder of the pregnancy.
Weekly injections in the critical stage of brain development but not during the formation of gonads - yes that is sounding like it could have an effect. And actually it would not even matter if it was given earlier as its effect would basically be supression of the testosterone produced by the gonads of the fetus but it would not prevent formation of the gonads which is regulated by genes and other hormones, right?
QuoteI agree with what you're saying about the possibility that hormonal problems in the mother could be contributing to the development of transsexuality. However, the fact is that pregnant women are being given very high doses of feminizing hormones, drugs which are known to be able to suppress testosterone production in adult men. If anything else had been shown to have a certain adverse effect on adults, the natural assumption would be that it does the same (or worse) to an unborn baby.
Well only if these hormones are a) reaching the baby across the barrier that the placenta forms and b) if they cannot be counteracted. Estrogen is harmless I believe as it is present in massive dosages in the mothers blood anyways during pregnancy and progesterone is the same. There also seem to be mechanisms in place for the fetus to deal with all that estrogen and progesterone. But Testosterone is a different game and progestins are totally different again.
One thing that is remarkable though and that kind of casts big doubts on this theory is that there are countless babies whose mothers received these treatments and nothing happened to them. If the effect would be as straightforward, it should happen basically every other time this is administered. So there is something missing. It may increase the chances of the occurance of Transsexuality but it is not a direct causality.
And of course it cannot be the only explanation - TS existed long before progestins were around. However if progestins as well as all the estrogen-like artificial compounds that are either given as medication or are just in the environment can increase the occurence of gender variance, it may explain why this is such a big deal nowadays and the numbers are rising.
The mechanism by which it increases the chances of gender variance happening without being able to do this reliably every time it is given is puzzling though and I guess that is why it is not an accepted hypothesis yet.
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Quote from: anjaq on February 14, 2014, 06:07:58 AM
Weekly injections in the critical stage of brain development but not during the formation of gonads - yes that is sounding like it could have an effect. And actually it would not even matter if it was given earlier as its effect would basically be supression of the testosterone produced by the gonads of the fetus but it would not prevent formation of the gonads which is regulated by genes and other hormones, right?
That's right, although I imagine if one of these hormone treatments was given during the time differentiation of the gonads was actually taking place (around 6 weeks after conception), things would go wrong with that process and you'd end up with testicles that were abnormal in some way.
Quote
Well only if these hormones are a) reaching the baby across the barrier that the placenta forms and b) if they cannot be counteracted. Estrogen is harmless I believe as it is present in massive dosages in the mothers blood anyways during pregnancy and progesterone is the same. There also seem to be mechanisms in place for the fetus to deal with all that estrogen and progesterone. But Testosterone is a different game and progestins are totally different again.
You only need to spend a very small amount of time talking to some of the DES daughters to realise that a) DES did cross the placenta and affect fetal development, and b) it wasn't counteracted, and did all sorts of harm to them.
The officially acknowledged effects are that many of them have physical abnormalities of their internal reproductive organs that make it difficult or impossible to have children of their own, and they have an increased risk of several kinds of cancer. However, the ones I've talked to seem to have very high rates of PCOS (an endocrine disorder affecting women in which excessive production of androgenic hormones takes place), of rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune disorders, and a wide range of other chronic ailments too. Although most DES daughters don't seem to end up trans, I've so far had 3 of them remark to me that, while they're fully heterosexual and are happy living as women, they nonetheless feel quite gender blended psychologically. That's what makes the official story, that DES sons suffered almost no effects from their exposure, look so implausible in my eyes.
Doctors and the pharmaceutical industry like to make out that synthetic hormones are more or less interchangeable with their natural equivalent, but that's not so. Synthetic hormones target the same receptors that the natural hormones do, but that's where the similarities end. Your body has a whole collection of enzymes, hormone binding globulins and so forth, that control where the natural hormones can go, and deactivate them or convert them into something else if they get into the "wrong" place. Synthetic hormones are either resistant to or completely untouched by those systems. This makes them into more potent, longer acting drugs with more predictable properties (all good things from a medical point of view), but it also means that they can behave very differently from the natural hormones in the human body. It's like the difference between sugar and saccharin. Both substances activate the sweetness receptors on your tongue, but if you tried using saccharin as a food and energy source, you'd soon starve to death! That's why the fact that there are high levels of estriol and progesterone present in the mother's bloodstream during pregnancy doesn't mean anything as far as the safety of synthetic estrogens and progestins towards a developing fetus are concerned.
There's a trail of carnage associated with synthetic hormones going back decades, e.g. see:
http://www.cbgnetwork.org/2883.html
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Association-for-Children-Damaged-by-Hormone-Pregnancy-Testing/178989865519162
http://desdaughter.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/the-consequences-of-mass-prenatal-progestin-exposure-1950s-70s/
http://www.intechopen.com/books/state-of-the-art-of-therapeutic-endocrinology/behavioral-and-somatic-disorders-in-children-exposed-in-utero-to-synthetic-hormones-a-testimony-case#article-front
I only know for sure that there's a link between DES and MTF transsexuality, but I think that's just the tip of a much larger iceberg. Synthetic hormones in general seem to have the ability to cause all kinds of developmental abnormalities in an unborn child, and they're probably the underlying cause of most of the mysterious chronic ailments that have begun to afflict people in Western countries in recent decades.
Quote
One thing that is remarkable though and that kind of casts big doubts on this theory is that there are countless babies whose mothers received these treatments and nothing happened to them. If the effect would be as straightforward, it should happen basically every other time this is administered. So there is something missing. It may increase the chances of the occurance of Transsexuality but it is not a direct causality.
This is a valid point. There were apparently between 2 and 3 million DES sons born worldwide in the 4 decades between 1940 and 1980 when DES was used as a treatment to prevent miscarriages. You'd expect there to be about a million DES sons turned MTF transsexuals as a result. So where are they?
Well, firstly, I think most late transitioning MTFs born in the DES era are, whether they know it or not, DES babies. I've been chatting with some MTFs in a gender research group I recently joined, and it turns out that at least half of them either know or have reason to suspect they are DES babies. Unfortunately, if you don't know for sure already, it's usually impossible to find out now whether you're DES-exposed or not - medical records are unlikely to exist, and those who would have known have either died, forgotten or were never told in the first place that they'd been given DES.
When you take into account the high suicide rate, deaths through recklessness and a self destructive lifestyle, the fact that most MTFs from that era spent decades in a state of denial (and many more probably live their entire lives in denial), those who know they're trans but for personal reasons keep that fact hidden, and the fact that around 1 in 300 of the natal male population in the US has transitioned, I think the numbers do stack up.
Quote
And of course it cannot be the only explanation - TS existed long before progestins were around. However if progestins as well as all the estrogen-like artificial compounds that are either given as medication or are just in the environment can increase the occurence of gender variance, it may explain why this is such a big deal nowadays and the numbers are rising.
The mechanism by which it increases the chances of gender variance happening without being able to do this reliably every time it is given is puzzling though and I guess that is why it is not an accepted hypothesis yet.
Of course. Any intersex condition is likely to affect brain development just as much as it affects genital development. I've chatted online with some XXY's (an XXY karyotype being the commonest genetic cause of intersex). Their life experiences (and even the "eunuchoid" body structure they often have) seem to be quite similar to my own. The ones in the group I joined seem to all be gender variant to a degree, although not to the extent where any of them have sought out reassignment. I have seen news stories about trans women who are XXY's though, so there straightaway is one cause of transsexuality that has been present throughout history.
