Hello everyone,

I recall watching a program on the Discovery channel which was about transgender people. Covering their journeys ranging from accepting themselves, making changes, their feelings about society and it's obstacles, etc. During the program they had a person being filmed on the streets asking random people a very simple question which I found to be rather thought provoking, so I thought I would share it with you.

Question that was asked was, why are you a man or woman? Putting aside genitalia. What makes you a man/woman?

I hope that this can turn into a great thread with interesting discussion. This isn't a thread questioning our choices or such. Not at all. I simply thought the question was very thought provoking and it was posed to cis-gender people and I was curious to know what TG people thought about it.

The follow up question/comment that was made was, what would happen if you had a DNA test conducted and it stated that genetically you were the opposite sex. Would that change the way you view yourself as male/female.

Look forward to other's opinions.   

Personally, I'm convinced it's neurological. Studies have showed that ftms have the same patterns in the brain as cis males when it comes to grey and white matter. There are other studies that also shows gender differences exist in the brain.

I agree, being a man or woman has to do with the brain. However, I believe that being male or female is a mix of the brain and other biological factors such as hormones.

Quote from: DeadBoy on June 06, 2012, 02:40:36 PM
Personally, I'm convinced it's neurological. Studies have showed that ftms have the same patterns in the brain as cis males when it comes to grey and white matter. There are other studies that also shows gender differences exist in the brain.

Right on Deadboy!!! It is al about a small structure on you brain called the Basal Nucleous of the Stria Terminalis (BNST), it is sort the center that determines your gender identity. So I am female because my BNST is a female BNST; pretty simple eh?

My best answer, aside from scientific stuff, is "eeeeeeeeeeeh..."

This is a thing so deep, so unconscious, so rooted and integrated in my own identity that it's the hardest thing to explain. The only thing I can manage is saying examples of consequences of my issue and hope people "sort of get it", but I just can't answer the actual question that was asked.

Quote from: peky on June 06, 2012, 04:52:26 PM
Right on Deadboy!!! It is al about a small structure on you brain called the Basal Nucleous of the Stria Terminalis (BNST), it is sort the center that determines your gender identity. So I am female because my BNST is a female BNST; pretty simple eh?

Wow, this is incredible! Did not know about this aspect of the brain. Wiki article

I've been dealing with emotional/psychic trauma within myself for the past  couple of years, and I have a distinct memory one night where I felt a strong sense of being "rewired" in the central/lower part of the brain...I told my wife that I felt like I was being re-wired as a woman...ever since, I've been trans.

I don't know if the effect was destroying the male aspects and creating female, or if it was merely opening the pathways I always had...but my male "self" is basically destroyed now, and I am Beth. 

I know the brain can develop scar tissue during/after traumas, and this scar tissue can (and does) inhibit neuron flow. Indeed, that's the purpose of the scarring--to stop the trauma from causing more damage.

Btw, I have no idea what makes a person a man or woman. I just am, that's all.

QuoteBtw, I have no idea what makes a person a man or woman. I just am, that's all.

thats it for me in as few words as possible

 Whether you are male or female is determined by the physiology of your brain. How to determine whether you are male or female when the answer is unclear is the real magic...

I have no idea how we know our gender without going off of gender roles, body parts, genetics, and other things that we associate with it.  It drives me nuts that we have no objective way to determine gender.

As Peky posted the BNST area of the Hypothalamus is different in males and females.  That difference is formed at around 8 weeks gestation and that is that. If the body doesn't match we happen.  Other than that it is a question of how you identify in the innermost core of your self. 

Karen.

Wow, excellent answers everyone. I especially love the information shared about the BNST. While I watched the program I kept thinking about this factor of the brain but not one person mentioned anything even remotely close to having to do with the physiology of the brain. Some of the answers were a bit disheartening because it was so apparent that for the most part, a lot of the people who had been stopped on the street didn't have a grasp on gender in general. I began to wonder if it is perhaps due to the fact that many have never had to question it and obviously it just led me down an entirely different path. If only more people were aware of certain things the world would be so much more understanding, etc.

