I’ve just finished reading “She’s Not There” by Jenny Boylan. I’m struck by the parallels between her story and mine, and I’ll probably post more about this in the future, but right now I’m thinking about how she says she always hoped and prayed that she would be “saved by love” from her condition.
Bubbles and I have been married for almost twenty years, and reading Jenny’s book, I’m reminded that I felt very much the same way. When I met Bubbles, I was awestruck, and shortly thereafter, hopelessly in love. I thought for sure that I had found my cure. How could I possibly ever want to be a woman knowing that I had such a fine one in my life already. I convinced myself that not only did I no longer feel the need to be one, I no longer could even entertain that thought, because to tell my wife about my “true self” would crush everything that was most important to me.
Fast forward to about 2 months ago, and we are having the most damaging argument of our marriage. Angry, hurtful words are said that cannot be unsaid, and suddenly our world is changed. I’m left with an agonizing emptiness in my heart as I realize that I very possibly no longer love the woman I’ve depended on for so long.
After two weeks of deep introspection, I believed that I could not get past it, and I sadly resigned myself to the fact that I was about to be divorced. Then, and only then, did my mind allow itself to go that place that was hidden for so long, and I was struck by the realization that since (I thought) I had already lost everything, I may as well go ahead and become the woman I always wanted to be. I immediately was delirious with joy at this realization, but this was quickly followed by the thought that I would also lose everything else (kids, job, extended family, etc). However, as my rational mind tried to dismiss the thought of transition as ridiculous, I also found that I couldn’t go back. Just as words can’t be unsaid, thoughts of this magnitude can’t be unthought, and I found myself on an inevitable path to self-fulfillment at the expense of everything else in my life. Strengthened by my new-found honesty, I was duty-bound to call Bubbles and break the news that I was going to investigate transition.
The conversation that ensued defies all logic. After the initial shock of my news sunk in, at least superficially, Bubbles said the words that I will never forget. They went something like “I want to do this with you so that I can protect you from all of the people who may try to hurt you because they don’t understand what you are going through”. I was suddenly reduced to tears and the ambivalence I had felt about our relationship only an hour before literally melted away.
So, this begs the question, how is it that the secrets we keep because we fear the damage they may cause to our dearest relationships have the power, when brought to light, to strengthen those relationships in ways that we never imagine? Ironic, ain’t it?
Another question is, why do we keep these secrets for fear of losing those closest to us, when if we are truly that important in their lives, they should be able to stand by us? Of course, this is until we realize that when we share our secrets in order to deal with them, those we share them with are unwittingly dragged into dealing with them as well. So, is it that we fear loss, or that we fear placing the burden on our loved ones?
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
The medical reason for transgenderism
This info came from an email that I received, so I am not repsonsible for the contents...I'm just passing it along for informational purposes:
This is going to be a long email. I will try to explain what is known to be the -probable- cause of what makes people Transgender, and why you cannot change it or "make it go away" or give it up.
The short answer to the question is that is because being TG is caused by a physical construction in the brain that happens about 6 to 12 weeks after you are conceived. This is 7 months before you are even born. I repeat... this is a physical construction, not a mental "programming" and that is why you can't change it.
OK, now for the details.
First I am not a physician, nor a psychiatrist, or even a psychologist. But I have been studying this phonomenon for about fifteen years and have learned quite a bit from the medical community about the probable cause of what makes people transgender. As you might expect, there are quite a few research scientists and physicians around the world who are studying this highly interesting condition and trying to determine it's cause.
Why was I studying it? Be cause I wanted to know what happened to me in order to figure out what to DO about it. Especially what the RIGHT THING was to do about it.
As I mentioned above, some medical researchers have found what looks like the cause. I am going to explain it as best I can and also point you to a website where you can see it for yourself. It shows slides of brains of TS people compared with genetic males and females. In addition, scientists have been able to duplicate the condition in animals, not once, but many times. We know WHAT happens, we know HOW it happens, and we even know WHEN it happens, but unfortunately we do NOT yet know WHY it happems, so there is no way to test for it or prevent it.
