Queer Biology and Transgender Origins

What makes people gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender?

The secret is in the sauce...

1) Biology of being born queer

Where do queers come from? Well, during pregnancy, there are key phases of brain development of the foetus. In one of these phases, sexual preference is set. In another phase, sexual identity is set. You can think of these like toggle switches, that can be set to the left side, the right side, or anywhere in between. Brain sex can be set to male, female, or anywhere in between. Sexual preference can be set to the female norm (attracted to males), to the male norm (attracted to females), or anywhere in between, creating a bisexual. In truth, very few people are completely on one side or the other of sexual preference (see the Kinsey Report on that), but most have the toggle set somewhere on the side of their genetic sex, to at least prefer the opposite sex. Most of us are bisexual to at least a small degree.

2) Making babies male or female

So let's imagine a situation where the mother's egg is fertilized by a sperm. Just as a reminder, women have two X chromosomes, and men have an X and a Y. Therefore, eggs always have an X chromosome. The sperm can have an X or a Y from the father, and which sperm gets in first determines the genetic sex of the baby. Let's say it's a Y chromosome sperm that gets in, that means it's genetically going to be a "boy". But things aren't that simple...

3) Setting the brain sex

During the phase of development of the foetus where brain sex is set, for gender identity, let's assume there's a massive amount of estrogen is released into the uterus by the mother. This will create a female brain in the foetus, with more grey matter, and a more extensive corpus callosum (the part that connects the two sides of the brain so they work more together). If the mother's body had released testosterone instead, there would have been less grey matter, and more white matter, and a smaller corpus callosum (which means each side of the brain works in a more independent manner), thus creating a male brain.

If for some reason there is a mix of estrogens and testosterone in the womb at this time, the person will be a transvestite, with a brain somewhere in between male and female. The more female it is, the greater the need to express their feminine side. If the brain sex of a male is only slightly feminized, then they will only need occasional expression of their feminine side. There is no clear-cut way to determine how feminine the brain has to be before the person goes from the transvestite to the transsexual category.

So you have a female brain and a male body

Someone who grows up in a genetically male body with a female brain will suffer from Gender Identity Disorder (GID), formerly known as Gender Dysphoria, because their brain sex does not match their body sex. They won't feel comfortable in their body, because it doesn't match who they are in their mind, and they will want to act like the sex that matches their brain, even if their body is the opposite sex from the way they feel. They have a girl brain, and yet they're being told to act like a boy. This confuses them, and though they try to please the people around them, it's very much a sad game of having to pretend to be something they're not. It's very difficult to act all the time like something you're not, and because this causes internal conflicts, they often end up with very low self esteem. No matter how hard they try, they just can't seem to think and feel and act like the sex people tell them they're supposed to be. So they feel ashamed of themselves, and feel guilty about disappointing the people they love.

What about females with male brains?

Genetic females born with male brains have the same kinds of problems. However, western society currently tolerates girls who act and dress like boys, while it completely shames and punishes boys who act and dress like girls. Women can wear pretty masculine pants to work, but men cannot wear dresses to work without risking being fired. So societal norms make it somewhat easier for females with male brains. This doesn't mean they don't suffer too. It just means the suffering is more internal, and unless they start having facial hair, masculinity will generally be tolerated by others. In fact, acting like a man is generally considered the best way for a woman to rise to positions of authority in a workplace. That's because male behavior is considered "superior" by our society's norms. But just because lots of people believe it doesn't mean it's true (do your own reading on feminism and patriarchal values... it's beyond the scope of this article).

