I don't see why it has to be nature or nurture.  Why can't it be nature and nurture. 

We are the sum of all of our parts... from the cultures we're born into to the hormonal, neural transmitter laden soup that runs through our veins.  We are the result of choices we've made and burdens we've carried.  We're both the DNA that formed us and the parents and peers that helped form our opinions.

I think its OK for us to be complex beings and I resist the notion that there has to be a single simple "WHY" for how we come to be transgendered. 

For myself... transgender is something I've been for longer than I can remember.  It's something that occurred without any conscious choice on my part.
For others... it may have happened later in life when you made a choice that you preferred a lifestyle as the opposite gender.

However it came about... whether through biology, socialization, spirituality, free will or any combination of the above... we've all arrived at this place in our own unique way and I don't see why any one of the narratives about how we've gotten here should invalidate the others or lessen our right to be just as we are or have chosen to be.

Quote from: SunKat on January 05, 2014, 06:37:37 AM
I don't see why it has to be nature or nurture.  Why can't it be nature and nurture. 

We are the sum of all of our parts... from the cultures we're born into to the hormonal, neural transmitter laden soup that runs through our veins. 

LOL Concur! EVERYONE has primordial, sacred elements of 'male' or femaleness' within them. At conception often imperfect nature biologically divides out and pushes us one way or another but every CHOICE we subsequently make in THIS LIFE should be geared back toward The One 'Soup'  which is a Whole Spirit again!

How 'environment' or existing cultures, which is nothing more than the historical product(s) of other people's thinking and choices, REACT to Our Choices as individuals does, to a more or less degree also of our choosing, influence how we feel about ourselves and the needs we are 'compelled' to express.

Quote from: Emerging Cultures
Cultural influences are perhaps the least understood aspect of transsexuality - in large part the effects of culture are so hard to define and study. Still, the evidence suggests that these factors strongly influence whether MtF transsexuals tend to be gay of straight. In Far Eastern countries such as Korea, Malaysia. Singapore and Thailand, fewer than 5 percent of MtF transsexuals may be heterosexual. The rest are homosexual biological males, usually extremely feminine in their behavior and appearance and exclusively attracted toward men. (These are the so-called kathoeys or ladyboys of Southeast Asia.) In striking contrast, this ratio of gay to straight is almost perfectly flipped in the West, where 75 percent or more of American and British transsexuals are heterosexual - attracted to women - or bisexual . . .

This correlation could result from the fact that in collectivist countries, such as those in Southeast Asia, effeminate, homosexual men are not well tolerated - they may fare better as women in accepted transgender roles such as ladyboys. Men who are too masculine to pass as women, on the other hand, would be shunned if they tried to do so. Countries such as the U.S. and U.K., on the other hand, place more value on individual expression and personal choice and are therefore more tolerant of both effeminate men and masculine MtF transsexuals.

'Gay' VS 'trans' acceptance? Hard to argue 'stats'!

Anyone ever watch "The Pyramid Code", especially part 4 and 5? True HIGH STATUS for a born male Egyptian Pharaoh was denoted by the wearing of a woman's wig? One must be initiated and grow into True Spirit Sense it doesn't necessarily occur 'naturally' (LOL at least not now-a-days we have become so increasingly 'unbalanced' & 'divided')

Quote from: Tessa James on January 05, 2014, 02:30:05 AM
I'm going for alternate universe as a third option

I have always said that if free will actually exists you have to believe in magic or some multiverse mumbo jumbo (which I do actually, the multiverse thing, because choice feels to real to be an illusion.)  I don't feel like explaining that whole thought pricess though, it give me a headache.   So anyway, I think you are pretty smart .

And regarding transness being a choice, if it is a choice for you, you are dealing with something very different than I am, which is fine if so.  You can just read what L2L said to find out why I know it isn't a choice for me.

Quote from: Tessa James on January 05, 2014, 02:30:05 AM
I'm going for alternate universe as a third option

OK. But not sure how that relates contextually to the mind-body problem to which I referred (as in a person's mind being independent of all physical influences).

QuoteAnd regarding transness being a choice, if it is a choice for you, you are dealing with something very different than I am

What if when you were born, you were only exposed to others of your birth gender, raised and nurture with no societal mandates on what it meant to be a particular gender? You didn't even know there were just a thing as females. Would you still feel the same? How about the same situation but raised with just the opposite gender, but still no societal mandates?

