Just a little curious as to whether the cause of being transgender really matters. The fact is that I am and for me the only reason to really know why would be some hypothetical cure that some scientist would come up with. I suppose life would be better to conform or would it be better.
Personally, I really want to know. But I don't want a cure at all. I just want to understand my own brain/hormones/soul. (in the health nut hippie kind of way)
yea for Hippies
I've been in therapy off and on for a while.
Somewhere along the way, I gave up trying to find the cause of this and just accepted it as part of who I am.
I expect to go to my grave never understanding why I am the way I am.
As long as I can be happy with who I am and have people who love me, that's perfectly all right with me.
For me, the cause is really just a point of curiosity, and a convenient hook for the narrative to explain that this wasn't a choice I made, and I was born this way. I do know that Mom took DES, and based on skeletal changes (feet, the 2D:4D ratio in my hands, etc) I show signs of having been exposed to high estrogen levels near the start of the second trimester. When I explain what I am, I often start the detailed part of the explanation with this prenatal information.
The cause has no affect on my treatment, or on what I must to to continue to improve myself. It really doesn't matter for me. It does help others understand how I could get here.
On a scale of 1 to 10, probably about a 0.5! I am just me.
I feel the same as Michelle, while I *am* curious; what counts is how to end up...NOT DEAD. It may also be true that understanding the cause could contribute improvements in treatment, so that would be good as well.
There also seems to be a lot of variety in the expression of this thing, some are greatly effected by how others perceive and acknowledge them, but don't seem to have much of a problem with sexuality in general; while I seem to have more of a problem with how T is horribly bad for my mind, and E is just plain ole nice; but my only concern about the bathroom thing is that whatever law the bigots make is clear and easy to follow, and I may never even tell my parents that I have a female name. What causes the difference? Why is dysphoria so chaotic in its distribution? How many suicides could be prevented if the markers were discernable to an outside observer?
Is the cause important in terms of accepting myself? Not so much. Is the cause important in terms of understanding human diversity? It may well be. Besides, gender is a fascinating area of science.
My personal belief is that its an innate gene sequencing at the core of our gender where many variables come into play for the evolution of our species .
Not important to me at all. I know that I was born this way, and that is all I need to know. Having said that, I am pretty sure that I am who I am due to good ole DES. But if I'm wrong, it makes no difference. It is only important to me to know that it was not a choice.
Quote from: stephaniec on October 02, 2016, 08:56:44 PM
Just a little curious as to whether the cause of being transgender really matters. The fact is that I am and for me the only reason to really know why would be some hypothetical cure that some scientist would come up with. I suppose life would be better to conform or would it be better.
The reason why was important , but could not care less now.
you are who you are and being happy is more important than figuring out why you are in a certain way.
I have been asked by a few people "do you know what caused this." (really close friends only) So I would say, I'm a little curious but others are more so.
There was in interesting episode of "Through the Wormhole" with Morgan Freeman about the brain and are there more than two sexes. It is very interesting. 48+ minutes long, but it actually attempts to explain that being Trans* is not abnormal in nature.
Here is a link to the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjeX71hTK1E
Any cure humans could come up with would likely create far bigger problems.
Humans are good at creating new problems. The cure would probably get banned under the logic that the 'evil' transgender people could use it to turn their children into little versions of ourselves to continue our legacy.
To me it's not very important, however I am a very curious person so yes, I would find it interesting to know.
I guess knowing why could lead to a "cure" but I think I would pass on that. Transitioning is my cure so I will stay just the way I am!
Actually, it seems to me that understanding the "cause" of transsexuality could be very important. Perhaps not so much at the level of individual personalities, but rather at the much more intriguing level of nature and the evolution of all life on this planet. Nature is no slouch; she will always seek and discover new ways to restore balance on every level... environmental balance, balance between the various forms of life, energetic balance. I feel a very strong knowing that you and me and all those that are like us are nature's answer to some need, a need that we have yet to identify. The sooner that we identify why we are as we are, the more likely we are to be active, conscious participants in our purpose for existing.
