So for quite a long time I've surmised that the reason I am the way I am is because of things that happened before I was actually born. I didn't know what though.  I had ambiguous parts when born and thankfully my parents did not have the doctor do any surgery. I did ask my dad once about it and he told me the doctor did recommend it and they refused because they couldn't actually find anything wrong with me health wise (no genetic conditions, etc.). Anyway, last year my aunt sent me a letter that my mom had written her while she was pregnant talking about having a boy. I'm not sure why my aunt sent it. It obviously really effected me seeing it thought because I've still been thinking about it. Then the other night my mom was talking about being pregnant with me for some random reason. Anyway, my mom was 31 when she got pregnant (and this was back in the 70s) and she was talking about how the doctor was giving her progesterone to "prevent miscarriage" because he felt she was "a little old" to be pregnant  This got me thinking even more and I ended up looking into what progesterone can do to a fetus. It appears through studies that the progesterone is metabolized by the fetus into androgens. Now when there is an excess of it (eg: the mother is taking extra than what her body is producing) that seems to be metabolized into testosterone by the fetus.

Granted, I'm not a doctor or a scientist and just doing research online but this certainly seems to explain some things for me and it could possibly for others. Because of being effected by an unnatural level of hormones before birth it changed the way I developed. Hormones have a very powerful effect on the development of the fetal brain and after week 12, added testosterone will change the structure to that of a male brain (while it also starts sending out the signals for the cells to start building male equipment rather than female).

Personally, this is a clear indication to me that 1) I don't have a mental "disorder" and 2) my head really is wired for male.

As far as I can tell, women are still being prescribed progesterone to prevent miscarriage. They could be being tested to see if they have low progesterone naturally, but I'm not sure. All I know is this explanation fits everything in my own case.

Now this is purely my opinion but I think it's a valid one - that any extra hormones the mother is given during pregnancy can effect the fetus. Doctors tell women to not even take OTC pain reviler or cold meds or anything while pregnant yet they prescribe other drugs which can certainly effect the fetus. That is one thing I don't get about the medical field and pregnancy. If the research is correct in this case, it's very likely that the doctor's "tinkering" with giving drugs like hormones to pregnant women is the direct cause for a percentage of intersex/transsexual/transgender occurrence. They could essentially be creating a 3rd gender.

Just like many people are utilizing hormones now to correct their bodies, some of us had them used on us before we were even born and had no choice in what they did to us. In my case, that very same doctor (my mom had him for 20 years) continued to screw my life up without my knowledge or consent before I even reached puberty. This probably explains why I feel so emotional, for lack of a better word when even discussing hormone therapy. Like I said, it's just personal for me and I still have a lot of resentment to the medical profession.

Anyway, it's a new decade and that's just something I needed to get out to move forward. If anyone else has any similar situations or theories, I'd love to hear them.

Quote from: Pat Kane on January 01, 2011, 02:28:09 PM
I've always thought that something happened in my mom's womb too. She had an enormous ovarian cyst removed before I was conceived. I know she has more androgens, because she has had problems with acne, gathers her weight primarily in her stomach, etc, which never happened before the cyst.

So I wonder if this contributed to my being trans. I'm the only bio-female so no one to compare to.

I always expected that something would show up to confirm that I was not entirely female. I had to get an ultrasound a year ago, and I was expecting that something would be missing. Nothing was missing, as far as I know my genitals are not ambiguous in any way. So I don't know. But I do think that it happened in the womb.

Oddly enough, something similar happened with my mom too. The reason why she didn't get pregnant until age 31 was that she couldn't. Then she got appendicitis and while the doctor was in there he saw her ovaries had a hard coating - he removed a wedge out of each one and a year later she was pregnant. She might have had PCOS or something as I've read that having a hard coating on the ovary and not having a period can be symptoms too. Odd thing is though, she says everything was totally "normal" after she had that surgery and she never stopped having periods until menopause. Which isn't typical I don't think for PCOS (usually women have continual problems from it). So in my case there could have been additional hormones my mom was producing as well.