Quote from: HughE on February 15, 2014, 09:19:37 AM
Doctors and the pharmaceutical industry like to make out that synthetic hormones are more or less interchangeable with their natural equivalent, but that's not so. Synthetic hormones target the same receptors that the natural hormones do, but that's where the similarities end. Your body has a whole collection of enzymes, hormone binding globulins and so forth, that control where the natural hormones can go, and deactivate them or convert them into something else if they get into the "wrong" place. Synthetic hormones are either resistant to or completely untouched by those systems. ....That's why the fact that there are high levels of estriol and progesterone present in the mother's bloodstream during pregnancy doesn't mean anything as far as the safety of synthetic estrogens and progestins towards a developing fetus are concerned.
Yes, that is what I meant. Natural hormones (or "bioidentical") are not causing so much issues, so in the case of Gavibinan I would say the estradiol part is no issue at all and also the more recent treatments of women with estradiol and natural progesterone are probably more or less harmless. But the Progestins and DES are modified hormones that the body cannot deal with.
You cited something about progestin exposure and related issues. However there it is described that the children are autistic (or I would assume if not that, it would be aspergers). This does not apply at all to me. An Autistic or Apsergerian brain is after all according to some of the common distinctions between male and female brains a "hypermale" brain - not exaclty prime material for a MtF TS. So if progestin exposure is likely to cause the baby to get either an autist or experiecne a massive virilization of the brain, it would be the opposite of what is proposed here?
QuoteYou'd expect there to be about a million DES sons turned MTF transsexuals as a result. So where are they?
Well, firstly, I think most late transitioning MTFs born in the DES era are, whether they know it or not, DES babies....
When you take into account the high suicide rate, deaths through recklessness and a self destructive lifestyle, the fact that most MTFs from that era spent decades in a state of denial (and many more probably live their entire lives in denial), those who know they're trans but for personal reasons keep that fact hidden, and the fact that around 1 in 300 of the natal male population in the US has transitioned, I think the numbers do stack up.
Thats a bold claim. Starting with that 1 in 300 number - is that a reality? The numbers I heard form here in Europe are usually said to be around 1 in 10000! If this number is true and DES was used more frequently in the US than in Europe, you may have a point, but I did not think that one in 300 Americans turned out to be trans. What would really have to be massive there would be that ratio of MtF vs FtM. Commonly it is around 3:1 . If a unidirectionally effective drug as DES which would by the proposed mechanism vastly increase the MtF portion of that ratio be used widespread and that mechanism is really as proposed, that ratio would have to explode in the 100:1 range or therelike. Conversely I am sure you can find plenty of men who were exposed to DES but did not have issues - so I still dont think it is just as straightforward as this.
Even less so with progestins which are still used...
So I guess it is a mulifactorial issue...
Quote
Of course. Any intersex condition is likely to affect brain development just as much as it affects genital development.
Yes of course, but I think since there are hormonal based intersex conditions like PAIS, CAIS or others, I think it would be neglective to ignore the possibility that a natural DSD condition would exist that does not affect the genitalia as much as it does the brain. Simplified: If an DSD condition exist that causes the genitalia to form ambiguosly due to hormonal issues during the state of pregnancy where they are formed, a delay in that issue towardas a date where the genitals have formed but the brain is differentiating would also be a DSD but one that causes the brain to be shaped differently ad then is called TS. And it is not really that uncommon for TS to have some form of bodily hints as well - smaller genitals, less body hair, etc. Makes sense if there is something going on in the unborn baby that is causing the brain to lack virilization that other parts of the body may also be affected if that condition existed throughout the pregnancy in intermittent intervals (like a repeated injection with DES or a Progestin)
"Anjaq", you're right, I seem to have remembered that ratio of 1 in 300 incorrectly. Around 1 in 500 natal male US residents are living as women, 20 percent of whom have undergone full SRS:
http://web.archive.org/web/20051111032643/http://www.tgender.net/taw/thbcost/img22.html
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TSprevalence.html
MTF transsexuality is much more common than most people realise!
When you take into account the high suicide and murder rate, the propensity for alcoholism, drug abuse and homelessness (all of which have a high associated mortality), and the intense social pressures that discourage all but the most dysphoric from actually going ahead and transitioning, I think the numbers are roughly in line with what you'd expect if, say, a third of DES sons identify as women rather than men (I think this was the figure that came out of the only study that's ever been done into gender dysphoria among DES sons).
Those links in my last post weren't intended to make out that people exposed to progestins are autistic, sorry if that was the impression you got! I was just trying to show that transsexuality or gender variance are far from the only problems associated with fetal exposure to synthetic hormones, they appear to be capable of causing all kinds of abnormalities, ranging from major organ defects to bulimia and other seemingly non gender related psychiatric disorders.
I did have a discussion quite recently though, about the supposed link between transsexuality and autism spectrum disorders. My take on it is that you can't ignore the fact that many gender variant people (myself included) experienced a great deal of bullying and social isolation during our teenage years, and that tends to make us turn inward and develop an interest in inanimate things rather than interpersonal relationships. That can end up looking a lot like Aspergers, even though it's not Aspergers nor anything inherent to transness, it's just a result of people's bad reactions to it!
Yes, I totally agree on the simulated Aspergers Condition. If you feel alien and isolated because of gender issues, you may look just like someon who is isolated because of Aspergers. I think Aspergers cannot be healed though , right? Transpeople often really blossom up when transitioning and the pseudoaspergers is going away with time, so I guess it is an indication that it is not really Aspergers...
http://www.gires.org.uk/assets/Medpro-Assets/GenderVarianceUK-report.pdf
This one says tha tin the UK the numbers of transsexuals has gone up from 3 in 100000 to 20 in 100000 - this is still far away from the 1 in 500 number you cited, so I am curious as to why. Do they take different definitions? Like a person crossdressing vs people going for a legal name change? Or is the prevalence in the USA really that much higher. Are the numbers for FtMs equally high in the USA? Do you know if DES or progestins were used more frequently in the USA than in Britain?
The fact that they are going up however is a possible indicator that something is happening - maybe the exposure to chemicals or pharmaceuticals that is increasing... Or maybe it is really that more people are now daring to come out as the climate is better instead of living miserably or doing suicide.
There's a 2001 study of UK TS prevalence here:
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/UK-TSprevalence.html
which shows that the prevalence of MTF transsexuality in the UK is probably quite similar to what it is in the US (somewhere around 1 in 500). As to why there's such a massive discrepancy between the officially quoted figures and independent estimates of the actual numbers, in the UK, one of the reasons must be that the NHS route is so arduous and time consuming that plenty of TGs must get fed up with it and find alternatives. That of course means they drop off the radar as far as the official statistics are concerned.
According to this document (the 3rd timeline entry for 1975):
http://www.douglasandlondon.com/docs/DES-Timeline.pdf
440,000 were exposed in Holland and between 150,000 and 450,000 in France, so the numbers exposed in the UK were probably of a similar magnitude. DES action UK give an estimate of 300,000 people exposed, see:
http://web.archive.org/web/20110412201549/http://www.des-action.org.uk/des.html (that was a snapshot of their website in 2011; unfortunately their organisation has since closed down).
