This story from Tech Times is representative:
Claims that gender dysphoria is the result of some sort of imbalance in sex hormone levels have long plagued transgender people looking for acceptance of who they are by suggesting that being transgender is an ailment that can be fixed, rather simply an intrinsic part of one's identity.
Scientific support for such claims has always been lacking, and now, a new study provides solid evidence that hormonal imbalances are not what the transgender experience is about. The study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, examined the sex hormone levels of 101 transyouth patients at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and found that they did not differ significantly from those typical for the gender they were assigned at birth.But what if you do have a hormonal imbalance? What if your hormonal imbalance weighs so heavily on the female side that you have female physical and psychological characteristics? And as a result, you live as a woman because it is a better fit for who you are.
Are you not transgender, too? If not transgender, than what are you?
 |
| Wearing Ralph Lauren. |
 |
| Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon femulating for the 1959 film Some Like It Hot. |
I think that many of us (as well as others who may know us or interact with us) have long wondered why we have trans proclivities. At one point I thought that my own leanings were due to being a woman in past lives. I would have dreams where I was dressed as a woman at a time before I was born. Most often it was in the garb, times and surroundings of the 1930s and 1940s but I also had dreams where was attired as a 1920s woman and other times when I wore a long dress with a corset.
ReplyDeleteAnother theory that intrigued me was the possibility of being exposed to excessive estrogen while in utero. My mother had miscarried three daughters before I was conceived. Back in the day the treatment for women prone to miscarriage was bed rest and excessive doses of estrogen, most likely DES or some similar drug. While I was named after my grandfather my next younger brother was named after the doctor that administered these miracle drugs to enable my mother to carry to term.
It has been many years since I gave up caring to even address the "why" question. Now I look at my gender gift as simply a positive aspect to who I am.
Pat
It is a gift Pat, had I not been given it, perhaps my life would have been easier? But my life wouldn't have been lived with the depth of though, the gender awareness and the balanced perspective of cultural gender differences and whe feeling of how awesome it is to wear a nice outfit with heels one day, and all my hiking garb the next.
DeleteI too had dreams of being female in another time as a young child. Places I couldn't have known and clothing I had never seen. One of them consisted of being a young girl about 9 or 10 being herded with others into a large room. I was cry and calling for my mother who I had slipped from. The room was dimly lit and eventually a smoke began to fill it. I cried out again for my mother and the dream ends.
What we are are individuals who enjoy expressing a personality that is closer to socially constructed views of what femininity is and what women are. But I contend we are no different in degree then what that tomboy girl is but in its opposite. And to what ever degree that a woman is comfortable with her masculine presentation we are as comfortable with our feminine presentation. A hormonal imbalance my not be the only contributing factor. But I believe it may be one of many variables that contribute to our desire to be the person our soul feels it is. And for we who are transgender on the MTF side f the fence. We are only transgender because it is socially unexceptable to wear women's clothing if you were born male. As for transsexuals it could be much more a biological condition which could also have similar and different variables that occur. "Do we really know enough about the mind and body that we can make absolute statements?" I think not. And though this study may have some data that debunks what we have all thought to be true, it doesn't prove or disprove what causes gender alignment with the opposite sex from the birth sex. We are proof that it exist. Some day that fact that we exist should be proof enough and we will go on with our lives dressed as impeccably or not as much as we like!
ReplyDeleteoh my yes i always loved this movie!
ReplyDelete