[quote]BiG BeN wrote:
Kind of makes sense to me Andy, I think its all hormonal and has some to do with DNA. Just like you see these kids with birth defects like 4 arms, or 6 fingers and what not. I bet the same goes for hormones and sex genes getting crossed.
If you are a woman, and somehow your genetics are f-ed up to where your body is pumping out Testosterone and hardly any Estrogen, I can see how you’d feel like a man stuck in a woman’s body and vice versa. If that makes sense to what you are wondering.
I don’t know how the hell a man could be attracted to another man in the first place, unless the above happens or I guess if you are fed up with the way women act. But women are so f-ing beautiful, I can see how women could be attracted to other women.[/quote]
Actually, there’s been ongoing research that’s looking into this very idea - that the hormone levels going to the developing fetus at certain points during the baby’s developmental process in the womb affects how the baby’s sense of ‘gender’ is going to be in the future, which might also affect the baby’s later sense of sexuality and sexual orientation.
There was an article in Newsweek a couple of months ago that talked about transgenderism, though less about the scientifics of it. If anyone’s interested, here’s a link?
http://www.newsweek.com/id/34772/page/1 - Rethinking Gender
For more scientific information, here’s an excerpt from a book that talked about the effects of T on developing fetuses.
[quote]
Male and female brains develop differently in foetal life
Around the sixth week of a developing embryo, the chromosomes (XY in the boys, XX in girls) instruct some cells to differentiate into ovaries or testicles. The male embryo’s testicles then begin producing male hormones, the chief one being testosterone. These hormones in turn affect the developing brain. The male foetus’ neural network is then laid down in a typically masculine pattern.
In a female foetus, the developing ovaries produce no appreciable levels of male hormones. The brain development in the foetus is not affected, and this results in a female brain.
How did they show this? Primarily with rats. Rat embryos are born very early in life, even before the brain has begun to form up. Researchers are therefore able to test their theories. If they take a male baby rat and castrate him (thereby depriving the rat of testosterone) before the brain has begun to go down the male pattern of development, they get an adult rat that behaves very much like a female. It is much less aggressive than its male companions. It grooms and licks other rats like a good mother and is more sociable. In other words, a female brain in a male rat body.
The later the rat is castrated, the less feminine the rat turns out to be. The brain has more time to be exposed to the male hormones and become masculinised.
Researchers also castrated some rats very early, but then added replacement testosterone by injection. When they did that, the rat brain still became masculine in structure and in later behaviour. With one proviso. Once the critical period was past without replacement male hormone injections, and the brain had developed along female lines, no amount of male-hormone replacement therapy masculinised the brain again.
Likewise with female rats. They do not produce significant amounts of male hormones from their developing ovaries, and left to itself, the brain organises its structure in the female pattern. But when researchers injected testosterone into these female rats at critical periods, they could create a male brain in a female body. The rat in adulthood acted very male. It was more aggressive, it attempted to mate in the male manner, and so on.
There are a quite a few examples of people who, because of unusual chromosomes or prescriptions taken by their mothers during pregnancy, had abnormally high or low levels of male hormones during their foetal life. There are cases of girls who had absolutely no testosterone (most girls have some testosterone, albeit at a low level), and they turned out to be exaggeratedly feminine, hopeless with math, very housewifey and emotional, for example. There are girls with higher than normal exposure to testosterone while in the womb, or boys with too little or too much testosterone at around six weeks … the psychological profiles of these children or adults matched what was expected: unusually feminine behaviour and interests, or excessively masculine tendencies and interests.
The bottom line is this: at a critical stage in a developing foetus, high or low levels of male hormones form a male- or female-patterned brain respectively. The person eventually thinks and behaves male or female accordingly.[/quote]
There are other related articles and abstracts and such that can be easily ferreted out on the web in case anyone’s interested in looking for more.
But basically… to me, transgenderism is quite possibly a byproduct of simple differences in pre-birth hormonal levels.
Either way, it’s entirely too real to me because -
Big breath, now.
I was one of the girls who grew up with Transformers and wasn’t afraid of getting dirty or digging in the dirt. While my female compatriots were busy oohing and aahing over whose clothes were the nicest, I was busy playing ‘Raid the Fort’ with the boys.
I had a handful of female friends over my lifetime and I couldn’t even count the number of male friends I’ve had over the last 5 years. Additionally, my tendency to befriend boys rather than girls was a shock to my school teachers and I actually had a teacher who called my mother in for a conference so she could address her ‘concern’ regarding my tendencies.
I considered myself - and was, for the longest time, considered - to be one of the boys, but at the same time, never quite considered myself to be ‘a real guy’ because I was okay with wearing a skirt and a dress that I myself picked out now and again.
… But I never quite considered myself a girl, either, except in body and on the rare occasion, in dress.
It was - and still is - hard to see myself as a girl when I find myself without anything to say or feeling extremely uncomfortable (in a ‘what the hell am I doing here’ sort of sense) when female-oriented discussions pop up.
Hard to say I’m a girl when things that normally excite, interest, or turn other girls on does nothing for me.
Hard to say I’m a girl when what I prefer to wear is mostly unisex or men’s clothing and that I prefer a tux to a dress.
Hard to say I’m a girl when I oftentimes wish I had the body of my male friends.
… No, not all the time, but often enough; I’m an artist and I can appreciate the fact that at least I got stuck with a fairly decent-looking body, regardless of the fact it is of the female sex.
If I had to try and explain what I feel like I am, it would boil down to this:
A mostly masculine-oriented mind that’s stuck in a female body.
Would I ever change my body to fit my mind?
… Probably not in the ways of hormones or surgery.
I don’t and can’t quite consider myself to be ‘man’ even when I definitely don’t and can’t consider myself to be a ‘woman’ and that pretty much negates any justification for permanently changing my body by artificial means.
Caught in between and leaning strongly to one side, that’s me, and I wish it weren’t sometimes because feeling like this is honestly a bitch and a half and then some.
But I am what I am and I’ll probably end up being one of those female-bodied persons you see who looks to be a hair too masculine to be a ‘proper woman’.
And in this case… yes, I would have intended for it to be that way.
Thanks for listening to me ramble and I welcome any and all serious questions.
… And since I get the feeling someone’s going to ask this or want to ask this, I’ll post the answer in advance.
No, I am not a lesbian. Yes, I (can and do) find women beautiful and some, appealing in a manner that might make me consider a relationship, but I definitely have always leaned towards the men.
