What made You who you are ?

[Jo-Anne]

You may be trans,Cd,Ts.or a tranz man, So many descriptions for a complicated way of being: but what made you who you are ? Was it something that occurred in the womb? Did you have a dominating Mom and a weak Father figure? What was it,that made femininity such an important part of who you are (mtf) ? Genetics vs environment ? OR maybe the gift of a female Soul ? I believe it was the latter for me..I would like to hear from you !

[Marie-Elise]

I think I am one of the few who can say he has been dressing in female clothing since he was born. My mother wanted a girl and expected that she would have one. So she went out and bought all girl baby clothes. Then I came along.

I add to that: a father who didn't much care to teach me the ways of men and an extended family of strong women. I guess I just had strong female role models.

I did, however, manage to turn our hetero and taught myself the ways of men.

[docrobbysherry]

I'm just guessing, but either:

my prostate meds, old age/hormonal changes, or, last but not least, FATE!?

[brassieres]

I am guessing a strong identifying with my mother, and lack of a real father figure in my life.

[Joanne f]

I was born with the ability of understanding and i use that to understand most things i hope , or at least try to .

[luludoll]

hmm I would say ever since 5 when I first put on my mom's bras, that's as far back as I remember. I was raised by my mom (since my dad's work took him allover, have an older sister & at that time my mom owned a salon run by male cds. After school hours were spent at the salon so our babysitters were cds. And I have a 1st cousin who's a post-op femme now I think & is pretty open about it.

So this was bound to happen. I've always been pretty closeted even though I got caught by my sister who always ratted me it out to my parents tons of times. Funny thing I was dating girls left & right during high school, none of them knew I had this fetish, I really didn't enjoy being in a relationship even if some of them eventually became models & a miss world candidate.

So growing up wearing women's undies was just a fetish to satisfy my...ahem ego. It wasn't till a year ago that it became part of my lifestyle/persona, even getting into a semi-serious relationship w/ a guy who I never told the truth about who I really am & when he got serious with the relationship I panicked & pulled a disappearing act without explaining anything...

xoxo
lulu~

[suzy1]

I haven’t a clue. And that’s a serious reply.

SUZY

[SusanMarie]

Got me???
Grew up in an ordinary 'Ozzie & Harriet' life. Though I always thought Mom 'n Sis had the cool clothes and I preferred 'co-ed' activities. Nature...nurture...just me.

[Karren H]

Two words... Alien abduction!! I don't know who got abducted but I'll bet aliens were involved... Aka "who the hell knows".

[Rianna Humble]

The terms you cited are not just different facets of the same thing. Trans in the sense of transgender will encompass the others and "trans-man" is a subset of TS as is "trans-woman". It is my belief that whilst we are part of the same big transgender family, there is a difference between cross-dressers who are happy to remain mainly with their birth-gender role and transsexuals. The latter mostly have known for a long time that they have a birth defect which is that we have the wrong body.

There is a train of thought (on which I ride) that suggests that your inner sense of gender is fixed inside the womb. For cisgendered folks the brain gender and the body gender match. For TS folks, the brain is one gender and the body the other.

I cannot define soul, so I don't know if I have one. If I do, then it should surely be the same as my inner sense of gender (aka brain gender).

To your other questions:

Dominating mother? NO

Weak father? NO

What made my inner gender such an important part of who I am? It is the only image of myself that I posess. I tried to live out the image that others insisted on expecting of me, but it didn't work. I never felt right as a man - even when I fell in love, I could not follow through with marriage because I could not envisage myself in the role of a husband. To my simplistic way of thinking, it was inconceivable that I as a woman (albeit looking like a man) could be the husband of a heterosexual wife.

Genetics? Almost certainly. There has been a study which suggests that physically a trans-woman's brain more closely resembles a cis-woman's brain than a cis-man's brain, although I cannot remember where that was published. I believe that the same study found a similar correlation between trans-men and cis-men.

Environment? Definitely not in my case. If environment could have had a say, then the years of trying to live as the man I never was would have made me cis-gendered.

