What causes people to become trans?

[ForeverIsALongTime]

I'm not posting in the feminism board because I want quite a varied response from people who may not share the same opinion. I've seen so many threads on here relating to transgender and it's something I really don't know much about.

I feel terribly sorry for anyone who feels they were born in the wrong body. I find this a difficult concept to comprehend because our physical exterior shouldn't have to dictate anything in our lives. It shouldn't have to determine anything more than our biology.

Do people think that it's society having separate categories for boys & girls which makes people feel like they're in the wrong body? For example, boys clothes/girls clothes, brownies/cubs etc? I know as a society there aren't so many divides between the sexes as there once was. I'm almost 30 and we had a separate boys playground and girls playground at school. I suppose if I had grown up feeling as though i would have felt more comfortable in the boys playground than the girls playground and felt more comfortable at cubs than brownies and in the boys clothes than the girls clothes, maybe I would now feel as though I had been trapped in the wrong body all those years. The real issue in that situation though would be the divides we had created, rather than the person actually having the wrong genitalia?

I may be way off the mark and I'm really hoping to be educated by some people who are more knowledgable on this topic. It's such a big issue these days and it's something I feel I should understand better than I do.

no, you're not. But the lie that it's possible to change sex is monstrous, and it should never ever be told.

I was imaging the other day how I would feel if, from tomorrow, I were completely transitioned. If my best friends were now male, along with my broader social circle. If my sports team were the men's team. If all the activities I took part in were the men's group rather than the women's. If the changing rooms I used were the men's. If I ticked the "M" box on forms instead of the "F". I imagine that I've had my breasts removed, that thick hairs have started sprouting from my face and all over my body, that my voice is getting deeper and gruffer to the point of being unrecognisable...

And if I really try and imagine that it feels like I'm suffocating. I imagine if I were being forced to undergo that, if it seemed unavoidable, I can almost feel the panic in me rising.

And then it occurs to me that that must be a just a tiny glimpse of how it feels to be transgender, being forced into a body and a life you don't want by your biology. Into a life that feels so alien and wrong, and a body that feels so much not like your own.

I don't know why it happens, I don't know how. But if it feels even just a fraction as intolerable as I do when doing my little thought experiment, I can completely see why for some transition is the only answer.

This would not apply to people who have always known they wish to change gender, but I think there are always people who feel unhappy and troubled, and are searching for an explanation and solution for this. Some people rely on substance misuse, some turn to religion or other social movements which give a sense of belonging, and - increasingly these days - identifying as transgender may be an option for some. I hope that is not hurtful or offensive - it is based on my very limited experience of people actually known to me who have changed gender.

None of them confirm to the MN stereotype of militant transgender folk. The ones I have met have been very vulnerable.

The brainwashing of vulnerable people on internet chat rooms.

I feel female, I can’t imagine looking down and seeing a male body, being expected to use male toilets and referred to as he all the tine.

Of course those things would feel weird to you because you are female!

But RatUnholyRolyPoly of course what you described in your last post would feel strange to you. You were born female, you have grown up with a female body and you have been socialised all your life as female. You can't use it as a comparison.

Traditionally dysphoric thinking around sex and gender was linked to people who are gender non conforming, perhaps homosexual, but living in a rigid conservative environment where it wasn't tolerated. There was an association with very religious households. People were forced to change their behaviour to make it line up with their sex - that influence is what gender used to mean. The two old school transexuals I know we're both expected to be the man of the house in very female heavy households. Told they were more special than their sisters whilst feeling left out.

Now we have the opposite, people trying to change their sex/bodies to match their behaviour. We are now conflating being non confirming with being trans, the meaning has changed.

There is no single 'innate essence of woman' that all women share. There is nothing 'inside' that all women can say 'yes, I feel that'. The only thing that all women have in common is the material reality of having a female body.

Gender dysphoria is a condition where you are uncomfortable with your sexed body and can be alleviated by changing it to be more in line with the opposite sex. Having gender dysphoria does not mean you are actually 'a woman trapped in a man's body'.

I suspect a high proportion of trans people are autistic, whether diagnosed or not.v

The people who are trans who have described their childhoods to me have all gone through horrible abused or bullied childhoods. But then lots of people have

Posted too soon. Meant to add that there is research that bears this out:

www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/zhanavrangalova/2017/11/15/growing-evidence-for-a-link-between-gender-dysphoria-and-autism-spectrum-disorders/amp/

I had these thoughts whilst watching itv’s Butterfly and discussed it with my OH. If a boy just wants to wear makeup and skirts then let him do so? Doesn’t mean they need to change genders. Make up and skirts should not be for just girls. I wonder how different it would be if clothes weren’t aligned with genders

Its the same as any other issue where people are not as society in general says they should be, transsexual, or gay, or drug using, or anything else. People will have their own opinions based on very little actual experience of the issue other than newspaper stories and hearsay, the only way to ever get any real answers is to talk to the people going through it and ask them. It wasn't so very long ago that people thought that boys became gay because they were allowed to play with dollies.