---
As you probably know, the physical sex of a person is determined at the instant the sperm fertilizes the egg. A combination of an X chromosome in the sperm with the X chromosome in the egg produces a female child. If the sperm carries a Y chromosome, the child is male. Yeah, you knew that already, right? But do you also know that there are variations in that? Not everybody is either XX or XY. There are people born XXY, XYY, XXXY and a whole raft of things that are not considered "normal". One of the members of a group I belong to is a retired professor of radiology at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco (a teaching hospital). He told me that he saw the problem that I have in newborns on the average of 2 - 3 times a week. I said, You mean in a year, right? And he said, no, I mean in a week. A WEEK?? Holy cow. And I thought I was the only one in the whole world like this. It turns out that 1 in 100 babies have some kind of physical genital abnormality that requires testing and maybe surgery to fix. Most of the problems are minor, but some are serious, like what happened to me.
BUT - here is the surprise - the X and Y chromosomes do NOT determine the gender or "mental sex" of an individual. So what does? The answer is not 100% sure, but there is some pretty conclusive medical evidence that gender is determined by the hormones that are present when certain parts of the brain are built.
About six weeks after conception, the brain of the fetus begins to develop. One of the first parts to be built is the Hypothalamus, an organ that has many functions, including the storage of both gender identity and sexual preference. Gender identity is stored in one area of the Hypothalmus and sexual preference (sexual orientation) is stored in another. Other things that are stored are the kind of people you like, food preferences, etc. Certainly, some of these things are also affected by "nurture", that is, the influence that your parents, friends, and personal experiences have on you as you grow.
Now also at about six weeks after conception, and again at about 12 weeks after conception, there is what is termed a "wash" of hormones from the mother into the baby's bloodstream. Normally the mix of male-female hormones is appropriate for the physical sex of the fetus, and if the child is physically male, the percentage of male hormones is greater than the percentge of female hormones, and the affect on the brain is that the part of the Hypotahlmus that stores the fetus' gender identity develops as male. The reverse happens for girls. The hormone balance is mostly female and the part that stores gender identity is constructed differently (smaller) than if it develops as male.
But sometimes, nature makes a mistake and the ratio of male to female hormones is not correct for the sex of the child. The above-mentioned area in the child's brain is built anywhere from a little different, to a lot different, to the complete reverse of what it ought to be. Note that the amount of female hormones is probably constant, as all babies start out as female. To make the baby male, there has to be enough male hormones to override the female hormones and sometimes it just does not happen as it is supposed to. And sometimes it happens when it is not supposed to.
Let's look at an example that is very common. We have a female child, and at about 6 weeks, the hormone level is just a little bit more male than normal. So her brain gets masculinized a little bit. The girl grows up and guess what? She likes to play baseball. Well, so what, if a girl wants to play baseball, she can, right? But maybe she also hates getting all dressed up, would rather wear jeans and a top, doesn't bother with makeup, etc. What do we call this kind of girl? A TOMBOY, right? Still no big deal, there are millions of tomboys. But she still likes boys, eventually grows up, gets married, has kids, etc. Tomboys are just a little bit off the center of the bell curve of what people consider "normal." They are very common and people are used to them.
There is a classic painting by Norman Rockwell showing a 10-year old girl in jeans, a t-shirt, and dirty tennis shoes. She is standing on a chair in her mom's kitchen. She has a dress on over her clothes and her mother is working on the hem of the dress. On the floor is a football. The look on the girl's face tells the story without words. Arms folded, angry look on her face... it's pretty obvious that she would much rather be outside playing football with the boys. Suffice it to say that if Norman Rockwell painted this, it is definitely a part of mainstream America, and I would add, the world.
