Understanding gender identity and innate gender

This has been something that has been disturbing me for a while. As it stands, gender identity is used to explain what it means to be trans. This has created over time a very real problem as it seems that only a certain percent of people who are trans actually identify with the gender that they are transitioning towards before starting the process. In fact, quite a few don't even have any form of stable identity as a result of the persistent trauma caused by gender dysphoria.

As it stands, gender identity is too wide a term because it includes both the identity a person identifies with at the present moment and a person's innate gender. This makes people try to figure out if they really do identify with the gender they want to transition towards. However, I suspect that this isn't that common as people who grow up as the opposite sex and adopt the gender roles connected to the body they were born with are unlikely to develop a gender identity that is of the opposite sex. It makes complete sense that they would also form an identity that takes social expectations and visual evidence into consideration. Identity is inherently fluid and is usually constructed out of life experiences.

What often happens is that a person's innate gender is repressed and the child will start developing gender dysphoria which becomes worse over time as a result of this repression. However, some do develop a gender identity that matches their innate gender mainly because there is a cycle of positive feedback when someone trans starts taking actions towards transitioning. A child tries on clothes and feels a sense of euphoria as a result of the purging of gender dysphoria and the feeling of wholeness brought on by the action. But to be gender non conforming you need to be able to cope with the shame and discomfort caused by the reactions of the people around you. If you are exposed to expressions of your innate gender at a young enough age and experiment, the gender non conforming behavior will often be more tolerated by parents and the lack of awareness that the child has for how he or she is being perceived can help break the needed gender barriers. In contrast to this, later on in life, the shame can be too overwhelming and as a result the child escapes and puts on the mask expected of them by society.

It's been proven that the difference inherent in the minds of those who are trans are not psychological but biological in nature. Something about the brain structure and responses to different stimuli is incompatible with the body at birth. I wrote a bit about how it feels elsewhere, so I'll copy it:

"What does it mean to be female to me. Men are enigmas to me, they feel foreign and hard to understand, their reactions feel somewhat off and it all just feels wrong to me. On the other hand, there is a feeling of belonging when I am around women, as if I can see through their eyes, their reactions feel familiar and I understand them. It's as if there is a wide uncrossable chasm separating me from men and women are on my side of the chasm. I feel it in their writing and in their patterns of thinking when I talk to them. I can trust my instincts around them and I can't say the same in reference to men. Yet I still identify as male/genderless because I grew up as male and my entire life I believed that I was male, however I always felt as if I was somehow blind around my peers. I never really understood what was going on around me because it all felt weird and all I could do was try to observe and mimic the actions of others."

In other words, I feel as if I am female deep down but my gender identity is nonetheless not female. I'm certain I am trans because I suffer from fairly bad gender and body dysphoria and have had it for most of my life and it has grown over the years. I also feel the sense of euphoria and peace when I take a step towards transitioning.

As it stands, the transitioning protocol is not only designed to change the body of someone who is transitioning, it also includes steps to insure that the gender identity of the person also changes by including therapy and a requirement to live as a woman for a specific period of time. This might be an unintentional side effect of the steps in question but it is extremely important. A person will not feel as if they are the right gender if they change their body without changing their identity. They will notice all the imperfections of their new body and reject the change. They will also still have severe gender dysphoria as a result. What makes the use of gender identity as a marker for being trans so problematic is that someone who is trans might assume that their innate gender automatically means that they have the appropriate gender identity and as such they don't realize that they need to go through a major psychological change as part of the process of transitioning. Once the physical transition is over, the person is left in a state of despair as they can't understand why they are still lost and confused despite the physical changes that they went through. They assume that they made a mistake and that they shouldn't have transitioned in the first place.

I hope you found this interesting and that I didn't accidentally insult or hurt anyone by writing this. I'm interested to hear the views of others about this. Keep in mind, that I'm still at the start of the process and as such my logic might be flawed in some ways. My understanding of what innate gender means is slowly growing and I'm sure that in time I will learn a bit more about this feeling deep inside that I am really female. I would love to hear other people's views of what innate gender really is.

 

I'll try to explain in more detail how everything works.