Nothing? No difference?

Maybe the numerous experiences we have, good and bad, has consequences. Maybe one set of experiences makes one person unsure and another set of experiences makes another person absolute in their view, but maybe they were born equally trans.  Or maybe the unsure person is more trans! 

I don't think anybody knows. Or maybe it is a parallel alternate universe...

I think if raised by members of the opposite body sex, the difference would become obvious when puberty hit if not sooner.

Quote from: Nikko on January 05, 2014, 03:14:33 PM
What if when you were born, you were only exposed to others of your birth gender, raised and nurture with no societal mandates on what it meant to be a particular gender?...

I don't think anybody knows.

There are all sorts of thought experiments covering this subject, going right back to the brain-in-a-vat experiment. But there are also real life cases from which we can extrapolate the sorts of results that you seek.

Quote from: Jenna Stannis
OK. But not sure how that relates contextually to the mind-body problem to which I referred (as in a person's mind being independent of all physical influences).

Without references to cosmology or the supernatural and in respect to the tangible world I must agree that it seems we are most completely a product of nature and nurture.  I do not think there is any evidence to suggest our minds exist separate from our bodies and the physical world we are part of.

We do like to talk about our "choices" about coming out, transitioning, presentations, surgery and more.  Many of us do feel we are deeply compelled to move in one direction or another.  We note some here also consider being transgender distinctly separate from accepting a linear course of action.  How much of our behavior is predetermined?  If choice really is an illusion then we have created an elaborate system to enshrine it with a seemingly infinite number of philosophies, religions and psych folks willing to help us "choose" a better way? 

With prompting from Nikko;  I think that is one reason we love fantasy and sci fi stories and tell ourselves "if we can imagine it we can make it real"   Oh really

Quote from: Tessa James on January 05, 2014, 03:40:40 PM
If choice really is an illusion then we have created an elaborate system to enshrine it with a seemingly infinite number of philosophies, religions and psych folks willing to help us "choose" a better way? 

Yes, I think this is exactly the social environment in which we live. The one consolation we have is that even if we do live in a deterministic universe, the illusion of free-will is so strong that it's hard to process it as anything else. 

Quote"if we can imagine it we can make it real"   Oh really

Yep, agreed, that's a pretty big fallacy right there.

Quote from: Tessa James on January 04, 2014, 02:16:07 PM
It may just be hubris that allows me to believe that we exercise choices to make the best of what we get from nature and nurture.

A Buddhist teaching comes to mind here, one that allows room for nature, nurture, and choice/free will. It's called the Twelve Nidanas and - bypassing all the fussy bits - it boils down to this:

In moment to moment existence, there is one instant in which we are able to exercise free will. Once the fullness our given experience has arisen, influenced as it is by nature and/or nurture, we have an opportunity to choose between opening to this experience or closing it down in one way or another. This is about it. The entire Buddhist journey can pretty much be understood as a progressive broadening/deepening our opening to the given of our lives.

From this point of view, being trans - and my specific experience of this situation - is a given in my life. My main work with this involves opening to the experience again and again, opening to this as much as I possibly can, and seeing where it takes me. Easier said than done, of course, but in those moment I am able to meet this challenge, oddly enough, life is okay.

Quote from: Tanya W
The entire Buddhist journey can pretty much be understood as a progressive broadening/deepening our opening to the given of our lives.

I like that "opening to the given" concept.  Many buddhist practices such as mindfulness and meditation are very helpful without the trappings of dogmatic religion.

Part of my personal challenge is i really do want to be believe in the essence of choice.  I want to believe we are creative beings and that there really is "something new under the sun."

How do we reconcile the simple "choices" we sometimes make with the results of a coin toss?

Absolute determinism feels like it will rob me of romance and more.

A fun discussion

Scenarios where we are not ruled by determinism are too convoluted and too unprovable to pass occams razor, but I still feel very much inclined to believe in one of them because free will feels too real to me to believe it is an illusion.

But every event is directly tied to the preceding moment, every synaptic reaction is determined by the foregoing stimuli, every emotional response you have is filtered through the experience, knowledge, and memories that you have accrued. It's really hard to rationally imagine a reality that allows us to step outside of the inked chain of events going on and act independently on it without needing paragraphs to explain it, but sometimes reality is not simply the most probable choice.  Sometimes reality is astounding and fantastical and complex.

