Are there identifiable causes for being trans?

[T1meForDebate]

Fionne is sharing some heartbreaking testimonies on Twitter from transwomen who were manipulated by their mothers - I do wonder if sometimes women project 'I wish you had been a girl' so strongly that the impressionable child starts to try to please?

Then there's the three year old boy who said he was a girl - only when given time to talk did it come out that his parents had a younger daughter with many special needs including extra time and attention. Little boy can only conclude they love girls more - so he insists he's a girl.

Debbie, the transman who transitioned at 44 (when menopause hit, maybe?) - and 15 years later bitterly regrets it because she's come to terms with the fact that it was triggered by her father's sexual abuse

The whole feeling lowest of the low if you're a lesbian or gay teen - but suddenly fashionably fascinating if you say you're trans

Irresponsible magazine calling a school the coolest in the country because so many children say they're trans - who wouldn't want to join the latest craze and get called cool in print?

Autistic children who find dealing with the world so difficult, suddenly also having to cope with new bits that look, feel, smell and behave differently, including hurting, and attracting wierd unwanted attention, reactions and touching

Kids whose interests, behaviour and dress don't fit the prescribed pink and blue approval lists being ushered through the 'you're clearly trans' door

Adults (including parents) who are so committed to wanting children kept in a pre adolescent form for longer than is natural that they develop, prescribe, promote and lobby for puberty blockers (what's that about?)

Charming, articulate and cute transmen publishing chirpy polished how-to videos on Instagram flourishing binders, mastectomy and phalloplasty scars to community cooing response - what a lovely welcoming sense of belonging endorphins that must trigger

final para removed by MN as it broke guidelines
explanation below.

Debbie metro.co.uk/2018/11/05/trans-man-to-become-woman-again-after-saying-sex-change-was-a-mistake-8105215/

Jammi.dodger over at Instagram

Cool school www.theargus.co.uk/news/15008613.tatler-magazine-names-dorothy-stringer-in-best-state-school-guide/

The causes are social, environmental in my opinion.
Although there may be a susceptibility, a propensity in one's innate makeup that makes one more vulnerable to those outside influences.

"The suggestibility gene".
"The lack of critical thinking gene"

Not that these exist, but if you are prone to being easily influenced and do not possess a strong ability to reason logically, you are more prone to fall for circular reasoning and emotional manipulation.

Derren Brown screens candidates for his subjects. Some people are much more suggestible than others, some more resilient to manipulation.

I'll add to your list the influence and rejection of a homophomic, bullying father as a 'cause' for many transwomen.

I think it's a combination of all the things mentioned.

Utterly heart breaking

So many children are bullied and lonely and struggling with who they are. The someone online promises them an entire family and makes them.feel special. What choice do people who have been told that no one else understands or can be trusted, have but to follow through with everything when this family and support network doesnt want to know when you ask questions.

I wish we could find out just what's happening with this Inquest into the extreme rise in girls identifying as boys.

Nope, it's this, obvs. Totes biology and nothing else. Even though citing any other biological basis for sex differences (like chromosomes) is "biological essentialism" and reductionist and evil. And the fact that this groundbreaking discovery somehow hasn't won anybody the nobel prize or entered any scientific literature or translated into a reliable diagnostic test that can be used before hacking up small children. But yah, it's defs a 100% scientific fact and not a lot of blindingly obvious social causes.

Basically this

One flaw with your first diagram grab

Who is carrying the baby? Biology exists only when producing these trans babies?

I would also add teenage girls struggling with changing bodies, hormones, emotions and feeling they lack control. Who may turn to eating disorders/self harm/self destructive behaviours as coping mechanisms who find they have a new avenue they can go down that is “the thing that is wrong with me”, can opt you out of the male gaze/misogyny AND give you special status. Whilst being a teen girl can, for quite a lot of girls, be quite a difficult experience for a while.

Except of course with help and support most girls are able to work through the difficulties and come out as fully functioning adults at the end of it. And normally not trans.

Yup, welcome to the "scientific" pick and mix of queer theory

I really think Tumblr has a lot to answer for here. I only know one FtM trans-person IRL (surprise surprise - under 20, lesbian, part of a very religious community that forced them into strict gender roles, history of self harm, eating disorders, and homophobic bullying) and they've been doing YouTube videos about their transition (scheduled for a mastectomy in a few months) - in one video they actually said "No matter what I did I was never girl enough - I'm so grateful I found Tumblr or I'd never have known I was really trans".

And this is why there will be no social media that I don't have access to in my home ever.

Yup, welcome to the "scientific" pick and mix of queer theory

Goes hand in hand with " we want better health care but dont you dare acknowledge biology"

I think a lot of trans is triggered not by a need to change sex, but to escape the confines and gender roles associated with the birth sex. Add parental disapproval, peer contagion, teenage angst and the prospect of love bombing from your cool new “glitter family”, then you have a perfect storm. Until the party’s over and you find yourself still unhappy but surgically mutilated and chemically sterilised to boot.

Patriarchy

is the short answer

Which is the cause of

Gender role
Enforcement of gender role
Homophobia
Hierarchy with women at the botoom
Women as sex objects
Fetishiation of women
Women as non men in fact non people

etc etc is the root of all this

Article on BBC the other day it was in plain sight:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47799055

"He says: "I now identify as a heterosexual male. I feel so much more comfortable compared with before when I was called a lesbian by people.""

