Crossdressing a lifestyle choice or genetic?

[Satrana]

Handedness isn't determined by our hands, but by our brains - and there's plenty of evidence out there to show how left and right-handed brains differ?

What about which eye and which foot is master? There are left-handed, right-eyed people out there and vice versa..

That is what I said. Like several others here you are using the term genetics without understanding what it means from a technical point of view. Your genes built two identical hands, your genes built your brain. The choice of which hand to use was a decision that became entrenched in your thought processes. This happened after your brain was built, so the choice of your handedness has got nothing to do with genetics. Science says it is chosen on the basis of which side a fetus lies its head.

Indeed the fact that historically left handed people were prohibited from using their left hand and they had to subsequently learn to use their right hand proves this point. They became ambidextrous, something which would not be possible if handedness was genetic since that would mean it was hard-wired so that only one hand can be favored.

Lastly, if it is purely behavioural, why, in generations previous to this when it was literally beaten out of people, did they generate other mental health issues, like stammers?

Perhaps precisely because it was literally beaten out of them? They were told they were abnormal and were systematically bullied so their self esteem disappeared.

Just because something seems intrinsic to you does not mean it is genetic. Most fundamental behavioral traits become so entrenched with so many linkages inside our brains that they become impossible to dislodge.

Our genes are blind to society's gender rules. The personalities we were born with are also blind to gender roles. We are not born fated to be a CD. But as we grow up and learn and interpret our world each in our own unique way of thinking some of us appreciate our personalities do not fit very well into society's assigned gender roles or we get envious of the other genders' freedoms and so we bend the rules to accommodate our wants.

So what makes the body/brain act like that, if not the way it has formed - which is determined genetically?

Genetics builds brain cells, genetics does not determine how cells are linked together. Linkages are formed from physical behavior and thoughts which if repeated often enough becomes entrenched with many linkages. Thoughts and behavior create new linkages not genetics, this is how we learn. Only instinctive behavior favored for survival is coded by our genetics. This is inherited from our evolutionary past and is coded within our older primitive parts of the brain. Our frontal lobe area which is the thinking/learning center (the part that makes us human) does not grow while we are inside the womb but grows outside during our first year where it is already interacting with our environment.

The only time genetics impacts on human behavior is when the brain is not built correctly leading to abnormal linkages not normally found in healthy brains. There is no evidence that CDs have genetic defects.