Jill Escher is the person who knows the most about progestin use. Here's an interesting quote from her Prenatal Exposures blog I linked to previously:
"The heavy use of synthetic hormones for anti-miscarriage began to fade in the 1970s, first with the revelations about DES toxicity in 1971, and then with the publication of various studies beginning to question the fetal impacts of these exposures, including, notably, the aforementioned 1977 study of developmental effects by June Reinisch, in which she found distinct personality differences in the exposed children, as compared to their unexposed siblings. The differences can be summed up this way: we were a bit "Aspie," that is more independent and less groupish, and somewhat gender-bended."
I have a copy of the 1977 study Jill is talking about. It's a study looking at the effects of prenatal exposure to estrogens and progestins on intelligence. While this study itself found no significant difference in intelligence between the unexposed and hormone-exposed groups, they mention some of the previous research in the field. The way I read it, it seems that, during the 1960s and 1970s at least, some of the world's leading psychiatrists thought that progestins were a wonder drug that could dramatically increase intelligence. Maybe they still do. I can't help but wonder, are we all victims of a secret experiment aimed at raising the average IQ of the global population?
It reads like something out of science fiction, but these are actual quotes I've copied and pasted out of that paper:
"Ehrhardt and Money (1967) published a study of ten girls treated prenatally with synthetic progestins in which detailed inquiry was made into IQ and personality development. Analysis of extensive interviews given to both the subjects and their mothers demonstrated an unusually high degree of "tomboyism" in these treated subjects. ... Unexpectedly, the subjects also evidenced extraordinarily high IQs as measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, The mean IQ of the group was 125, with a standard deviation of 11.8. Sixty percent of the IQs were above 130, when only 2% would be predicted from a random sampling of the normal population. "
"In 1968, Dalton published data which lent added credence to the findings of Ehrhardt and Money. Dalton studied achievement ratings made by teachers of 29 British 9- and 10-year-old children prenatally exposed to progesterone. ... An analysis of the data revealed that the prenatally progesterone-exposed subjects received significantly more "above average" grades than did either of the control groups in academic subjects including verbal reasoning, English, and arithmetic. Although caution was suggested in interpreting these results because of the possibility of selection bias, Dalton did find the effects to be dosage dependent - those subjects whose mothers had received over 8 g of progesterone received significantly better ratings than those getting less than 8 g. Results were also related to time of onset of treatment in pregnancy: "a significant improvement in educational performance was demonstrated among children who received progesterone before the 16th week."
"A follow-up on the British sample was presented at the Society for Research in Child Development which seemed to confirm Dalton's (1968) earlier findings while providing additional information on personality development in progesterone-treated children (Zussman et al., 1975). ... Results from the Differential Aptitude Test suggested that hormone exposed children showed a clear advantage in Numerical Ability. This advantage was significantly related to higher dosage and a duration of treatment longer than 8 weeks. "
"Additional information related directly to school achievement was reported by Dalton (1976), who stated that "eleven of the 34 progesterone children obtained a university place compared with 2 normal controls and 1 toxemic control, that is 32 percent of progesterone chiidren compared with 6 percent among all the control children (p < 0.02)." In comparison, the percentage of 18-year-olds entering universities in England was approximately 6% for both inner London and the borough from which most of the children had come. These results are similar to those obtained in the initial study of 10-year-old progesterone-exposed children (Dalton, 1968)."
Prenatal Exposure to Synthetic Progestins and Estrogens: Effects on Human Development, Reinisch et al, Archives of Sexual Behavior, VoL 6, No. 4, 1977
Just to clarify what I said in my previous post, I've been wondering for some time why TPTB allowed progestins to continue to be used for miscarriage treatment after DES was pulled. As you can see from what I've quoted out of Dr Reinisch's paper, by the 1970s, there was clear evidence that prenatal exposure to progestins (as was the case with DES) causes measurable, lifelong changes in personality and behaviour. It was also well known by that stage that progestins can cause genital masculinization in female fetuses (and, from a part of that paper that I didn't quote, evidence that they can cause genital abnormalities in males too).
You'd think, after what happened with DES, the authorities would have drawn a line and said "no more sex hormone treatment during pregnancy". Yet they didn't, and progestins continue to be used to the present day. Why? I can't help but wonder whether the prospect of creating legions of geniuses played a part in that decision.
By the 1970s, DES and other synthetic hormones were being used very successfully as growth promoters in cattle, so for psychologists to get the idea that hormones could, under the right circumstances, act as intelligence promoters in human beings, isn't as outlandish as it sounds. As you can see from my previous quotes, there was published research from several sources supporting the idea (including at least one paper from world renowned psychologist Dr John Money).
Being realistic though, the thing that swung it was probably something far more mundane: pharmaceutical companies greasing the right palms to ensure that the gender bending properties of progestins were overlooked, so that progestins could seamlessly take the place of DES for miscarriage treatment. That way, everyone was happy. The pharmaceutical companies simply replaced one product with another so they didn't lose any revenue, and doctors continued to have treatments they could offer to women experiencing difficulties with their pregnancies.
Quote from: HughE on February 18, 2014, 09:48:19 AM
Being realistic though, the thing that swung it was probably something far more mundane: pharmaceutical companies greasing the right palms to ensure that the gender bending properties of progestins were overlooked, so that progestins could seamlessly take the place of DES for miscarriage treatment. That way, everyone was happy. The pharmaceutical companies simply replaced one product with another so they didn't lose any revenue, and doctors continued to have treatments they could offer to women experiencing difficulties with their pregnancies.
No matter what continent we all live on it always seems to be this way. Money and bonus's over health and integrity. There is no way any of us will ever know the true causes of Transexualism, ever.
Quote from: Jessica Merriman on February 18, 2014, 10:09:41 AM
No matter what continent we all live on it always seems to be this way. Money and bonus's over health and integrity. There is no way any of us will ever know the true causes of Transexualism, ever.
We're such socially complex creatures that you can't say anything to do with our psychology is 100 percent due to one thing, however there's plenty of evidence that a male gender identity later in life is largely the result of the action of testosterone during your prenatal brain development (and if there isn't testosterone present during that time, or it's unable to do its job, you end up with a female gender identity instead).
There are two medical conditions in which genetically male people are raised as female, that have wildy different outcomes as far as satisfaction with assigned gender is concerned: Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS), and Cloacal Exstrophy.
CAIS women have Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, a condition that means the cells throughout their body are completely unable to detect or react to testosterone, so their prenatal development (including brain development) takes place as if there was no testosterone present.
Cloacal extrophy patients are actually normal baby boys, apart from a developmental abnormality which means they were born without a penis. They have functioning testicles though, so their prenatal brain development took place under the influence of normal male levels of testosterone. It's much easier to surgically construct a vagina rather than a penis for these patients, so the general practice for many years has been to castrate them shortly after birth, construct a vagina for them as part of the surgical repair for their condition, and raise them as girls.
Once their testicles are removed, these people are no longer able to produce testosterone, so are in basically the same situation as CAIS women as far as all their postnatal development is concerned - both groups are genetically male, however they look like and are raised as girls. The only difference is that for the cloacal extrophy patients, their brain development took place under the influence of male-typical testosterone levels, whereas prenatal development in CAIS patients takes place as if there was no testosterone present.