Quote from: justmeinoz on June 07, 2012, 04:23:51 AM
As Peky posted the BNST area of the Hypothalamus is different in males and females.  That difference is formed at around 8 weeks gestation and that is that. If the body doesn't match we happen.  Other than that it is a question of how you identify in the innermost core of your self. 

Karen.

This...
but it takes a while, and then some, for most to figure out what the devil has gone haywire if the physical mismatches the non-physical/emotional KNOWING.

There are two sorts of 'knowing' - one in an intellectual/academic, and one in an 'inner' sense.

You can read all about how to ride a bicycle and produce a PhD on the subject. If you never sat on one, you will have no 'inner' knowing about it what so ever.

If born with a female brain there'd be a lack of REAL inner knowing of what it is to be a male (or female).
Having to act the part without this inner knowing is VERY stressful, because we actually have to pretend all the time.
It gives a pretty good first indication there is a gender mismatch of sorts – we are something other then what is physically apparent.

Therefore being male or female is some 'inner' knowing, - as opposed to what is physically apparent.

My 2 cents,
Axélle
PS: Nicola, I just read your last post... there is NO NEED to question how one rides a bicycle if you know how to, it just sort of happens. It is why people would not question what makes them male or female either. They just ARE

Quote from: peky on June 06, 2012, 04:52:26 PM
Right on Deadboy!!! It is al about a small structure on you brain called the Basal Nucleous of the Stria Terminalis (BNST), it is sort the center that determines your gender identity. So I am female because my BNST is a female BNST; pretty simple eh?

*googles BNST* Wow. That explains a lot. Thank you very much, Peky.

Quote from: justmeinoz on June 07, 2012, 04:23:51 AM
As Peky posted the BNST area of the Hypothalamus is different in males and females.  That difference is formed at around 8 weeks gestation and that is that. If the body doesn't match we happen.  Other than that it is a question of how you identify in the innermost core of your self. 

Karen.

Right on Karen! I addition, the importance of the presence of the right amounts of estradiol and testosterone (for XY individuals) and alpha feto protein 1 (for XX individuals) just before and after birth to "cement" the wiring of the brain cannot be over emphasized.

Disclaimer: We just have begun to unravel the biology of gender identity and sexual orientation development, and by no means we have a perfect or clear pictures of the whole process.

For me at a very personal level, finding the biological underpinning leading to my misgender event, has been key in eradicating all the "you are a pervert," "you are mentally ill," "you are sinner," etc,  BS that I was fed in childhood. It has been a liberating to know that I am not crazy or mentally ill !!!

BNST or BSTc as in: Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis (BSTc)?

Are we talking about the same thing as it seems...

Axélle

Too much science   

I am what I am because what I was doesnt feel like what I will become.

You dont need to prove yourself of what you are, how you think, how you feel. A man knows he is a man, and a woman knows she is a woman.  Some people get confused, some go through phases but once you start transition it is easy to figure out if your heart becomes calm.  If you are a woman, besides social fears and repercussions you will not want to stop transition.  Though that may be a bit selfish for those who already have kids, a career and a loving wife, and those in that situation whether they stay outwardly a man or transition are braver than most.  It is a hard choice either way.

But at the end of the day, there is no science which can crack the complexity of feeling.  Besides they are wasting their time, just make us olvaries already.  Come on scientist!!!!

Quote from: Nicolas on June 06, 2012, 02:03:11 PM
What makes you a man/woman?

My view is that it's not 'what', it's 'who'. And my answer to that is - me.

Over the past few weeks, fuelled largely by threads here, I've done a lot of thinking about what gender is, what male and female are, where it all comes from. And the more I think about it, the more I realise that for me personally, it becomes an abstract. Interesting to ponder but really not influencing the day-to-day nitty gritty of life.

