That Trans thing Part 2...The physical and psychological

Hello, and welcome to a Sunny Saturday morning in the North east of England. A few doors down the lawns are being cut, and the sky is a clear blue with no clouds, the recent major thunder and lightning storm having cleared the air somewhat.

I'm sat at my desk a little like a modern day Bilbo Baggins, wondering where to begin then the idea struck me....So with apologies  to J.R.R Tolkien ..

"Concerning Trans...."

Today I thought I'd revisit a subject I wrote about last week, that of me being a Trans gendered person, what that all kinda means and where it all fits, or doesn't, in the wider picture of the big bad world.

For those that missed the first bit...you can find it Here

All caught up? Ok.. so admittedly it was a loooong lunch...(days would be a stretch even for a Politician) So onto the next aspects of what it is to "Be Trans" in my view, which is of course open to as much question, analysis and disagreement as is anyone's on the planet.

So we've covered some of the terminology and the sociological challenges of trans, but what of the physical, psychological and legal stuff? I'm going to look at the first two of these together as to try and separate one from the other in terms of their explanations is potentially confusing.


Physical/Psychological

Every human has a physical presence. Our bodies are our own, we walk this earth with them and inside them and generally pay them little heed save the usual things of "does this hurt, or do i need food" on a daily basis. "Activities of daily living" if you will.

But what "are" bodies? we humans like to believe through multiple methods of expression we call spirituality or religion that we are more than the sum of our parts. Is this the case? Or are we simply that of which we are made?

The physicality of our being could be described as something akin to a vehicle. It's that which carries the "soul" "essence" or "chi" ..our life force inside it and thus allows us to move around the world. Our essence is not however indefinitely tied to our physical being, since when we die the body physically remains... (unless you're lucky enough to be Yoda and live until you're 900....) however the essence  of "the person" has left.

So what are we?

This of course is an almost unanswerable question. Almost. We are self aware beings. That is, we have a concept of self, and with it imagination. learning, memory.  I quite like the concept that Dr Wayne Dyer used in one of  his lectures.

"Human beings are not physical beings having a spiritual experience. Rather they're spiritual beings having a human experience" 

Now, a belief in God, a specific religion or even an intelligent power of creation is not absolutely necessary for this to make some level of sense. As I've mentioned we all die. the body remains yet our essence doesn't. Therefore what makes us "live" and what defines "life" cannot be wholly physical.

Or is it?

"Ok Sarah.. so what on earth has this got to do with Trans stuff....??"

Fair enough. Trans theory, as it is broadly understood today has a few underpinning concepts. (Note I'm not going to go into the morality of each as that would be a bit wordy and an off topic 'mission creep" If you guys are interested in some thoughts on that let me know i'll do a piece on it later..??)

Gender and sex are not the same thing.
Gender can be thought of as a sociological construct.
Gender presentation as a societal construct is inherently fluid, and does not imbue "trans" on a person. (i.e its not about the clothes)
Physicality/anatomy can explain some elements of the trans phenomenon.
Biology of sex and chromosomal mapping of "gender" as a result is as yet not fully understood. (we thought we had it down but perhaps not, as it's bound by years of sociological or cultural baggage), there being more than the XY or XX sex genome.

What we actually have underneath all this "concept stuff" is a cause/effect argument. Similar in its eternal presence to the nature/nurture argument.

Trans people "feel" different to Cis people specifically in regards to their "gender". The questions therefore are "why?" and what is "feeling" anyways?

As to why, some may say: "Because they're nuts..  if you're walking round in a body that has male anatomy then you're a male"

Are we? or are we just walking round in that body? We were all once walking round in a 2yr old body...then 3,4 12, 16 ...22..80, 90...all of which are different. An old woman was once a young girl. Same spirit walking round in different bodies. "Ageing"as a concept and agent of change is well established in society, and is not questioned.

Scientifically we know a little about developmental changes in the womb, the complex and ever changing hormonal and biochemical soup that is the creation of another human being has incalculable levels of complexity. The randomness of these gives rise to many things. Twins for example. Some are identical, resulting from the separation of one fertilisation process into two developing embryo. Some are not, which in mixed race couples can give rise to a double implantation pregnancy resulting in two babies of different skin colour to the same parents. Some babies have black hair some blue eyes, some even have one eye a different colour to the other. Some result in "downs syndrome", or maybe lack of something like a limb, or eyes or differences in the internal organs, Dextrocardia for example where the heart and in some cases all internal organs are on the opposite side to what is more commonly seen.

Notice I have not said that any of these are "abnormal" or "defects". To do so would infer a preference on each outcome. Society does that. It ascribes somewhat arbitrary values to certain in utero changes being desirable or otherwise. Recently a woman in America gave birth to a healthy baby girl. The baby had black skin, a genetically generated trait from her parentage, and was otherwise healthy. A happy occurrence yes? Not so, as this was a IVF baby and the mother was a white middle american woman. She specifically requested from the IVF clinic a white baby. What she got was a perfectly healthy human being and society defined that babies colour as a pathology or "fault" thus abnormal due to the nature of its conception. (Theres a whole heap of other sociological unpicking in this morality tale but lets leave that for another time)

So my point is changes in utero happen. There is no morality in biochemical interaction and the cellular division that occurs. There is only replication, growth and evolution. It just happens.

