Are there identifiable causes for being trans?

Pete Burns's ( Dead Or Alive) mother used to dress him as a girl as a small child...and he went on to cross dress, in escalating fashion, for the rest of his life. He was married to a woman, but later on had male partners - and then became addicted to cosmetic surgery in order to 'fully' transform himself into a woman. Childhood experiences are profound and powerful and shape us all.

I have recently come across one young male who identifies as trans. Apparently, when he was ten years old his father took him to a gay sauna.How fucked up is that? How confusing! At such a young age being subject to multiple, 'in your face' contradictions about sexuality.

My understanding is that many nascent gay or lesbian children imagine themselves to be the opposite sex, but mostly grow out of this - given the chance. As for the older transvestite men, it does seem to be a fetish that has escalated beyond control.

Many of us struggle with gendered expectations as we grow up, but given a culture which encourages and supports trans identities, and the modern surgical techniques and modern pharmaceutical industry, many young people do not stand a chance.

It must be awful to be trans - especially as you age - as relationships must be very fraught and difficult. Didn't Munroe Bergadorf say that men travelled from all around the country to have sex with 'her'. I assume they are paying.

Twas ever such

Good grief. Rowan is a Nazi..

I'm reeling.

My world has been turned upside down.

Good grief. Rowan is a Nazi for being the person who collates and links all these very disparate threads together to keep some sense of grounding and evidence base?

Coercive Control Conference thread:

'Trolling and Online Abuse - Is there a difference?'
(extract)
"They would never admit what they are doing. They play the “I've done nothing, it’s someone else “ card.
Their aims are:
*Character assassination

• To ensure others distance themselves from the targeted individual.
• Recruit others to abuse on their behalf ( #abusebyproxy) using information with a special significance aimed at the targeted individual, knowing that the bespoke targeting will cause immense distress.
• Inciting others to mock, goad, provoke the target into responding. Ringleaders will build up their network of proxies to perpetuate the falsehood that the targeted individual is the problem. It allows them to retire* some of the original proxies who are then replaced with new proxies to keep the mobbing sustained & the abuse hidden. The reason is to more effectively turn the tables and direct the abuse away from the mobbing campaign and onto the target whilst giving the impression the target is belligerent and antagonises others. Even better if the mobbing campaign has successfully provoked a reaction. They will use that reaction to make their point that the target is THE problem, the target is abusive, harassing, stalking etc etc. The ringleader relies on the knowledge that the target is hyper vigilant and will be aware of a smear campaign specifically targeted towards them." (continues)

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1110452108183195649.html

Good grief. Rowan is a Nazi for being the person who collates and links all these very disparate threads together to keep some sense of grounding and evidence base?

What the heck is going on here, then, SoSoCynical? Why are you attacking the resident librarian, who really does excellent work to keep safeguarding concerns front and centre, and is most definitely one of the more notably calm and patient posters here?

Indeed
(they're very nice cattle too)

Mind the neighbour's cattle while you're about it!

How many crops have you withered this week, R0?!

Lang I do have a sad looking plant on my window sill which I am a little saddened by.
Not sure as to the cause & now wondering if I should consider re-homing the others for their own sakes

Is there some binary I'm new to? Like, if you don't say vitriol you must invoke Godwin?

How many crops have you withered this week, R0?!

(Just thought I'd be first with a witch reference. It's all that's left, I think.)

SoSoCynical

Maybe you're new to FWR?
My primary focus is Safeguarding frameworks which are intended to protect children & vulnerable adults.

see thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3301266-Safeguarding-girls-and-protecting-women-post-Jimmy-Saville-metoo

That you might believe my focus is to 'destroy' people who are transsexual/trangender says more about you than me.

Its not all about you.

16/4/2019
Unherd article by Julie Bindel:
'The birth of the transsexual empire
One woman saw the trans bullies coming'
(extract)
“Transsexualism has taken only twenty-five years to become a household word,” reads the opening line of the 1979 book, The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. The author, Janice Raymond, a renowned academic and feminist campaigner, caused a massive kerfuffle when she published the work, which seriously tackled the theory and consequences of diagnosing the feelings of body dysphoria and the unbearable desire to live and present as the opposite sex.

Raymond wrote TTE as a response to the rising rates of sex-change surgery in the US. She had long been concerned about the medical practices that negatively impacted women, such as unnecessary hysterectomies and caesareans. This led her to question the medical consequences of the bodily mutilation inherent in transsexual surgery, and the detrimental effects of taking lifelong hormones. (continues)

Forty years ago Raymond wrote, “Masculine behaviour is notably obtrusive”. She was referring to the level of notoriety achieved by the trans woman Renee Richards “in the wake of the Tennis Week Open”. Richards fought to compete on a level playing field with natal women. The New York Times review of TTE read: “The transsexual propagandists claim to transform ‘women trapped in men’s bodies’ into ‘real’ women and want them to be accepted socially as females (say, in professional tennis).”

Not only was The Transsexual Empire prescient – so too was the response to the book. Raymond experienced the kind of backlash that is endured by anyone who questions trans women’s rights today. Martina Navratilova was hounded on Twitter after she wrote a piece examining transgender participation in women’s sport; upon the publication of TTE, the transsexual lobby accused Raymond of bigotry and said the book constituted ‘hate speech’. (continues)

concludes:
Four decades ago, Raymond saw how in a society obsessed with gender rules which determine how women and men should behave, that it would become easier and more acceptable to change bodies rather than behaviour. Did she also foresee how aggressive and demanding trans activists would eventually become, where ‘mis-gendering’ a trans person can be treated as a ‘hate crime’ and reported to police?

