Both: Early childhood socialization and what causes people to become trans

submitted by worried19 from (self.GCdebatesQT)

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[–]worried19[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (16 children)

But how could it not have some effect?

I just wonder if GNC little boys were allowed to be completely free and in fact encouraged to be feminine and provided with GNC adult male role models in a loving and affirming society, if fewer of them would develop crippling dysphoria.

I don't see how society wouldn't bear some responsibility. Natal male transsexuals greatly outnumber natal female ones, and I think it may be due to society's rigidity. It's also possible it's caused by some other biological difference in males, of course. Maybe it's possible for children to be "born wrong," but it just seems more unlikely to me. What would cause the brain to target the genitals alone, when in fact there are other sexed body parts that are more hidden?

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (15 children)

I just don’t think body dysphoria is socially caused. Maybe social dysphoria could be but I don’t think it effects the body image that way.

I mean everyone should be encouraged to express themselves and act how they wish without regard to gendered expectations. I agree. I just don’t think the lack of that is causing body dysphoria.

[–]worried19[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

That's fair enough. It's just so hard to untangle because no one has the experience of being raised outside gender.

And we do know that dysphoria can develop later in life based on social experiences. If that can happen to teens and adults, why would very young children be immune?

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

I am separating body and social dysphoria here. I presume that is possible that social dysphoria could come from social experiences in children as well but I don’t see how rationally body dysphoria can come from social pressure to be masculine. ( in trans women anyway I don’t claim to have any particular insight for trans men)

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I don’t see how rationally body dysphoria can come from social pressure to be masculine.

Wouldn’t it just be like feeling pressure to be masculine, but realizing that your not, then realizing if you weren’t a boy physically, you wouldn’t be being pushed to be masculine, then hating the parts of your body that make you a boy. I don’t know if this actually happens, but it seems very easy to me to connect the two.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

It just doesn’t feel accurate to me. We live in a society that praises and encourages masculinity. If anything society would be encouraging you to like male attributes more.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I guess I feel like femininity or masculinity isn’t always a choice. Maybe you don’t believe that and I think we’ve talked about it before. So like, in my thinking, it doesn’t matter how much society praises masculinity, if that’s just not how you are made, you aren’t going to be able to fit.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I don’t disagree. My point is to if society tells you masculinity is good and femininity is bad you would start hating femininity if it was effecting you not your body. That’s why I don’t think it’s something being socially shaped.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I feel like different people might deal with it differently.

Personally, I don’t think I could have hated femininity because it felt like a part of me and I liked how I was. I don’t think that means that liking my femininity made me hate my body, but it feels easier to hate your body than yourself, if that makes sense. I like myself (still do).

[–]worried19[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm not sure. I think it's possible. Let's say I hated being a girl, that I loved and admired everything about masculinity. That I wanted so much to be exactly like my male heroes. And then that I learned that men had penises, something that I as a girl lacked. I could see men being praised and respected while women were seen as weak and emotional. A situation like that could lead to penis envy, because that would make me a "real man," and that in turn could lead to hatred of my vagina or breasts.

[–]MarkTwainiac 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Humans have always suffered from unhappiness, anxieties, obsessions, depression, discomforts and other forms of psychic distress and have had delusions, fancies and rich fantasy lives. However, the ways these manifest have always been shaped by the particular culture and historical period in which individuals grow up and spend their lives.

I think "body dysphoria," "gender dysphoria" and all the other forms of mental distress that are so heavily focused on one's physical appearance today would not have emerged in the specific forms in which they've arisen were it not for social forces like sexism, sex stereotypes, misogyny and homophobia - and were it not for all the myriad changes to the material world in which we live that have taken place over the last few centuries.

Such as the invention of flat looking glasses over the course of the 15th-17th centuries and very their gradual spread to become grooming devices for the masses; the invention of full-length glass grooming mirrors in the early 19th century and their spread to upper-middle class homes in the West by the end of the century (which is when anorexia first emerged); indoor plumbing and the invention and spread of the modern chambers for intimate bodily care we now call "bathrooms;" the advent and spread of central heating and electric lighting; growing wealth that led more and more people to live in homes with multiple rooms that allowed for solitude and increasing bodily privacy; the spread since the 17th century of the custom of bathing and unclothed bathing, which gradually became more frequent over time and finally resulted in the habit of daily bathing/showering and doing so naked; the new custom of dressing alone, rather than in the presence and with the help of servants and/or family, a custom that was made possible by major changes in attire, particularly for women, in the early 20th and new inventions like the zipper and emancipation underwear... and so on.