CAIS patients seem to be almost universally happy with a female identity, whereas assignment to female in cloacal exstrophy cases has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1421517/
"Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth", N Engl J Med. 2004 January 22; 350(4): 333–341.
The paper studied 14 patients who were reassigned as female and two whose parents refused the reassignment.
Subjects 1 to 5 are, according to the paper, living as female:
"None had dated. None discussed sexual activity or sexual attractions (whereas three adolescent genetic females with cloacal exstrophy did). Parents noted in follow-up interviews that these subjects were generally content. However, the parents did not want these children to participate in follow-up interviews and answered all follow-up questions themselves."
Subjects 6 to 8 had an "unclear" sexual identity:
"Identifying herself as a female at the initial assessment at the age of 10 years, Subject 6 subsequently angrily refused to discuss her sexual identity with anyone after learning, at the age of 12, that her birth status was male. After 2½ years of suggestions from her physician, she recently began taking estrogen but continues to refuse to discuss sex. Subjects 7 and 8 have persistently and spontaneously declared their sexual identity as males since the age of nine years, before the initial assessment. They live as females because their parents have rejected their declarations."
The remaining 8 out of 14 reassigned patients had completely rejected a female identity and were living as males, as were the 2 whose parents had refused to allow their reassignment to female.
I was 100% convinced that I was a DES son. I have many clues that seem to line up with DES exposure, like a varicocele on my testes, infertility, and female like structures on my body like very long eyelashes, femme legs, small wrists, the "female" elbow, and a femme face. I was born in 1962 which was a prime time to be exposed to DES. My mom had a very difficult pregnancy and DES would have been a natural choice by her doctor back then. Oh, and I'm trans too :)
And there are other oddities - I was a physically small boy until I got to about 27 and then I filled out. Why the delay?
There is only one problem with my being exposed to DES theory - my mother swears that she never took it.
So that leaves me with no clue as to what happened, but something clearly happened to me in utero.
Ultimately I guess that it doesn't matter that much.
Quote from: Eva Marie on February 20, 2014, 07:55:00 AM
I was 100% convinced that I was a DES son. I have many clues that seem to line up with DES exposure, like a varicocele on my testes, infertility, and female like structures on my body like very long eyelashes, femme legs, small wrists, the "female" elbow, and a femme face. I was born in 1962 which was a prime time to be exposed to DES. My mom had a very difficult pregnancy and DES would have been a natural choice by her doctor back then. Oh, and I'm trans too :)
And there are other oddities - I was a physically small boy until I got to about 27 and then I filled out. Why the delay?
There is only one problem with my being exposed to DES theory - my mother swears that she never took it.
If you go to this website,
http://autismepigenetics.org/
about 2/3 of the way down, there's a video of a presentation by Dr June Reinisch,
"Prenatal exposures: An unrecognized multigenerational epidemic".
One of the things Dr Reinisch talks about in that video is just how poor mothers' recollection can be, of what medication they were given during their pregnancies. Apparently, in the course of her research, she's had mothers swear blind that they weren't given any medication, when their medical records show that they were being given tablets every day or injections every week. For whatever reason, women seem to forget all the bad things about their pregnancies, and that can quite often include any medication they were given!
Another thing about DES is that, during the 1950s and 60s, it became an ingredient in many pregnancy vitamin formulations, in doses that appear to have been sufficient to cause transsexuality. Maybe your mother was given pregnancy vitamins and not told that they contained DES?
Another possibility is that you were exposed to a different hormone, such as ethinyl estradiol or a progestin. A whole range of synthetic hormones began to be used alongside DES from about 1950 onwards, some of which I think are very likely to have similar effects on male development to DES.
One other possibility is that you have an actual genetic intersex condition of some kind, although seeing as your mother had a difficult pregnancy with you, my guess is that she was given DES or another hormone treatment, and has either forgotten about it or didn't realise what it was.
I've had a theory that it is caused by getting higher doses of the opposite hormone during various crucial stages of fetal brain development. So a spike in estrogen during crucial points in a male fetus' development can produce brain that is more in tune with that of a female brain, and vice versa. And depending on how many crucial points get higher doses of the opposite gender's hormones, or how high a dose at the right time creating the range we see. Identifying somewhere in between or fully identifying as the opposite gender you were assigned at a birth.
I remember reading about a test they did with lab rats, introducing levels of estrogen into the fetal development of male rats at various points and testosterone into the fetal development of female rats during various points of development, and then once grown noted the behavior of the rats. The males that received female hormones during fetal development tended to act according to female rats, and the female rats that received male hormones during development behaved characteristically as male rats.
Another theory I've thought about is based off of XX males. Where translocation between the X and Y chromosomes results in an X chromosome carrying the SRY gene, which then prompts the chromosomally female fetus to develop as a male fetus. Considering this happens, it wouldn't be too improbable to believe that happens more often between the x and y chromosomes of the father. Except with areas that blueprint for brain development. Any number of variations between gender as well as sex can result based on which sections get translocated and how much. This could result in any number of gender variation but physically and mentally.
I also definitely think that often times the causes of autism also carries the causes of transsexualism. I've seen plenty of autistics, myself included, that also identify as transsexual or transgender. The mentioned idea that being transgender can simulate Asperger's is an interesting one and something to thing about. It is likely it has happened, but to what extent I'm not sure. I don't think the connection and frequency of the two are all or most of the time be caused by that. But perhaps a percentage of cases might be?
There is high number of frequency though, and not just with Asperger's but also with Kanner's autism (classic autism). Asperger's is diagnostically just Kanner's Autism with normal undelayed (and sometimes early or above-normal) speech development. I was diagnosed Kanner's autism because I did have a delay in speech and for a bit had developed my own language. My first word was "Da" which was how I referred to my sister, whose name is Karen. I apparently invented my own words for things for a bit before finally saying real words. I was told though that I came off more asperger's than kanner's. There are a number of psychologists and psychiatrists that seem to diagnose any high functioning autistic as asperger's over kanner's. As such, as well as not seeing how gender dysphoria would really result in a delay of speech development or many other diagnostically relevant characteristics in very early childhood, I chose to believe that its a lot more a case of frequently being co-issues rather than heavily misdiagnosed.
Interestingly enough, they are now starting to distinguish how asperger's and autism differs in women, and that list was a much, much, much, much more my set of symptomology than the traditional lists of symptoms common in men. Symptom-wise I am extremely on par with how asperger's and autism in women than I am with how it presents in men.
Anyhow, those are my thoughts on the subject. Just thought I'd share.
Quote from: Jessica Merriman on January 06, 2014, 06:44:51 PM
I was exposed to Diethylstilbestrol Hormone both in utero and I.V. post delivery. Informal studies have shown a high percentage of Transexualism, Homosexuality and other findings. I would vote "Yes" on exposure to hormones at critical formative events. :)
Well I was as well , DES exposed. 100% certain.
I know my Mum had a hormonal disorder that wasn't diagnosed until she was 6 months pregnant with me.I always assumed that might have something to do with it :P
I wish I knew. To be honest, I doubt there is one single reason. People are probably trans for different reasons. It would seem weird for such a diverse group with different ways of experiencing gender dysphoria of some sort to have one single path that causes our feelings. I can't say that I was born this way, but it does feel like something I didn't have much say or control over. Why that was and is the case is something I'll probably never know.