OK, now lets take it a little further. Again, a female child, but the hormone levels are way off a bit more, and her brain gets masculinized a lot. Not completely, but a lot. She never wears dresses or makeup, is ambivolent about boys, maybe eventually partners with another girl, etc.
As a final example, a female child where the hormone ratio is appropriate for a male child. Her brain is completely masculinized and she believes that she really IS a boy. A true F2M transsexual.
OK, are you with me so far? Please ask questions if you are not, because there will be short quiz next period. :-)
NOW... take all of the above examples in reverse. A male child whose brain is feminized by either too high a level of female hormones or (more likely) not enough male hormones. The brain can be everything from a little bit female to completely female - a true M2F transsexual.
As you can see, this is a MEDICAL problem. It is a birth defect that affects the PHYSICAL construction of the brain. And that is why it is not changeable. Not by hormones, not by psychotherapy, not by hypnosis, and definitely not by outside pressures of any kind, including social, government, family or religious pressures.
REMEMBER.. there is NO FAULT in any of this. It is not your fault, it is not your mother's fault, or anyone's fault. It is not due to something your mother took while she was carrying you. It is a natural phenomenon that occurs in about 1 in 2500 people. This number is based on the number of SRS surgeries over the last 20 years. The old school thinking was 1 in 30,000 because most people were afraid to say anything for fear of ridicule and being ostracized by their families, friends, and society in general.
However, some estimates put the number of people with this problem as high as 1 in 500. Although people are now a lot more open about it than they used to be, not everyone opts for surgery. Further, in spite of the widespread knowledge and a somewhat more accepting attitude, there are probably a lot of people who will still never tell, especially those who live in areas where people are more rigid about these things.
Regarding the differences in the affects the hormone imbalance can have, there are all kinds of variations in gender (brain sex) and sexual orientation, depending on exactly WHEN the hormone level is out of balance, how MUCH it is out of balance, and for HOW LONG it is out of balance. For example, some males simply like to wear female clothes, but still have a normal male sexual orientation (a crossdresser). They generally marry women, have kids, and except for their hidden female side, live a normal life. They usually try to hide the female part of themselves because our rigid, puritanical society cannot understand what is going on.
Some males don't wear female clothes but have a normal female sexual orientation. They like males and are considered Gay.
Some males are combinations of the above examples. So are some women.
And some males believe they are female because their brains are literally female. Many of them (us) after their transition is complete, become "normal", and are simply women who cannot conceive a child (darn!). If they have supportive families, they may stay married to their spouses. Some are completely heterosexual, even as females, date men, may eventually marry a man, and may even adopt children. They blend into society as a wife and mother and live their lives as if they had been born female.
Go to this website to read a very interesting article written by several doctors.
http://www.symposion.com/ijt/ijtc0106.htm
The article is titled A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Transsexuality. It shows slides of the BSTc area in the Hypothalmus of TS women and genetic women, compared to men and gay men. The area in a TS woman is identical to the area in a genetic woman.
In addition to the hormones, there might also be some genetic causes. Dr. Eric Villain of UCLA is currently doing some very interesting research on genetics and its connection to transgeneder people. There is also a good website that talks about this. www.isna.com. It turns out for a small number of people, having a Y chromosome does not always mean you are male. That's what happened to me. I was physically born partially female inside as well as male on the outside.
No one "decides" to "become" a woman. You already are. The only decision involved is what to do when you realize who you really are. Some kids know when they are three. Some don't realize it until about puberty. And some people do not understand it until they are adults. The problem is that most people keep it inside for as long as they can because of the pressures that society puts on us to conform to the rigid black and white gender standards we have. For example, how many forms (government or otherwise) have you ever seen that say Sex: ( )M ( )F ( )Other____ ? I rest my case.
Well, I hope this answers a few questions. But I need to stress again that this is not 100% provable because doctors cannot go messing with the hormone levels in a pregnant woman to see what happens to her unborn baby. A lot of the knowledge is the result of testing in animals, and of course the results of the tests that you see on the website above.