Make no mistake; gender variant people, as a collective phenomenon within the human dynamic, have a very important function within that dynamic. We are no random occurrence. If we appear, on the surface, to be a random occurrence, that perception only speaks to the limitation of our capacity to understand natural forces that govern the delicate balance of life on this planet, just as those forces keep the planets perfectly balanced in their dance around the sun.
I don't need to know why I won the lottery...I'm just spending the money! ;D
Hugs, Devlyn
Aside from Svengali mind control or CIA plot, I cannot see how "Knowing" why once you realize you are trans will make any difference what so ever. To date, any/all of the best hypothesis don't even hint at it being reversible.
Can I assign blame else where to feel better? Mostly it falls on mom's shoulders with all that gestational possibilities, partly tied into environmental or drugs, ie: DES. I tend not to dig into why's if there is no "and then what?"
It's not very important, but I'd really like to know. Hopefully if it ever comes to light, then maybe the bigotry towards us will be qualmed one day, but then again there are downsides such as the medical field using that to "cure" us. :-\
To me, it's very important as it adds legitimacy to the way I feel rather than the guilt that I am in some way perverted.
In the future when ->-bleeped-<- is universally accepted in the mainstream, this sort of thing won't matter but, for now, it would be a comfort to be able to say with 100% certainty that my feelings are down to something my mother took during pregnancy which is what I suspect.
Amanda
I've worried over this for decades and in therapy for years. Not at all in the medical cure sense.
I have felt inauthentic ever since I decided I wasn't transexual and wouldn't pursue transition. I continue to be unable to separate my negative feelings about most things masculine, stemming from how things were growing up from biological causes. My psychiatrist and I have talked about this perhaps ad nauseum and I still say I feel feminine in my brain. What I don't think I'll ever know is whether that's engendered by the searingly negative memories i associate with masculine behaviors or a structure difference acquired in-utero.
Estrogen hrt pretty well mooted the point, simply I feel so much better in my own head than before. I try to let go of the question of how I got this way every day. If my relationship with my mum wasn't so horribly toxic I'd ask her about DES but ultimately it wouldn't matter.
Now it comes to rolling the dice a third time on surgery. It just occurred to me that while the prior repairs, to a torn PCL and fractured collarbone were to correct traumas, GCS will address traumas that I've lived with longer and in pain that's been chronic and mind numbing.
For all I know, I might have been taken away by some greys or reptilians to the mothership and experimented on to create the current me. That's the sort of the thing they'd probably come up with on Ancient Aliens, some of stuff on there sounds reasonable and some is just... Whaaa.
There's a number of reasons why it's important to know the cause.
If you've seen the stuff I've posted previously on this site, you'll know that I think ->-bleeped-<- is the result of hormone disruption during prenatal development, and is basically a form of intersex (except one in which the main thing affected has been the brain rather than the genitals). The main issue I've been trying to highlight is that exposure to pharmaceutical hormones during prenatal development can quite easily result in someone being born trans (and cause other problems too, such as infertility and endocrine related disorders).
The way I see it, apart from anything else, there's a major drug safety issue here which is currently being glossed over by the medical and pharmaceutical industry. While DES (and other estrogens) aren't used during pregnancy any more, progestins are, and since these have also been shown to induce personality changes in exposed children, it's certainly plausible that they too could be a cause of transsexuality.
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi79.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fj150%2Fmightyhugh%2FProgestin%2520and%2520estrogen%2520personality%2520factors%2520Table%25201%2520Reinisch%25201977_zpscizm49sb.png&hash=2d71680ea33743e9fa1e629554a261b38c423429)
This is from a 1977 paper, "Prenatal exposure of human foetuses to synthetic progestin and oestrogen affects personality"
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v266/n5602/abs/266561a0.html
These drugs have been given to millions of pregnant women over the years. I think the link to ->-bleeped-<- is probably just the tip of the iceberg, and there's likely to be a much larger population who haven't ended up trans, but nonetheless have personality changes, endocrine problems and reduced fertility as a result of being prenatally exposed to these drugs. In other words, it must be a big avoidable cause of chronic health problems and quality of life issues, and the sooner it's addressed the better.