This is very interesting. I have not thought about it in years. A little of my life. My mother was very healthly & I was her second child. She was married. Her first child was a boy & she wanted a girl & daughter. My father was not around much. She owned a beauty shop & as a young child I was always around women having their hair done & talking, doing their nails, etc....I loved it & it felt so normal. I played dress up as a little girl all the time. My mother was neutral to supportive of me being a little girl. It felt good to me to be her daughter. I thought I was a pretty happy little girl until first grade when my teacher told me I was a boy & needed to sit with the boys. I was so upset......................................
In my early teens my mother tried her best to find a doctor to help me with HRT however in those days it was impossible. I was forced to play football/male stuff by my father while every day I knew I should have been a girl cheerleader. So I grew up with T stuff going into my body & hated every minute of it!!!! I've never had a minute of peace & only now with a year of HRT does my body feel kind of normal & it is finally improving & changing some.
So my little story & I have never had any detail tests.
I firmly believe there is a biological cause for transsexualism. Based on my reading and other research, I'm inclined to believe a major factor is hormone levels during foetal development. Now, the question then becomes, 'What causes the variance in hormone levels?'.. And that's where it gets curly. Because, given what we now know about DES, it would seem that an external source is a reasonable assumption for a cause. But that's not a complete answer, it doesn't cover those for whom there was no obvious external modifiers to hormones. I know my mother took nothing of the sort when she was pregnant with me, the joys of being a medical family, she has a complete copy of her medical records, so I know she took nothing - not relying on her memory. So we still need to track down why the variance happens in those with no obvious external sources.. Now, environmental factors could play a part, but like DES et al I don't think it's a complete answer.
And there's the problem for me. There seems to be a bunch of half answers. I call them half answers because no one of them seems to answer the question for all - or even a clear majority. I suspect it will end up being a combo of things, starting with a seemingly innocuous DNA mutation..
The use of DES in pregnancy ended in 1971 so thems as came after those of us born during its period of use should be sans DES exposure. It's a seemingly good explanation for transfolks whose mothers were given it in its time frame (1940-1971) but after? It just goes to show that the cause of GID are possibly many and varied and not likely to known in our lifetime.
That said, I'm calling my mother today and asking if she recalls getting it when she was pregnant with me.
Wow...just wow. I spoke to my mother today and she was put on DES when she was pregnant with me. I did more research on it and I can check every box on the list: I'm intersexed with hypogonadism, transgendered, and the only left-handed one in the family. What a mindf**k.
This is very interesting. I had no idea of this DES drug or hormone. If anyone knows, was it widely used in the US, during the 50's or 60's?? My mother has passed away so I do not have any means to find out about her treatment. I was born in the southeast USA. Also did it really have an affect to cause transsexualism?
Quote from: FrancisAnn on September 06, 2014, 08:39:35 PM
This is very interesting. I had no idea of this DES drug or hormone. If anyone knows, was it widely used in the US, during the 50's or 60's?? My mother has passed away so I do not have any means to find out about her treatment. I was born in the southeast USA. Also did it really have an affect to cause transsexualism?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethylstilbestrol
Thanks. I do not believe my mother was exposed to this drug. She was in very good health & used a first rate doctor & hospital with her pregnancy.
There is no doubt that transsexuality is caused by an interplay of an specific hormone deficiency, deficiency on specific hormone receptors, which at the end are due to genetic malfunctions. Although we do not have the smoking gun or the whole story complete, much progress has been made in neuro-genetics and development. Here below is an abstract on a recent publication by tow of the foremost expert on the causes of GID
QuoteFront Neuroendocrinol. 2011 Apr;32(2):214-26. doi: 10.1016/j.yfrne.2011.02.007. Epub 2011 Feb 18.
Sexual differentiation of the human brain: relation to gender identity, sexual orientation and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Bao AM1, Swaab DF.
Abstract
During the intrauterine period a testosterone surge masculinizes the fetal brain, whereas the absence of such a surge results in a feminine brain. As sexual differentiation of the brain takes place at a much later stage in development than sexual differentiation of the genitals, these two processes can be influenced independently of each other. Sex differences in cognition, gender identity (an individual's perception of their own sexual identity), sexual orientation (heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality), and the risks of developing neuropsychiatric disorders are programmed into our brain during early development. There is no evidence that one's postnatal social environment plays a crucial role in gender identity or sexual orientation. We discuss the relationships between structural and functional sex differences of various brain areas and the way they change along with any changes in the supply of sex hormones on the one hand and sex differences in behavior in health and disease on the other.
Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Quote from: peky on September 06, 2014, 10:40:14 PM
There is no doubt that transsexuality is caused by an interplay of an specific hormone deficiency, deficiency on specific hormone receptors, which at the end are due to genetic malfunctions. Although we do not have the smoking gun or the whole story complete, much progress has been made in neuro-genetics and development. Here below is an abstract on a recent publication by tow of the foremost expert on the causes of GID
I've been following these studies and several other. Very interesting.
It is very interesting & thank you for researching the possible causes. In my specific case from my earliest memories as a child I thought I was a normal happy little girl. I felt good & just felt like any little girl would feel I guess. It was only until age 6 entering grammar school I was told point blank that I was a boy & that I had to sit & do things with the boys. The teacher was upset that I wanted to sit & play with my group, the girls. Life never felt right for me from that day forward. My mother has passed away so there is no way to find out about any drugs or hormones she might have taken during her pregnancy.
Good luck on your reasearch & also good luck with your transition.
I find it very interesting to see that now harry benjamins original hypothesis is increasingly supported. Back then he called transsexuality basically an intersex condition affecting the brain.
I think however some care has to be put on the likelyhood that this cannot by far explain everything under the transgender umbrella. It can explain some forms of what is called transsexuality, but it probably is not the best for people who mainly have gender role issues or people who just like to 'dress'.
I'm not certain whether this is related to my gender identity, but I was suffocated as a newborn and suffered a cerebral infarction.
My parents were told that a small part of my brain had died as a consequence of oxygen deprivation and that it would develop differently as a response.
Oh and I recently found out that my mom suffered from a lack of progesterone, had several failed pregnancies before me and then was treated with injections of a progestin plus estradiol to keep the pregnancy going when I was in her belly. Who knows if that was part of it - the P deficiency or the treatment or whatever caused the P deficiency in the first place.
Quote from: anjaq on September 10, 2014, 01:19:11 PM
Oh and I recently found out that my mom suffered from a lack of progesterone, had several failed pregnancies before me and then was treated with injections of a progestin plus estradiol to keep the pregnancy going when I was in her belly. Who knows if that was part of it - the P deficiency or the treatment or whatever caused the P deficiency in the first place.
Well, that's the question I'm really interested in finding the answer to: can hydroxyprogesterone caproate (and other progestins) also cause transsexualism? Hydroxyprogesterone caproate first started being used around 1960 or so, and went on to replace DES as the treatment of choice for preventing miscarriages and premature births. It's been in use long enough so that probably more women have been given it than were ever given DES.
Quote from: HughE on September 10, 2014, 03:20:01 PMIt's been in use long enough so that probably more women have been given it than were ever given DES.