It is important to understand that gender dysphoria is as a result of your mind rejecting your body and gender. The rejection takes the form of negative neurological feedback that is designed to make it clear to the conscious mind that there is an incompatibility between a person's body/gender identity and their innate gender. Now, think of our body and mind as the product of a huge amount of organisms that must synergistically work together for our us to live a normal life. For them to do this, there must be some sort of blueprint that guides their actions telling them what to do when they receive specific feedback from other cells or electrical feedback. Chromosomes (DNA and RNA) are considered to be such a blueprint. Gender must be encoded in some way into this blueprint and the innate gender is an activation of certain sections of the code which lets our cells know how to construct our mind to accommodate the expected body after the maturation process is complete and the baby is born. However, when it comes time to decide the gender of our body, something happens and our body develops differently than expected. However, by the time the mistake was recognized all the systems are already in place to accommodate our innate gender.

There is only a limit to how much can be encoded into our DNA and our cells must constantly respond to outside feedback, use memories/ schemata and work together to navigate the world. Behind the scenes our DNA gives us the basic tools to do so. Our DNA also allows us to predict how other people will behave under certain circumstances and we take both other people's gender and our own into consideration when choosing what path we will take. So someone who has an innate gender which is male or female, will respond to people who are male or female differently. Here things become a bit more complicated, our own responses to others take into consideration our own innate gender and other people's perceived gender according to neural feedback, it also takes into consideration how others will perceive and react to us according to their own blueprints. We can naturally assume that others have the same blueprint of gender as we have and as such find it much easier to understand how they will react on the most basic level. For example know that a person will respond in a certain way to certain pheromones depending on the gender.

Now, this is communication on the most basic level and mainly helps us to interact using unconscious signals. Language is something learned and is separate from this process. Communication helps us create new blueprints that also take into consideration the world in which we are born to. Out of patterns in our memories we able to form complex schemata that give us additional tools through which we can predict other people's behavior and respond in an appropriate manner. The schemata change over time as we learn what works and what doesn't. So for example a child will touch something hot and receive pain feedback, this becomes a memory and a very basic schemata can be formed out of it that tells us that if something is hot we should not touch it because if we do we will hurt ourselves. If someone communicates this idea to us, it will be easier for us to figure out that heat = pain and our corresponding schema will be strengthened as a result.

Gender identity is a set of schemata that we construct out of outside feedback concerning our gender. It tells us how to react and predict the behavior of others of a similar or different gender. As I mentioned schemata are formed not only from personal experiences but also from linguistic and other forms of communication. The problem is that as transgender, the outside feedback that we receive will often not matchup with our own experiences. Everyone around us expect us to have an innate gender that is compatible with our body and they guide us accordingly. Yet when we follow their instructions, things go wrong as the advice often takes into consideration our inherent coded response to feedback that is dictated by our innate gender.

As time passes we learn that we can predict the behavior of people with a gender similar to our innate gender better. Their mind works the same as our own and we identify with their unconscious signals recognizing that we use the same signals when we interact with others. On the other hand, when we try to do the same with people of the same sex, we feel blind and disconnected. Furthermore, when we emulate their behavior there is no longer a discrepancy between what we expect to happen to what actually happens. Here begins an inner conflict that eventually becomes gender dysphoria. Do we follow the guidance of others or do we follow our instincts? This inner conflict creates a sense of growing discomfort that grows over time and this constant tension eventually leads to a rejection of our body by our mind as a means of defending itself from the anxiety, discomfort and stress. This disconnect allows us to ignore our instincts and act only according to learned schemata. For this to work, we need to become very good at predicting other people's behavior and adjusting to navigating the world without having the ability to access the tools that our innate gender gives us. Unfortunately, like someone blind trying to walk on an unfamiliar path, we are constantly bumping into obstacles that leaves us with a sense of dysphoria and hopelessness. This destabilizes our identity as we struggle to use some of the gender specific schemata we have learned without having access the use of the tools our innate gender was supposed to give us.

Not having a stable identity makes it much harder to connect with others as our behavior becomes unpredictable. Any form of relationship depends on us learning other people's patterns of behavior and learning to act in synergy with them and we just can't do that as our identity is constantly destabilized because of our innate gender being wrong and the gender dysphoria.