Quote from: Jen on January 06, 2014, 03:01:59 PM
But every event is directly tied to the preceding moment, every synaptic reaction is determined by the foregoing stimuli, every emotional response you have is filtered through the experience, knowledge, and memories that you have accrued. It's really hard to rationally imagine a reality that allows us to step outside of the inked chain of events going on and act independently on it

I suspect this is what the Buddhist/Nidanas teaching mentioned earlier is pointing toward - the cosmos are just so darn interconnected/interdependent that it is very difficult to imagine any of us independently creating any of it! We are just far too embedded in the web of being for 'independence'.

All of which sounds like a bummer until one realizes this fact makes each of our lives a completely unique manifestation of the universe in this moment - never happened before, will never happen again. In opening to the given, then, as it arises in our lives - the one slice of free will we do have - we allow the cosmos to give voice to itself. We literally are a song of the universe!

Personally, I find this affirming for everyone - especially, however, for any of us who might for whatever reason feel devalued and marginalized in this world.       

Buddhist thinking always seems to have a warm and calming effect on me.  I really like it .

To me this issue is resolved and entirely irrelevant.

Some people do choose to change. Consciously, purposely and simply because it is a preference. IMHO most wont go to the extent of permanent and irreversible surgeries. This does not make them any more or less legitimate, worthwhile or worthy of equality and respect.

But that is not the case for people like me. I dearly wish I had not needed to change. Just like I wish I never had colon cancer. Being transsexual is a condition, treatable but not curable. I dont know why it happens and in fact I dont think anyone does. But the fact of it, the fact that it exists and is a legitimate medical condition with life threatening consequences when left untreated to me is undeniable. It is something you are born with, not something learned or influenced by upbringing.

I was incarcerated for three years at CAMH and systematically tortured with electric shocks, caning, sexual abuse and sound detterence. It didnt work. It didnt work any better than reparative therapy stopped men from being gay. It didnt work because I was meant to be born female and no amount of torture can change that any more than it can change your IQ.

This subject is very sensitive to me. We must be very careful not to turn a deadly life threatening condition into an intellectual debate. Radfem thinking is evil, as are they.

Quote from: SunKat on January 05, 2014, 06:37:37 AM
I don't see why it has to be nature or nurture.  Why can't it be nature and nurture. 

We are the sum of all of our parts... from the cultures we're born into to the hormonal, neural transmitter laden soup that runs through our veins.  We are the result of choices we've made and burdens we've carried.  We're both the DNA that formed us and the parents and peers that helped form our opinions.

I think its OK for us to be complex beings and I resist the notion that there has to be a single simple "WHY" for how we come to be transgendered. 

For myself... transgender is something I've been for longer than I can remember.  It's something that occurred without any conscious choice on my part.
For others... it may have happened later in life when you made a choice that you preferred a lifestyle as the opposite gender.

However it came about... whether through biology, socialization, spirituality, free will or any combination of the above... we've all arrived at this place in our own unique way and I don't see why any one of the narratives about how we've gotten here should invalidate the others or lessen our right to be just as we are or have chosen to be.

Yes, sunny kitty, you are right it is nature and nurture and choice....

The biomedical evidence indicate certain brain-genetic wiring predisposes some of us to be psychopaths. This is just one example of the Nature side of thing

The medical data base also indicates that a "toxic" and traumatic environment can shape your brain so you end-up as a psychopath. Another example is war induced PTSD, right? These are but two examples of the Nurture side of things.

So, to what degree the "free will" or "will power" or what ever you want to call "cognizant volition" can modify, repress, or enhance the nature and/or nurture driven behaviors?

Well, I think I am a good example to analyze their interplays -if any

... I played a perfect male role by repressing my inner female, this was "my choice;"

I was molded in certain male behaviors by the imposed rearing conditions (this was the nurturing environmental effects );

and finally, here I am at the end of my life driven by my innate inner genetically female (My Nature).

So you see, in the case of my GID, no Nurturing or "choice" had any effect on my innate inner female Nature.

The questions then is: what behaviors can be modified by nurturing, which are dominated by nature, and how "choice" affects them....