But I think that what finally made me who I am today was learning to accept myself.

[Ash Leland]

The variety of ways in which people explain who they are is fascinating, and I've never known anyone who deals with it with much balance. I know many people who trace their character traits back to a certain parent- they usually ascribe good traits to one and bad traits to another. Some people talk about a religious or ethnic identity as if it has some independant existence, outside of themselves, and moves them according to it's whims. Some people will use a certain event in their life to explain who they are, even if it's in the distant past and a lot has happened since. I'm sure the circumstances of all these people has given a certain amount of legitimacy to whatever they claim, but it never seems to be pure cause-and-effect. I said that the people I know who have a definite explanation of how they got to be who they are don't deal with it with much balance- it seems to be equal parts external cause and personal aspiration, and no one I know has clearly explained to me the the proportions in which both make up their self image...but people seem to give more creedence to the external causes.

There are no doubt some things that can happen to you that can deeply shape your identity, but I've never known anyone who ever claimed that they shaped most of themselves...I guess that would beg the question where did the desire to shape yourself come from, and then lead us back to the external cause, unless you just say the desire is completely organic and original.

Personally, my life has been a story of unravelling identities, one after another. What brought a lot of things together for me was exploring relgion- for awhile I was open to the possiblity of finding authentic spiritual truth, but nearly every religion that I can think of relies on an element of personal revelation- you need to have personal knowledge of the existence of God (or whatever the defining belief may be). A Christian and an athiest may agree that it's good to be altruistic and such, but even if they agree on every moral issue, they are not the same. The Christian knows personally that God exists and that Jesus is his son. To the best of my knowledge, these are the only two ways in which someone can become religious- personal revelation or familial inheritence. The existence of a spiritual dimension to the world cannot be externally demonstrated, so it is solely a question of believing something for entirely private reasons. This bares a stark similarity to how ethnicity works- you inherit it or marry into it, you cannot acquire an ethnicity through educaiton \ personal growth. And the propogation of both religion and ethnicity relate to family life- family is the most accessable way to gain either a religion or an ethnicity, and both are examples of some of the strongest, most persistent forms of identity.

The most persistent forms of identity are asserted for entirely private reasons and are not usually based on externally observable things. Gender also seems involved in the realm of familial education \ inheritence, but not quite. Your family can teach you how to be a certain gender, but what about people like me who have a completely innate interest in gender bending? I can remember cross dressing as a child, both on my own initiative and when my female friends wanted to put me in a dress. Up until I was nine I would always take the girl's bathroom pass in school, I was told not to and I cared enough to keep doing it anyway. I don't remember why exactly I did these things, only that I wanted to very badly and no one taught me to do them. I eventually lost touch with both an ethnic identity and a spiritual one for empirical reasons that are intellegible to others, but the blurring of my gender identity seems to be entirely self-prompted.

What's funny is that C.S. Lewis wrote that God's law is persistent and original- every human being knows it intuitively, and it does not need to be taught. If no one taught me to dress as a woman (and, to a certain degree, identify as one), could this also be divinely inspired? Food for thought :P

So: long story short, for me it's a combination of past experiences and seemingly innate desires. I have no explanation other than what I do and feel.

[Debutante]

I pretty much know that it was a harsh, cold, emotionally abusive father, and a depressed, distant,
Adult Child of an Alcoholic mother, that helped form my life the the CD issues for me (among several other
very central dysfuntions).
The urges and repsonsiveness to transgender imagery and interest in crossdressing, or
gender identity with women, was felt when I was 5...

[Steph.TS]

I cannot say for sure why I am the way I am, is it because I was born this way, is it because I've generally had a weak relationship with my father, while feeling like my mom was the only one that understood me? is there another influence I'm not aware of?

all I know is all of my life I've tried to fit in, but I want to transition, and I know that'll mean I won't fit in (at least during transition) so this means alot to me to make this move. I hope I'll be ready to do it someday...

