How does someone end up identifying differently?

[TonyAndonuts]

Hey guys. I haven't been on here in a while, but I have a question.

This is something I’ve always wondered simply because I don’t know how it feels. How does one end up feeling like they identify differently from their assigned sex at birth? If for example a born-male feels that they strongly identify as female, how does that feel like and when do those feelings arise? Since gender is a social construct, would they feel like a gender based on what they see in life? If they were completely separated from society, would these feelings still arise regardless? If so, how? Like, are there certain traits that’re supposed to be hardwired to a specific sex, but if one doesn’t feel those traits, then that’s when they’d identify as something else? Hell, maybe it’s not even a “feeling” and it’s just something else. Sorry if these questions sound really stupid or ignorant, I just never fully understood it. I may also be trying to understand this too much from a sexuality standpoint. It’s all I really know…

[meridannight]

Since gender is a social construct, would they feel like a gender based on what they see in life?

This is the key part, really. Gender is not a social construct. It's determined in the brain prenatally. Testosterone affects it. That's why you feel like a male. Before you were born you were exposed to testosterone at a crucial moment which affected areas in your brain susceptible to it. As a result, those areas differentiated.

Just watch any kid. The masculine and feminine differentiation is there very early, way before they are capable of fathoming the concept of gender. The same people who argue that gender is a social construct, argue that sexuality, too, is a social construct. Both are obviously ridiculous claims.

It has been scientifically proven that male and female brains are different. It's pretty easy to understand it from there.

[TonyAndonuts]

This is the key part, really. Gender is not a social construct. It's determined in the brain prenatally. Testosterone affects it. That's why you feel like a male. Before you were born you were exposed to testosterone at a crucial moment which affected areas in your brain susceptible to it. As a result, those areas differentiated.

Just watch any kid. The masculine and feminine differentiation is there very early, way before they are capable of fathoming the concept of gender. The same people who argue that gender is a social construct, argue that sexuality, too, is a social construct. Both are obviously ridiculous claims.

It has been scientifically proven that male and female brains are different. It's pretty easy to understand it from there.

Oh, that's interesting. But then how would it work for someone who is non-binary or bigender? For those that don't identify as any gender or feel like both, is testosterone still at play here and determines this as well?

[meridannight]

Oh, that's interesting. But then how would it work for someone who is non-binary or bigender? For those that don't identify as any gender or feel like both, is testosterone still at play here and determines this as well?

No research has so far been done on the brains of people who identify as neither gender (or something else entirely), so it's not really possible to say anything authoritative on that matter. (Personally, I think it's just a psychological identity crisis or a desire to be unique where this type of thing is stemming from. I do not consider non-binary gender identification as a genuine gender expression, since there are only two genders physiologically. But that is my informed opinion, for now. I have no scientific research to back it up).


Gender is most definitely a binary phenomenon in physiology: androgen* exposure determines the masculine sex and gender identity, absence of androgens results in the feminine sex and gender identity. Since there are only two options (either you were exposed to the right amount of androgens at the right moment or you weren't) I do not see that it is possible for there to exist some third type of gender.

Technically-speaking, we only have a masculine gender identity and a non-masculine gender identity. There is no 'feminine' identity physiologically speaking (and I do mean 'physiologically'). The feminine identity is the same as and nonexchangeable from 'non-masculine'. So, another way to see it is, that the non-binary and 'neither-gender' identification is the same as the feminine gender identity itself. They are all non-masculine, or non-testosterone, to put it crudely. Which actually makes a lot of sense, I think.


The key point to understand is that different areas in the brain are variably sensitive to testosterone/androgens at different times. This is crucial! Exposure to the same area at one point in time does not result in the same effects as the same exposure at another point in time. Everything has to be timed precisely correctly:

During the second trimester, androgen level is associated with gender formation.This period affects the femininization or masculinization of the fetus and can be a better predictor of feminine or masculine behaviours such as sex typed behaviour than an adult's own levels.

Source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19403051



*I myself and a lot of people tend to just quote testosterone in reference on this topic, but it should be kept in mind that testosterone is not the only androgen in the body, and other androgens, including dihydrotestosterone, are also responsible for the masculinization of the brain and body.

[NativeSon]

Hey guys. I haven't been on here in a while, but I have a question.

This is something I’ve always wondered simply because I don’t know how it feels. How does one end up feeling like they identify differently from their assigned sex at birth?

There are so many resources for this type question are there not? Trans/gay is not synonymous.

Why would you ask gays?

[TonyAndonuts]

There are so many resources for this type question are there not? Trans/gay is not synonymous.

Why would you ask gays?

Last time I was on this site, I remember plenty of trans users. I figured all parts of LGBT+ were up for discussion.

[NativeSon]

Go ask Caitlyn. I think she'll know.

You can always settle for meridiannight.

[NativeSon]

I've always found it very fascinating when straight peops wake up and find themselves to be suddenly gay.

Not judging.

[NativeSon]

Last time I was on this site, I remember plenty of trans users.

News to me.

[Emiliano]

It doesn't seem like something that you just suddenly realize. The trans people I've known and from different docs I've watched, it's something they knew about from a very early age.

You ask some interesting questions, but I don't have any answers for you. What is masculine or feminine can vary across culture, but I am of the mind that there's more to it than that.

Since [MENTION=21405]meridannight[/MENTION] is getting into the biology/chemistry stuff and clearly has a good understanding of it, I want to ask him if he's heard about the studies on gay and lesbian brains that show gay male brains tend to resemble straight female ones and lesbian brains tend to resemble straight male ones. I forget all the details about it - I think it was that, like women, gay men tend to have better brain development in communication I think?

I don't think sexuality is related to gender expression, but I find both, and the search for the why's and the hows regarding both, to be interesting to think about.