When we decide to transition, we accept the fact that our innate gender and our body don't align. The first stage is to get rid of the gender specific schemata that we have accumulated over the years. These schemata are usually an important part of our identities and as such losing them means a traumatic fragmentation of our identity. We lose part of the connection that we have to the world around us and the result is a feeling of deep depression and loss. This can take time and ideally the process of deconstruction is facilitated by therapy that helps us fill in the gaps left in our identity through the act of introspection. Once we start to transition, we start filling in the gaps by constructing new schemata of the gender we are transitioning towards. This happens by observing other people's behavior, therapy and the experience of presenting as your new self. (With this in mind you should probably find a gender therapist of the sex you are transitioning towards.)

The problem is that without the process of loss which can be extremely hard to cope with, the transition will most likely fail. If you continue seeing yourself as male and continue responding to others using male specific schemata, the physical changes will just make the whole situation more confusing as others will start to respond to you according to your new gender and the old schemata will stop being effective. However, often, especially if you transition at a younger age, it can be extremely hard to understand that transitioning is not only about changing your body. That even if you identify to an extent as female before transitioning, you have undoubtedly still formed a large amount of schemata that are connected to having a male body.

I hope I made everything a bit more clear and that you found this interesting. Thank you for your responses! (I haven't had the chance yet to read the newer responses as I've been writing this for hours and I'm exhausted but I will do so later on.)

(&&&)

Yael

 

I suspect that crossdressers are simply gender fluid people with a strong male gender identity. Thus they identify as male but have an innate gender that allows them to see the world through the eyes of both female and male. Going back to the idea of activation of specific dna sequences to decide the innate gender, gender fluidity is simply the activation of both male and female innate genders in a single person. On the other hand, agender and other genderless identities mean that no innate gender blueprint is activated - this is one of the reasons that someone genderless will often feel gender dysphoria if they try to identify as any gender. On the other hand, someone who is genderfluid will very rarely feel dysphoria however will feel pleasure in expressing both sides of themselves.

Detransitioning is usually as a result of someone transitioning physically but not psychologically. As I mentioned such a transition can do more harm than good. However, if a person really is trans, it would be much better for them to realize that they can solve the problem through therapy and introsection. That tgey need to accept the fact that they have to accept the traumatic loss of their male identity to complete the process of transitioning and that the construction of a stable female identity can take time.

One thing to keep in mind is that someone who is genderfluid might believe that they are trans and make the choice to transition. They will also be perfectly fine with making the changes to their body to a certain extent and migh even find it freeinh. However, the cost of these changes can be extremely high and eventually they realize that they made a mistake and choose to detransition. In such cases detransitioning is definitely the correct choice. I suspect that someone gender fluid will only choose to transition if they have body image problems or have suffered some sort of traumatic loss that has left their identity unstable. Alternatively parents can make the mistake of encouraginv a genderfluid child to transition before they had the chance to create a stable gender identity which usually only happens during puberty.

---------- Post added 21st Jun 2015 at 08:34 PM ----------

Innate gender is pretty much a set of gender specific instincts and celluar responses that happen mostly unconsciously, gender identity refers to gender specific behavioral patterns that are acquired over a person's life that help a person navigate the world around them and connect to other people.

 

It's important to understand that the sense of loss and depression that you feel are a natural part of the trsnsitioning and can technically be considered a good sign as they mean that you are in the process of deconstructing your old identity to make way for the new one. Think of it in a similar manner as having fever, you need to learn to disconnect for a while (reduce the temprature) if things become too hard to cope and you feel as if you are sinking too low. A therapist is like going to a doctor, they help you see if you are in danger and help you cope with the symptoms. In general, you need to be patient, it can take a long time to construct a stable identity and learn the gender specific schemata needed to navigate the world. You are pretty much going through a second childhood and going through puberty is hard for everyone; it's fairly common for teenagers to feel socially isolated and go through depression as a result of struggling to construct a stable identity during that period.

 

Just to be clear, from my experience there are two types of depression, depression caused by trauma and clinical depression. The most important thing to understand is that trauma causes fragmentation of identity as the object of loss is also a part of your own identity and that part becomes unstable and shatters as a result. Treating this is actually much easier than clinical depression as you just need to fill in the gaps with new experiences or expand on other parts of your identity through introspection.

Clinical depression is a bit more complicated because you can only treat it through recognizing negative patterns of thinking and learning to make them more positive. Therapy and drugs are really the only way to do this because you need an outside observer to help you see the world through new eyes.