[Amy Lynn3]

I know about all the reasons that cause a person to be TS, but I really don't know why I love to wear female cloths, but I do.

[LitaKelley]

I can't really say something in particular made me who I am, other than a combination of experiences and influences have shaped me in some manner.

[suchacutie]

I really look at this as a biological issue. After all, I never dressed for my first 55 years and never considered myself in any way feminine. Yet, looking back on it, it's clear that I am in many ways hard-wired to look at issues from a feminine perspective, something I wish I had understood years ago.

Everything about my personal life would probably bore psychologists as normal, normal, and normal. Yet, it's clear I've had a foot in both genders and not that I realize it, there's no going back.

It wasn't learned, it's always been there.

tina

[gwenbeth]

I don't know what was the catalyst for it was, but I do know that a lot has gone into making my female side what it is. A lot of self esteem, emotional, body image, depression and other issues all went into making me who I am.

[Nick2Nikki]

I think that it was mostly genetics for me. I've long been curious about the idea of dressing as a woman, without have any real reason to. Plus I'm of the belief that genetics controls a lot more of our lives than we are allowed to admit to ourselves.

[Maxi]

I have been the man of the house since age 2. When I went through my divorce, at age 42, was when I started experimenting with cross dressing. It started with a half slip.

[erica12b]

i wish i had something (or one) to blame, not that it would change anything lol , and yes i have a fem soul, but i like my guy parts, i had a overdom mom and a silent dad, i like the fem choises , and hate closet, but we half to play the cards we are dealt

[Michaela42]

Lets see,
My Mother is a very demanding and strong willed woman, but
My Father is also a very demanding and strong willed man. They sort of cancel each other out as far as 'traditional' roles go.

My extended family is much the same way as there dose not seem to be one gender dominating the other.

I am who I am and that is the way it will be, I guess.

[Cynthia Anne]

Well I got an idea that I was born this way or because my older sister wanted a sister and started dressing me up when I was four years old or maybe that something was in the breast milk! Sorry I DON'T REMEMBER

[sissystephanie]

This is not a slam at Transexuals or anyone else. It is simply a statement of fact!! It is not just my own opinion, because it is based on medical facts that can be read if a person so desires!

Each one of us is who we are!! There are many things that you can say had a role in helping make that decision. But the"role' of who we are is decided by the person who is being asked! It is not decided in the womb, or by other family members! It is decided by a logical, thinking person, who may of any age that is old enough to comprehend!!

I started wearing girl panties at age 6 or 7! Was I a crossdresser/ By definition yes I was, but I was too young to know it. When I was a few years older and still liking to wear panties, I knew that I was a crossdresser and have been one almost ever since!

Being a crossdresser, or any other person who crosses gender boundaries, is a state of mind!! It is not, in any sense, a physical thing! When you are born, your body has certain physical characteristics which denote your sex. Unless you have the sex organs of both sexes, you are either male or female. Only surgery, and some medicine, can change that! Nothing else can. If you don't think that is true, then you don't believe your own mind!!

[AlisonRenee]

I can't point at some defining presence or lack thereof, event, "fault" or other "reason" for me being me other than that I'm wired this way. When I was four I wanted to be a girl and that's never stopped. I've always had feminine traits, been more drawn to girls' activities as a kid, never was the typical boy. As an adult I've had considerable opportunity to use that softer side in positive ways - as a single parent, the Mom role fit me as well as Dad.

If there was/is some external influence, the only theory I've seen that kinda fits is that I was exposed to DES in utero and there's apparently a higher percentage of GID among male DES kids. DES is synthetic estrogen, was used to help prevent miscarriage. The theory is that the higher estrogen levels affect brain development in the male fetus... presto, my toenails are in pink polish today.

[Tanya C]

Personally, I believe that the gift of a feminine soul is a genetic predisposition as is our gender identity in general. Environmental factors surely play a roll in determining when we become aware of our transgender identity, just as they play a roll by influencing the way we act on it.
But in my opinion we were born this way, notwithstanding the exceptions, of course.