Which speaks against a direct causality. My sister is not Trans either and she had the same. Although maybe it is "unidirectional". Still - Maybe it is a risk factor but not much more. In theory, progestins should actually not be able to do this as they would rather block the effect of natural progesterone in the fetus, thus preventing some other development and one would have other difficulties like brain development. But who knows...
In any case this would be an atrificial reproduction of a naturally occuring condition, given that transsexuality was there before DES and Progestins were invented
Still a little theory: Progestins in the fetus could maybe act on the hypothalamus, lowering the production of LH and thus lowering the production of testosterone. Or they could block the action of testosterone if they are in some way androgen receptor blockers.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FvO0ne8P.png&hash=35398f537574f8c950e1b2691b3aee27032808c9)
MPA acts almost as strong on Androgen receptors as CPA (Androcur) given often in the first phase of HRT for Transsexuals. Does it act similarly in terms of preventing Testosterone action? If so, what would be the result - would it lower or even increase LH production and thus feedback on testosterone production? Clearly it affects the progesterone action, so progesterone would be deficient in such a child which would cause developmental issues. So I am not sure the progestins do pass into the fetus at all.
Quote from: anjaq on September 10, 2014, 05:07:50 PM
Which speaks against a direct causality. My sister is not Trans either and she had the same. Although maybe it is "unidirectional". Still - Maybe it is a risk factor but not much more. In theory, progestins should actually not be able to do this as they would rather block the effect of natural progesterone in the fetus, thus preventing some other development and one would have other difficulties like brain development. But who knows...
Apparently, there's a lot of genetic variation in the way hydroxyprogesterone caproate is metabolised, so you'd expect to see a fair bit of variability in its effects. There is good reason for thinking that progestins might interfere with testosterone production in a male fetus though, because they seem to have the general property of being highly effective testosterone suppressants in adult men. That's certainly the case for MPA - it's a drug that's seen a lot of use as a chemical castration agent for sex offenders, and it was the progestin used in most of the clinical trials of hormonal contraception in men (in that use, testosterone was given at the same time to replace that which was lost due to suppression of testosterone production).
As you've mentioned in your other post, MPA also interacts with androgen receptors, where I think it acts as a partial agonist (partially stimulating and partially blocking them). That's probably why it's not used during pregnancy any more. Any drugs that directly interact with androgen receptors or interfere with DHT synthesis seem to be excluded from use during pregnancy now, e.g. spiro, androcur, finasteride, dutasteride, bicalutamide all have warnings against their use during pregnancy.
The weird thing is that this exclusion doesn't seem to apply to drugs that don't interact with androgen receptors, but do interfere with testosterone production. That's one property that DES had in spades, however it's a property that progestins appear to share too, I think mainly by blocking LH production (although it's possible that some of them might directly interfere with the testicles too, I experienced quite a bit of testicular pain during my experiments with progestins).
Even drugs that are purely progestogenic in their effects seem to be effective at interfering with gonadotropin (LH and FSH) production, e.g.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomegestrol_acetate
LH, or at least LH receptors, are definitely involved in fetal testosterone production. There's a condition called "leydig cell hypoplasia", in which the gene for the LH receptor is faulty. It results in an intersexed or even completely female phenotype at birth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leydig_cell_hypoplasia
It's quite an odd situation really, that medicines with antiandrogenic properties have all sorts of warnings against their use during pregnancy, whereas nothing is said about drugs that interfere with testosterone production (estrogens, progestins, and corticosteroids, and maybe even nonhormonal medicines such as opiates and barbiturates).
Well, I wonder if MPA can actually reduce testosterone production and how. I am aware that it can block the receptors to a degree and thus act as an antiandrogen but how does it lower testosterone levels?
I ask because it is like this: In the fetus, the sex properties are determined by the own hormone production. testicles are created with genetic impulses, the SRY genes and so on. The testicles then produce testosterone , probably already in concunction with LH as a regulator and this testosterone then acts on the body via the androgen receptors to shape the body in a male manner, including the penis. If that does not work properly, the body will be feminized to a degree. Complete insensitivity or blockade of the androgen receptors will result ina a completely female body except the testes and the lack of ovaries. In the brain it is a bit more complicated. The testosterone can, unlike estrogen, pass across the brain barrier. It is then paradoxically converted into estradiol there with aromatase enzymes and the estradiol then is what causes the brain to become male. This is AFAIK not depending on androgen receptors, but just on how much testosterone is around.
Sooo - if one has an XY gonosome, one can have a feminized body appearance if androgen receptors are not actived properly or blocked or defective, and also probably by really low levels of testosterone (although I think that even low amounts of testosterone would virilize the body enough as the androgen receptors would simply multiply to adjust). The brain does only become male if there is enough testosterone around, no matter what the androgen receptors are doing. So to have the situation of a feminized (or rather not-virilized) brain and a virilized body, the testosterone levels would be much more important than the blockade of the androgen receptors.
To make it more complicated the body virilizes in the first weeks, the brain in the later weeks of prgnancy, so time also plays a role.
How does MPA fit into this - IMO only if its ability to suppress testosterone production is large and ity androgen receptor blocking properties are not that big.
EDIT: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6787991 MPA lowers LH and also cortisol (which is something that makes people deal better with stress, so a fetus with too much MPA could have lowered LH, lowered T as a result and less resistance to stress during pregnancy
Quote from: anjaq on September 13, 2014, 05:06:36 AM
Well, I wonder if MPA can actually reduce testosterone production and how. I am aware that it can block the receptors to a degree and thus act as an antiandrogen but how does it lower testosterone levels?
In adult men, I'm pretty sure it does this primarily by blocking LH production. There were clinical trials using MPA as an experimental hormonal contraception in men, and in the paper I saw, they showed how it caused LH production to fall to essentially zero (using it as a male contraceptive, they administered in conjuction with testosterone). MPA has also seen a fair bit of use on its own for chemical castration of sex offenders, and I think it used to be used a fair bit as part of trans HRT too (that's since been stopped, because it can cause severe depression and suicides). In short, it's highly effective at shutting down testosterone production in adult males.
Although MPA itself isn't to my knowledge used during pregnancy, other progestins are (in Western countries, I think mainly hydroxyprogesterone caproate and dydrogesterone, because they're purely progestins and don't cross react with other types of hormone receptor). Although neither of these is ever normally administered on it's own to adult males, the ability to interfere with LH production seems to be something that's an inherent property of progestins, so it's very likely that they would suppress testosterone. Yet here we are, with these same drugs being administered to pregnant women all over the world, with no one taking into account what the consequences are likely to be for a male baby.
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I ask because it is like this: In the fetus, the sex properties are determined by the own hormone production. testicles are created with genetic impulses, the SRY genes and so on. The testicles then produce testosterone , probably already in concunction with LH as a regulator and this testosterone then acts on the body via the androgen receptors to shape the body in a male manner, including the penis. If that does not work properly, the body will be feminized to a degree. Complete insensitivity or blockade of the androgen receptors will result ina a completely female body except the testes and the lack of ovaries.
