less psychopathic theoretical perspectives on "why transgender?"

[pamela7]

I will say, upfront, that discussions are supposed to be emergent, meaning that they do go apparently off-topic in order for deeper understandings to emerge. It's called "emergence theory" if anyone is interested, so as long as I can see the relevance of replies, i'll be happy with where it goes under the umbrella of the title.

“Why is a person Transgender?”

I present an incomplete range of causes and factors potentially involved in the formation of a transgender personality. I will use concepts, terms and factors often outside of some people’s realities. As there are at least twelve different explanations as to the rise of a transgender predisposition within a human being, there is not a problem in the reader discarding/dismissing some of the suggested factors.


1. hormonal imbalances

This classic explanation came out with the book “Brain Sex”, which suggests hormonal imbalances in utero as the cause of a brain being imprinted with for example female hormones in a male body. In this case there would have been insufficient testosterone released by the mother at the time of the foetus forming the base structure of the brain.

In similar ways, imbalances can lead to a wide spectrum of intersex conditions from signifcant to mild. Further, during adolescence, lack of hormones might reduce the adult sexual imprinting that is supposed to happen at this peroid of rapid personal change.


2. common gene expression

A full intersex case would involve the DNA code being antagonistic to the gender assigned at birth.

3. possession

This could be a contentious term, so by “possession” we could consider that an external agency (person) has so dominated a person that every aspect of their thoughts, feelings, behaviours and expressions are as if of this possessing person.

In my own terms, I have met clients where the intended soul never got into the body, and something or someone else is in charge. In Freudian terms, the super-ego runs the show to such an extent that there is no genuine id.

4. soul-service

Let us consider the worldview that we all live as souls in service to others around, and that the initial primal service is to the parents. If one or both the parents desperately wanted a child of a different gender, the child can develop a predisposition to emulate that gender.

5. transmigration of soul

A soul that has lived many or all its prior lives as the other sex might be unexpectedly conceived in a cell of different gender, or might be recalling past lives as expected gender, thus giving rise to a dissonance.

6. dissociative trauma

There are ten different forms of dissociative trauma, any of which could give rise to a dysphoria, from a simple parental “unwanted” message around conception, via fragmenting into a person of the opposite sex, to imprinting by significant others impacting on the sense of self with a different gender.

There are conditioning / adapting traumas, for example, sibling-envy or rivalry, sibling-revenge, learning experiences whereby adapting to another gender gives attention advantages or other secondary benefits.

There are the associative conditionings of early sexual experiences creating preferences for other-gender expressions.

7. gaia theory

In this one, a person’s animal archetype can be one kind, where the animal role conflicts the human gender role. For example, the human elephant would be naturally matriarchal, but the patriarchal role means they feel a need to feminise.

8. totemic theory

This is an identification with a powerful opposite-gender archetypes, for example a male who grows up strongly identifying with Athene for example, to such an extent that they take on the feminine energy fully.

9. ancestral or racial memory

In this case the role a person takes might be so associated by the DNA memories that they feel this strong need to be the gender associated.

10. cultural field factors

In a culture where there is a large addiction presence one finds more people attracted to the drugs, and so in a place where there is already a strong LGBT field, there will be a greater propensity to a lifestyle choice. Sometimes the only way to be different is to compensate by choosing the least acceptable forms of behaviour to the local controlling powers.

Looking forward to an interesting discussion and thread.

xxx Pam

[Teresa]

Pamela,
Initially , I was going to question of the use of the term , "Transgender " . Simply because of the use and misuse of the members here and the way the media use it . Often media transpose transgender for transsexual , sometimes it leaves me wondering how much research went into the media productions and who they consulted. I'm sure you can name productions guilty of this .

Sorry that is off subject slightly but your question is well worded and well explained , thanks for that.

So my answer to where do I feel I am and exactly what applies to me .
1) Hormonal makes so much sense , being born like it , it can cover a huge spectrum , affecting us in so many different ways . I feel as if my male side is overlaid with a female trait , it causes some GD but not enough to desperately wanting to transition , I enjoy my female side more than my male , my gender counsellor suggested my female side was the dominate one when I explained how it started for me at the age of 8-9 years.