""I remember being told to 'hold back your manly mannerism' and when performing 'not perform too much like a man'"."

"Nate says he has identified as male since the age of four, telling his friends in the playground that he was a boy.

"I always told people I was a boy without genitals. I was six or seven when I was labelled a lesbian in the playground. But I did not know what that was."

Growing up, he would be abused on the street as he was known as a lesbian in school, despite not viewing himself as such.

Nate says he would often get into fights as he also battled with his appearance."

Nate does also say

"He remembers his first appointment with a doctor who told him it was, "OK to be a happy lesbian". He eventually changed doctors and was referred for psychological assessment."

Clearly Nate has dysphoria but there are a lot of things in what Nate says that indicate life as a het man was going to be / looked way easier than life as a masculine woman in a heavily gendered world (grime / most (all?) music genres in general are v gendered) and with encountering serious lesbophobia from a very young age. And who can blame Nate? It's true.

Not saying Nate shouldn't have transitioned and I hope Nate is v happy now, obv but it does raise a lot of interesting points around motivation.

I do also think it’s social contagion both on line and at schools

Suddenly you become special got lots of mates. On trend. people treat you differently. And better

You are now the kooky admired person and you have a tribe now

I’ve never read a trans history that didn’t include some mention of bullying, usually from a close family member.

It’s always couched in terms of “I always knew I was trans, and even the awful bullying from my (select relative here) couldn’t stop me”. But I’ve often wondered about cause and effect. Presumably if there is a biological reason for GNC behaviour, then it seems perfectly possible that GNC + bullying results in gender confusion.

When we were teens the tribes were music based.

This to me looks much the same with teens forming groups around identities. And styling is a big part of that - hair clothes presentation.

It looks like a modern tribe thing to me which would be fine if it didn't come with the whole medicalisation thing and the whole lets let men into any and all female spaces thing. And the selling it to kids thing and telling them untruths about scientific facts and to ignore their boundaries etc thing.

The people claiming small children "know" they're trans chill my heart. I saw another one claiming 'Jacky Green knew they were a girl from the age of 4' on Twitter yesterday and really wished I could sit down with such people and say 'Tell me about what 4-year-olds think, believe and know, please - and how adults can steer little minds to believe all sorts of stuff'.

Yet more irony isnt it.

We need to "educate kids" so they dont grow up to be bigots. So we can influence them.to accept things.

But then kids cant be influenced because they "just know"

As well as all the highly likely causes suggested by PPs, I fear another one - Munchausen’s by proxy.
In the past, this was a parent making a child deliberately ill or faking illness in a child, as a form of attention seeking personality disorder. Cases include force feeding salt to derange the child’s blood chemistry and dehydrate it, adding blood to the child’s stool or urine samples, and clandestinely suffocating it to induce fits or brain damage.
There is now a shiny new method for these parents to exploit for applause and attention - pushing their child down the trans pathway, while basking in the “ brave and stunning” aura.

There seem to be a significant number of abusive/bullying/ homophobic fathers (male authority figures) present in the narratives of males who later identify as transwomen.
This seems especially true for those who were gay/gender non conforming children and likely were shamed/excluded for not conforming to a narrow idea of masculinity.
Many narratives include environments which would have been especially difficult for non-conforming children eg religious conservative/all boys school/military etc
The internalised homophobia seems apparent in many older male transpeople incl some who identify as TS rationals.

There's a really good response to the Times' articles by Ben (GNC Centric) and she describes the high levels of early abuse/trauma described by many who identify as transgender.
Worth watching, so too her interview with Benjamin Boyce about abuse within the trans community:

"Presumably if there is a biological reason for GNC behaviour,"

Is there?

Many many people are GNC to a great or lesser extent. I'd go as far as saying it was the norm.

Most people are put down for GNC behaviour even if in a jokey way e.g. my DH likes sewing, his mates take the piss, in fact everyone takes the piss. I was not very feminine in clothes choice etc when I was young but looked very feminine, people were always on at me why don't you do X to your hair, wear some makeup, wear some clothes that aren't baggy you've got a lovely figure etc etc

Of course this is nothing compared to the shit that butch lesbians / effeminate gay men get which turns to violence >> but it all comes from the same place.

Society is heavily gendered and it is enforced to a greater or lesser extent, all the time to everyone.

Most people aren't so far away from the social norm that they get the more severe responses.

Actually - the drip drip has a massive effect and it comes out in rise of mental health issues in girls etc. So gradual but devastating nonetheless.

I don't see "internal gender ID" as meaning anything but gender stereotype + personality.

But then according to genderists I'm "agender" so what do I know.

Only I'm not am I, as a middle aged woman with 2 kids, I'm not in the group that is allowed to self declare in that way. I would be labelled as c*s whether I liked it or not. No way would I be allowed in the brave and stunning club.

Surely if there was a biological reason then a brain scan or blood test or something would prove it?

Affirmation wouldn't he needed. Nor would self ID.

How can they on one hand claim its biological then on the other claim to need access to children to educate them to convince them all boys can be girls and vice versa

Forensics can place you at a crime scene from sundays old teeny drop of blood or partial spring off a false nail.

But with a full work up and a patient right there they cant find anything.

And it's not a mental illness.

Partial print

Excuse typos