Who is left handed?

[Davina2833]

Add to right list shooting, baseball bat, golf (SO is right handed and opposite on these, left handed on shooting, golf and baseball bat. Me otherwise all lefty....

[SaraLin]

I'm left handed for pretty much everything - except firing a rifle. I think it's because it's how I was taught when I was young. I haven't touched (well, FIRED) one in 40+ years, back when I was in the military.

[Roxanne Lanyon]

I am right-handed with a revolver, writing. Everything else is with my left hand! Of, I am just a mixed up girl!
Roxanne Lanyon

[Teresa]

Scheryl,
There are some interesting thoughts on which way are you handed ?

At one time it was the done thing to try and correct people for this anomaly , some research suggests autism has something to do with it .

I admit to being ambidextrous , does the female trait have anything to do with ? I know some findings are showing certain areas of our brains are different .

I must admit seeing left handed sportsmen is slightly strange , I did boxing at school and to box against a , " Southpaw !" is weird , it's like taking on someone in a mirror . I watch a left handed golfer and think he'll never hit that ball straight and to play tennis against a left hander is interesting as they tend to put the opposite spin on the ball especially in the serve .

[Eemz]

I'm left handed for pretty much everything - except firing a rifle. I think it's because it's how I was taught when I was young. I haven't touched (well, FIRED) one in 40+ years, back when I was in the military.

Yes - I play the trombone right handed because when I started back in school it was like put this hand here, put this hand here. And I still play that way today.
Ironically the trombone is one of the few instruments that you can play perfectly well with either hand. You just put it together the other way around.

[GretchenM]

This handedness thing and its relationship to transgender or not is for real. A tendency toward left-handedness has been found, but I have never seen it in the literature as such a high percentage. But there is a positive relationship there.

Handedness comes in four flavors and it is a pre-disposition. That is, when you develop in the womb a preset handedness tendency is programmed. After you are born, the successful grasping of toys and the like, including your mother's hair, triggers the predisposition into active mode. Thus, if you are predisposed to right handedness and your right hand is defective, the handedness can be switch to the left hand by exploring things with your hands.

There are three forms of handedness (and maybe four) - right, left, non-right, and maybe ambidextrous. What is most significant for transgender is an apparently high occurrence of non-right handedness in transgender. In this, fine detail motion, like signing your name, is right handed, but there is a high ability to use the left hand for all the things the right hand can do, except fine detail. So, non-right handed can do most things with either hand and virtually with equal ability. There is a test that can be administered to determine which group you are in. However, the left-handed/transgender relationship does have some dependability, just not quite as high as it was several years ago. Non-right handedness is where much of the research has focused.

It is also interesting that of the 39 genes that establish handedness predisposition some are also involved in the formation of neurological structures that are involved in our sense of self which includes gender identity. Thus, the theory, and a pretty good one right now, that gender identity is also a predisposition. And the discovery that some transgender people have some brain structures that are intermediate between the male form and the female form tends to support the idea that gender identity is a predisposition the nature of which is created by the exact way those brain structures are configured. The remaining piece is whether those structures are established in the development process in the womb or are they induced through the use of behavior patterns. That is a really hard one to be researched. At this point, there is a slightly stronger leaning toward the predisposition (womb development) rather than behavior causing the intermediate gender structure in the neurology.

Good subject. Thanks for bringing it up. Look at the responses. You can get a hint that there might be something important to this.

[Stacy Darling]

I'm left handed whilst painting my right nails, and many other things but try to keep a balance between the sides ,otherwise I tend to lean to the right!
Stacy

[LeannS]

Eat left handed, write , peel veggies, but everything else is right

[ambigendrous]

Ambigendrous is ambidextrous... I'm left-handed, left-footed, but right-eyed. I write and do most stuff with my left hand, kick things with my left foot, shoot rifles on the right, play golf and hockey right-handed, but bat lefty in baseball.

And for an interesting observation: my left-handed Dad had a younger right-handed sister; I have an older sister, a younger sister, and a younger brother - I am the only left-handed sibling; I have 2 sons - the older one is left-handed; he, in turn, has 2 sons - the older one being left-handed! That's 4 generations of left-handedness in our family - I don't have any data about prior generations but I suspect handedness probably was either common, or suppressed back in our past!

[Jenny22]

I'd give my left arm to be ambidextrous!