This is going to be a long email. I will try to explain what is known to be the -probable- cause of what makes people Transgender, and why you cannot change it or "make it go away" or give it up.
The short answer to the question is that is because being TG is caused by a physical construction in the brain that happens about 6 to 12 weeks after you are conceived. This is 7 months before you are even born. I repeat... this is a physical construction, not a mental "programming" and that is why you can't change it.
OK, now for the details.
First I am not a physician, nor a psychiatrist, or even a psychologist. But I have been studying this phonomenon for about fifteen years and have learned quite a bit from the medical community about the probable cause of what makes people transgender. As you might expect, there are quite a few research scientists and physicians around the world who are studying this highly interesting condition and trying to determine it's cause.
Why was I studying it? Be cause I wanted to know what happened to me in order to figure out what to DO about it. Especially what the RIGHT THING was to do about it.
As I mentioned above, some medical researchers have found what looks like the cause. I am going to explain it as best I can and also point you to a website where you can see it for yourself. It shows slides of brains of TS people compared with genetic males and females. In addition, scientists have been able to duplicate the condition in animals, not once, but many times. We know WHAT happens, we know HOW it happens, and we even know WHEN it happens, but unfortunately we do NOT yet know WHY it happems, so there is no way to test for it or prevent it.
---
As you probably know, the physical sex of a person is determined at the instant the sperm fertilizes the egg. A combination of an X chromosome in the sperm with the X chromosome in the egg produces a female child. If the sperm carries a Y chromosome, the child is male. Yeah, you knew that already, right? But do you also know that there are variations in that? Not everybody is either XX or XY. There are people born XXY, XYY, XXXY and a whole raft of things that are not considered "normal". One of the members of a group I belong to is a retired professor of radiology at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco (a teaching hospital). He told me that he saw the problem that I have in newborns on the average of 2 - 3 times a week. I said, You mean in a year, right? And he said, no, I mean in a week. A WEEK?? Holy cow. And I thought I was the only one in the whole world like this. It turns out that 1 in 100 babies have some kind of physical genital abnormality that requires testing and maybe surgery to fix. Most of the problems are minor, but some are serious, like what happened to me.
BUT - here is the surprise - the X and Y chromosomes do NOT determine the gender or "mental sex" of an individual. So what does? The answer is not 100% sure, but there is some pretty conclusive medical evidence that gender is determined by the hormones that are present when certain parts of the brain are built.
About six weeks after conception, the brain of the fetus begins to develop. One of the first parts to be built is the Hypothalamus, an organ that has many functions, including the storage of both gender identity and sexual preference. Gender identity is stored in one area of the Hypothalmus and sexual preference (sexual orientation) is stored in another. Other things that are stored are the kind of people you like, food preferences, etc. Certainly, some of these things are also affected by "nurture", that is, the influence that your parents, friends, and personal experiences have on you as you grow.
Now also at about six weeks after conception, and again at about 12 weeks after conception, there is what is termed a "wash" of hormones from the mother into the baby's bloodstream. Normally the mix of male-female hormones is appropriate for the physical sex of the fetus, and if the child is physically male, the percentage of male hormones is greater than the percentge of female hormones, and the affect on the brain is that the part of the Hypotahlmus that stores the fetus' gender identity develops as male. The reverse happens for girls. The hormone balance is mostly female and the part that stores gender identity is constructed differently (smaller) than if it develops as male.
But sometimes, nature makes a mistake and the ratio of male to female hormones is not correct for the sex of the child. The above-mentioned area in the child's brain is built anywhere from a little different, to a lot different, to the complete reverse of what it ought to be. Note that the amount of female hormones is probably constant, as all babies start out as female. To make the baby male, there has to be enough male hormones to override the female hormones and sometimes it just does not happen as it is supposed to. And sometimes it happens when it is not supposed to.
