Do you believe transsexualism is caused by having the wrong gender brain? Or are we a product of environment?
Quote from: Nichole on August 04, 2009, 12:35:10 PM
Not sure I can go with "wrong brain." I think we all get the "right" brain, just one that's wired differently than what is generally seen in human experience than the right ones we have
okay, right brain. :) so what's your thoughts from a shrink perspective, Nikki? could environment cause this?
I believe in standard statistical deviations myself, with liberal room for environmental factors including, but not limited to, diet, electromagnetic waves, and events.
Right brain, wrong body.
A product of womb environment? Genetics? Reincarnation?
Brain fixes don't work, so the brain must be right.
Jay
I believe in brain-wiring not matching the physical sex.
I believe this to be the cause because transsexualism isn't "new".
A lot of environmental factors have changed, enough so that one has to ask oneself, if it was the environment, then what's the common environmental factor between today and then.. and there really aren't that many.
Also, while I believe in reincarnation, I don't think the average soul has a species, let alone a gender.
I recalled following a link in the news section to a blog page, reading other stuff there and this topic reminded me of the following...
http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/05/brain-gender-identity-presentation-by.html (http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/05/brain-gender-identity-presentation-by.html)
Quote from: Nero on August 04, 2009, 12:32:49 PM
Do you believe transsexualism is caused by having the wrong gender brain? Or are we a product of environment?
I think there are more options than these two. Maybe your question is meant to be: is it genetic or environmental? Neither case rules out biology.
For me, I perceive that there are different types of transsexualism (or in other words, different transsexual experiences) but I think they all share at least one thing in common:
A biological predisposition (genetic) tendency to identify with attributes currently associated with the opposite sex of the person's biological sex.
Does that mean that a transsexual person has the "wrong brain gender"? Not necessarily, but it doesn't rule it out either. I don't personally find the idea of the brain being the wrong gender tenable. It seems a lot more likely that part of your brain is "messed up" while the rest of it is a healthy functioning normal brain for your biological sex.
As it stands then, I see chromosomes to be the most important indicator of what a person's brain was intended to develop as (where chromosomes are not ambiguous), regardless if the brain actually developed all the necessary components to identify that way. So any degree of transsexualism is more likely to be the result of a mal-functioning sexually-dimorphic portion of the brain rather than a healthy (genetically purposed) opposite chromosomal-sexed brain with an unhealthy (genetically unpurposed) chromosomaly consistent body.
Regardless, there isn't a fix for the brain yet (at least for this condition), but who knows, maybe one day.
I probably think along the same lines as interalia. But I don't really see it as something that is unhealthy, or something that needs 'fixing' in the sense of fixing the brain. i.e. it is not according to plan but it is not broken.
A lot of human development is just a result of a heap of biological compromises which is part of our environmental adapatability. As such I think this 'malfunctioning' portion as interalia puts it is just part of the variation allowable in the design of viable human beings. Not nessesarily an unhealthy thing, more a byproduct of our genetic heritage. If the posibility of this potential variation did not exist perhaps humans would not be able to function as they do now.
As far as environment goes, I don't buy the theories that our childhood traumas made us transgender.
I, for one, had a normal childhood in a normal suburban neighborhood, of regular, moral, church-going parents (though I'd argue about all church-goers being moral!). And if there was anyone who ever knew me in my life who would have guessed that I (yes *I*!!) ever would have announced to the world that I was transsexual and would transition, well, they don't exist, LOL.
Jay
The environment caused me to go in the closet, it did not create me.
As for wrong brain, hmmm. I think that is over-simplification.
I am pretty sure that I was born a girl and then kidnapped by evil aliens and switched into this dreadful body. Some beautiful woman out there has lived a wonderful life with my body. Damned aliens!!!!
Seriously though I don't know what it matters. It is what it is. I don't know if I am trans because I was abused as a child or I was abused as a child because I was trans or if some drug my mother took caused this or if her hormones where just out of whack. I tend to think it is a genetic thing and is adaptive from a group living with limited resources perspective. Of course, as a biologist I think everything boils down to some aspect of evolution. Don't really give the wrong brain much credence I guess.
A simple answer. No.
I really don't believe in the nature/nurture/environment thing. It is what it is. My mental gender is female, the body was male. The body is easier to alter than to alter the mind.
Wiring, maybe. But the body is much easier to change than the change the wiring in the brain.
Wrong Brain, No. Wrong body, Yes.
Janet
I would have to go with the brain-sex theory, 'cause the doctors of the past tried to "fix" me with therapy and it didn't work.
As a kid, I went to therapy for my "gender confusion," and it didn't work. In those days, it was believed that you could -- especially if one was a young child -- reverse Transsexualism if you caught it early enough. That theory, since then, has been debunked a lot.