Now to bring it back to trans stuff. What we know of development in utero regards genetic or anatomical sex is that the most common outcome is a person with one complete set of reproductive organs, of one particular type. Known broadly as male or female anatomy. What we are also now beginning to see are that there are concurrent related (?) developments that aren't so outwardly obvious in terms of the brain's development.

Consider Androgen insensitivity syndrome. Androgen for those that don't know is the method by which it is thought a foetus develops what we know of as a traditional male anatomy.

A brief explanation of AIS

Triggered by the chromosomal genetical material broadly understood at this time to be XY for male, Androgens when released result in the further development of the male anatomy. If the Androgen does not have any effect or is reduced/absent then we get variations from the "complete set of reproductive organs"  and see outcomes such as a person who is entirely visually female in anatomy with internal male testes and XY chromosomes. The salient point is those variations are in themselves variable, with mild AIS being a possible outcome, some people being perceived as male and others not. etc.

(ya might wanna get a cuppa and re read that .. its a bit heavy if  you're not familiar with all the biological stuff.)

Soooo.... consider the brain. The physicality that is most linked to that thing we call our "chi" or "soul" The physical link between "who we are" and "what we are made of"

There's been interesting work done recently that has opened the door to brain anatomy being affected in a similar way along the path of a developing baby

Study on trans brains

Dr Robert Sapolsky gave a few lectures in 2015. Here's a clip ..

The full lectures are available on youtube, and if you want to follow Dr Robert, I heartily recommend a look up. 

So what am I trying to say here? Well in essence theres some scientifically sound evidentiary stuff coming forward that seems to indicate that anatomical development of the body does not always follow a set male/female dichotomy, and that the development of the brain and brain chemistry is subject to this in a similar way to the rest of our physical body. It presents an explanation in the physical sense for "how" trans people come to be here. 

That brings us to the second question....(yeah remember that?..twas a while ago) 

What is "feeling" 

Depression is currently understood to be resulting from chemical imbalance and interactions in the brain chemistry. Similarly with elation, sadness, love, attraction etc. All of which points to us humans being more "animal" than we care to admit on occasion, and subject to the same rules of evolutionary response that we seem as a species to fondly believe we are separated from.

"Feeling" is very different to "thinking" Thinking you are something you're not is cause for alarm and can be rightly treated as a delusional mindset. "feeling" as defined in the terms above and specifically  regarding brain chemistry is entirely different.

We get to choose our thoughts, which with practice, patience and application plus self awareness and strength of mind are great tools as we pass through this world. "Feelings" however are trickier little blighters. How many of you have fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have? Or felt anger/fear/excitement at the "wrong" time? Exactly.

Note I don't say "Belief" either. Belief is a thought borne of a feeling, or an unconscious mindset from years of social conditioning and an information source imbued with a perceived authority. (Just look at how many young kids support the same football team as their parent, or decide they don't like the dentist, black people, gays, exercise or tuna on on the same basis. )

Why do I make the distinction between feeling, belief and thought? Simple. For the longest time I myself refused to entertain the thought that I may be trans. My belief systems didn't allow for that outcome. I do however have an insatiably curious mind and I like to learn, to ask questions and figure stuff out. In doing so I discovered that I deconstructed much of my own arguments and thus had to change my own world view, both internally and externally.  It took a wee while. 41 yrs to date and its still a work in progress but we are getting there. (wherever that is)

So I choose to change my world view in light of the new evidence, scientific, anecdotal, moral and emotional that I was presented with, and I chose to act on these feelings that I'd had for a very long time.

Physical changes are "relatively" simple to access, via endocrinological changes that will then alter my biochemistry, with results both visible and hidden. Psychological changes in mood etc may result, self image will change and to an extent i'll have to relearn how to interact with larger society with a different set of rules. Not those of a woman, since I have different life experience as alluded to in my last blog being a mid life transitonee. No, rather the rules for a trans person.

Those rules are still being figured out. Science may well give us the "how we get here" and go some way to explaining the method of our creation, but gives us little guidance on what we do with that info. What we do about it as a species, as groups, or individuals is down to us, our morals and societal values, thoughts and beliefs.

Thankfully being a self aware species we recognise often that the "chimp" to use  Dr Steve peters analogy, is a bad influence and the "human'  should be in control. Self restraint, sociological boundaries and self preservation serve to keep us all broadly moving in the same direction, that of progress for the good of all. (yeah I know we regularly stuff it  up.. go figure..) Are we at the mercy of our biochemistry or are we spiritual beings experiencing our biochemistry and living through it?

Choice. Thorny one that...

Trans people may not choose their anatomy and resultant physicality that leads them to be trans. But they choose how to deal with it, and in many cases that is irrevocablly linked to how society chooses to perceive both them and their choice of action or inaction. This scene in the matrix spoke to me years ago, therefore I was not surprised in the slightest to learn of Lana Wachowski's transition in recent years. Some people are wed to a system in which trans does not fit. Some people are not. some trans choose to act, some do not. We may be at the mercy of our biochemistry in some ways but choice is rather ironically the best hope we have for societal growth and the very reason its still needs to grow. 

We don't yet have all the answers, and that's perhaps a good thing. Sometimes it's ok to work towards an unseen unpredicted outcome, as our friend Neo did. Looking for the third option. The one it was said "didn't exist".

So are we the sum of our parts? Depends on how you feel and what you choose to believe when you think about it.

until next time, when we look at the legal stuff...

Stay #stubbornlyoptimistic

Sarah...