Power of the mind

[Lauren Richards]

This one is a little deep, so if you are reading for fluff, skip it.

I have thought about the "why am I a crossdresser?" question for many years. I am way past the point where I question "if", but keep coming back to "why". Nature, nurture, quirk of fate, phase of moon, etc. Nothing comes back with resonance to me except the notion of neural transmission of gender preference by the mother.

In plain vanilla terms, I fundamentally believe my Mom wanted a daughter and imprinted my mind with that preference. I am male in most regards, but there is also a fundamentally female side of me as well.

The mind-body link is still an amazingly complex field where we are just discovering the beginnings of what the mind is capable of doing.

Do you think at some deep level your mother wanted a girl? What do you think?

Lauren

[GG Vanya]

I know that on every level my Mom wanted a boy. So much so that no female name was pre selected, and at birth her disappointment was such that she rejected me and my aunt cared for me for the first several months of my life.

While this may well be true for M2F CDs and may even be true for F2M's, it certainly wasn't/isn't true in my case.

[Lauren Richards]

Vanya,
Thanks for your feedback. I had a boss who told me "feedback is a gift, even if it not what you want to hear". It's a theory, and I'm interested to see if there is any level of validity for anyone else. Just wanting to throw it out there for consideration.

Lauren

[Casey Morgan]

First, this has been discussed a few times just since I've been here. There have been some interesting replies in those threads. I'm not sure what you'd search for, but they would be worth reading.

Personally I don't believe this theory. I know the mind can do miraculous things for/to the body but I have a hard time believing a mother can influence her unborn baby's gender. Vanya's mother isn't the only one who wished for a baby of the opposite sex, and my mother honestly didn't care what I was as long as I was healthy. At most the mother's wishes may be a contributing factor to being transgendered but it seems to me like there is something else going on.

I think we've all come up with different theories as to why we're we are the way we are. But to me most of them are like looking for an acorn in the middle of the ocean. If you find one you have to wonder how the acorn got there in the first place.

And I love philosophically deep threads. There are enough threads, especially in the Lounge, that end up getting the other kind of deep. :p

[Pauline53]

I saw a documentary a few years back that showed the work of some neuroscientists. They were looking at a specific part of the brain (can't remember which part) whic is different in size between men and women. The also studied the same section in known transgendered people and that particular section was intermediate in size. They concluded that hormone levels in the uterus during pregnancy determined the size of that particular brain area. Perhaps the size of that area can also determine whether or not people crossdress.


Pauline.

[LaurenS.]

I don't believe in any of the physcological rationale. My belief sounds rather silly actually. There's a specific recipe for the perfectly "normal" male and/or female. I just think the cooks don't follow the recipe very closely....a pinch of X, a pinch of Y, to much masculinity here and to much femininity there. That's why we're all so different and we have the macho dick and the average guy and the efeminate males and the CD and the TS. OK, it's a goofy explanation but it's straightforward and easy to understand. I think they're going to publish it in the AMA.
Lauren S.:D

[Lauren Richards]

I know there have been lots of threads regarding the origin of crossdressing, but I do not recall any specifically dealing with this question. Trying to keep it focused.

I'm not saying a mom can influence the sex of the child. That seems to be biology 101. What I am considering is the influence on behavioral imprints which may occur at the cellular level. How do birds know how to fly? Instinct and cross generational cellular memory is fascinating. Just searching, which is in my nature, too.

Lauren

[Charlotte Macke]

Let me put a different light on this topic by recommending you read "Brain Sex" by Anne Moir and David Jessel. This book discusses at some length the hormonal combinations and conditions necessary for a person to be born with the body of a male but grow up to have the mind of a female. And yet, still be hetersexual. This not an expensive book, Amazon sells it for $11.05, nor is it new, dated Aug 1, 1992. But it answers so many questions we all have about why we are this way.

[Jacqui]

Do you think at some deep level your mother wanted a girl? What do you think? Lauren

My earliest memories involve my mother and her friends fawning over me when I was perhaps 2-4 years old. I can remember and understand their words. They complimented how "beautiful" I was with my light blond hair, blue eyes, my eyelashes...but the words that have kept repeating in my brain through all these years, either from my mom, her friends, or both, were, "He should have been a girl!"

Several months ago, my parents were cleaning out a closet. They presented me with a baby photo album of me that I don't recall ever seeing. As I was flipping through the pages, I came across a picture that caught my breath. I had to quickly turn the page so as not to draw attention to the fact that I wanted to look at it for a few minutes. Inside, I couldn't wait to be alone with this picture...

It was me at about 3 years old being held by my mother. I was wearing a girl's white dress and lipstick. I had a scowl on my face. The other pictures on the page pointed to a masquerade party that she must have taken me to. But it wasn't as a cowboy, a knight, or a pirate...it was as a beautiful little girl which I believe she so desperately wanted.

Did all of this have anything to do with how I ended up? I don't know if it would have been different or not, but to answer your question, Lauren, the answer is a definite, "YES!"

[Lauren Richards]

Charlotte, welcome to the forum! I feel honored that this is your first post. I hope you find this to be an open and welcoming place to visit, and sometimes hang around for a while. The book looks interesting.

Jacqui, thanks for the background story. That was delightful! And a straight answer to the primary question.

Girls, this isn't so much about what you think; this is about what your Mother thought. The brain influences everything, from your mood to your resistance to everyday virus infections. The brain in love is very different from the brain in depression, and both send very different signals. Primary research here. Just wondering...if your Mother wanted you to be a girl. Thanks.

Lauren

[ReginaK]

I find that interesting because my mother also wanted a girl, picked out a gender neutral baby stuff (no pinks or blues, everything was yellow), and on top of that I came a month earlier than expected.