As a teen, I did some therapy, especially 'cause I'd cut myself, tried to commit suicide, and would keep trying to wear make up. I didn't know anyone else like me, and I was told that I was a nut case. The only exposer was once watching a talk show where you had to "spot the ->-bleeped-<-" and the over all tone was ridicule. Seeing that further drove me into depression, and the feeling that I was a "freak."
During my childhood and teens, I was beaten and even tortured 'cause I was so effeminate. I grew up in very poor conditions. My mother was a drug addict, hooker, and her boyfriends were often dangerous. We were the ones living in the abandoned house with no power, water, or food. I'd be locked up for days in a borded up room. I'd be beaten. I'd have a gun to my face, and told how awful of a person I was.
My grandparents, who were involved in the church, introduced the church to my brother and me. My mom figured it would be good that we got some good influence, and we could also use the church for food and outs.
In our eyes, to have someone tell us that were were loved and wanted attracted us. Looking back, I still can't believe the bruises on my face were left ignored; and instead the church used our situation to sell us religion. Instead of doing something -- like getting me out of the situation -- they told me to pray, and to work hard at trying to prove my worthiness to the church and god. I never felt 100% accepted, although, 'cause nothing I ever did was good enough. I found I was working to be loved, and longing to be loved, but I was only being sold empty faith.
I tried, although. The trans issues kept coming, and so did the confusion. No matter how much I prayed -- how much I begged -- god, it wouldn't be taken away. I felt a sense of great guilt and believed my abusive and troubled home was punishment from god for me being a transsexual. I believed the blind eye as confirmation, and the scolding from the church leaders about my gender identity issues as a testament to my punishment.
I thought if I was only good enough. If I only tried hard enough, someone would love -- god would love me. I'd be some how saved from the hell I was living in. But nothing happened. In my mind I was still a woman no matter how much faith I bought and how many punches I took for god.
I was surely the devil with the black dress on. Sent to hell the moment I was born, and there wasn't anyway I was getting out.
At 19 the church convinced me to go on a mission for them, where they would also put me through therapy to get over my transsexualism (a sin in their eyes). I partook in a lot of psych testing (3 hours worth) which confirmed that gender identity was the root of my other psychological problems (namely, depression). I took therapy for a year, and during that time a private psychologist who worked for the church attempted to use medication to "cure" me of my transsexual psychosis.
At the end of the year, I was taking 32 pills a day in drug cocktail. I tried getting out before, which included a suicide attempt and two times that I ran away. A year being on heavy medication and therapy, I was pretty messed up and they sent me back home.
Back home, the docs from the mission sent a letter to my doctors telling them how I was a borderline, and was schizo-affective and borderline. I continued on the medication (but with out anti-trans therapy). I was extremely messed up and ended up on the streets ('cause I told my family that I refused to go to church). I then ended up in a youth shelter and then in a group home for the mentally ill.
Then, after another suicide attempt, I was sent to a psychatric institution for a little over a year, and then back into the group home after that. I barely even remember those times, I was very out of it and extremely damaged mentally.
Yet, my brain still told me I was a woman.
After a while, my medications were slowly lowered and I was deemed to be able to live on my own (with disability aide). I moved to a bigger city, and there they finally got me off all of the medications. I lived with my brother in the city, who still was involved in the church. I refused to go, however, 'cause the anxiety was so great.
I tried to transition once again, but my brother decided to bring the church over and also make fun of me. This threw me back mentally and I went into hermit mode. I was damaged so badly psychologically. Again, I started to cut myself, went back on meds (but a lower dose) and wish that I would die.
My brother got married and moved out, and I tried to move on with my life some how. I knew that I couldn't transition in the state that I was in. I worked hard to heal myself. I tried working part time jobs and also went to college for a few months. I worked hard to make friends, get me out of my shell, and heal myself. I also went without medication.
It wasn't until I was 26-27 that I finally got to the point where I started to transition. Where I could stand up and be mentally sound and not resort to suicide attempts or shutting myself out from the world. It took a lot of time to heal, to recover and to be who I knew I was inside.
I'm now 30, and I ain't looking back.
Although I still sometimes struggle with depression due to the psychological trama I've experienced most of my life -- I'm more happier and content then I've ever been. I feel whole. It's a feeling I've never felt before.
My gender is definitely hard-wired. No therapy, beatings, or faith could remove it. I think if it were a choice, it would have been much easier to take the well worn path, than the road less traveled.
