Nature, nurture, or both?

[Tiffanyselkoe]

I have often wondered if the feminine component of myself was just meant to be. I have 2 sisters and lived most of the time with a single mother who seemed to be critical of any projecting of masculine assertiveness on my part. That is the nurture. On to the nature. I have a twin sister, we were born 2 months early, within 1 minute of each other, and weight one ounce apart. She is a nurse. I am a nurse. We have a lot of the same thought processes. I don't know if it's just a twin thing or not but I have always felt comfortable thinking like a female. I am happy being a guy but would like to experience being female also. I do feel more balanced in that I don't have to hide Tiffany in the closet any more but sometimes wonder if I was meant for something else. Any thoughts?

[Lynn Marie]

I'm sure I don't think like a woman, but with the help of a couple of wonderful women, I feel I can understand a little of what they feel. Even though I love to emulate my "dream girl", it's really just an illusion that I'm playing with. I'm a guy, I like being a guy, I'm fairly good at it, and I think like a guy for better or worse. I'm very comfortable with women because I really love the dang critters.

I have CD girlfriends who feel that they should have been women. I fully understand that even though I'm not interested in becoming one myself. Okay, maybe just for a few hours on the weekend!

[Beverley Sims]

Tiffany,
An interesting thought and in your case a sound one.
Considering being a twin and how close twins are to each other.
Being in an all girl family assists any nurture in progress as well

[Marcelle]

Hi Tiffany,

Interesting thread and one I believe has been touched on a few times in the forum. I think the general consensus in the literature on the subject is "a bit of both". Specifically there may be a "wiring component" (biological). For some (TS) this is so strong that they are indeed trapped in the wrong gender. For others along the TG spectrum the wiring may not be as deeps but it may cause this need to express the opposite gender without the desire for HRT and/or SRS. Nurture I believe holds a big sway in this debate in that how you are raised (if the nature exists) will determine the outcome. My father was not influential on my life and I was raised in a all female home (mother and sisters) and being the only male child in the family (all female cousins) my interaction at family outings was either to play girl games or play alone. I chose to interact with the girls and played more stereotypical girl games. My uncles all being burly manly men, decided to initiate me in all things male at an early age (hunting, fishing, cars, construction, etc.) all of which I enjoyed (don't hunt anymore though). However, part of me still longed to play jump rope with my cousins. I would say that need was the biological (nature). If it had not existed I would most likely had embraced the guy stuff and moved on with life. Not saying this is the answer but it is how I have come to look at this.

Hugs

Isha

[sometimes_miss]

Nature, nurture, or both?

Yes. It's nature, nurture, or both. You've got it right. It can be any of those. As far as anything 'meant to be', if you're a fatalist, then why even bother thinking about anything. Just drift through life, and whatever is supposed to happen will happen. You don't even have to work, or eat. Or breath. Whatever is meant to happen will happen.

[NancyJ]

I've pondered this for years and have perhaps read most of what is out there on the subject of M2F crossdressing and Trans. I am convinced that the answer is different for each of us in terms of the mix of both nature and life experiences. For some it may be 99% nature. For me, I think it is more of a balance. I also felt "different," never liked rough housing with the other boys, remember admiring the floral patterns the girls wore and softer fabrics as far back as Kindegarten, and preferred to be in the kitchen with the women when there was a houseful of relatives. I think that, for me it has been about 40% nature, the rest life experiences that have reinforced my desire to experience femininity. But of course we'll never know, and does it matter? I think that perhaps people attribute less stigma and maybe experience less shame if they are told or tell themselves that "I was born this way." One thing I am convinced of is that however it happened, it is me and Nancyis here to stay. Nancy

[kimdl93]

Of course, this is an unanswerable question. Our personal thoughts on the matter, on our individual origins are like eye witness testimony, notoriously prone to error, false memory and often unreliable. If science uncovers the answers one day, we are still left with the task of living our lives to the best of our abilities.

[KayleeTaylor]

For me, it was definitely nature in wanting to express my feminine side. I have always felt this way and used to get teased at school because of it. At home I couldn't find happiness or peace with who I was supposed to be because my parents were very conservative. If I would have got the love and support that I needed growing up, my life would be very different right now.

[BLUE ORCHID]

Hi Tiffany, It's just who I am and it's just what I do, I don't try to out think it I just enjoy my double self.

[Joanne f]

I think that it has to be both in that it will be in your nature to nurture it as it may be in your nature to be like it so you can have the desire to nurture it , go's hand in hand as far as I can see .

[Katie Russell]

Hi Tiffany

I started a thread asking the same question and had quite a few interesting replies.

http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/...ure&highlight=

Katie

[Jenniferathome]

It's nature. Pure and simple. Read the story of David Reimer and the failed experiment that was once groundbreaking science only to be totally discredited.

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/may...al/me-reimer13

[Desirae]

It seems to me that crossdressing is a man-made conceived idea. I mean at sometime in our history (I mean the history of mankind, not of crossdressers), at the beginning, there were no clothes. This has nothing to do with religion or Adam and Eve. There had to be a beginning to us (religiously or not) where we first came to be and there were no clothing items then. If there were no clothing items then, how could anyone conceive of wearing clothing made for the opposite gender then? They couldn't. Clothing was invented by man. How some clothing came to be seen as feminine or masculine I have no idea. But, I cannot see how nature played any role in it since clothing was invented by people. The only way that could be is if genes were transformed in people wearing clothing of the opposite gender, over tens of thousands of years, and then passed on to subsequent generations. It is simply more about the idea of what is considered female attire versus male attire that is instilled in us beginning when we are born.

