Well, if it’s a social identity, then it’s disconnected from anything instrinsic in body, mind, or soul, but only arbitrary expectations encrusted in the psyche. Like the notion that pink is a girl’s color, or only men should wear bifurcated garments.
There’s nothing “instinctive” about
most of what we regard as “gendered behaviour”. There’s no particular reason why girls should prefer pink and boys blue, other than cultural tradition. Or that girls wear skirts and boys trousers. It’s a social construct.
Mostly. But there are some real, biologically determined typical behaviour patterns that are sexually dimorphic, boys tend to conform to one pattern, girls another. This can be unsubtle, such as the obvious differences in language ability and concentration on facial expressions that are observable from the age of a few months old, to more subtle but more pervasive effects on emotional response and even body image.
As an experiment,observe what happens when a newborn child is carried into a room containing a mixed group of men and women. If you observe closely, you’ll see the girls and young women in their late teens and early twenties immediately cluster around the child. Observe even more closely, and if the baby cries, you’ll see many of the women show signs of lactation. This is hard-wired, instinctive, nothing to do with culture or social mores. And those instincts are laid down in the first trimester of gestation, and later manifest in the physical structure of the lymbic nucleus.
As with all Intersex conditions, sometimes things go wrong, and the person concerned ends up with female, rather than feminine, instincts and emotions, but a male or mostly male body. They then develop a female gender identity as the result of unconscious observation of their own thoughts and feelings in comparison with others, but the cause of that is already pre-destined.
Such a woman, even if she doesn’t “feel” or act in a particularly female way, will have to constantly fight her instincts in order to conform to the male role she feels she has to play - or risk social sanction or even violence. Such a woman, if she transitions, can relax - even though she may not conform to traditional female norms…
Most transsexual women - about 4 in 5 - cross-dress to gain some psychological relief from their condition.
I never did. It would be like an alcoholic taking a first drink. I couldn’t even wear a pastel shirt.
I had a (mostly) male body, and so I tried to be the best man any woman could be. That meant never relaxing my vigilance, not for a second in 47 years.
A real man could wear a dress, or makeup, for Halloween or as a joke. I couldn’t. Not for a second, because if I did, I would have to transition, and my life would be in ruins. I couldn’t rush over to see a new baby, as other women could, and as my every instinct said I should be doing. Even walking, I had to use a male swagger, and be careful not to swing my hips as my instincts dictated I do.
…
I still have problems with back-fastening bras. And I have little clothes sense. But I do have girlfriends who advise me, and now if one tells me she’s going to marry her boyfriend and have a family, I can squeal with heartfelt joy. Yes, I know, undignified in a middle-aged woman, but I’m still going through puberty. 50 going on 16.
Just to complicate matters even further, if the instincts are affected, very often the body-image is too. Such women may have male peripherals, but they have female device-drivers. Having a male or mostly male body feels terribly wrong, perverse even. Even if they are asexual, even if they are lesbian (so could rationally be expected to see male genitalia and body as an advantage, as it allows a greater choice of partners), their brains just aren’t set up for it.
Surgery to approximately match body and brain cannot reasonably be called “cosmetic”. It gives greater functionality in all respects except one, and that one is very important: fertility.
There are degrees of discomfort though, and someone whose mind is rotting under the constant stress, who will likely suicide before age 20 and will certainly never be able to have any form of relationship in a cross-gendered role will never have children anyway. Those with a lesser degree, or stronger wills, and with a hypertrophied maternal instinct will sometimes overcome all barriers, even if intersex conditions mean they require surgical extraction of gametes, in order to have children. Even if it requires “doing the boy act”, pretending to be male, regardless of the stress.
Should such a woman suddenly become sterile though, as the result of her intersex condition, she will transition, immediately, no delay, no equivocation. Sometimes in months, and in the most extreme cases, weeks.
