I came across this very interesting article online. I thought I would pass along the link. Great information.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/10/27/2401941.htm
Jo
I'm always hesitant about a news report concerning a journal article, but this wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.
I could always bond easily, and quickly with any female role model, wanted to hear anything they would tell me, and do anything they were doing. Always understood quickly what they were showing or doing... OTOH, I was always opted-in on the male side; not that I didn't love my adult male family members as well, but there just wasn't that bonding, I wasn't terribly interested, didn't pay attention, I'd wander off, do something unrelated to kill the time.
Of course that leads me to my next revelation about my "concealed" life.
Everyone knew.
Its gonna be just lovely when I go to extreme effort, tears, wailing and moaning to confess trans-ness; and they go, "and this is supposed to surprise me, how?"
I wonder if its why the only response I get from my wife when I go shirtless, is, "you're nekkid, put something on."
That will really just wreck my mind. lol.
Really interesting article, Jo!
Even my psychopathology course in graduate school failed to mention this study and this study was done in 2007-2008, and the course I took was in 2015. Great argument they make...
It's important to remember that this would only be one mechanism responsible. It's the first evidence I've seen of a non-environmental cause, though.
I'm always leery of discussions of "what causes transgender-ness," because there's always an underlying (but usually unspoken and unadmitted) social-political aspect to such discussions. (And thus an inherent source of bias.)
It seems to me that the interest in "causes" is really based in the idea that there's something wrong or pathological with being transgender or transsexual. Do you ever hear about studies trying to find out why people like to collect stamps? Do people have long discussions and arguments and political debates as to what the underlying cause is of people's "compulsion" to collect stamps?
Also, the search for "causes" for transgender-ness on the part of cis people, especially cis people in authority (medical, scientific, political) is in my experience always linked with a goal of "curing" people of their transgender nature. (Quote from an Ursula LeGuin novel: "Would you cure a singer of his voice?") And that same search, when done by trans people, seems to be about "proving" the legitimacy and validity of our nature to all those cis people who keep insisting we're just deluded and mentally ill (or that we are "Abominations Unto The Lord".)
\begin{rant}
Well, I say @#$%^ to that!!!
As the Jazz Jennings quote in my signature says, "I'm great just the way I am, and so are you." It's not me that's the problem, it's society that has the problem. (And in the time-honored personality-disorder fashion, society decided to make their problem my problem.)
I wasn't born "trans," I was just born me. Society made me trans -- by dividing up humanity into M and F and saying how people in each category have to be and labeling as "trans" anyone who isn't the way they say people in their category have to be. Society created the whole social construct "trans-ness." And then decided to make life hell for the people who they shove into that social construct; that is, people who aren't the way they insist we have to be.
It's as if they divided my state in half and said that anyone born on the East side of the line has to have blue eyes and anyone born on the West side has to have green eyes and people on the East side with green or hazel eyes (or on the West side with blue or hazel eyes) must have "trans-optical disorder" and deserve being shamed for it and need conversion therapy to make them normal. Would you say that people with the "wrong" eye color have a disorder? Or would you say that the people who impose such ridiculous standards have the disorder?
I don't care a rotten kumquat what "caused" my so-called "trans" nature. I want to know how we can get the rest of society to just let us live as ourselves and stop invalidating and pathologizing and ostracizing and outlawing and killing us.
\end{rant}
I'm a nerd, always will be a nerd, boy nerd, girl nerd, overbuilt, injured wieghtlifter... nerd.
I love thinking about the mechanisms for how things come to be as they are.
Having a potential, known mechanism for how a person becomes that particular person does not imply anything less valued or defective about that person. It just means you've learned something cool, something cool that you can weave into your understanding of your social space, the world, the universe; and when you're lucky, the weaving process uncovers more interesting and cool things you did not know. Rinse and repeat.
I do appreciate the meaning of your rant though. Its something to be wary of; because it certainly can easily lead to a return of, "we have a cure for that."
I guess everyone will have an opinion of this study. I do agree that society has created our transgender box and does tend to try to find a cure for our "condition". I also see that there is more acceptance in society than there ever has been and believe the sides of the box are starting to crack. I recently attended a Paul McCartney concert. At the start the band members came out carrying 4 flags. The US flag, the British flag, the state flag, and the rainbow flag! (Is Sir Paul transgender?) I have probably been to 50 concerts over a period of 40 years and never seen that before! At work we were recently required to attend a 2 hour diversity class discussing tolerance and acceptance of LGBTQI issues. Things are slowly changing.
Now for the study. It happened several years ago, what happened to the follow up study? Also the sample size that used is small but still large enough to develop a hypothesis. What they claim seems possible in that genetics could be one factor. I also don't believe that all scientists, cis or trans, have an automatic built in bias to their studies. I mean the premise of whether there is, or is not, a genetic link to being transgender is either a yes or no proposition. They also don't make a conclusion as well they couldn't. They just state that they have found a receptor difference but don't know what it means and it needs more study. I don't totally condemn it or accept it. It is an interesting concept and would love to know if any more research has been completed.
Personally, I think these studies are important because they destroy the political right wing arguments. It's true that there's a core of people on that side who wouldn't change their minds in the face of any science. However, anything that can demonstrate that this isn't simply a whim, or choice, or perversion, or mental illness pushes them further and further into the fringe and into eventual irrelevancy.
It's always nice to see another possible cause of our being who we are. Like so many others, this is a prenatal condition, so once again, "We are born this way."
The cause doesn't really matter much, though, as the treatment still remains the same. As I explained to my wife, "Yes, there is a complete cure for my condition that will make me a happy, well adjusted person with no more issues than any other person out in the world. You won't like it, though..."
I appreciate this study so much, it means the world to me at times, since my mind operates in such a logical, emotional way, I seeked to understand, why I was not like the other cisgendered men. I fought the good fight until my mid 40's and then said forget It, I'm diving right in. The social/cultural aspect of it, says that its an environmental cause of being transgender, I said, not so, more epigenetic/genetic, or some as yet unknown biological factor. I see so much suffering from the transgender community at times, that how could it possibly be environmental/cultural, when so much discrimination happens to our tg brothers and sisters, myself included.
I welcome any empirical scholarly study on transgender people.