[kendel]

I think it is both

[BillieJoEllen]

As far back as I can remember I had always thought of myself as a female. Others might have picked up on my thoughts because throughout my childhood others had subjected me to 'girly' treatment. Girls clothing didn't really excite me all that much although there were a few times when I was dressed in it. I just remember being very comfortable in it except for a time when an aunt of mine 'forced' me to dress up in my girl cousin's clothes. That was shortly after I began to understand the differences between boys and girls. I believe with me its strictly nature.

[Snowbunnyyy]

I would lean toward saying it is primarily nature. Or at least it can't exist without nature. I don't know that I buy you could be pushed towards crossdressing purely by the environment you were raised in if you didn't have some sort of biological predisposition.

[mykell]

hi tiffany,

i think it is both, i remember liking it at a very young age being the (nature) and growing up feeling more comfortable with females playing games and hanging out at family gatherings which could be (nurture).
i started a twin thread and received interesting replies which you shared with us,

and after started a thread with family ties through generations. Some comments my son made got me thinking.

http://www.crossdressers.com/forums/...CD-!!-any-one-!

so it may not be a CD gene say, but somethings instinctual...

[Gillian Gigs]

When we look at the whole spectrum of TS, TG until we get to the fetish CD'er, we have a large array of thoughts and things to consider. I see the TS person as being way over in the nature side of the spectrum. There is something in their brain wiring that just seems to say that they are not in their brain the same as what is between their legs. Now at the other extreme the fetish CD'er, to my way of thinking has learned that it is fun and pleasurable to dress up, that's nurture. Then you have everything that would fit in between these two extremes. Only a honest self examination would determine where an individual is within this spectrum. Regardless of where anyone is on this spectrum, we all need love and acceptance from all others, especially from everyone within this group.

[Confucius]

A baby is born with more neural connections than an adult. As an infant we begin to make sense of our world, we prune neural connections that do not make sense, and if we don't prune accordingly then synesthesia may result. Examples are people who see colors when looking at numbers, or associating shapes with numbers, or colors with sounds.

About 97% of the male population can cross-dress and feel nothing my humiliation and silliness. However about 3% of the population will enjoy (even love) the experience and say it produces sensations of well-being, pleasure, gratification and self-identity. Many of these men will say it they cannot remember when they didn't enjoy the experience. Their brain is hard-wired to interpret cross-dressing as actual contact with a female. When they cross-dress their brain releases dopamine and other neurotransmitters which produce the sensations they love.

You might know that children with Asperger's have a high incidence of cross-dressing. You might know that persons with Parkinson's are given medication to increase their levels of dopamine and they sometimes exhibit cross-dressing tendencies while they are on medication.

http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/ar...ticleID=179737
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_...of_synesthesia

[Davina99]

As a twin whose brother is almost certainly not a CDer (can't be 100% sure) I suspect the majority influence is nature. I was wearing my sisters' (both older than me) clothes from as long ago as I can remember. We are fraternal twins.

[suchacutie]

Nature for me. It took 55 years, and a brilliant/loving/insightful wife to realize that nature.

[Lorileah]

It's nature. Pure and simple. Read the story of David Reimer and the failed experiment that was once groundbreaking science only to be totally discredited.

Too many holes in that to put it totally in nature. The person in question had a twin with mental issues too. Were those issues inborn or a product of nurture? All you can say in this case is that he subject wasn't wired as a TG. Nothing more.

We are fraternal twins.

Which would argue that it may or may NOT be genetic. You both grew up in the same household so nurturing influences would be similar.

[Jenniferathome]

"Yet, consider brain gender. This begins taking shape, according to genetic instruction, at conception.
Over the past decade, there have been thousands of studies showing differences between the male and female brain, in humans and other species, says Sandra Witelson, a neuroscientist at McMaster University’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.
“The brain is sexually differentiated, just like the genitalia are, but because the genitalia are visible and the brain is inside the skull, people aren’t faced with the fact that is indisputable,” Witelson said in a telephone interview.
While some may want to believe gender can be shaped, Witelson believes society is starting to accept the importance of hard wiring."

It's not just this one story. Thousands of studies show our brains are different. Fortunately, the "science" of make them what they most look like outwardly, has been discredited entirely. Now, the recommendation is let the kids determine what they are.

[mary something]

I think the key fact here is that you are a fraternal twin. Scientific studies show that the male of a fraternal twin pair has a 50% chance of being gay. This makes sense because the two embryo's shared the same blood supply from the mother and the same womb. Any hormonal washes that were sent to the embryo's were shared between the two brains.


of course it's an interplay between nature and nurture but we must never forget that it is in our nature to nurture. By nature we are social, we do not do very well isolated because we simply aren't constructed for it. Isolate someone in solitary and mental illness almost always results. Clothing is our way of expressing part of our identity and it is hardwired into our nature. Even in cultures that live in areas where clothes aren't necessary, where clothes can actually be a disadvantage because they take longer to dry when wet for example the humans there modify their bodies in different ways to express aspects of themselves.