I'm going to add that 6) The trauma connection hardwired my brain from an early age . No outside influences affected me but the connection between an active male side , a conflicting female trait, clothes and an unexpected early sexual experience tied all those lose ends together resulting in the way I feel now after all these years . I see it as a combination lock being set in my brain with no way of unlocking it , the code was thrown away .

[pamela7]

that's fair, Teresa, my intent was in relation to really the decision "within transgender" or "within transsexual". but for me now the term transsexual conflates the sexual aspect as opposed to the gender, so i did mean what in this forum is called "transsexual". if that makes any sense?!

For example, genderfluid could be equated to the dsm "borderline" personality disorder, as certainly there is a personality shift that happens over time or overnight, and really they are forms of the same thing. However, i don't see this as a disorder like dsm does, i see it simply as a variant of neural systems - a bit like a "timeshare" where different programs run at different times. It is quite nuts to think humans are only supposed to run one program - we are really MIMD machines from that perspective - many in parallel.

edit: in terms of my own answer, Teresa, I feel my soul is transmigrating, i feel some hormonal aspects such as the brain wiring and a slow, perhaps incomplete puberty. It's kind of like a life of being "the middle-person", and as one part was so baised into playing male, the latter part gets to play female.

[Dorit]

For myself explanation 1 or 2 seems to fit best. It was always there from my earliest childhood, I did not have any say in it or have some youth experience to cause it or reinforce it. Just the opposite, in my youth I fought it with all I had and the struggle almost cost me my life. My HRT experience seems to validate this understanding as for the first time in my life my soul (or brain if you prefer) is in harmony with my body and I have this deep sense of fulfillment that I had never experienced until now.

[Richelle]

For me, the first explanation fits me the best. I thought about it off and on since early age. I just kept pushing down until the last ten years or so. Now that I have started HRT I look forward to spending my life as the woman I really am

Richelle

[elizabethamy]

My mom took DES so #1. But she wanted a girl and still reminds of that from time to time, so some of the others too. I've been willed into femininity by my parents, all my life! I love all the more ethereal ideas: only ethereal from a Western sense, what is the nature of the soul? How did it express itself in the past? What does it need? Mine appears to need a big jolt of estrogen. It's fascinating to think about the causes from a holistic point of view. Wonderful thread, Pamela!

elizabethamy

[Devi SM]

May be my comment will fall out of what you're asking but i don't want to loose the opportunity of say it.

I'm pretty sure that from now and may be 20 more years all this discussions are going to be obsoletes like obsoletes is to talk about slavery.
In a moment for so many people to see a black person as a free person was unbelievable, unthinkable and probably a prohibited topic on dinner or whatever place.
Some people could see a black as an inferior race closer to animals. I mention blacks because that race was the mainly slavery ones. There were Asian slaves too and in ancient times any conquered people would be sold and be a slave. Today all that is just history and for more of us is now a ridiculous thing.
The thinking must evolve.
I'd use the next example to prove how our mind set can evolve:
Typical romantic scene in a movie of an heterosexual couple after a date go and spend the night together. They can show some sex or not it everybody assume they had heterosexual sex.
So next morning they show the typical scene of the guy sleeping while the girl is dressed just with the guy shirt. Everybody loves to see a sexy girl wearing the guy shirt. She's in the kitchen preparing the breakfast, the guys shows up and surprise her with a hug from behind.
Nobody thinks on her crossdressing or she can be trasgender.
Now the opposite scene, they could show heteresexual scenes of them making love, explicits scenes where both are in the "right " gender sexual role but in the scene in the next morning, the guy wearing her bra and panty is cooking breakfast. It doesn't matter how masculine the guy was shown all night long people immediately will think on hom as gay.
So we, crossdressers, trasgenders one day will no longer be called with any label, As soon as we push the world to be more familiar seeing more of us between them as human beings. So why we're what we are just watch the movie Love, Simon. A gay boy teenager strugling trying to get oiut of the closet and he makes the question: why just gays have to get out of the closet? It sounds as a rhetoric or ridiculous question but the answer is because he looks as a guy and everybody expect the he likes girls but in us depend that people in the future can expect and accept to have a son, daughter, a member of the family different from the logical gender or sexual orientation...