What you end up with depends very much on whether the action of testosterone is interrupted for all or part of the pregnancy, and if only part of the pregnancy, when the interruption starts and how long it goes on for. There was quite a lot of research carried out on sheep in the 1970s, which showed that there's certain parts of the pregnancy during which various different aspects of sexual development take place, and you'll only get sex-reversal in the things which happen to be undergoing their development during the time the hormone exposure takes place. From memory, the things that could be independently sex reversed were: genital development; hormone control; urination behaviour; mounting behaviour; and sexual orientation. In humans who were exposed to DES, the more severe genital abnormalities were all associated with exposures starting earlier than 12 weeks (i.e. first trimester). No one seems to have done any research into the relationship between exposure start time and the effects on our psychology and behaviour, but I think in my case the exposure was during the second trimester only, and the things that seem to be affected are: hormone control; body language; the physical aspects of sex ie. arousal and orgasm; copulatory behaviour; courtship behaviour and I think most of the rest of my instinctive social behaviour. The rest of me seems to be basically male. I'm definitely not a woman anyway, although the weird thing is that part of me wants "her" parts of who I am to be like a woman's - mainly the hair, the breasts, the shapely arms and legs and the overall profile of the body, and the way women move their bodies and carry themselves. It's not surprising that I've been quite confused about who I am for most of my life!
With DES and probably most other things that can cause transsexuality, I think you usually get testosterone production affected over both the second and third trimester, hence you end up with a more consistently female gender identity rather than the hodgepodge I'm stuck with.
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In the brain it is a bit more complicated. The testosterone can, unlike estrogen, pass across the brain barrier. It is then paradoxically converted into estradiol there with aromatase enzymes and the estradiol then is what causes the brain to become male. This is AFAIK not depending on androgen receptors, but just on how much testosterone is around.
Now that part is definitely wrong. It's what happens in rodents, not people. In humans, masculinisation of the brain is essentially entirely driven through androgen receptors, and estrogen receptors can't play any significant role. There's a condition called Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (or CAIS) which basically proves that to be so. If you do a search on "androgen insensitivity" on youtube and look at the videos that CAIS women have posted of themselves, they don't just look female, their personality, behaviour, everything is female. This is despite them being genetically male, having internal testicles and having fully functioning estrogen receptors and all the hormones etc that convert testosterone into estradiol.
I'm pretty sure with androgen receptor knockout mice, they look female but their behaviour is male. That's not what happens in humans! Unfortunately, that little quirk of rodent physiology has probably thrown a lot of research into what happens in our brains off track, and it could well account for a lot of the confusion about the effects of DES.
Incidentally, today I found a paper on pubmed linking exposure to anticonvulsants with transsexuality.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10097803
This confirms my suspicion that it doesn't even need to be hormones, any kind of drug or medicine that interferes with testosterone production can potentially cause MTF transsexuality
Yes, you are right, the injections contain Hydrogyprogesterone caproate.
So one would have to check its properties, not MPAs
Quote from: HughE on September 15, 2014, 06:46:52 PM
What you end up with depends very much on whether the action of testosterone is interrupted for all or part of the pregnancy, and if only part of the pregnancy, when the interruption starts and how long it goes on for.
That is so , for sure, although I guess usually the medication is given all over the time of the pregnancy. I am not aware though of any significant reports about an influence on the body - significant feminization - in children who had a possible exposure in early fetal stages - this would have to be the case, would it not?
Quotethe things that could be independently sex reversed were: genital development; hormone control;
Hormone vontrol? Thats interesting since we were thinking on whether or not the hypothalamus of different individuals with different types of transsexuality can react differently to hormones. in some, estradiol alone lets the internal testosterone drop, in others you need progesterone as well and in others nothing works and they need antiandrogens. Is there more work done on that subject?
QuoteI'm definitely not a woman anyway, although the weird thing is that part of me wants "her" parts of who I am to be like a woman's - mainly the hair, the breasts, the shapely arms and legs and the overall profile of the body, and the way women move their bodies and carry themselves.
What do you mean "part of you" - another part of you wants a male body with all that goes with it physically?
Do you have a clear male gender identity or what is it that causes you to say you are definitely not a woman?
QuoteWith DES and probably most other things that can cause transsexuality, I think you usually get testosterone production affected over both the second and third trimester, hence you end up with a more consistently female gender identity rather than the hodgepodge I'm stuck with.
Well I guess it is more random than that. For me, if those injections caused anything, they were there from the start. Sadly the lack of T did not feminize my body though. So I am not sure there was an effect of it at all or if it was just pure chance. Do you have data on your exposure to something that can pinpoint the times a bit?
QuoteNow that part is definitely wrong. It's what happens in rodents, not people. In humans, masculinisation of the brain is essentially entirely driven through androgen receptors, and estrogen receptors can't play any significant role. There's a condition called Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (or CAIS) which basically proves that to be so. If you do a search on "androgen insensitivity" on youtube and look at the videos that CAIS women have posted of themselves, they don't just look female, their personality, behaviour, everything is female.
Well, I disagree on the latter part - maybe on youtube it is so, but in reality it is more diverse and some have a rather male expression of behaviour even. Part of it certaily is that body leads to role and both lead to a certain behaviour that is expected. But yes - in most cases it seems to be so, I do not know if CAIS would also limit the expression of enzymes converting T to E2 int he brain - those would probably only be produced if there is T and that is sensed by Androgen receptors which are broken...
Do you happen to have a paper that describes virilization in the brain in humans to be different than in rodents?
Thanks a lot
Quote from: anjaq on September 16, 2014, 08:05:00 AM
Yes, you are right, the injections contain Hydrogyprogesterone caproate.
So one would have to check its properties, not MPAs
As far as I can tell, hydroxyprogesterone caproate is a progestin with similar properties to MPA, except that it's a pure progestin and doesn't cross react with other receptor types to any significant degree (whereas MPA cross reacts with androgen and glucocorticoid receptors I think).
Most long chain steroid esters (eg estradiol valerate) are regarded as "prodrugs". Once they get into the bloodstream, the ester bond usually breaks fairly easily and releases the active steroid molecule, and all having it in the ester form does is make it more fat soluble, so (when it's dissolved in oil and given by IM injection) you get a gradual release of the hormone into the bloodstream and so you only need to give injections once a week or even less frequently. That appears to not be the case with hydroxyprogesterone caproate though, from what I was reading, the ester bond never breaks and the molecule remains intact until it's broken down in the liver. In other words, the hydroxyprogesterone caproate molecule itself is the active compound, meaning that it's a bona fide progestin and not a slow release form of 17-hydroxyprogesterone. I get the impression that fact might not have been realised until after it had already gone into production and was being used as a medicine.
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(Whether the effects of testosterone are interrupted for part or all of the pregnancy) That is so , for sure, although I guess usually the medication is given all over the time of the pregnancy. I am not aware though of any significant reports about an influence on the body - significant feminization - in children who had a possible exposure in early fetal stages - this would have to be the case, would it not?
With DES, treatment was often started in the first trimester. With hydroxyprogesterone caproate, treatment normally starts between 16 and 21 weeks into the pregnancy. That makes a big difference as far as genital abnormalities are concerned, and explains why there were (going on what I've seen) high rates of often quite severe genital abnormalities associated with DES, whereas you'd expect far fewer physical abnormalities with hydroxyprogesterone caproate, purely because it's started too late in the pregnancy to have much effect on genital development. It could still be suppressing testosterone and driving female brain development though, for both drugs the treatment period covers more or less the entire second half of the pregnancy, the time when the brain development responsible for gender identity later in life seems to take place.
