Sexual Identity

Do you think Sexual Identity is effected by the environment? Or strictly Nature?

 

Well i know for a fact i was born feeling like i do. My earliest childhood memories are from 5 years old. And ive always felt i was a girl from that age. I cannot see how any other outside factors could have affected me at such a young age. I do think it is a complex area, and some people dont start feeling confused about gender till later on in life. In those cases, other factors might come into play. But i am convinced i was born with the mind of a female trapped in a male body.

 

Thanks for your opinion

 

As stated in the other forum- I believe it is nature. I do think that environment can influence whether someone comes out as transgender, gay, lesbian, or bisexual... but ultimately, the tendency to feel that way IMO is genetic, inborn, biological. You can deny it left and right- it's still going to be there.

 

Completely biological.

I watched a documentary about something like this once. This couple had two kids, two boys. When they got one of them circumcised, the doctor fucked up and mostly castrated him. He suggested to the parents that sexual identity is learned and that a quick fix would be to finish the castration and raise him as a girl. (Fucked up, I know.) So, trusting their doctor blindly, they said ok. The doctor served as a therapist for the little "girl" up until teen years. From the beginning he began rejecting his gender role. As he got older he began to dress masculine and refused to be made up like a girl. The doctor consistently tried to change him and force him to accept his feminine identity, meanwhile writing a book about the neutrality of gender and his success with this patient. The book was published. The doctor even went as far as to see the two kids together and forced them to strip down, compare genitals, and even have physical contact. Finally the parents got fed up and told him he was a boy, which he knew all along. He fell right into boyhood easily, but the damage was already done. He got some reconstructive surgery, which helped some, and he even got married. But the experience fucked him up so bad he committed suicide.
I hope to God that doctor went to prison for a long LONG time.

 

I believe at first, it is nature, but that doesn't mean environment doesn't affect any of it.
My mother used to tell me that I never wanted to do anything girly and the only thing I have that was considered girly back then can really go either way now. My earliest memories are from when I was about 3-ish. I never wanted to wear a dress and never wanted anything to do with girls, really.

but, as I got older, I identified with my cousins a lot more and wanted to do things they did. After a while, I think my younger (female) cousin was influenced by my speaking about which girl I thought was cute or hearing about girls I was dating when I was younger. And our other younger cousin after that.

But, they're still young and maybe they'll grow out of it. Then again, that's what my mom always said about me, so.. it could really go either way.

 

sounds like an episode of SVU I saw one time, but ending with suicide.

 

It could very well be a sick joke from a heartless god, or a cruel trick of nature. Don't know exactly, but I know it's not solely from your parents or your surroundings. That's a ridiculous thought, learned gender.

 

I watched that documentary in psychology class. Its very interesting, and yes they based an episode of SVU on that case.

 

oilymoily, "gender" is, by definition, a learned behavior. it is a social construct with no real bearing on the biological sex of a person. people tend to assume sex and gender are the same thing, but there is a difference (just to clarify).

Coconut Bank, that documentary sounds incredibly fascinating (if you could maybe send me a link or point me in a direction to find out more about it, i would be greatly appreciative).

 

yea man I know sex and gender are two different things. I think gender is inborn-- male or female, and not even the behaviours, just your perception of who you are. I don't know if sex is learned or not, I think we're all naturally horny. dunno if I formulated the last comment well, I have a hard time explaining my thoughts in english right now, but... still, I know what I think

 

lostandsafe i tried for nearly 33 years to be male, yet i was born one, but all i did was fool myself into a 33 long year nightmare of self denial and the only person i fooled was myself.

so for me gender could not be learned its completely biological.

 

oilymoily, i'm not sure we're on the same wavelength as far as how we define "sex" and "gender".

just to clarify, when I use the terms, I mean:
sex=male and female
gender=masculine and feminine, or man and woman
i know it just seems like a million ways of saying the same thing, but there is a difference. your biological sex involves the physical attributes that differentiate a male and female. your gender constitutes the "inherent" behaviors that differentiate a man and a woman (ie, men like sports, women like clothes). which is precisely my problem. As far as I know, there is nothing biological that dictates that females are fashion savvy and males like sports. it just so happens that those have become societal norms. and generally, we see so much of it we accept it as inherently true, but is that really correct? the gender distinction is just a useless, confusing thing to me. they're just words, tiny cages into which we're supposed to be obediently climb. and i think people mistaken that for biology.

 

I'm a man and I like clothes.
I like sports too, so I guess it evens itself out.

 

hm... I use those terms exactly the opposite. that's where you got me confused. I don't believe in gender specific behaviour... or sex specific? I don't believe that only women can be nurturing and gentle, and only men can think logically, or that only women cry and only men have sex drives. is that roughly what you're saying?

 

haha i'm sorry to be so confusing, oilymoily. But yes, I think we're on the same page now. Gender/sex specific behavior is based on nothing. I hate that the terms (gender and sex) are widely used interchangeably, because there are subtle but vital differences in how they're defined. for this reason its easy just to give up and accept them as the same thing, which in the long run only makes people feel worse about their own identity.

Think of it this way: gender is a purely social distinction. what if we eliminated that distinction? how can you discriminate against something that is not labeled as "different"? without gender distinction, transgenderism would also not exist, which would mean people would not be subject to abuse and social rejection. people could just be who they want to be, dress as the want to dress, behave as they want to behave, without fear of being singled out. how fantastic would that be?

 

cool i like the sound of that.

 

that would be cool.. but does it make me if I still want a penis after all of that?

penis obsessed?

 

i was thinking that would one still want to change, more than likely, but at least people would let you with no fear.

you can have my penis its a 6 incher.

 

you can have my vagina, I don't know the dimensions but I think it works like a normal one. let's just trade, yeah?