I also think it's important to know that there's a physical basis to being trans, both from the point of view of those affected and their families, but also because it has some quite important consequences as far as healthcare is concerned (particularly HRT). From the animal research (and from the personal experiences of trans people) we know that male and female brains have very different hormonal requirements, and if actual opposite sexed brain development has occurred in trans people, it means that a big part of their psychological issues are likely due to their bodies producing the wrong hormones for the needs of their brain (and therefore, supplying the right hormones should go a long way towards resolving those psychological issues). Additionally, many of us MTF's and transfeminine's from the DES era seem to have signs of eunuchoidism, which means our bodies have been producing below normal male amounts of testosterone even prior to going on HRT. The adult human body needs adequate levels of sex hormones (testosterone or estradiol) to be present in order to maintain good health, and if you're deficient in them over long periods of time then your health starts to suffer. Your bone density decreases and you can develop osteoporosis as a result; you suffer adverse metabolic changes that can lead to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, you lose muscular strength, and there appear to be harmful effects on nervous tissue too, so there's a possible link to cognitive decline and various other neurological problems.
None of this is taken into account in the current standards of care for trans women. The standard protocol is to administer antiandrogens (which actually make the sex hormone deficiency worse, and have numerous adverse side effects besides), along with a minimum dose of estradiol which isn't enough to compensate for the sex hormone deficiency. For anyone with the eunuchoid body structure, this is highly likely to be further exacerbating pre existing problems caused by already having had low sex hormone levels all their life. Osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and diabetes are all serious and potentially life threatening health conditions, so it's not a good idea to be administering treatment that could make them worse!
Another thing is the sheer injustice of the way the medical industry have walked away from the DES disaster essentially scot free.
Although I never met her in person, one of my facebook friends was Rhonda Lynn. She was a DES baby who'd struggled with gender issues all her life, and I think had transitioned and had GRS about a year or so before we became online friends. She was a very talented lady who used to post pictures of her artwork, her horses and other pets, and her delicious looking chocolates that she had a business making. Then, in May this year I saw some quite disturbing posts she'd made about wingsuit flying, and not long after that, a post suggesting she was about to take her own life. Following that, a frantic series of messages appeared on my news feed as people tried to find out where she lived, notify police and locate someone who was living near enough to her to check up on her. Sadly it was too late, and on May 26th 2016 Rhonda Lynn passed away.
I just think it's wrong that the people who caused so much pain and suffering should walk away from the whole thing without even acknowledging what they've done.
I know why and that is I'm intersex. Knowing why though wasn't important in the end because regardless I needed to transition. My knowing what I needed to do in the end is all that mattered. Hugs
Mariah
It's my mom's fault. And my dad's. Seriously tho, PJ posted that link to the Morgan Freeman thing, and even tho I didn't watch it, I get that during fetal development, our brains get irregular chemical mixes, and those of us who end up being transgen received too much or not enough of the fetal soup that makes us like everyone else. So like HughE said too.
Some of us are chromosomally challenged with an extra 'X' [think Klinefelter], but for the most part we are still chromosome 'bi'. 'XX' and 'XY'.
Anyways, we end up thinking a little differently than our peers, producing the initial dysphoria, which can easily stick with us till we end up doing something to end the dysphoria.
I guess that helps some realizing these things, but in the end, that's not really important to me. I am just me.
I hope I don't offend anyone with my words. I have a lot of them, and I'm a clod with them.
You know... previously I just felt like I'm curious to know about myself. But now I really feel like I need to be able to explain every detail, show medical documentation, to even have a written diagnosis of gender dysphoria, as well as transness itself. I kind of can't believe it, but one of my closest friends told me that he believes that the cause of my being trans* is guilt about sexual feelings towards women. I cannot even describe to him how stupid that is, but I would love to be able to prove my being trans* as a medical condition.
well, if it is found to be some kind of innate genetic variable within the species , it would be a good scientific arguement to just let it be. like the matrix anomaly .