   

Quote from: amber1964 on January 06, 2014, 06:04:10 PM
To me this issue is resolved and entirely irrelevant.

Some people do choose to change. Consciously, purposely and simply because it is a preference. IMHO most wont go to the extent of permanent and irreversible surgeries. This does not make them any more or less legitimate, worthwhile or worthy of equality and respect.

But that is not the case for people like me. I dearly wish I had not needed to change. Just like I wish I never had colon cancer. Being transsexual is a condition, treatable but not curable. I dont know why it happens and in fact I dont think anyone does. But the fact of it, the fact that it exists and is a legitimate medical condition with life threatening consequences when left untreated to me is undeniable. It is something you are born with, not something learned or influenced by upbringing.

I was incarcerated for three years at CAMH and systematically tortured with electric shocks, caning, sexual abuse and sound detterence. It didnt work. It didnt work any better than reparative therapy stopped men from being gay. It didnt work because I was meant to be born female and no amount of torture can change that any more than it can change your IQ.

This subject is very sensitive to me. We must be very careful not to turn a deadly life threatening condition into an intellectual debate. Radfem thinking is evil, as are they.

I think there are two conversations happening concurrently in this thread.  First is responding to the OP about whether or no being trans is a conscious choice, to which almost everybody, or maybe everybody, has said no def not a choice for me.  Second is the intellectual debate about whether free will even exists in the first place, which is tangentially related to the OP for sure but not really related to being trans at all.

Both are, like you say, mostly irrelevant, and the former, even the idea of it is dangerous with conversion therapy still being a thing, and with the hatred and violence that comes out of the idea that we could change if we wanted to.  So mmm yes, I agree with you, mostly.

I feel the need to offer a small apology. My response was sharp and I dont think the other posters intended harm with what was an intellectual debate. But it is a debate I have heard before, not so intellectual, one essentially used as a justification to deny that we are legitimate and are in desperate need of medical intervention.

If anyone cares to see what I mean go over to a blog called "Gender Trender". I warn you though, it is not a nice place and a certain amount of detachment is needed in order to read through the hate filled filth they post there.

I love this topic , it is fascinating , although now I am going thru some very severe gender identity issues , I just yesterday had a shock when I felt that I am not a (trans) girl for real but some form of a ->-bleeped-<- . I really want being a girl , but that Is the problem , am I a girl or I just want to do it because of some fetishes/obsession/fascination of feeling like a girl . I am so messed up right now , that I don't even know what I think , I don't know if the perceptions I got are real , or if they are corrupted by some other brain/chemical/personality  mechanisms.
To be more clear , I always ,at least in the last 5-10 years , envied (I don't know if that terms is appropriate , or denaturate the idea even more ) girls , not just in a typical crossdressing way , but I wanted their lives . It is like in a pic I saw today : " I want to be you " . I was ok with that for a while , although I had many struggles of who I really am , then yesterday I found some articles and they really blew my mind in the worst case possible ( I posted a topic about right now , it is about the 2d:4d rapport , the ->-bleeped-<- theories and how I felt that all this explained my struggles and now I feel like a man even I don't want to ) .

Now I feel that maybe I am a ->-bleeped-<- , and I feel so dirty , guilty , non-genuine , non-worthy , I despise myself .
I feel that is a choice to live as a girl (although it isn't about just sex  , I want the whole experience ) and that that is a bad thing including for the real girls . I feel  that I am a shame for the trans community , I want so bad to feel like a girl , and that is the problem , I id-ed myself as a boy for the most of the time , although I was very sensitive , non-aggressive , .. . I didn't live a boy life but I didn't really wanted a girl one until the arriving of the concepts of sexual role , looks , the acceptance in  society and the great (in my opinion) life of a girl .
I didn't hate my body  like many girls did , I was having 'hero' fantasies of being a macho and being appreciated and impressing  girls , I enjoyed my penis (maybe because I am a very erotic person , my first memories are sexual related , I always had sex lust).

Maybe it is because I like woman too (in fact I kinda like androgynous people , I like man that are very effeminate in looks and behavior , and trans girls but I always felt more attracted about the ones who had some male features on their face and even personality )
That confuse me even more , how do I am  and how do I want to be?
Because I can't seem to make a real difference in liking girls as partners or as buddies/models for me .