It is very dangerous to leave clinical depression untreated and if you are unsure of what type of depression you are going through, please go to a psychiatrist. Traumatic depression is a natural side effect caused by trying to come to terms with any form of trauma. Unfortunately, the loss of our old gender identity is traumatic and can only happen through gender dysphoria so severe that it fragments and destabilizes our old identity. That's why we often feel as if our dysphoria is amplified as a result of coming to terms with transitioning.

This period is very dangerous and you are extremely vulnerable until you are abld to start constructing new identity. Be aware of how dangerous this period is and if you start feeling suicidal do everything you can to disconnect, play video games, watch tv or any other activity that helps you numb your mind. Talking with others can also be really helpful. Don't let those thought simmer under thd surface for too long and allow yourself to sink into a state where you might take action.

You are never alone and if you need to talk to someone there is always someone here who will listen and be there for you if you need them,

(*hug*)

Yael

 

One other thing, all of what I wrote here is just a theory that I came up with that makes logical sense to me. It is based on my own experiences, stories I read and my knowledge of how the brain work. As the subject of gender is so new, we are often faced with a large amount of uncertainty when trying to understand where we fit in genderwise. My hope is that I will help someone understand themselves better and feel more at ease with the journey they must go through. If you feel uncomfortable with anytging I said pleaze take it as nothing more than a theory...

Thank you for your responses so far, they really helped me understand everything a bit better...

(*hug*)

Yael

---------- Post added 21st Jun 2015 at 10:25 PM ----------

You have my sincerest apology.

As I see it, gender dysphoria can be avoided by transitioning at an early enough stage in your life. Dyspuoria can manifest in a large amount of ways and some of them are simply a feeling that something is just wrong with your body. When I say trans I refer to being binary, saying that there is no difference between someone who is trans male/female and someone who is genderfluid can be seen as just as insulting to someone who is genderfluid. I might not fully understand crossdressing and you are right in criticising me for including them under the genderfluid catagory, just to be clear, this was not in any way an attempt to look dosn on being gendefluid. Personally I see genderfluidity as much more than a gender identity, I see it as innate.

Alexander, if I'm correct with my theory concerning gender identity and innate gender. You will be perfectly happy after completing the transition that you want to go through. Being genderfluid gives you the freedom to live as both genders and if you feel a stronger connection to being male than nothing is stopping yoh from transitioning. You can always detransition if you change your mind later on.

 

Thinking about it, I realize that I should know better than to mention crossdressing as part of any form of discussion of gender. You are right to note that people crossdress for a multitude of reasons and it is obvious that crossdressing is not an indicator that you are of a specific gender or not cis. I hope I didn't hurt anyone else with the insensitive remark, sorry again for the mistake... It can be hard to make sense of everything and I should have been more careful about avoiding writing something that might be insulting or hurtful.

 

I would still like to figure out how gender fluidity works just because I feel that there is a connection between being gender fluid and being trans. By trans I always mean binary: trans man or woman.

I thought about it a bit more and realized that I was wrong to conclude that gender fluidity necessarily means a lower amount of gender dysphoria. I realize now that when both of the innate genders are activated, it doesn't create some sort of perfectly fluid person that can seemingly connect flawlessly with both genders. Instead it creates a unique mental structure that is some combination of both of the genders. I think I will return to DNA to explain this. Lets say that typically the gender code consists of a certain pattern of letters that is unique for each gender. Each group of letters represents some sort of gender specific instinct or cellular response. What if someone gender fluid has only fraction of these gender specific instincts activated? However, these instincts are taken from both male and female Chromosomal sequences. At this point, I would like to point out that I have a very limited understanding of genetics and DNA, I studied biology in university 15 years or so ago and my memory is fuzzy. I will try to read a bit about it so I can explain this more accurately.

This would mean that someone gender fluid might feel a stronger connection to one gender over the other if they have a larger amount of sequences activated of that gender. It also means that they would find it much harder to create a stable identity as a result of having a unique brain structure that supports a limited amount of gender specific schematic patterns of behavior. While they might feel connected to both genders equally, the connection is probably not as strong as that felt by someone who is cisgender. The real problem is that they might feel gender dysphoria which is fairly hard to deal with.

I'll end it here for now as I'm tired and am struggling to concentrate.