sexual abuse, dissasociation and trans

[queenlagatha]

this is an emotionally hard hitting post but i've often wondered the correlation between childhood abuse and transgendered people. I can understand the rejections of social gender stereotypes, being told as a young boy, 'you run like a girl', or ''you act like a girl'. Told often enough, one might believe they are not male. Is it possible some trans people have faced abuse against them, maybe as children or young adults, that makes them not want to be their biological sex as they see being the other sex as a form of self protection? I have read trans peoples accounts/stories about past abuse. This comes up a lot. I just find it interesting that some trans people may think being a women protects themselves more than being male? vice versa also, a lot of female prisoners are 'butch', is that self protection? interested to see if there are any statistics on this issue

Sorry i dont have any statistics or information but i have seen other posters talk about it especially in regards to some girls who want to 'transition'

So i will bump it for you

My real-life experience with my partner who is AGP and his back story.
He has cultivated a separate "ego" that is feminine and feels highly aroused and self-comforted by this "other" side of himself. So much so that he dearly wishes that he would be that "feminine" person and then it begins to tip over into believing that he is that "feminine" person.

I know that he had a very traumatic childhood (no CSA as far as I'm aware though). It is very clear to me that his feminine and sexual identity is tied into his childhood trauma but he resists ANY attempts to understand his past and to break down why he might be AGP. He protects the AGP side of himself very strongly.

He is highly intelligent and logical thinker, very sensitive. His schooling was a brutual single sex school, where sports achievements were considered above academic achievement and bully was encouraged to toughen up the "weaker" boys. He was miserable and possibly clinically depressed from ages 11 to 16/18 years.

His homelife was very segregated into strong tough work class mother and grandmother and the men who did no house or emotional work.

The father opted out of family life by working all the hours he could and then going to the pub or going out with friends. So his father never helped in any way or showed any real affection. Also, he is the youngest sibling of a group of boys and his mother wanted so much to have a daughter that, even to this day, cries about how she really wanted a girl, but it was OK in the end as my husband ended up being pretty (she doesn't know about the AGP) and almost like a girl. Still she would have preferred him to be girl and lets him know this regularly.

Your query on whether trauma in childhood can cause a person to question their gender - is an important one, but no one wants to investigate this or truly help people with this mental condition. It seems easier to just alter the body - rather than look at the root cause, especially as Trans people themselves have set up this alter-ego to protect themselves and have been using this to self-smooth since puberty (and in some cases before puberty).

It's certainly an area that could do with more research. Most transpeople I know are MtF. The one FtM I know has said they were raped multiple times in their teens. I did consider that perhaps, presenting as male, was a way of trying to prevent rapes, i.e. I was raped because I am a woman and if I am male I cannot be raped.

Very sad that anyone has to even think about such things.

I expect there are as many different combinations of reasons for being transgender as there are transgender people, and unfortunately some children are abused, so there are bound to be instances of this. I do think some teenagers use it as a way of not growing up and therefore avoiding sexuality altogether.

starkstaring - and of course, thanks to #nodebate etc. these are things that probably won't be researched and young people won't get the help they need. The whole situation is just so bloody sad for everyone.