For me, it's probably a more simplistic idea - it's being able to live my life without feeling dysphoria, being comfortable within my own skin, and having the anatomy (or as close as physically possible) that enables me to stop actually thinking about what gender is, whether it's important, and just get on with thinking about all the other cool stuff in the big wide world. An anatomically female body with all that entails is what matches my internal sense of self and makes the dysphoria and the feeling of wrongness go away. That's all I need to know. Knowing why, be that areas of the brain, mystical insight, whatever it may be... well, it doesn't really contribute to actually living my life. I know why internal combustion makes an engine work, but that does nothing really towards the process of driving a car.

That's what makes me... hmm... not a woman, but my own woman. Because whilever I'm being that, it feels like being me. And that makes me happy. For me it's not so much why you are who you are, it's more how you embrace who you are and what you do with it.

Quote from: Sephirah on June 07, 2012, 01:17:42 PM
For me it's not so much why you are who you are, it's more how you embrace who you are and what you do with it.

That's a beautiful way of saying it!

In some arenas of spirituality, dreaming is called "Walking" and is considered to be when our inner selves plum different worlds and other places.  In science (which I consider another form of spirituality - just one that requires much less faith) dreaming is the side-effect of the subconscious processing information that we take in but don't realize.  It's a way for our brain to take what it learned and update our consciousness with the information.  Kind of like how our user interface here takes what we write and changes it into the programming language of the bulletin board!

In either of these cases, we have a "dream self" and identity that we witness these dreams in.  That identity I've always believed to be the closest thing to me I can ever describe.  Even in dreams where I am someone else, I find myself describing it as "I" am someone else, and not "The boy I play" is someone else.  To me, that means on some instinctive level, in some very basic way, I've known.  I've always known.  This inner dialogue, whatever spirituality we use to describe it, is more than what makes us male or female, it is, in all definition, what makes us us, this inner being, this perfect "me."

It is with this in mind that I can say with 100% sureness, what makes us male or female is us.  If one takes to heart the idea that the BTSc determines our gender then they 100% correct.  If one takes to heart that their "inner spirit" is female they too are 100% correct.  There is a wonderful saying, "The Truth doesn't need you to believe in it."  I love that saying, because in the end, that's exactly it.  Once we find the Truth of ourselves, that which allows us to be healthy and happy, the nuts and bolts behind it really don't matter anymore.  We can't make the Truth, we can't reconstruct it for someone else, we can't patent it, or mass produce it, because it's fluid, transitory, and 100% in the eye of the beholder.  At the same time as it is personally relevant, it is at once solid, eternal and unyielding.  It is the cosmic background radiation to our big bang event, and it's up to us to find it.

Quote from: Rising_Angel on June 07, 2012, 03:59:01 PM
In some arenas of spirituality, dreaming is called "Walking" and is considered to be when our inner selves plum different worlds and other places.  In science (which I consider another form of spirituality - just one that requires much less faith) dreaming is the side-effect of the subconscious processing information that we take in but don't realize.  It's a way for our brain to take what it learned and update our consciousness with the information.  Kind of like how our user interface here takes what we write and changes it into the programming language of the bulletin board!

In either of these cases, we have a "dream self" and identity that we witness these dreams in.  That identity I've always believed to be the closest thing to me I can ever describe.  Even in dreams where I am someone else, I find myself describing it as "I" am someone else, and not "The boy I play" is someone else.  To me, that means on some instinctive level, in some very basic way, I've known.  I've always known.  This inner dialogue, whatever spirituality we use to describe it, is more than what makes us male or female, it is, in all definition, what makes us us, this inner being, this perfect "me."

That puts me in mind of Shakespeare. A scene from The Tempest.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Quote from: Rising_Angel on June 07, 2012, 03:59:01 PM
In either of these cases, we have a "dream self" and identity that we witness these dreams in.  That identity I've always believed to be the closest thing to me I can ever describe.  Even in dreams where I am someone else, I find myself describing it as "I" am someone else, and not "The boy I play" is someone else.  To me, that means on some instinctive level, in some very basic way, I've known.  I've always known.

That's how it is with me in dreams. The question I've been asking for year is are our dream selves our real selves?