Transgender and transsexual people: The causes?

Now, you're probably wondering "What's there to understand?" Well as it happens, gender issues go a lot deeper than penis vs. vagina. There are psychological issues behind gender that go far beyond even the effects that socialization, or the process of teaching a person through example and experience, can have on a person's development.

Before I go much further, I want to clarify one thing: as I write this article, I will use "sex" to define what is between a person's legs and gender to define what is in their head. Furthermore, I will use Male and Female to denote physical status and Man and Woman to denote societal status, or what the person is perceived to be based on upon appearance and attitudes, and the roles associated with such. This is an important thing to keep in mind.

We've all heard, time and time again, about the various nature vs. nurture arguments. Basically it asks the question "Are people born a certain way, or are they made that way through socialization?"

A lot of people think that all issues can be exclusively classified as resulting from one of the two. However, I don't think that you can effectively answer all questions by subscribing to only one school of thought. I don't claim to be a psychologist or a sociologist, though both fields interest me immensly, however I do know, through classes that I have taken and through personal research, that a persons development is both biological and sociological.

To give you and example of this, we'll take an average white, heterosexual American or Canadian couple. Now, this couple is expecting a baby any time now, in fact, the woman has just come to the hospital complaining of labour pains. When the child is born, one of two things can happen: The couple can keep the child, or the child can be placed for adoption. Let's assume that there was a healthy, normal pregnancy with nothing out of the ordinary happening. The couple are both non-smokers who don't drink much, and the woman completely avoided alcohol while pregnant. They don't do drugs and they eat right and get enough sleep, all that good stuff.

If the child stays with this couple, then that child will grow up with the same values and beliefs as the parents, in theory. The child will most likely grow up to be a drug-free, non-smoking adult who only drinks occasionally, and in moderation. The child will probably follow whatever religion the parents follow, and make friends and go to school, leading to all the typical experiences of a child growiing up in an average American or Canadian town.

Now let's assume that for some reason, the child is put up for adoption. This child is then sent to some other country, let's say Japan. I know it's not likely, but trust me, I know where I'm going with this.

Anyway, an average Japanese couple adopts this child, and while the child is obviously still white and has the same genetics as the parents, the child will be brough up in a certain way. Most men in Japan smoke, so the child, if it's a boy, will probably start smoking in high school. The child will be pushed through school and cram school, and expected to excel in everything, regardless of the child's sex and gender. The child will speak Japnese and will probably be Shinto or Buddist, as far as religion goes. The other two likely possibilities are Atheist or Catholic, as they are the two biggest minority religions in Japan.

Well that really supports the nurture side of the srgument, right? But that's only half the explanation. See, if the child is raised in Japan, there is still an equally high chance that the child will be gay or gender variant in some way. Supposing that the child's parents didn't smoke, drink, or do drugs because one of the parents was from a family with a history of addiction? The child will still have an increased likelyhood of becoming an alcoholic if he or she ever starts drinking. The child will still be taller than the Asian kids that he or she will be growing up with. The child will still have a risk for developing the same physical and mental problems that may be lurking somewhere on the family tree of the birth parents. Life is a series of both nature and nurture problems that combine to make us who we are.

Now, how does this apply to gender issues?

We are going to take a child who is born in Canada, to a white man and a Chinese woman. They are both Christians, in fact, the woman is a Church secretary. They've been married a few years, and the woman is poregnant with their first child. The baby is getting a little bit too big for her tiny frame, she only stands 4 feet and 9 inches tall, after all, and doesn't weigh very much. She's already had one miscarriage and the doctors are trying to keep her from losing another baby. She's due to give birth in two weeks but there's something wrong, and they have to get this baby out NOW. So she goes in for an emergency C-section. It isn't what she wants, but it's the only way to save the baby. So she goes in, still praying that she will have a baby boy to carry on the family name. She knows deep down that she can't put her body through another pregnancy and this is her only chance to have a boy.

The operation is over, and she's gotten what she wanted, so she thinks. A beautiful, strong baby boy lays in her arms, sleeping quietly.

The child grows up, attending a Christian school from preschool until graduation in grade 12. The parents and grandparents never notice anything amiss, though the child is bullied and pushed around all "his" life. The child also dresses in women's clothes whenever the parents aren't watching, and eventually it gets to the point that this child is wearing panties and a bra under the school uniform. Finally graduation comes, and the child is free from the torment of the other students.

