Because so many of us live in our own little worlds, terrified to really talk about who we really are with anyone out of fear of their reactions (or is it just me), I throw this out to the room. If it's okay. I am constantly constantly constantly trying to find some kind of reason why I have felt like a female my entire life despite all indications otherwise. I want it to be because I was verbally abused as a child, because I could never relate to girls, because the idea of sexual intimacy scared me.....I always need "a reason" so I could NOT be who I am. If that makes sense. Anyway, here's what I'm curious to find out. Quick life history: My biological dad died when the house he and my mom lived in burned down. This happened just weeks before I was born and my mom was in the trauma ward when she had me. I have since learned that in utero trauma from a mom who has lost someone close can lead to a rush of chemicals that cause chronic depression. Which I have. But I now wonder if that explains my confusion between brain and body. Does anyone know of any research about trans women that has studied in utero trauma, by any chance? Thanks and sorry this is so obscure....it's just important to me.

This is a much discussed topic on the site. The short description is there is a point in our development before birth where our brain becomes masculine or feminine. This is dependent on exposure to testosterone. If the levels are high, the brain becomes masculine and if they are lacking, feminine. This process can be affected by exposure to drugs like DES which are estrogen like drugs. Modern imaging has confirmed this with images of the brain showing sex differences in portion of the brain.

This Just In!!!
Dena, MsAllannah excuse me, beg pardon but I have it on good authority . . .

IT's THE WATER !!

Quote from: infowars.com/proof-gay-frogs-are-real-alex-jones-was-right/PROOF! GAY FROGS ARE REAL: ALEX JONES WAS RIGHT
Chemicals in the water are changing the gender of . . .

Also, Warren Buffett says T-girls live longer . . .

Quote from: newsmax.com/Finance/Economy/buffett-pessimists-future/2017/09/20/id/814587Buffett said he recently determined that of the 53,364 people in the United States who were at least 100 years old, the ratio of women to men was nearly 5-to-1.

"We should start thinking about a sex change," Buffett said, prompting laughter applause.

p.s. sorry hope a 'lil humor is ok (but living longer IS a good reason)

Quote from: Kiera on September 21, 2017, 04:22:40 PM
This Just In!!!
Dena, MsAllannah excuse me, beg pardon but I have it on good authority . . .

IT's THE WATER !!

Also, Warren Buffett says T-girls live longer . . .

p.s. sorry hope a 'lil humor is ok (but living longer IS a good reason)

That kind of makes sense. Testosterone probably burns out male bodies faster. It's a horrible poison.

On a more serious note.......you might consider reading some of the following books that have some good discussions about gender and some of the accepted how's and why's:  The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D.,  The Fate of Gender by Frank Browning.  If you want a good, fast read that will almost make you cry and give you goosebumps and get you really pissed off at the same time, read Born Both by Hida Valoria.  Saw so many parallels to my history that it was pretty scary. 
     Trying to figure out what makes us, and what makes us tick, has been all the rage for awhile now.  One of the most recent issues of Time (I think, can't find it now) was all about gender, differences and the study of why gender dysphoria.  What scares me sort of is "why".  I can just see some drug company declaring that they have found a "cure" or "fix" for GD and TG people.  Would I want to know if my unborn child would likely have GD?  What if there was a "cure"?  This gets into really scary sci-fi socio-political stuff like should all people conform to the same standards, and if not should they be "corrected" 1984 style.  If you could be fixed, would you want to be (well actually, I will be :-)).  You get the drift.  In many ways i wouldn't wish our hell on anyone, but then again, I see a lot of this as a gift and I'll stay who I am, problems and all, thank you.  Toni

Interesting update my wife and I stumbled into.  She has an old friend (mine too) that has to have paps and other cancer tests done every six months because her Mom took DES (I hope that's right) when she was pregnant.  A synthetic hormone developed in the late 30's and ended up being given to women between then and about 1970, mostly to prevent miscarriage from what I remember.  My wife is reading all the problems children (girls) ended up having in adulthood and I jokingly said something about causing GD in sons.  My wife kept reading and all of a sudden says "Toni, you won't believe this!  Research has also found that it seems to be a causal factor in femenisation and ->-bleeped-<- in males born to women that have taken DES!".  Don't know if my Mom took this stuff or not, but one more indication that the very western medicine system that would deny us and gives us so much crap may have caused some of us in the first place.  Better living through chemistry.  Toni

Quote from: Julia1996 on September 21, 2017, 06:47:31 PM
That kind of makes sense. Testosterone probably burns out male bodies faster. It's a horrible poison.