4) Setting sexual preference

At another point during pregnancy, sexual preference is set, depending on which hormones the mother's body is sending into the uterus. So if we continue with our genetic male child (XY) who has a female brain, and the mother's body keeps sending estrogens into the womb, then the sexual preference will be set to the female norm, meaning the child will be attracted to men. What generally happens in the case of a child that grows up trying to be a man is that they get married, have children, but in order to get aroused enough for intercourse, they have to fantasize that they are the woman being penetrated, and that their wife is the man. Otherwise, they just can't get enough of an erection for intercourse. If they at some point realize this and get a sex change, then they will have a female body, a female brain, and a female norm sexual preference, being attracted to males. For all intents and purposes, they become a straight female, and everything in them is in harmony.

If however the estrogen level drops during the time of setting sexual preference, they will be bisexual. And if it switches to androgens, then they will have a male norm sexual preference. If those get a sex change, they are then lesbians.

It seems to be much more common for sexual preference to be reversed than for brain sex to be reversed. Hence, there are more lesbians and gays than there are transgenders, though this may be simply a matter of transgenders hiding more than homosexuals do at this time.

So if a genetic female (XX) gets androgens in the womb at this time of gestation, she'll grow up to be a lesbian.
If a genetic male (XY) gets estrogens in the womb at this time of gestation, he'll grow up to be gay.

There is probably some amount of brain sex change as well, in a number of gays and lesbians, which would explain why many gays are very feminine, and many lesbians are quite masculine. But it's apparently not sufficient for them to want a sex change, so this amount of brain sex change is probably of the same order as the one that produces transvestites in straight males.

5) Intersex conditions

Things are now almost simple! The person has a genetic sex determined by whether the sperm brings an X (female) or Y (male) chromosome into the mix. Then shifting hormones in the womb set the toggles for brain sex (gender) to male or female, and then sexual preference at another point. Three variables, and many combinations. Simple, right?

Well, there's another thing to consider, which is intersex conditions. Those are rarer, but they do occur. The most common is AIS, where the person is genetically male (XY), but their body doesn't respond to androgens such as testosterone. They are born looking completely female, and grow up thinking they are female, until puberty when they never start menstruating, because they have no ovaries and no uterus. They are generally tall attractive women, and according to rumors, a number of the supermodels are AIS. Jamie Lee Curtis is also believed to be AIS. And there's even a theory that Joan of Arc, who never menstruated, was also AIS.

Summary of intersex conditions

Appears female:
-Turner Syndrome: XO, one missing X chromosome, hereditary mutation
-Swyer Syndrome: XY born without testicles
-Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS): XY, male but appearing completely female, including the genitalia. Has no uterus or ovaries, and is sterile. The body has no receptors for androgens such as testosterone, so it only responds to estrogens. Even injecting testosterone would have no masculinizing effects. There is also partial AIS, which produces ambiguous genitalia (See picture below on the left)

Appears male:
-Klinefelter Syndrome: XXY, small testes, infertile, may not masculinize at puberty and may develop small breasts, from getting more than one sex chromosome from father or mother)

Ambiguous genitalia (from “female with very large clitoris” to “male with small penis and no testes or undescended testes”):
-Progestin Induced Virilization: XX, caused by medications taken by the mother
-Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome: XY,“ambiguous genitalia” , hereditary mutation.
-Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH): the adrenals of the foetus secrete too much androgens during pregnancy (these are steroids that act like testosterone). In female (XX) children, this can lead from ambiguous genitalia to fully male genitalia. (See picture below on the right)
-Ovo-testes (formerly called "true hermaphroditism"): Ovotestes are gonads (sex glands) containing both ovarian and testicular tissue. The genitalia may appear male or female or in between, and the person may look male or female.

XY Genetically Male subject with AIS (Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome)

XX Genetically female subject with CAH (Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia)

 

 

You can see a very cool interactive animation on how boys and girls develop in the womb. Click on "Conditions" to see how various intersex conditions develop. And you can find out more about intersex conditions here.

6) Why are the wrong hormones in the womb?

We've discussed how the mother's body sometimes sends estrogen to a male child, or testosterone to a female child, instead of the normal process which fills the womb with estrogen for girls and testosterone for boys. But we haven't discussed WHY this happens. There are two answers I know of. There are probably more.