I have first hand experience of both male to female and female to male trans. One female was my best friend and I can definitely say there were many signs of autism. The male to female also appeared very high on the spectrum and got educational help at schools

Reeeaaally not comfortable with conflating trans with autism on the basis of internet diagnosis. I appreciate there is an apparent correlation between the two, but there is zero scientific evidence expressing a causal relationship, or much at all explaining what the nature of the relationship might be.

Add to that the fact that most speculation on this thread is on the basis of assuming diagnoses of past acquaintances... That really does make me very uncomfortable.

I don't think there's a cause, but I think there's lots of reasons why people may declare themselves trans.

Some are genuinely dysphoric, and it brings great relief to present as the opposite sex.

I think male and female have become so exaggerated in the last few years particularly - men are supposed to be big & ripped, women thin and contoured, that it must feel awful not to be able to 'conform', maybe being trans allows you ligitimate space to be you, rather than being a 'failed' stereorypical super pumped manly man? I'd have been a failed girl back in my teens - too fat, liked masculine clothes, didn't wear make up. But that was ok then, now I think I'd be questioning myself whether I was actually a girl if I didn't want to be a stereotype.

Also, I do think the idea that some young girls are identifying out of scary sexual relationships (pornified sex becoming mainstream) is valid. Being trans is a way to be free of that expectation and gain credibility.

Some people will say they're trans for attention.

Some people will do it for sexual kicks.

So loads of different reasons to consider.
But I guess the increase in visibility is because it's become mainstream and ok.

"Sissy" porn not been mentioned yet/ forced feminization.

For some men it's about a fetish/ sexual thing.

There's loads of reasons though.

Interesting thing is with the wide "trans umbrella" that stonewall use, most people are trans. So what then?

Rats post about the horror of being male (rather over egged imo "omg HAIR!!!")

just made me think of the feelings that many many girls feel and always have when they start to turn from a child into a young woman. Periods are grim as is the way men start looking at you when your breasts start to become noticable through clothes. The change in the way you are treated can be distressing. There's one reason for the massive increases in girls transitioning. In my day girls starved themselves and wore baggy clothes. Now they bind their breasts and try to ID out of the whole thing. And who can blame them? The gross sexualisation of women and girls and the prevalence of really nasty porn- it's hardly surprising so many girls are saying no thanks.

I'm not sure that being born into the wrong body apart from being horrified with your organs as everything else is not forced and you don't have to conform too. So unless you are uncomfortable with the physical aspects all else is not relevant. If you have a penis, you can wear and act how you want but you are still male as in have a penis. And vice versa for female with a womb.
Being a female or male is a description of what organs you have not what you wear or how you act. So until someone has fully developed e.g. post puberty, how can anyone say that they have the wrong organs as too that point they are continually changing.

Rats post about the horror of being male (rather over egged imo "omg HAIR!!!")

I had a wiry black one come out of my chin once and I nearly lost my shit! If they started sprouting out of my chest I think I'd be profoundly disturbed and really rather upset. Maybe I'm just a delicate flower

You see, what I don't get is how, in 2018 where anyone can do what they want, more than any other time in history, instead of doing what they want, the answer is to do the one thing that you absolutely cannot do no matter how you dress it up. You simply cannot change your sex. Change your gender, change your hair, your clothes, your job, who you love, whatever you need or want to. But it's impossible to change your sex.

I think it's a response to trauma. I would be interested to see stats about trans folk who have experienced either sexual abuse or trauma related to gender.

I think it's a mental
Illness 100%

I also think it's a MH issue. I see it as no different to those who look in the mirror, see a fat person and develop an eating disorder. They clearly aren't fat but they believe they are, it's a MH issue and I think trans is no different. I also think it's far toi pandered to in young children and teens. Allowing them to take drugs to stop their bodies developing etc is a disgrace. If they want to make different choices as adults, then fine, but not when their brains are still developing and they may come through it and realise they just are who they are, not pigeonholed into a male or female stereotype.

I think it's a mental Illness 100%

Uh-huh, that's interesting. You know homosexuality was a mental illness under the DSM until 1987, and the WHO only declassified it in 1992?

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/hide-and-seek/201509/when-homosexuality-stopped-being-mental-disorder

The evolution of the status of homosexuality in the classifications of mental disorders highlights that concepts of mental disorder can be rapidly evolving social constructs that change as society changes.

So... of course you think it's a mental disorder, because whatever society does not accept must be insanity of some sort - an aberration.

Until we accept it. And then it isn't.