I feel so bad , I am panicked , depressed , very very scared ..
Until yesterday , although I had struggles , I was believing that I am a girl
and I was trying and believing that I could enhance my feminity

Yesterday I have this shock
and now I feel like I id with a man , a crossdresser , I don't allow
rationally I don't allow to see as a girl because science that I am not
it is complicated
in a way , recently I have been the same
it is just the perception , the acceptance and allowing being/feeling/id/looking for similarities with a girl
I don't know if it is normal to have a perception about "girls " in a different way that your own self id , but also I don't know if my gender identity was affected by the pressure of the society when I grew up and also I felt that I enhanced  very much into perceiving me as a real girl
Until yesterday..
Maybe I was a man and I developed gender dysphoria , who knows ?

Anyway , the main idea , related with this topic
is that since yesterday I feel that for me it is a bit of a choice
to live as a girl for accomplish my life goals (including career) and fantasies and I can't seem to be ok with that

I always thought in a way that transition is a choice , not only for me, that it is possible to live the way you were born , and that scares me a lot too , maybe I never understood trans people ,  maybe I just understood ->-bleeped-<-s , with less gender identity as a normal woman but more a sexual and fetishistic one .
I am scared that I didn't think as a woman , that I am a woman , at least not as much as others
For me , I feel the only way is to be a very feminine woman.

Now , I somehow blocked the whole idea of being a girl , I have some painfully cold chills  that I will have to live as a man and I could do that .
It will be no pleasure
but that is who I am
who the universe created
rather than correcting myself by choice , for satisfying some wishes (especially that they are related with the 'bad' area of sex)
I feel that the society is right not accepting me because I am not that way by nature but I choose to live like this
It is mindblowing , I can't seem to get any peace of mind , the one that is reachable is to try live as a man , but I don't want that , I don't want to kill my wishes and detour my thoughts into some job or career .
I guess that says something about " me "  , the true self , but it is still complicated 


I feel  like I have some kind of addiction and that I should suppress it rather than expecting the society to accept it .
I am so messed up right now
that I really feel the death is the only choice

I can't really see a way out of this
I plan to see a therapist when I go back in my country , in a few weeks , but I don't have much hopes .
For me the only good solution would be that someone encourage me that despite all the scientific evidences and theories , I am a girl , I have a real gender dysphoria , and that I am entitled to follow this road and enhance my feminity .



I don't like living as a man , I don't associate with them anymore , over the years I accumulate the perceptions of all the stuff I am different from them ,but I don't accept choosing how to live - it feels non genuine .
I am really obsessive so , even if it sounds a simple problem , for me is so hard .

Anyway , that is just me , a messed up person .

Quoteit is about the 2d:4d rapport

I question the quality of the research because the sampling cannot possibly be truly representative, but even if you have an extreme digit ratio, a gender identification is only a tendency, not an absolute truth.  I have a digit ratio that places me very far on the "female" side, but the probability of a person with that digit ratio being a woman was still only about 75% (incidentally, I'm androgyne, so the study was invalid for me anyway).  In your case, even if you're really deep in the deep on the man side of things, maybe all the way to the point that 90% of the people in that position are men, that still leaves 10% who are women. 

In your case, with the you pain you feel about living as a man and the depth of your attachment to identifying as a woman, you are most likely a woman, and you are definitely not a man (there is an "other" category that you may fall into if you're not familiar with all the alternatives).  Your testimony is more reliable and certain than some silly test about finger lengths.  Your feelings about who you are are the beginning and end of it.  You mentioned in another thread that you felt that someone may pursue being a woman because it would be advantageous, but you wouldn't be mulling over transition, feel depressed, and worry about your career if being a woman was easy.  I promise you that living as a woman is not the "easy" path, especially being born with male parts (TV shows may say women have it easy, but TV is broadly controlled by men who want to tell men what they want to hear and don't mind making women feel guilty in the process).  In that respect, you're already getting experience knowing how women are told to feel about themselves, because cis-women are also told they're not good enough as women.

You don't get to choose how you feel about who you are.  However, you can choose how you want to live.  The decision to transition or to not transition is a choice you must make for yourself.  You are not required to transition to be a woman, because there are many reasons why you feel you cannot do so, and you have to be confident that you will be happy with the results.  However, you do still seem to be a woman, so I think you should continue to think of yourself as one.