Also, of course, the advent and spread of photography; the invention of new technologies that allowed for the replication and mass spread of photos and drawings and new media like illustrated periodicals and fashion magazines; modern advertising; moving pictures, television, easy to use and affordable still cameras; video, home video players, affordable home video cameras; home computers; the internet; digital photography cameras making film and film processing obsolete; broadband, wifi, changes in computer technology that allowed for the transmission of large video files via the internet, and improvements in screens that allowed for them to be easily viewed on internet devices; selfies, social media, photoshop and filters; the normalization of wearing what used to be considered heavy stage makeup in everyday IRL settings; isolation, solitude, internet porn; growing up online, kids having excess leisure time (coz after-school jobs are now much rarer than in the past, as are the domestic chores/responsibilities that kids and teens are expected to take on); kids and young people increasingly spending much of their leisure time alone with only smart-device screens, their mirrors and doctored images for company ... etc.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

That’s pretty presumptive at least toward the end. Gender variance has been present and even trans people present well before the internet.

The first bottom surgery was conducted in the 1930’s and gender variant identities such as the Hijra have records going back millennia.

[–]MarkTwainiac 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

There's a difference between when specific expressions/manifestations of human distress first arose/emerged, and when they became more widespread and popular.

In my second and third paragraph I clearly said I was describing some of the material conditions that led to the emergence of appearance-focused mental health problems such as "gender identity disorder" and "gender dysphoria" - and these same changes in material culture have caused other mirror-based mental illnesses such as anorexia and body dysmorphic disorder to emerge as well. The changing material conditions in which we live affect us all, BTW, coz it's pretty hard to grow up and live in a world full of looking glasses, pictorial imagery that's often highly sexualized without becoming hyper-aware of one's appearance and without developing some discomfort and distress about aspects of our looks. Just as it's pretty impossible to inhabit a human body over time and not experience any distress over how one's body functions, feels, behaves and performs.

Distress over our bodies is not something that's unique to persons with "gender dysphoria" or other diagnosed mental health issues. Most people who've suffered serious illnesses or any form of disability or physical incapacity even temporarily have experienced distress and dissatisfaction over our bodies. Most girls experience deep distress over our bodies from the first time we first menstruate, which usually happens at circa age 11, and from the age when men first catcall us, masturbate at us or molest us - which often happens before age 11. Nearly every female person would most likely be found to have some degree of body distress and body dysmorphia if clinically assessed.

At the end of my third paragraph I was describing some of the changes in the material conditions of everyday life that make growing up and coming of age today very different from what it was even a few decades ago. I did not say "gender variance" only became present with the internet, nor did I suggest such a thing. And as someone who came of age long before the internet, when "gender variance" was so common as to be the norm, I'd never consider saying such a thing. People who have grown up and come of age in the internet era actually are much more "gender conforming" and into sex stereotypes than they/we were in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

The fact that the certain cultures in South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific Islands long have had a separate stigmatizing social caste for male homosexuals is entirely separate to the phenomenon of male "transsexualism" that first arose in European culture 100 years ago.

Male transsexualism in the West - which as you yourself first was treated medically less than 90 years ago - is entirely dependent on the changes in material culture I've described in my third paragraph and the first part of the fourth.

We are all shaped by the families, cultures and societies in which we grew up and we now live - and the material conditions, ideologies and social norms of any particular culture/society tends to change over time, and the changes that have occurred especially in Western culture over the past couple of centuries are especially large and fast-paced. Sorry this doesn't sit well with you, but it's true.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Of course we are shaped by our material world, but you are wildly speculating that causal relationship with gender dysphoria. You don’t need a mirror to look down.

[–]MarkTwainiac 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

But only males can see their genitals when looking down, LOL! Girls and women can only see our mons pubis when looking down (prior to when we develop pubic hair, that is). But to see our genitals, girls and women definitely need a mirror or a camera.

More to the point, having distress over one's genitals is not required to get a clinical diagnosis of "gender dysphoria" or to be "trans" for either sex. And today, most males with gender dysphoria and an opposite sex "gender identity" do not dislike their genitals. Which is why hardly any get or desire genital surgeries. And why so many males who claim to have "gender dysphoria" and to be trans so frequently boast about the wonders of "lady dick" and "girl cock" and tell women to suck or choke on theirs.

Males with "gender dysphoria" nowadays are far, far more likely to get beard electrolysis, facial surgeries and procedures, dental procedures, silicone orbs implanted in their chests, hair transplants, procedures to lower their hairlines and so on than to have any genital surgeries.

Also, it wasn't just mirrors I was talking about - it's historical changes like indoor plumbing, electric lighting, central heating, the modern bathroom, and the relatively recently-developed custom of daily bathing/showering, and bathing/showering while naked and in solitude; and people increasingly living in homes where solitude and bodily privacy are possible, and having lives that allow for considerable amounts of time to be spent alone...

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is getting nowhere. You have no proof of any kind that any of that is required or contributory to dysphoria. You also have no statistical basis your claims about the relative commonality of transition procedures. You are obviously just making things up here and it’s very transparent.