1) What the mother ingests

Estrogens:

A lot of what we eat and drink contains estrogens. Livestock is generally pumped up with estrogen and/or progesterone. It makes the cows produce more milk. Beef, pork and chicken contain the estrogens they gave the livestock to make it get fatter faster. Think you're safe with veggies? Guess again. Many pesticides are what's called xeno-estrogens, which means while not being exactly like human estrogen, they show estrogenic activity ("xeno" means "strange or foreign", so xenoestrogen means "foreign estrogen"). DDT for instance, is a xenoestrogen. It's banned in the US, but that's kinda silly, because the US produces DDT, sells it to South America, and then imports the fruits and vegetables back from South America. Oh yes, and the United States are STILL the biggest producers of DDT in the world!

Many plastics and synthetics degrade into xenoestrogens, which get into the water system. Plastic containers that food is sold in, and even cellophane plastic all contribute to leaving xenoestrogens in the food we eat, especially when they are heated. Think about all that pure bottled water in the plastic containers, sitting in that metal delivery truck where temperatures inside the truck reach upwards of 160F degrees. Solvents and adhesives (as in fingernail polish and polish remover, glue, cleaning supplies), and emulsifiers found in soaps and cosmetics have those as well. In Brazil, the issue has reached the point where some cities are considering making a third bathroom mandatory for public establishments, and straight women are extremely aggressive in finding mates, because of the short supply of "males who stay male".

In men, this causes feminization, impotence, "beer breasts" (pseudo-gynecomastia), and reduces fertility. In women, these xenoestrogens can cause increased risks of cancer, and various reproductive system problems. It also makes girls mature faster because they're getting close to adult levels of estrogen throughout childhood. Transgenders may soon be more common than gays and lesbians in the western world.

Why isn't this in the news? The truth is, no one wants to hear it, much less believe it. Transgenderism just rocks people's worldview too much, so they prefer to ignore it. By the time they can't ignore it anymore, as in Brazil, it will be too late to do anything about it. Should be quite interesting.

As a side note, I've found many sites that strongly advise women to take natural progesterone to cancel out the effects of xenoestrogens.

Androgens:

I have not found any external source of androgens that could affect the foetus, other than the effects of progestin, taken by pregnant women to facilitate pregnancy. See Progestin Induced Virilization in Intersex Conditions.

Alcohol:

Alcohol is treated differently by men and women's bodies. The estrogen in women's bodies makes it so the alcohol is absorbed faster (getting drunk faster), and also slows down the breaking down of alcohol (staying drunk longer). But alcohol also has another effect.

When a woman drinks alcohol, it stimulates her estrogen production. Within 30 minutes of drinking, her estrogen level can jump up to 300% of normal. This is similar to the spurt of estrogen just prior to ovulation. One can wonder what effect regular drinking, or even alcoholism, can have on the foetus. I have not found any data so far correlating drinking of the mother during pregnancy, and the percentage of children that are gay or transgendered.

2) The mother's mental state

We know that mothers who are stressed during pregnancy usually have babies that are born earlier and underweight. But it seems that the mother's wishes can also influence hormone levels. If she really wants a girl, there will be a tendency to send estrogen into the womb, and if she really wants a boy, then androgens will tend to be sent. This can result in boyish girls or feminine boys. We can't completely discount upbringing, as some mothers do encourage feminine behaviors in boys, and masculine behaviors in girls. However, this isn't always the case, and while a mother may have wanted a girl, she can then disapprove of a feminine boy. This may be the reason for a number of gays, lesbians and transgenders, but there's no statistics on this that I've been able to find correlating queerness and the mother's drinking habits.

7) Xeno-Feminization & social factors

Xeno-feminization

First, let's define the term. Xeno-feminization is feminization caused by exposure to pseudo-estrogens found in the environment (called "xenoestrogens"). So far, we've covered the origins of transgenders, gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. But in every case described so far, they became this way BEFORE birth.