I was always curious to see if something happened with my mom as well. All the members of my dad's and my mom's families have always had extremely high testosterone levels, and my mom was one of the people with the highest of them.

Never did that much research on it, but I wonder if that contributed to me being trans?

Edit: I'm not sure what drugs my mother might have taken- probably the same one that your mother took, insideontheoutside, since she was extremely scared of miscarrage and was older when she had me.

I've wondered if something happened in the womb that made me trans.  I believe I was 3 months early, however my mom has said 4 in the past. Generally whenever I try to find out information about it, it's just faced with hostility. I've given up trying to get information from her. Years ago I found an old note book in the basement there was a weed leaf drawn on it, curiosity killed the cat here.  It was my mom's diary from before I was conceived to pass my birth. I just flipped through it. From what little I read she wrote nothing about being pregnant or giving birth. Just various boyfriends, partying,  and experiments with drugs. I always wondered how she managed to get new boyfriends while pregnant. I have a 1 year old sister now and turns out she barely shows. From what I read it's like she thought if she just ignored being pregnant that she magically wouldn't be. She definitely wasn't trying to keep her body a safe environment for unborn me. 

Interesting thread. I don't know much about what my mom was on before I was born but I know I was two months early & on my original hospital birth certificate it has my gender listed as male then crossed out and has female written next to it but my official birth certificate just says female. I asked my mom why she says she doesn't know.

I also know I had a lot of breathing issues and couldn't go home until a few months after I was born so I sometimes sort of wonder if they didn't tell her about something...

I'm the fourth of four children my three brothers are 11,9, and eight years older than me. before my eldest brother was born mum miscarried a girl then again between the eldest and middle. So there was a sort of understanding that for some reason she wasn't able to carry girls- even to the point that when the midwife held me up and said 'its a girl' mum asked her if she was sure. Ive always believed that i was given something in the womb- naturally that is, not outside medication- to make sure that i was born

I have always wondered, as well. It's harder for me to learn much about my gestation, however, as I was adopted; although I've come to find (just in this last week, in fact), it wasn't through an agency, it's a little complicated but the result is after being born my birth mother decided she did not want to keep me. There was slight genital ambiguity but still within what they considered okay for 'female', although my overall size/weight at birth was very large and on the outlier end of the bell curve for female babies. My mom went out of her way to dress me in a lot of pink and frills because when she had me out in public everyone remarked on what a cute little boy I was (and this continued even when I had a dress on and a bow in my hair). Compared to my female friends, I went through puberty pretty late; I hit puberty when my male friends did.

I'm pretty sure I weighed 8lbs when born, which was thought to be high for a girl baby. Babies can be pretty androgynous, which is why parents tend to dress them in the clothes of the gender. I was always "mistaken" for a baby boy if  my mom wasn't dressing me in pink and dresses and bows.

One of the things that kind of troubles me is how if there is some sort of question of gender in the baby or even something that was given to the mother while pregnant, it's damn hard to find "evidence" of it. It's like they purposely make it that way - keep the child in the absolute dark about anything that might have occurred and just bury it all. Here I am in my 30's and only very recently has some information came to light - and it didn't come from the doctor. I tried getting my medical records previously and no one could help me out. They simply "couldn't be found".

I've been thinking about this some more today and there is definitely a psychological factor going on here too. Let's say some information about either ambiguity at birth or any kind of environmental factors are covered up. You're assigned a gender at birth, but because of what you were exposed to, that had it's own effect on your brain and body while you were just developing into a human being, you feel something is "off". When you start to question the birth gender or just have a nagging feeling that "something isn't right" your whole life, you're often told, "it's all in your head" or that you have a disorder or there's something else mentally wrong with you. There is some statistic that (I think) 1% of babies born have ambiguous genitalia. But what is the percentage of babies born who might have had environmental factors (mother exposed to increased levels of hormones either being generated from her own body or given to her, other drugs, etc) that didn't get the ambiguous genitals?