Let's look at an example that is very common. We have a female child, and at about 6 weeks, the hormone level is just a little bit more male than normal. So her brain gets masculinized a little bit. The girl grows up and guess what? She likes to play baseball. Well, so what, if a girl wants to play baseball, she can, right? But maybe she also hates getting all dressed up, would rather wear jeans and a top, doesn't bother with makeup, etc. What do we call this kind of girl? A TOMBOY, right? Still no big deal, there are millions of tomboys. But she still likes boys, eventually grows up, gets married, has kids, etc. Tomboys are just a little bit off the center of the bell curve of what people consider "normal." They are very common and people are used to them.
There is a classic painting by Norman Rockwell showing a 10-year old girl in jeans, a t-shirt, and dirty tennis shoes. She is standing on a chair in her mom's kitchen. She has a dress on over her clothes and her mother is working on the hem of the dress. On the floor is a football. The look on the girl's face tells the story without words. Arms folded, angry look on her face... it's pretty obvious that she would much rather be outside playing football with the boys. Suffice it to say that if Norman Rockwell painted this, it is definitely a part of mainstream America, and I would add, the world.
OK, now lets take it a little further. Again, a female child, but the hormone levels are way off a bit more, and her brain gets masculinized a lot. Not completely, but a lot. She never wears dresses or makeup, is ambivolent about boys, maybe eventually partners with another girl, etc.
As a final example, a female child where the hormone ratio is appropriate for a male child. Her brain is completely masculinized and she believes that she really IS a boy. A true F2M transsexual.
OK, are you with me so far? Please ask questions if you are not, because there will be short quiz next period. :-)
NOW... take all of the above examples in reverse. A male child whose brain is feminized by either too high a level of female hormones or (more likely) not enough male hormones. The brain can be everything from a little bit female to completely female - a true M2F transsexual.
As you can see, this is a MEDICAL problem. It is a birth defect that affects the PHYSICAL construction of the brain. And that is why it is not changeable. Not by hormones, not by psychotherapy, not by hypnosis, and definitely not by outside pressures of any kind, including social, government, family or religious pressures.
REMEMBER.. there is NO FAULT in any of this. It is not your fault, it is not your mother's fault, or anyone's fault. It is not due to something your mother took while she was carrying you. It is a natural phenomenon that occurs in about 1 in 2500 people. This number is based on the number of SRS surgeries over the last 20 years. The old school thinking was 1 in 30,000 because most people were afraid to say anything for fear of ridicule and being ostracized by their families, friends, and society in general.
However, some estimates put the number of people with this problem as high as 1 in 500. Although people are now a lot more open about it than they used to be, not everyone opts for surgery. Further, in spite of the widespread knowledge and a somewhat more accepting attitude, there are probably a lot of people who will still never tell, especially those who live in areas where people are more rigid about these things.
Regarding the differences in the affects the hormone imbalance can have, there are all kinds of variations in gender (brain sex) and sexual orientation, depending on exactly WHEN the hormone level is out of balance, how MUCH it is out of balance, and for HOW LONG it is out of balance. For example, some males simply like to wear female clothes, but still have a normal male sexual orientation (a crossdresser). They generally marry women, have kids, and except for their hidden female side, live a normal life. They usually try to hide the female part of themselves because our rigid, puritanical society cannot understand what is going on.
Some males don't wear female clothes but have a normal female sexual orientation. They like males and are considered Gay.
Some males are combinations of the above examples. So are some women.
And some males believe they are female because their brains are literally female. Many of them (us) after their transition is complete, become "normal", and are simply women who cannot conceive a child (darn!). If they have supportive families, they may stay married to their spouses. Some are completely heterosexual, even as females, date men, may eventually marry a man, and may even adopt children. They blend into society as a wife and mother and live their lives as if they had been born female.