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Hormone control? Thats interesting since we were thinking on whether or not the hypothalamus of different individuals with different types of transsexuality can react differently to hormones. in some, estradiol alone lets the internal testosterone drop, in others you need progesterone as well and in others nothing works and they need antiandrogens. Is there more work done on that subject?
In my early days of trying to find out what hasd happened to me, I discovered that there'd been quite a bt of research conducted on sheep, in which they used testosterone injections or implants at various stages of the pregnancy to create female sheep - ewes - that had had parts of their prenatal development pushed down the male pathway instead of the female one. One thing they discovered was that there's a fairly narrow developmental window in which the hypothalamus gets patterned as either female or male. In some of the experiments, they produced ewes with a male hypothalamus. Those sheep were unable to produce the "LH surge" that triggers ovulation, and the result is that they developed ovarian cysts and higher than normal androgen levels (symptoms that sound very similar to PCOS in women!).
Here's one where they were more looking at behavioural effects, however most of their sheep no longer had oestrous cycles, something which is under hypothalamic control:
"The sexual behaviour of prenatally androgenized ewes observed in the field"
http://www.reproduction-online.org/content/49/2/311.long
That paper shows quite well how exposure to external hormones can affect genital development, hypothalamic hormone control and several different kinds of behaviour more or less independently of each other, depending on when exposure starts and ends. It also shows how hormone exposure can produce sheep that have some aspects of their behaviour male and other aspects female, which was quite an important insight for me, since it explains how I could have ended up with some parts of my identity female and other parts male!
Here's another one, that was looking specifically at the effects of testosterone exposure on hypothalamic hormone control:
"Prenatal Programming of Reproductive Neuroendocrine Function: Fetal Androgen Exposure Produces Progressive Disruption of Reproductive Cycles in Sheep"
http://press.endocrine.org/doi/full/10.1210/en.2002-220965
That one was quite insightful for me too, because in that experiment, their sheep were fertile and able to breed while still young, but their "reproductive axis" became progressively more disrupted with age, rendering them completely infertile by their second breeding season. In my case, I've had symptoms of hypogonadism all my life, however it didn't adversely affect my health while I was young, and I successfully fathered two children. However, the whole thing went pear shaped in my early 40s, when my testosterone production appears to have collapsed more or less overnight, and I started to develop a lot of health problems as a result.
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What do you mean "part of you" - another part of you wants a male body with all that goes with it physically?
Do you have a clear male gender identity or what is it that causes you to say you are definitely not a woman?
It's kind of difficult to explain, but I experience life a bit like I'm made up of two separate identities, a male one and a female one. I think there's an actual physical basis to it, and it's due to there being no testosterone present during the early stages of my brain's sexually dimorphic development, but normal male levels during the later stages. It's given me a brain where some parts are male and other parts are female, and a personality and behaviour to match.
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Well I guess it is more random than that. For me, if those injections caused anything, they were there from the start. Sadly the lack of T did not feminize my body though. So I am not sure there was an effect of it at all or if it was just pure chance. Do you have data on your exposure to something that can pinpoint the times a bit?
Unfortunately, my mother passed away in 2010, so I'm unlikely to ever know for sure what happened. Whatever it was must have taken place very early during the process of building the permanent structure of my brain though, which apparently starts about 17 weeks after conception. Although I went through a lot of the same social difficulties during my teens that DES sons seem to commonly experience, and I've got the feminine body structure and hormonal problems that seem to be a common feature of DES exposure too, there was no medical reason for my mother to be prescribed DES. Also, I seem to have undergone a lot less female brain development than is typically the case with DES. I think that's because the period when my testosterone was disrupted was limited to the second trimester only, whereas with DES (and with hydroxyprogesterone caproate), the exposure nearly always covers more or less the entire third trimester as well.
My thought was that it does look a lot like what might happen as a result of a failed attempt to end the pregnancy by talking an overdose of birth control pills. My mother suffered from quite severe depression when I was younger, and I have confirmed that they were using birth control pills for conrtraception - the high dosage first generation ones. There's also something that happened during my childhood that makes me think she could have been hiding a guilty secret along those lines. I'm unlikely to ever know for sure if that's what happened though. It's impossible to completely rule out DES as the cause, because they were adding it to pregnancy vitamins and using it as a growth promoter in cattle. There have apparently been instances where the DES implants weren't removed from the slaughtered cattle, and high doses of DES ended up in peoples food as a result.
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(Regarding the almost universal female gender identity in CAIS women) Well, I disagree on the latter part - maybe on youtube it is so, but in reality it is more diverse and some have a rather male expression of behaviour even. Part of it certaily is that body leads to role and both lead to a certain behaviour that is expected. But yes - in most cases it seems to be so, I do not know if CAIS would also limit the expression of enzymes converting T to E2 int he brain - those would probably only be produced if there is T and that is sensed by Androgen receptors which are broken...
Nope, one striking feature of CAIS is that it seems to produce people who are invariably highly feminine and identify as female. If you look at this paper:
"Male gender identity in Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome"
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10508-010-9624-1#page-1
The first thing they say is that CAIS women invariably have a female gender identity, and their patient is the first reported instance of a CAIS women with a male gender identity. As rare DSD's go, CAIS is actually quite common, due to the fact that genetic females are carriers, so it can be passed from generation to generation. There are thousands of CAIS women alive today, and just that one reported instance of one with a male gender identity. Maybe that person has a mutation that means their gene for male brain development is always switched on even in the absence of testosterone, who knows.
CAIS more or less proves that brain masculinisation in humans must occur entirely through androgenic hormones and androgen receptors, because everything else in CAIS is exactly the same as it is in normal males. Their aromatase enzyme, estradiol production and estrogen receptors are all fully functional, in fact CAIS women are able to produce enough estradiol so that they go through a normal female puberty (except they don't menstruate, due to having no uterus). The only thing that's different is that their androgen receptors are nonfunctional, so all their development takes place as if there were no testosterone present.
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Do you happen to have a paper that describes virilization in the brain in humans to be different than in rodents?
Not off the top of my head. The first 3 sections of this paper:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3654067/
give quite a good summary of the importance of testosterone in driving male brain development, however later on they start quoting research conducted on rats, and how externally administered estradiol masculinises the rat brain (with the implied assumption that the same happens in people). That can't be true in humans though, because if it was, CAIS women would predominantly have male gender identities, and DES daughters would identify as male rather than DES "sons" identifying as female.
This one mentions that both testosterone and DHT masculinise the brain of Rhesus monkeys:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3458140/
However, even that one starts saying that estradiol plays a role too, and quoting rat research to support that claim.
Quote from: Lana P on January 06, 2014, 07:07:45 PM
I have an extra chromosome
So am I though I only recently found out 2 years ago. Nevertheless, it is interesting to read about all the other causes of transsexualism mainly because I did not know why my male body had a brain that was split between male and female thoughts, desires, and feelings. I've learned so much within these posts.
Ugh,
Way over my head and I am fairly smart. Wish I knew how it happened.. All I do know is that it did happen.
Love the discussion.. thanks for all the shared info... love it.
Carrie
This is such an absolutely interesting subject o_o! I've always been doing my own research on it as well, but thanks for all these links and replies!! I must learn morrrrre! <3