--Natalie
Hmm. . . I think it's caused by hormone levels during puberty. Perhaps your mother produced too much estrogen, that can give a female body a male brain for FTMs. I figure MTFs have underdeveloped gonads. That would explain how so many of them are very feminine and the effects of testosterone are mosty irreversible, so they can't have ever been exposed to high enough levels to be feminized. Or maybe an abundance of aromatase and shbg. Just guesses.
So yeah, correct brain but developed (or underdeveloped) to be wired for the wrong sex. Brains are more easily hormonally influenced than the body as far as I know. Especially in the womb.
SilverFang
I do believe in the wrong brain theory. It just makes more sense to me.
Short sweet and to the point ;)
Jay
Every day, scientists are finding more and more differences between male and female brains. These differences seem to be developmental. Some take place in the womb and others take place later. Since all fetuses are female to begin with, we might say that female brains develp normally and male brains develop in an alternative fashion.
Genetics is also turning out to be more complex than has been believed. There are entire classes of genes that can develop in different ways, depending on the influence of other genes, hormones and environmental factors.
I believe that transsexualism can rise from either skewed DNA or a malfunction in one of the in-utero hormone washes that direct the gender development of the fetus. In either case, there are cascading effects over time, which result in differences between the brains of transsexuals and those of cisgendered people of the same birth sex.
The problem with questions like this is we start down a slippery slope...
Lets assume for the moment that its the "wrong brain" theory... or that its <gasp> environmental. Do we then apply the same logic to sexual preference? Can someone be gay because they are "wrong brained" or because of environmental factors? Differences in the womb? I dont think so....
Our wiring is our wiring, it is neither right nor wrong. It just is, and the rest of "ourselves"... physical or otherwise, sometimes need to play catch-up. Although gender and sexual orientation are separate and different beasts, they stem from the same place... whats between our ears.
I am not "wrong brained", but "wrong bodied". A birth defect, perhaps no different logically than a cleft palate, correctable with surgery and chemicals (hormones).
I was born in 1949, supposedly male, transition/SRS in 1974, and the more I have learned in my lifetime the more I have come to see how everything from my earliest childhood onward was pretty average, run-of-the-mill and typically female/feminine/girl, albeit it in very bad circumstances for a number of years. I was, in the beginning, and have been for over 30 decades way to normal, even from a developmental point of view, to ever doubt that my "wiring" was other other than girl.
I believe every individual is different and in many way my experience was unique.
I think there ARE people for whom external influences play a determinative role...but those are people who never felt any GID until well into adulthood.
I cannot say whether such people had any biological contribution to their state of mind.
but for those of us who felt this from a pre-adolescent stage, I'm convinced we are "wired" from the womb according to the "wrong" gender for our bodies.
I have NO problem saying to those to whom I am discussing it that it is, essentially, a "birth defect" and as Stacy implied, there's no reason not to show as much respect for our condition as one would for any other medically treatable birth defect.
I was raised in a healthy, middle-class American family without getting screwed up too badly. External factors - evironmental influences - kept me trying to be a boy for many years. :(
Since I knew something was wrong when I first discovered there was a difference between boys and girls, sometime before kindergarten, I figure I must have been born this way. :P Why else would I think I should be a girl that young? And why else would that feeling persist these many years, even before I discovered it would be possible to really be a girl. ???
- Kate
Yep. Occam's Razor.
But ok....my thoughts on why, assuming it is nature. Environmental stress on the mother while in the womb could certainly explain some of it. In the plant world the right kind of environmental stress can cause a previously female seedling to turn male, because males can typically handle a stressful environment (famine, drought, etc...) better. Pollution (most common modern stress factor) being ruled out for our ancestors...other stresses still existed obviously. I know my mother had a serious flu when pregnant with me...a possible example. It's also a matter of species survival that there be variation in the population, if we are all the same we can be wiped out more easily. Intersex and nuerologically intersexed conditions fall into the category of beneficial variations I would think? Sorry if that's choppy I'm tired :)
Quote from: aubrey on August 07, 2009, 01:01:32 AM
Yep. Occam's Razor.
But ok....my thoughts on why, assuming it is nature. Environmental stress on the mother while in the womb could certainly explain some of it. In the plant world the right kind of environmental stress can cause a previously female seedling to turn male, because males can typically handle a stressful environment (famine, drought, etc...) better. Pollution (most common modern stress factor) being ruled out for our ancestors...other stresses still existed obviously. I know my mother had a serious flu when pregnant with me...a possible example. It's also a matter of species survival that there be variation in the population, if we are all the same we can be wiped out more easily. Intersex and nuerologically intersexed conditions fall into the category of beneficial variations I would think? Sorry if that's choppy I'm tired :)
That's interesting. I know that my mother had a series of intense events while pregnant with me. Course I'd feel bad if that's what caused it though.