Go to this website to read a very interesting article written by several doctors.
http://www.symposion.com/ijt/ijtc0106.htm
The article is titled A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Transsexuality. It shows slides of the BSTc area in the Hypothalmus of TS women and genetic women, compared to men and gay men. The area in a TS woman is identical to the area in a genetic woman.
In addition to the hormones, there might also be some genetic causes. Dr. Eric Villain of UCLA is currently doing some very interesting research on genetics and its connection to transgeneder people. There is also a good website that talks about this. www.isna.com. It turns out for a small number of people, having a Y chromosome does not always mean you are male. That's what happened to me. I was physically born partially female inside as well as male on the outside.
No one "decides" to "become" a woman. You already are. The only decision involved is what to do when you realize who you really are. Some kids know when they are three. Some don't realize it until about puberty. And some people do not understand it until they are adults. The problem is that most people keep it inside for as long as they can because of the pressures that society puts on us to conform to the rigid black and white gender standards we have. For example, how many forms (government or otherwise) have you ever seen that say Sex: ( )M ( )F ( )Other____ ? I rest my case.
Well, I hope this answers a few questions. But I need to stress again that this is not 100% provable because doctors cannot go messing with the hormone levels in a pregnant woman to see what happens to her unborn baby. A lot of the knowledge is the result of testing in animals, and of course the results of the tests that you see on the website above.
Back to basics
Before we get too far along this road, I think its important to explain a few things about what being a transsexual means. Transsexualism is just one of many forms of gender diversity that fall under the umbrella term of Transgender.
We all exist on what is called the gender spectrum. 99.9% of the world views gender as a very black & white thing. You are either male or you are female.These roles are so fundamental to our existence that most people have a very hard time understanding there can be any middle ground. The truth is that there is a wide range of roles between male and female, made up not only of the ones defined in the linked article above, but even situations as unremarkable as a woman who works in a traditionally male-dominated industry as construction (no that that is by any means unremarkable...I'm just trying to make a point).
I should point out that transexualism is an issue of gender identity, meaning that even though I exist in a (currently) male body, my mind and my heart has always identified as female. This is very different and is in no way related to sexual orientation, which is what Gay and Lesbian fall under. These are completely independent of each other and the desire to become a female has no relation to whether I prefer to be with men or women (for the record, the answer is women...so far...we'll talk more about that later).
So, all this begs the question...how does one go about "becoming" transsexual? Well, contrary to popular belief, it is not a choice that one makes. Its not like I woke up one day and decided I want to be a female. I have always wanted that. The only choice that was involved was deciding to do something about it, although at this point in the game, its questionable whether even that is a choice for me. Let's just say I've reached the point where not becoming female would spell certain doom for me, psychologically and possible physically.
The truth is that there is very likely a medical reason for it, which is what the next post describes.
We all exist on what is called the gender spectrum. 99.9% of the world views gender as a very black & white thing. You are either male or you are female.These roles are so fundamental to our existence that most people have a very hard time understanding there can be any middle ground. The truth is that there is a wide range of roles between male and female, made up not only of the ones defined in the linked article above, but even situations as unremarkable as a woman who works in a traditionally male-dominated industry as construction (no that that is by any means unremarkable...I'm just trying to make a point).
I should point out that transexualism is an issue of gender identity, meaning that even though I exist in a (currently) male body, my mind and my heart has always identified as female. This is very different and is in no way related to sexual orientation, which is what Gay and Lesbian fall under. These are completely independent of each other and the desire to become a female has no relation to whether I prefer to be with men or women (for the record, the answer is women...so far...we'll talk more about that later).
So, all this begs the question...how does one go about "becoming" transsexual? Well, contrary to popular belief, it is not a choice that one makes. Its not like I woke up one day and decided I want to be a female. I have always wanted that. The only choice that was involved was deciding to do something about it, although at this point in the game, its questionable whether even that is a choice for me. Let's just say I've reached the point where not becoming female would spell certain doom for me, psychologically and possible physically.
The truth is that there is very likely a medical reason for it, which is what the next post describes.
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