[Barbara Jo]

I am left handed.
I can not even print my name with my right hand.

However, years ago, when I learned to play guitar (six string and bass) playing right handed seemd completely natural... while trying to play left handed seemed very awkward.
Sine then i have heard a few other guitarists who play guitar the opposite of what their dominant hand is.

[Michelle 51]

Lefty here also.Bat right handed but everything else is left

[Maria 60]

I do everything with my left, hammering sawing. Apparently I started writing with my left but my grandmother told me it was wrong and pushed me to write with my right, but I can write with both.

[April Rose]

Early in life I was very left handed. but I have gotten more ambidextrous as I have gotten older. I used to be very engaged in oil painting, and learned to use both hands as a matter of necessity. Applying those skills to painting my house I found that using both hands let me move the ladder less. I never played organized baseball, but playing it socially in my twenties , I found myself batting whatever hand the guy in front of me did. Someone gave me a right handed set of golf clubs, so that is how I learned to play golf.

[GretchenM]

Wow!! This is fascinating. It sure shows what a complex phenomenon handedness is. Genetics forms the basic tendency, but then learning kicks in and can modify the tendency. No wonder it actually takes a test administered by an expert to ferret out what the natural, underlying tendency is. Biologically, it is what happens when there are a pile of genes involved in producing a single characteristic. And, if in fact gender formation in the brain involves some of these handedness genes, as the geneticists say it does, plus a pile more genes that may, in turn, be involved in other characteristics it becomes much more understandable as to why gender is not as black and white as social standards would like it to be. Mixed gender and full gender reversal becomes much more understandable as being a reality. Of course, that is not new news to us. But it does help in understanding us.

[rockerreds]

I am left-handed, except I play guitar right-handed.

[debbeelee1]

Lefty here, but somewhat ambidextrous since we live in a right handed world!

[Veronica4me]

I am a lefty and my ex-wife is a lefty, but our daughter is right handed.

That proves that two wrongs don't make a right, but two lefts do.

In New York City, it takes three lefts to make a right ... unless you just turn right, that is.

[stephNE]

Neither my wife nor I are left handed. No one in either family (that we know of) is left handed. But two of our three children are lefties!

[sometimes brooke]

I have always thought there was something to this, based on my observations. When I meet people who share my interests and have an understanding of our lives, I find very often that they are left handed. I have also noted that very creative and artistic people are often left handed.

I am left handed in everything that I would do naturally, aside from the things that are by default set up for right handed people.

I tend to find some degree of familiarity and comfort in meeting a new person and seeing that they are left handed.

I don’t mean to imply anything beyond this just being my own observations, but I’m glad this was brought up as a thread!

love,
~ brooke

[Rachel05]

I’m a leftie, dominant hand is left but I do some things with my right, I can use tools with both hands and I use the computer mouse right handed, but I can’t write with my right

That makes me a left handed cross dresser

[ellbee]

I'm right-handed... But not a typical one, as I naturally do a lot of things with my left that a "normal" rightie doesn't.

Always been that way, since I was a young kid. And I find that as I get older, I've gradually become more ambidextrous. Though if I had to bet, I'd say my right will always have an edge.


And it could all just be nonsense, as it relates to us.

But then again, in a past professional life, it was discovered one day that the vast majority of GG's working there were left-handed! (If I recall, the vast majority, if not all, of the guys were right-handed.) Why would a particular gender with a particular dominant hand be attracted to & excel in a particular specialized industry that relied heavily on using one particular half of the brain?

Way too much of a coincidence, IMO.


Anyway, I honestly don't know if/how/why there's any sort of truth to this, as it pertains to CD/TG/TS. One study could say one thing, while another may find something different.

However, given the example above, I ain't ruling anything out, either.

[Gillian Gigs]

I'm a lefty also, within my family 3 out of 5 of us were lefties. Growing up it came in handy playing sports, in baseball I could switch hit and could throw a mean curve ball. In racket sports I could play to a right person's back hand easily, and was a favoured partner in doubles. Like most lefties, you have to be ambidextrous in a right handed world. It was very helpful being left handed in the trades, being able to use both hands very well was useful for doing many awkward tasks. I had the opportunity to participate in a left handed study when I was in my 20's. It was very interesting how lefties tend to think differently than righties because we are controlled by the right side of our brain. So we are the ones in our right minds, so to speak.