Testosterone causes a whole boatload of health problems, like high blood pressure, heart problems, etc. It's the reason why men generally have shorter lifespans than women, and also, unfortunately, why FTMs have a longer list of risks when going through HRT. It also affects a lot of cognitive functions. It's really kind of fascinating

I recall reading something similar to what a few of you mentioned which is that if the mother is under stress in the third trimester of pregnancy it can effect the development of part of the brain that deals with gender identity. It either larger or smaller depending on biological sex. Sorry I don't remember the details but I CAN tell you that this explanation seems to fit for me. My Mom mentioned to me once that she was always stressed when we moved, lying awake thinking of things she had to do etc. Dad got transferred while Mom was pregnant with me, so months 6-8 she was worrying about a move, then moved in a snowstorm, got stuck in the car by ice, showed up to an empty house and then had to wait a few days because the movers had been delayed by the storm.

Since I can recall being self aware I would have self-selected a feminine identity but, like many of us, the grown-ups in my life did a good job of socializing that out of me.

I also suspect that with two sons and one daughter before me Mom wanted another girl. Dunno if that played into it. She essentially could have had one anyway but they didn't roll like that way back in the nineteen hundred and seventies.

The "organization-activation" theory of sexual differentiation is helpful in explaining the occurrence of transsexuality and its primary symptom, gender dysphoria.  There is massive scientific evidence supporting the theory in the study of mammals, and there is little doubt that it applies equally to human beings.  Basically the sexual differentiation of the genitalia and the brain occur at different stages of gestation and can be independently influenced by the presence or absence of testosterone in utero.  In the extreme, a person can be born with male genitalia, but with an unmasculinized brain.   

I find it useful to classify transsexuality as a type of intersex condition.  Sex is a spectrum with a small percentage of babies born with a combination of both male and female physical attributes/physiology including sexually differentiated brain structure.   

I don't mean to imply that this theory applies to all transgender people.  There are most certainly other factors at play.  But for me it makes the most sense.  Changing my sex hormone ratio from testosterone to estrogen dominance caused an immediate and pronounced reduction in the mental dissonance that had plagued me since puberty.  At least half of what I considered gender dysphoria was 'cured' by hormone therapy.

Can I trace my intersex/transsex condition to trauma that my mother experienced during her pregnancy?  No, I can't.  It doesn't matter, though.  However it happened, I was born a unique individual with a body and brain which didn't align normally.  Knowing what we do today, there's no excuse for allowing people like me to have to endure this awful condition.

Quote from: Clara Kay on November 04, 2017, 01:16:55 PM
Knowing what we do today, there's no excuse for allowing people like me to have to endure this awful condition.

Quite right

A while back I compiled a discription of the main process an embryo goes through to become male. The natural default condition of all mammals is female.

To break it down simply, it is during the first and second trimester when our brain's gender specific neural wiring is set. These neural patterns are what create our instinctual drives and behaviors. In the end of the third trimester is when sexual attraction is set. All of these different time frame require testosterone to produce male wiring.

This has been proven with modern MRI technologies. They have proven these different areas of the brain in a trans person is neurally similar to the gender they identify with. There is enough difference in size, number of neurons, neuron growth patterns, and even shape of these brain sections to prove it is all true. Secondly experimentation with animals using either an androgen blocker or and androgen supplement produce repeatable behavior differences in adult behaviors.

We still don't know how these different brain regions work. But we know they are different depending on gender.

So really it depends on the developmental environment. A trans woman could develop due to any of the known endocrine disrupters. DES was common for nearly 40 years. It was given to prevent miscarriage. Turns out there was never any statistical changes during its use.  It was unlabeled for that in 1970 because of the increased risk of female children to an extremely rare vaginal cancer. There was also a spike of kids with ambiguous genetalia during its use. There were doctors who continued to prescribe it well past the early 1970s. It was also formulated into prescription prenatal vitamins by drug companies. It was not banned in the US for human use until 2000. Exposure can carry a cancer risk two generations as it effects gene expression in some unknown way.
DES is a powerful synthetic estrogen like chemical. However it has a very strong affinity for the androgen cell receptors. At fairly low blood levels it can block 75% of the androgen receptors in an adult as well as activating 2 of the 3 estrogen receptors. There were several other hormone receptors it also would bind to and block. Basically nasty stuff.
Synthetic progestins have also been found to inhibit the androgen receptors as do other drugs. Spironolactone is one. It was originally a "water pill". It is a diuretic used for blood pressure treatment or fluid retention.

So what's we do know is our gender wiring is set before the end of the second trimester. It's hard to pinpoint the reason we are transgender. Sometimes it is just a fluke where just not enough testosterone was being produced. Sometimes it's a genetic trait. The AR gene is the most common culprit as there are now over 600 known mutations. Some have no effect while others have mild to complete effect at limiting the androgen receptor's ability to be activated by testosterone. Then behind the scene there are a number of other genes that come into play.

Hey thanks, Josie.  I knew about a lot of this, but you added some interesting things I hadn't heard before. 
     I was adopted, my biological dad split before I was born and never married my Mom.  I think there is likely a reason for stress!  Then I was a month or better early because she was out with friends and, story goes, was stepping over a snow pile and slipped and then there was me.  I suspect my time in utero was influenced by a lot of external stuff.    Toni