I am wondering if there is anybody that anyone knows of that seems to have gender identity struggles that run in their family.

I wonder this about other families because my family does. I have felt that I was female since about 5 or 6 years old. I would dress in my younger sisters clothes any change I would get and I always preferred to play with my sister and her friends, much to my sister's chagrin. My mom found some of my sister's dresses hidden in the back of my closet and asked my dad to confront me about it one day when I was about 12 years old. He asked me about the clothes and asked me if I was gay. I was afraid of his, and the rest of the family's, ridicule so I denied everything. He knew I was lying, but said that's good because no son of mine is going to be gay. I hid everything better from that point on until 19 years later when my gender identity issues ending up causing such horrible depression that I tried to commit suicide.

During my hospitalization I came out to my parents that I was a crossdresser and had been for years. In that same conversation, my dad told me that he also had crossdressed for years. I didn't get much of a chance to talk to my dad about his experience because he died from cancer a year later. A couple years after that, I was talking to my mom about my own gender identity struggles and she told me that my dad had wanted to transition to be a women, but she forbid him to do it unless he wanted to lose her and us kids forever.

I was shocked when I found out my dad had also dealt with gender identity issues and even wanted to transition to live full itme as a woman.

A few years later, my dad's older brother was going through some old boxes belonging to my paternal grandfather and found pictures and letters than revealed that he also dealth with gender identity issues and crossdressed regularly.

When I started having kids, I always said I didn't want to a have a boy. I said it was becuase girls were easier to raise, but secretly it was because I didn't want my kids to struggle the same way that my dad, my grandfather, and I have.

Unfortunately, this plan didn't work. My youngest daughter just came out to me as panromantic and asexual. She doesn't know where she fits in the gender spectrum and is still struggling with figuring that out.

So, in my family at least, there seems to be a genetic component. Has anybody else seen this type of trend? I'd love to hear your thougths or experiences.

Wow that's very interesting. Want to read the answers.

As far as I know, I am the only one in my family with gender identity issues.  I have a brother who is gay, and I wonder about my late father.  In my case, though, I suspect an environmental cause rather than a genetic one.

I have been wondering this lately within my own family.  Because there is fairly significant evidence that it can be or is genetic.

  My family are all uber conservative christian Mormons going way way back, and therefore, even if I DO have other family members or ancestors that had gender identity issues, I have no clue because of the tendency to suppress such things within our families religious culture.  For all I know, my own father could be trans, or his father could be, but just lived their entire lives suppressing it.   I made a Facebook post one time where I said that I know there are good chances that some of my other family members struggle with gender identity issues because I just simply wanted to put some feelers out there hoping I am not the only one in the family.  And I ended up getting accused of trying to "Out" people.  I was not trying to "out" anyone.  I just simply don't want to be alone with this and mentioned the fact that surely I can't be the only one in our huge family.  But no one ever contacted me or anything.  So I still have no idea.

I won't go into details about my family as I don't have the right to out or accuse anyone(living or dead) but I would say that you are certainly not alone with this. Nobody said it out loud in our family as this is not a topic of conversation but I know certain things which point in the direction that our family has quite a few people who are on the LGBT spectrum.

The only person I know of that comes close is my sister. She's a "dyke". Sometimes I call her "Pat". LOL.

Yes my daughter's friend is trans so is his little brother. So his religious mother freaked out and a crazy saying they was mental ill demon possessed etc. Then later it came out his dad was trans too needless to say it destroyed the family, but this the only one i have heard of

It's a really interesting question, but I'm not sure it's possible to say there is a genetic component.

Statistically speaking even with a random distribution, there are going to be familial clusters, as well as families that legitimately do not have anyone in them on the trans spectrum (by legitimately, not just closeted I mean). Unfortunately, real data just doesn't exist to draw any meaningful correlation, much less causation. Anecdotally, I've seen a number of people say it "runs in the family", but we are an impartial sample to begin with, and even then it has only been a handful of people on this site versus thousands that make no mention of it or say they are the only one (or at most it's like them and a third cousin).