Consider if there wasn't such a "cover up" in the medical industry that it might actually be more accepted that babies sometimes happen that are not 100% male or 100% female but a little of both either due to hormonal factors and/or physical factors? People who have been effected might not feel so "abnormal". Also, more clearly understanding the potential effects of certain drugs on pregnant women might make a difference as well.

Just thinking about all this stuff makes me feel like something more can be done, but the medical industry does not seem up for it. The majority seems to still be up for "correcting" any gender ambiguity with surgery. Until something can change that system and open people's eyes to the fact that variations (both natural and due to environment) can occur, it seems like there's little hope of actual advancement in the way gender is viewed in society. I think a new normal has to be established.

I do feel very fortunate that at least my parents did not go with some doctor recommendations, but for a large portion of my life I still felt like a "freak" and that there was something wrong with my head simple because people had said I was female, but that just didn't click in my mind. Had I made this connection 15 years ago, I might have not been so troubled for so many years still thinking that I was half crazy.

Quote from: perlita85 on January 01, 2011, 07:07:54 PM
We do not have the complete genetic picture of how the gender identity and/or sexual orientation centers of the brain develop. But research conducted over the last 10 years has shows some awesome facts. We know that the "ground state" is female –at least in mammals-  and that to be male take active work b a number of genes all of which are govern by a master gene, called SRY, which is located in the Y chromosome.

As far as what we now so far for the biological basis of Gender Identity Incongruence (GII) the oversimplified picture is as follows:

If you are XX during the first 10 week of embryonic development the alpha fetal protein 1 (aF1) has to be present (in the extracellular fluid of the brain) fully  functional and in high levels fr you to normally develop as a female. Failure to do so MAY result in GII and/or Homosexuality. Why ? Because aFT1 is needed to sequester (titer) fetal estrogen and/or testosterone. Excess steroids will masculinize the brain

For the XY individual several things need to happen for normal development of a male fetal brain. First, fetal estrogen and testosterone need to be present. Second, receptors for both E and T has to be present in the fetal neurons, third, a fully functional Aromatase protein has to be present inside the cytoplasm of the fetal neuronal cells. Aromatase converts T into E, and is the surge of E that masculinizes the brain, meaning, estrogen inside the neurons make certain neuronal centers and brain structures male..

Well, any exogenous steroids and other estrogen-like chemicals such as diethylstilbestrol and progesterone have the potential to wreck havoc with normal brain development and thus altering both gender  identity and/or sexual orientation.
I am a DES child myself

I have read that information recently too. Very interesting stuff.

I've always wondered if because my mom was on progesterone shots (because she had a couple miscarriages/still births and had been trying to get pregnant for 4+ years) that it interfered with me developing male parts... I read a study about why people are trans and it said that everyone starts out female and what might have happened for ftms is the brain developed to be male, but something interfered and didn't allow the gonads to follow the brain and develop to be male. It seems possible.

Apparently I was 10 lbs something ounces when born. I do find it hilarious that I could be in a frilly pink dress with a pink bow in my hair and people still called me a boy, which really annoyed my mother. I suspect it's why she had me grow my hair very long when I was a kid; I was not allowed to get my hair cut short (I think I managed to get a 'short' hair cut once, when I was 6, after fighting and fighting for months... and even then it was only an inch shy of my shoulders).

I sometimes wonder about the mysterious things that happened to me in the womb, that I ended up not only transmale but gay.

I think it's interesting that both me and my sister have had gender issues...both of us have said we would've been happier born as male.  While she's the more macho of the two of us, she still identifies as female though. 

I've wondered about trying to get hold of my birth records.  My birth mom's memory is not reliable at all.  Ironically, the doctor that delivered me ended up being a cousin of the lady who several years later adopted me.  I never got a chance to talk to him though before he died.  I had always wanted to.