A few more years go by, and this person continues dressing in women's clothes in private. It isn't sexual, it just feels right. it's comforting in a way, and it feels so much more natural than wearing ugly guy clothes all the time. The person has been doing research and has learned of something called Gender Idenitity Disorder, and people called Transgender or Transsexual. Unfortunately most of the information out there comes in the form of porn sites at this point, but eventually the person finds some reliable information and begins to come to terms with what is going on. A trip to a psychiatrist leads to a diagnosis and a referal to an endocrinologist for a hormone prescription. At age 22, the person comes out to the parents. Though being male, the person does not have the mindset that usually accompanies the penis. "He" is really she.

You can't argue that an environment where the person is pushed away from thing slike cross dressing and acting feminine caused this disconnect between the body and the mind. She was constantly told as a child that "Boys don't wear girls' clothes" and "You should toughen up and be a man." But ti didn't change anything.

Can you really say that she was born this way, though? Well let's look at the facts that I've left out. For the record, this case is based on that of my wife, pictured above.

-She was born by C-section. In a vaginal birth, there are hormones released that could in theory affect the psychological development of the child. Furthermore, if the child is born early, even by a couple of weeks, it is HIGHLY likely that the brain has not finished developing, especially in the areas of sexuality and gender identity. These are both medically accepted facts.

-Her father was never really there for her emotionally. Her father didn't communicate much and was usually more interested in watching sports or wrestling or the news than in spending time with his child. She had no male role model.

-Depsite being Chinese, her mother was a very strong woman who essentially wore the pants in the family.

-Her mother kept her dresses in my wife's closet, and her old high heels under my wife's bed, and told my wife not to touch them. If you store something in a child's room, curiosity will lead them to want to play with it, and to tell them "Don't touch" is like putting a bag of sweets on a high shelf, but in plain veiw. The child WILL figure out a way to get to it! Furthermore, if the child already has a gender variance due to other factors, it could have made the situation worse to put dresses and shoes in the child's room. It's kind of like the Forbidden Apple in the Garden of Eden. Even though she wasn't suppossed to do it, Eve still ate the apple, and then brought one to Adam to eat as well. In the same way, my wife found a way to play with the dresses and shoes even though she was told not to.

These are just a few points, but I think they get the message across that gender is a combination of biological and sociological factors culminating in a final result.

One of the common misconceptions about gender identity and Transgender people is that they are homosexuals looking to make their relationship more acceptable in the eyes of Society. This may be true in rare cases, however, a person's sexuality is usually seperate from their gender. I happen to be Cisgender, which means that I am a woman born female, who desires to remain female and to be seen as a woman in society. I am also, strictly speaking, homosexual, which means that I am attracted to other women in a romantic sense. For me this means emotionally attracted rather than sexually attracted, but we'll get into the details of sexuality in another article.

My wife is Transgender, which in her case means she is a woman born male, who desires to be seen as a woman in society and is not happy with her male genitalia, though she doesn't care if she later has female genitalia as long as the male ones are gone. She is also bisexual leaning homosexual, which means that she is attracted to both men and women but she prefers women.

I know of many variations of sexuality in both cisgender and transgender people. Some transpeople completely prefer partners of one gender or the other, some are bisexual, some are asexual, and some are a variant. For example, I have a friend who is transgender, who got married to a woman before she transitioned. She still loves her wife and is sexually attracted to her, but she is also sexually attracted to men. However she identifies as a lesbian because she could not maintain an emotional relationship with a man, and if there is no emotional connect then it becomes empty sex, which, to quopte my friend, "Sucks really badly, no pun intended."

I really don't think so. I think it is more an issue of there being better care available, and Transgender issues slowly becoming less of a dirty little topic that no one talks about. While there is still work to be done (For instance, why are gender identity issues still listed in the DSM as a mental disorder?) society is slowly progressing to the point where transpeople no longer have to hide. People are starting to realize that people are people, regardless of their sexuality or gender identity.

It is important to note that while society is becoming more open, many transpeople still live in fear. It may be more common to see a transperson in the media nowadays, but there are still daily murders of transpeople. The most recent case I have heard of is the Angie Zapata case, which is the first case where someone has killed a transperson and actually been taken to trial and had justice served, rather than getting off with a light sentence under reduced charges. The man who killed Angie Zapata was found guilty of murder and has been sent to jail for life.

However, in most cases, judges still accept reduced charges, often so far as the murderer being sentenced to 2-5 years in jail for assault and battery when they just killed another human being. Regardless of whether you agree with anything else I have said in this article, I am sure you can agree that murder is wrong, even if the person killed was a transgender individual.

There aren't more transpeople in the world, it is simply not a secret anymore that these people exist. And as a result, be it negative or positive, there is more media coverage of these people's existance. Be it the news blurb about a transgender person being murdered or coverage about a transgender man who is pregnant, or a transwoman competing on America's Next Top Model or something like that, it isn't a secret that people like my wife exist.

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