When it comes down to it, the question of there being a sort of trans gene is really tricky, and some people welcome the idea while other people find it insulting. Personally, and entirely unscientifically, I think it is likely that there are cases where familial genetics cause a predisposition towards being trans, but they are most likely exceedingly rare and in most examples it is just purely random distribution clustering than some strong genetic trait. (I would also hesitantly draw a line on this issue between the more traditional view of being trans and modern social evolution with many people in the current generation. In the case of the latter, there would a high level of clustering due to environment as with any social movement, which does not de-legitimize their being trans at all but does mean the clustering in those cases is not indicative of genetic clustering with the past definitions that did not share that social component.)

My family seems to reflect this also. My mother's sister and brother both identified as gay. Shortly after I came out as transgender, my gay uncle's grandson came out as trans also (previously he identified as lesbian).

My dad was into cross dressing and  my mum said that he was always dressing up as a woman. . 😆 lol and he said that he always wanted to be a female to my mum. 😆 but yes my mum threatened him to leave him alone with no family and I guess that stopped him from doing it. and my older sister is a ftm and always wanted to be a guy. She was always looking like a guy and never wanted to look like a female at all .and my dad had to have that tough guy looks for all the family and relatives. 😆 so I guess it was passed on to me. 😆 💖. My younger sisters know that I always want to wear their clothes and shoes and play dress ups and going out to the shops with them when I was growing up.

This doesn't relate to being trans, but I read lots times on Twitter where a woman comes out to her mom as bi and her  mom says, "Oh my God! So am I!"

That's actually more common that you would think.

My mother dropped hints about it but from her perspective she was just mouthing off about how she felt like a man in a woman's body, and actually prefers being in one (to the point of not being able to understand why I transition). This was many years before I ever even mentioned to her my issues, and at the time I read nothing into the things she said at all. She's always kind of boasting about herself anyway. Cousin is also trans.

I know of a family in which multiple cousins are trans and wondered if genetics played a part in that family. No one else in my family is trans that I'm aware of, though. My brother is openly gay, and there's suspicion one of my great uncles is as well, but the rest of the family seems proud to be straight and cis.

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I'm the only one in my family. That I know of at least.  I have an older brother but he's a straight CIS guy.  Early in my transition I did wonder if my mom maybe had trans tendencies but she's not. She's just extremely hostile towards male privilege. She used to say stuff like my dad thought having a dick meant he was always right, and tell him to stop swinging his dick around. But it's not that she wants a dick or to be a guy, she just wants the male privilege that goes with it. She told me many times I was insane to want to give up being a guy.

I couldn't tell you if it (gender identity issues) runs in my family or not, but, I do know that my mother has been known to swing both ways and my father was purportedly a crossdresser. I know I have a gay uncle and an aunt that wants nothing to do with either sex (both on my fathers side). So... maybe?

Two of my four children are trans, one is FTM and the other is non-binary. Their mother blames my family for them being that way.

I have a lesbian aunt on my father's side of the family, but nothing trans that I'm aware of from that side. A couple years ago I heard my aunt and uncle from my mother's side talking about a trans woman that I think is a part of our family, but it's someone I've never met and know nothing about. Since I'm out to my sister now I guess I can ask her about it sometime.

I think there was a similar thread a while ago... I did learn that apparently my maternal grandfather was at least crossdressing. Never knew about it until the day I came out to my mom.

Also out of all my nieces and nephews, there are two where there are early signs. Right now we see how it develops, but there is some chance that there may be an FTM and MTF amongst them. :-)

Quote from: sarah1972 on January 16, 2018, 06:52:50 PM
I think there was a similar thread a while ago... I did learn that apparently my maternal grandfather was at least crossdressing. Never knew about it until the day I came out to my mom.

Also out of all my nieces and nephews, there are two where there are early signs. Right now we see how it develops, but there is some chance that there may be an FTM and MTF amongst them. :-)

I feel like we are talking about training the next generation of Jedi.

.... wait, are we Jedi?

I have to admit I was seriously wondering about that... For my niece: maybe. For my nephew: He started wearing skirts long before I came out

Oh... and I thought we are all secret aliens...

Quote from: Roll on January 16, 2018, 09:40:46 PM

Quote from: sarah1972 on January 16, 2018, 06:52:50 PM
I think there was a similar thread a while ago... I did learn that apparently my maternal grandfather was at least crossdressing. Never knew about it until the day I came out to my mom.

Also out of all my nieces and nephews, there are two where there are early signs. Right now we see how it develops, but there is some chance that there may be an FTM and MTF amongst them. :-)

I feel like we are talking about training the next generation of Jedi.

.... wait, are we Jedi?