[Kate Simmons]

Doesn't matter what they wanted, they got me. I'm kind of a "hodge podge". I do remember my Grandmother saying a couple of times that I would have made a nice girl because I had such pretty eyes. I doubt that affected me though. I was as rough and tumble as my peers in the neighborhood. Later on, on my own, I decided it would be nice to be a girl. I liked the pretty dresses they wore and the neat stuff they did. What I didn't like though were the "plans" that were being made for them and the "prompting" to be a lady, so they could attract a good man. Amazing how people thought back then (the 40's and the 50's). Boys were being "prompted" to get a good job so they could "land' a good wife. Scary. I decided then I would have none of that and would be my own person, including my girl self. I eventually got married but because I loved my wife, not because it was the thing to do. My femme self was always with me however and is up to today. I'm pretty much a self-made person. I wouldn't have it any other way personally.:happy: Ericka/Rich

[JoAnnDallas]

There is research that says that everyone is born either XXX or XXY or XYY. With most males and females born XXY. This would explain the whole range of sexuality and gender. The exception those born as XX/XX or XX/XY or XY/XY. These people are rare and are dual sex, having dual DNA codes.

Being born on the female end of XXY would explain all of us that are GG's, lesibens, tomboys, and FTM CD/TG/TS. Those of us born on the male end of XXY would explain all of us that are GM's, Gays, femium, and MTF CD/TG/TS.

It sure would explain a lot IMHO.

[Brenda_fish]

I think sex is a U-shaped continuum where lots of people fall at one of the sides while fewer fall in between. There are several points during development where sex is defined, i.e., how the brain developes, the genetals, hormonal system, etc. If all of those go one way or another you get one or the other "typical" sex. But if they don't all go the same way, you get something in between. Each of these major events involves many, many smaller events so there is a huge range of intergrades. Most will tend toward one sex or the other so being truly in the middle is probably the rarest case. Things like hormonal surges in the mother or even the sex of a twin can influence the outcome. But I doubt that the particular wishes of the mother have much of an effect in utero.

My :2c:

Love to all,
Brenda

[eleventhdr]

I do not think my mom would ever admit that she ever wanted a girl but she has off handedly said sometime that she does like that there were finally some other girls in the family via my Brothers and there chirlren

But it really dpes not matter to me excpet fot the very factt that i just do wish that I had been the one in this family and or any fmaily to have been born female would have been jsut for the better for me.

I have just kind of always felt that it should have been the other way.

But for me it goes much deeper and really has nothing to do with what any female might have wanted it to be.

But goes back really to pervious live's of which i do truly belive are the cases if and when you do accpet and or belive in this then you would already know that what you really do feel is right for you is how that does work.

In other words if and when you do belive that you arre very basically most alwasy female then to become male in any lifetime is upsetting to your natual balence.

There fore since i ahve alwasy kind of had some female tendencies it is only very right that I should always want to be female and do not feel right any other way.

So therefore I am really a girl in a boys body.

This is what I ahve come to belive having studied it now for quite sometime it really has nothing ot do with a female wishing i was one sex and or the other I do think that the very soul is what it is suppose to be wether it is in a female and or male body the soul and or brain is still what it is suppose to be so I am female no matter how you might look at me in a male body.

Oh well!

Jay Suzy!

[trannie T]

I don't think my mom wanted a girl. She was never very much for fashion or makeup. I was never dressed in girl's clothes. Nobody ever said that I would have made a pretty girl.
But nevertheless here I am.

[Sasha Anne Meadows]

I think this is genetic. Your mom can't turn you into a girl. But my mom wantd me to be a girl. So go figure

[tightsgirl]

I don't think either of my parents wanted me, both my mother and father ignored me and we seldom did anything together. I have no relationship with either of them and have accepted the fact that I am alone in this world.

I'm not sure, if I became a crossdresser based on how my parents treated me, but I spent most of my childhood trying to please them and they want nothing to do with me, so its time to just please myself and move on.

[Samantha B L]

My Mom NEVER EVER wanted any daughters other than my one sister.My parents were both very lenient.That was in the 50's and the 60's and in that regard they were possibly just a bit like Dan Conner and Rosaenne on TV. They were,however,sort of smaller,quieter,more clean cut.But through the years I've found that a lot of people that I've known wished that their parents were more like mine.It's strange.I was a senior in High School and this freind of mine had sort of a Mrs.Partridge crush on my Mom and he ran away to our house!We all had no choice but to call up his Mom and Dad!But getting to the point,my mother is very intolerant of tg issues and a counselar told me 20 years ago that she would never accept my cd'ing.I don't think my dressing developed out of any aspects of my relationship with my Mom in early childhood.I think it is possible that there could be neurological processes at work in cd'ing,but I don't think of it as any kind of impediment or illness.My life is a hundred times fuller this way and I'd never change it! Samantha

[Raychel]

I can't say that it had anything to do with my childhood or my parents in any way. I had a very normal childhood. I have to blame it all on the curiosity or crazyness related to puberty.

[hotbobbie]

Oh yes as my mother did not care for men.

[Dragster]

There was a thread on this subject only a couple of weeks ago, with reference to some scientific work which found a link between the hormones in a mother's body during the first trimester of pregnancy, and the tendency towards transgenderism. Here's the link.

http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42929&highlight=female+brain

I found it very interesting,
Tony

[Lauren Richards]

Thanks for your thoughts, and the links. I need to read that when I have more time. I am still kneeding the notion that a mother's thought process has a role in determining how we turn out.

Brains are amazing (just like us!), and I am not suggesting there is just "one" answer to how we came to be this way. Just looking for points of data outside my own experience, trying to identify a single point of reference if possible. Did your mother want a girl? Yes, no, don't know. Thanks!

Lauren