Are Hormones the Culprit?

Years ago, I did outreach with three transsexual women for a Human Sexuality class at the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford. We each gave a short biography and then took questions from the class.

It was a large class, all female with approximately 10% asking questions. The question and answer session lasted 90 minutes. I don’t recall any unique questions coming my way, but during the session, I discovered a new possible reason for my desire to crossdress: hormones.

The question that led to this had something to do with what changes the transsexuals experienced after taking hormones. One transwoman mentioned that before taking hormones, viewing a movie like Love Story had no effect, but after taking hormones, she cried like a baby viewing such a film. The other two transwomen agreed that they experienced the same change.

In response, I said that I never took hormones, but all my life, I cried viewing a movie like Love Story. 

The professor suggested that perhaps I should be tested by an endocrinologist. I assumed he was inferring that maybe I had an imbalance of hormones, i.e., too many female hormones and/or not enough male hormones. If that is true then it might explain other things… like my feminine breasts and my feminine traits.

Since puberty, my breasts have resembled a female’s breasts rather than a male’s and are able to nearly fill a B cup. 

And since forever, I have had feminine mannerisms. 

I never affected feminine mannerisms; they are natural to me. My most prominent feminine mannerisms are the way I talked and gestured.

I am very soft-spoken. I use words and phrases in ways that are typically female. And when I talk, I gesture with my hands in a very feminine manner often touching the other person I am conversing with. (That last one really freaks me out when I am in boy mode and touch somebody. I do it unconsciously and after I do it, I worry about a negative reaction from the other person, but so far I have been lucky and no one has called me on it.)

I never saw an endocrinologist, so I don’t know the truth about my hormones. But it would not surprise me that they are naturally balanced in a feminine way.

That’s not to say that some nurturing was not responsible, too. My mother raised me, while my father was absent much of the time while I was growing up (Dad worked two jobs and as much overtime as possible to make ends meet). Lacking a male model, I took after my mother in a lot of ways. So both nurture and nature may have come into play. 

 

Wearing Venus

Jeffrey Carlson (right) femulating on television’s All My Children.