Males can be feminized by xenoestrogens as they grow up, and even during adulthood. We've discussed above the various sources of xenoestrogens. What we haven't mentioned is how they act. For one thing, a very small amount of these has been shown to have a much stronger effect than human estrogen does, up to a thousand times stronger.

Feminizing the Fishies
The experiment they did was the equivalent of putting a grain of sand's worth of xenoestrogen into an Olympic sized swimming pool filled with fish. And that was enough to raise the estrogen level of all the fish!

Being fat soluble & non-biodegradable, they are also much harder for the liver to break down and eliminate, so a single molecule can bind to an estrogen receptor, be released to be eliminated by the liver, but since the liver can't break it down, it goes back into the blood, only to bind again, be released, etc. a number of times before the body finally manages to break it down and eliminate it. This is called "reuptake". But wait, what else can the body do with it?

The Fat Solution
DDT, PCB's and some others "unbreakable" xenoestrogens get absorbed by fat cells, and stored there indefinitely. This is what the body does with any toxin it doesn't know how to eliminate, or can't eliminate fast enough. Your body tries to keep you safe from these toxins, and if necessary creates more fat cells to store them. Gee, I wonder why there's such a problem with people being overweight these days... Oh, and of course, if you start working at losing weight, then all the toxins get released into the bloodstream, which is, at the very least, quite uncomfortable.

Now, if the intake of these estrogens is constant, and they get absorbed faster than the body can eliminate them, you end up with a male who is estrogen dominant. This means that the estrogens totally change the body's normal hormonal balance, which creates a change in the male's physiology, emotional responses and thinking process. He grows breasts, and starts feeling and reacting more and more like a normal female. Men get erectile dysfunction (can't get it up), and the sperm count may go down to the point where reproducing is nearly impossible. How can this happen? Well, we're pretty sure something like this is happening in Brazil.

Those Brazilian Girls
Let's suppose Brazilian packing plants rinse the fruits and veggies that were coated in DDT (the pesticide) before they ship them into the US. That water goes down the drain, and into the water table of the area, so now, in addition to the hormones they get from eating meat (remembering that they're stored in the fatty tissues of animals as well), those living in the area of the packing plant get an extra dose every time they take a drink of water.

But that's far away. Let's take an example from a first world country. Long Island, near New York City, has one of the highest rates of breast cancer in the world (which is one of the effects of xenoestrogens on women). Some of the industrial waste was dumped in the Great South Bay there, and everyone assumed it would be diluted by the Atlantic Ocean. But what if some of it found its way back into the water table of Long Island? Don't think so?

Fishies Strike Back
Well, perhaps it just got into the plankton, which got eaten by the little fish. Say the little fish each eat 1 nanogram. Now, the bigger fish can eat lots of little fish, so they can end up with 100 nanograms. Then the people there eat a few of the big fishes every week... so they end up ingesting thousands of doses.

Even with a normal man with a normal male brain, this is bound to cause some changes...

Or how about another example, How many millions of women, have taken birth control pills containing the synthetic estrogen estrogen ethinyl-estradiol,? Considering it is non-biodegradable, where does it go when a woman urinates it out of her system? Or better yet, where do all the EXPIRED birth control pills get disposed of? It has been documented that millions of pounds of them have been dumped in waterways and land fills throughout Europe & North America over the years. Is there any doubt that these sources have made it through the water table back into the food chain?

I like to imagine at this point a TV preacher, condemning the sin of homosexuality to millions of viewers, as he reaches for another glass of water...

Social factors

A bunch of social factors have been said to cause homosexuality and gender identity disorder, most commonly incest and rape. That may be the case, I don't know. Personally, I think these factors only work on those with at least some amount of bisexuality, causing them to completely reject the opposite sex and become homosexuals, instead of the bisexuals they were born to be. Or, if they were gender dysphoric to some degree, they could reject their own sex even more and become transsexuals, whereas they would have only been transvestites without that trauma.