I was an early baby. I weighed approximately 1.3 pounds (600 gram) at birth, and I was apparantly tiiiiiiiny. My father's told me that if I had been born a boy (well, you know what I mean, I am a boy now too, but yeah), I would have died because apparantly there is some minor difference in the development of the immune system and that minor difference would have killed me.
I wasn't allowed to come home, and my parents said that I was hooked up to machines and it was a bit disturbing to see me.
The first thing I saw of the world outside the hospital was one of those jousting contests (like a renaissance fair or similar, but people dressed up as knights who joust).

Yep, that is my story. I don't know if something could have made me what I am today in the womb, but, well... I won't outrule the possibility.

Funny thing I remember from my time in maternity, big babies seemed to be so awkward. The mothers would say the same.

They would be really quiet for ages, thn all hell was let loose. Being big meant they were a lot of work of course.

But still fabulous and a pure pleasure like all babies.

Still remember one mother who was on her 4th, I think, saying that this one had better learn to walk pretty quick as she wasn't gonna carry that much for long.

I was tiny - 4 pounds 8 ounces, full-term - and a failure-to-thrive baby who put on nowhere near the recommended amount of weight in any year of my childhood. By 12 I was 5'5" and 93 pounds.

My mom, along with her mother, has many signs of high androgens both prenatal and throughout life. Extreme tomboyishness, male-pattern weight gain, acne and bad skin throughout her life, hair loss, lots of upper body strength, narrow hips, reproductive issues, relatively deep voice, male-typical finger ratios. I haven't spoken to her since I was 16 or I'd ask about progesterone shots; considering she'd had several miscarriages (I was the only child she ever managed to carry to term) I think it's reasonably likely she got them.

I didn't have ambiguous genitalia but I did/do have somewhat atypical genitalia (unusually long anogenital separation for a female, among other things) that have been remarked on by doctors.

Honestly, though, if something happened before I was born I'm kind of "glad" that it did. If it hadn't happened, then the person inhabiting this body would be someone other than me - "I" wouldn't exist. And I'd kind of rather exist in a mismatched body than not exist at all.

I was born the day before my due date around 9 lbs I believe.  My mother said she was extremely surprised when they announced I was a girl because she was certain she was having a boy.  As was everyone else using old wives tales and things like that.  Also I was the first girl in something like 3 generations on my father's side.  Which is interesting as it is the father who determines the gender I believe. 

I was extremely judicious and needed to go back to the hospital for treatment under special lights.  I know Mom use to say people constantly mistook me for a boy and she had to cover me in bows to get the message across.

Whether that means anything, who knows.

The medical community has this same belief for transmen. It's believed we're exposed to extra T while in the womb which makes the male brain develop. I guess whether the extra T came naturally or because of administered progesterone doesn't matter.

I wouldn't say my genitalia is ambiguous but it is different from others I've seen- including pre-T. I find it interesting that others guys do too.

Quote from: Andrew Scott on January 01, 2011, 04:12:01 PM
I also know I had a lot of breathing issues and couldn't go home until a few months after I was born so I sometimes sort of wonder if they didn't tell her about something...

The lungs develop last, which explains why preemies have a history of respiratory issues.

Quote from: kyril on January 02, 2011, 10:25:53 AM
Honestly, though, if something happened before I was born I'm kind of "glad" that it did. If it hadn't happened, then the person inhabiting this body would be someone other than me - "I" wouldn't exist. And I'd kind of rather exist in a mismatched body than not exist at all.

This is true. I've tried to look at other things in my life this way as well ... if I hadn't gone through them, I wouldn't be the person I am today.

Quote from: regan on January 02, 2011, 01:05:22 PM
The lungs develop last, which explains why preemies have a history of respiratory issues.

Yeah, that was the problem but I just meant I wonder if there was something else as well that they didn't tell her.