“Yes” she tells me. “I always suspected that transsexualism would change women’s lives in a way that would attempt to define us out of existence.”
unherd.com/2019/04/the-transsexual-empire/?=sideshare

Just thank you once again from a lurker, your posts have really helped me to actually understand what the actual fuck is happening

Yes, thank you R0wantrees from me also.

SisterWendyBuckett I really don't know what to say. Hope you and your daughter are okay.

Oh dear SoSoCynical
As Horse with no Frills suggests you really should be paid for your cynicism, you're getting a crap deal and I loved that comment Horse

R0
Just thank you once again from a lurker, your posts have really helped me to actually understand what the actual fuck is happening

From reading this thread I think the word "trauma" is the key point. So many of these trans people have had some kind of trauma in their formative years, and maybe this set them on the path to being trans.

Museum of Liverpool Exhibition: April Ashley, Portrait of a Lady 2013
(extract)
"A difficult childhood
April Ashley was born George Jamieson, one of six children to Frederick, who served in the Royal Navy, and Ada, a factory worker.

The family's poor living conditions meant they were soon moved by Liverpool Corporation from Pitt Street, in the Chinatown area, to Norris Green. Although born a boy, April always felt and looked like a girl. Childhood was a lonely and very confusing time. At St Teresa's primary school she was bullied for being different. As a teenager April did not grow facial hair, her voice refused to break and she began to develop breasts.

Struggles with identity
Aged 15, April joined the Merchant Navy as "I decided to face up to my situation and it seemed to be one of the things that made you a man". Feeling and looking different in this very masculine environment, however, was very challenging. Whilst on leave in America, and seeing no way out, she attempted suicide in 1952. After recovering she was given a dishonourable discharge.

Back in Liverpool, April continued to struggle alone with her gender identity and in 1953 made another attempt to take her own life by jumping into the River Mersey. She was sent to Ormskirk Hospital psychiatric unit and later treated at Walton Hospital. Her care was brutal and included sodium pentothal injections and electro convulsive treatment followed by a course of male hormones. The experiences were devastating and had a detrimental effect on April's health and well-being. In 1955, aged 20, April decided to leave Liverpool for London." (continues)
www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/exhibitions/april-ashley/early-life.aspx

interesting to read also on the site:
(extract)
"She lobbied and wrote to Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Lord Chancellor, remaining resolutely committed to changing the law for all transgender people.

In 2005, after the passage of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, April was finally legally recognised as female and issued with a new birth certificate. The then Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, who had previously worked with April in the 1950s, helped her with the procedure"

From reading this thread I think the word "trauma" is the key point. So many of these trans people have had some kind of trauma in their formative years, and maybe this set them on the path to being trans.

I remember reading years ago April Ashley's autobiography. To me, she is a true transsexual, the person who was born in the wrong body. A tiny minority of people - but that was her. She had a sex change and said she would never be, or really see herself as, a woman. She was a transsexual. What a difference from the current trans dogma and rigid thinking

And if you look at, for example, Lily Madigan's background, you will see big pointers why they ended up the way they are. Socially awkward growing up, a masculine/macho father who would be uncomfortable with a gay son; family break-up, a favoured brother, a girly sister who got all the attention. Madigan was very effeminate at school - and pupils saw them as a gay male. Madigan was starved of attention - so they went down the trans path. Coupled with a sincere, in my opinion, interest in politics and a desire to "agitate" they have become who they have become.

This is quite interesting for the Madigan family background:

archive.is/KiWqj

SisterWendyBuckett - fab post. And .

vitriolic

Oh do find a new bloody word.

R0wantrees has never been vitriolic in her life. You just don't like the content of her posts. Nothing to do with the tone or length of them.

I have identified a number of different causes in my own young adult daughter's rush to physically transition into a 'non-binary trans boy.' She now describes herself as a 'gay boy' despite being in a relationship with another (non-binary) female.

Trauma - several years of a personally traumatic situation in her life. Announced she was non-binary then trans very shortly after the situation was 'resolved'.

Sudden hatred of female body, especially breasts - linked to the trauma.

Identity issues - linked to the trauma.

Being a 'lesbian' could no longer cut it - not oppressed enough, not cool enough, not acceptable enough, not interesting enough, won't get you a ticket into the inner circle of queer, fashionable beings such as Alok, Fox and Owl and dear Travis.

Wanting to escape the past and the self that was associated with this past - linked to trauma.

Vulnerable and susceptible time in her life - linked to trauma.

Was an 'outsider' and thought she had 'failed' - linked to the trauma.

The times we live in - the Internet and the influence of other disturbed young people who think they are trans.

Had this been even just a few years ago, our GP would doubtless have suggested some sort of therapy to begin with, instead of referring her on to the Gender Identity Clinic after one quick chat in which she self-diagnosed her own 'problem.'

This is not an exhaustive list but you get the picture.

For young people I think it's trauma of whatever type plus a society that says it's acceptable (stunning and brave) to self-diagnose and go straight down a medical pathway of hormones and surgery.

Hacsi Horvath's article (thank you for reposting this Rowan) seems to sum up the fervent mania and euphoric rush that surrounds the absolute compulsion to transition regardless of the cost.

Once more before I'm deleted I will suggest that racial theories of the 20th Century are now the trans theories of the 21st.

I don’t think that sentence means what you think it means.

They don't call me a cynic for nothing.

How much do they charge you?

I bet if you shop around there are some good deals to be had.

Gathering information only from a few individuals whose views are again merely personal, and only if they say what you wish to hear to bear out your theories

Ive just checked & the handful of articles that I have quoted in this thread are from professional HCPs, scientists, social workers & people who are/were transsexual /transgender.

I read a gret deal & only link/ share quotes which seem be relevent to the discussion.
I don't limit my reading, nor do I have 'theories' that I seek to prove.
Nor do I make baseless accusations.

HTH