All I know is, if rape and incest caused homosexuality, there should be a lot more lesbians and gays on the streets than there are now. As the statistics go, the victims of rape and incest are mostly straight.

Another popular assumption is that if you raise a boy as a girl, they will conform and become a girl. Well, it's been tried. A doctor made a mistake during circumcision and burned off the testicle of a baby boy, part of a set of identical twins. So the parents decided, along with the doctor, to raise one as a girl and the other as a boy, after a bit of surgery to make the mutilated genitals look like a vagina.

The results? It didn't work. The "girl" was tomboyish, rebellious, and eventually learning the truth as an adult, changed back into a man. It's a sad story ending in suicide... they wrote books on this.

But these were amateurs, you may say. Can't a competent hypnotist "brainwash" a boy into a girl ? Or make a gay man straight and a straight man gay? Well, yes and no. For one thing, this kind of intentional conversion is far beyond what happens under normal circumstances, so while it's possible, it's not a meaningful cause for widespread queerness in the population (unless you want to imagine some kind of conspiracy with thousands of hypnotists doing this...).

Can sexual preference be changed by hypnosis? Yes and no. Let's assume Kinsey was right, and about 10% of the population is homosexual. My assumption is that a matching 10% of the population is actually straight. The rest are to some degree bisexual, with most of them being "mostly straight". Now, if someone is totally gay, or totally straight, I can't do anything about it. But if they're bisexual to some degree, then yes, hypnosis could flip them over to the other side. But only if for some reason they consented to it. I don't know of any way to do it without consent. Even classical brainwashing on prisoners of war, involving drugs and torture, relies on people "cooperating" in some way before they can be broken. There's just no way to go around that.

As to changing a boy into a girl, it's the same deal. If they are somewhat gender dysphoric, it can be amplified. But if they aren't there's really nothing that can be done. The only caveat to that is that estrogens taken intentionally, or unintentionally through the environment, would make them more open to feminization.

And that pretty much covers all the ways I know of that could possibly result in making people homosexual, bisexual or transgendered.

8) Resource articles (OFFSITE)

It's official, men really are the weaker sex

How pollution is feminizing animals and humans.

CBC video on Youtube: The Dissapearing male

How the male birthrate is declining.

Why Are Boys' Birth Rates Falling?

Effects of xeno-estrogens in the environment on birth rate.

Estrogens in the Environment

Effects of xeno-estrogens in the environment on health.

Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus

Scroll down for the text. It's a very technical article, and may be hard to read, but its Results section shows very clearly that male to female transsexuals have brains like those of women, which are clearly different from those of men, and that estrogen treatments or lack of estrogen makes no significant difference in the brain structure of adults. In other words, transsexuals are BORN that way.

The Intersex Society of North America

To learn more about the various intersex conditions.

TS Roadmap

The most complete source of information for tranwomen (male to female transsexuals).

AB Gender Support Groups

The most complete list of support groups across the world I know of. I can't stress enough how important it is to find others who understand you and support you in being transgender. You are not alone. Go make some local friends. Many of these groups also have support groups for significant others and families of transgenders. Your loved ones need people they can talk to about what they're going through too.

The Braeburn report

Okay, I just really really like this story, and it relates to our topic, about a world where there are super powered mutants. It features two statisticians of the Mutant Control Agency who are trying to figure out why there are more mutants who turn into women than the other way around when their powers manifest at puberty. The answer may be more devastating than anyone could ever have imagined. PG-13. Other Whateley Academy TG stories are well worth reading.

Bundle of Joy

Another story, this time on how parents deal with the birth of an intersex child. Very well done. G rated.

Afterword

This is the best information I have been able to find on the topic. If you find more information, please let me know.
I hope this is of help to you. And I give thanks to Dr. Natural for helping in the research and editing of this article.

Linda

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