and have done so for quite a long time. I first encountered them in the 80s when Jeanne showed them to me. Not just TG but also gay can be correlated with male birth order. Lesbianism and FTM-TG do not correlate to birth order in any of the studies I read about.

TG has also been correlated with certain infections during or before pregnanacy, though this is not as strong.

Another correlation has been seen with improperly triggered paternally-passed on genes in the mothers of TG males; that is, genes from the grandfather as expressed in the mother.

I don't have references for any of these things, sorry.

- Erin

I'm the second born child, with an older and younger brother. However, my mother miscarried between my older sibling and me. We used to smile after my gender situation became known, that my mother had been told by a psychic that she would have two boys and two girls, and I wonder if the lost baby would have been my elder sister.

It's also interesting that in phenotype, I am closer to my mother's build than my father, unlike my two brothers, who were much broader shouldered etc.

However, I suspect I probably take after the cat! 8)

I stopped looking for reasons as to why I am who I am, because it meant to me that I needed an excuse to be me. I make no excuses, I am who I am and knowing why isn't going to change anything.

As some gay people say, are they looking for a reason to effect a cure and does that mean it's a disease? I suspect all of these things are variants on the norm and as such deserve as much acceptance as those closer to the mid point of the bell curve.

Angharad.

I'm deeply suspicious of "biological" explanations of anything around gender and sexuality, since the fact that any particular condition might be a "disease" implies that there might also be a "cure."

Sexual identity and affiliation are particularly fraught, since it's impossible to determine what's "innate," what's sheer cussedness, and what might or ought to be amenable to change. If mothers "don't produce enough testosterone," which seems bogus, just off hand, since the testosterone that counts in foetal development comes from the foetus, why not give testosterone supplements to the pregnant mom, and thereby exterminate gay men, transsexuals, and the "effeminate" of all sorts? Oops! Pardon me, I meant "cure." And until that happy day, a genetic test might be devised so that a pregnant mother might be forewarned and spare her unborn child the pain and heartache of growing up "different," thereby acheiving the same end with far less trouble.

Back in the day, there was a saying (among women at least) that "Any Woman Can...." The usually unspoken predicate was "...Be a Lesbian." In fact, and for quite a long time, "political lesbians" were trendy and ubiquitous. It was very easy to be a lesbian because men were, in general, such pills, and in particular such schmucks.

The fact is that people are flexible. If men are the only sexual objects available, *many* men are situationally "gay;" some men are situationally "transgendered." Behaviour says nothing about preference, nor does it imply that men who go to prison are more likely to have been homosexual, or transgendered, to begin with.

The corollary ought to give one pause as well, since if one happens to be first born, what on Earth is one's "excuse" to be if "different" from the other little boys despite the existence of no probable "cause?"

It's a faux "salvation" that doesn't apply to all.

Isn't it nice that *you* have an wonky hypothalamus, or an enlarged corpus collosum, or "bad genes..." Would you mind if I take a look? This won't hurt a bit...

Having the courage of one's convictions means having the strength to stand alone, if necessary, like Horton and his tiny Whos against the world. Maybe it's a choice, a "lifestyle." Certainly the large number of supposed heterosexual and vociferously *manly* male transvestites argues at least faintly for this possibility, with transgenderism an extreme variant of this *manly* inclination. Maybe it's not, and the Biology Fairies have flitted by with their sparkling magic wands and said, "Poof," or was it "Poofter?" So what?

The fact is that all studies of transgendered persons of either sex are deeply flawed, because everyone with half a brain who imagines themselves to be so, studies the Benjamin standards like a Holy Roller does his Bible, and lies like a trooper all through the process. Why take a chance on naiif truth and honesty when there are guidelines and Cliff Notes readily available for cramming?

One doesn't treat the College Entrance exams nearly so cavalierly, and studies with intensity to make sure that what one knows is what one is expected to know, not what one thinks is actually important. And one of the necessary skills required is mere survival. One decides what one wants to do in College *after* passing the test.

Studying transgendered people is a bit like studying con artists, or concentration camp inmates. They may talk a lot, and glibly too, but that doesn't mean that what they say is either true nor even to the point, since what counts for either group, as a whole, is rather more focused on a particular outcome, than on how, or by what means, they get there. The desired outcome in many cases is increasing one's chances for survival. Effeminate men, at least those who can't help being the way they are, can find far more acceptance and generosity as "sufferers of a condition doctors can't cure" than as gender rebels and free-love hippies, so there are strong selection pressures on particular behaviours, particular lines of patter, and particular lifestyles that make a hash of any "scientific" examination, or data-gathering, much less an explanation.

And in the end, one doesn't really know what any statistics mean when confronted with the everyday bigotry and hate speech of our current society? Were Black people in the Ante-Bellum South in a state of nature? Were they in the years after the Civil War when racism and organised gangs of thugs, the KKK, the Knights of the White Camelia, and many more, terrorised the populace with impunity? Are they now? When does oppression stop leaving its mark? Were Jews in Nazi Germany representative "specimens?" Was their behaviour normative? Could you "study" them and come to any real conclusions?

Richard Eder once said, "Art grows out of what you can't recover from." Maybe other things do too.

There can be no "science" until the hatred and murderous violence goes away, if ever.

I rather like the approach taken by Samuel
R. Delany in Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia, later reissued as Triton, in which Bron, the last sexist pig in a much more flexible society, decides to become a woman because "real women," independent and autonomous, weren't quite up to the job. If you haven't read the book, you ought to. One actually sees this "Bron" mindset in much TG fiction, whilst Bron in his own world is seen by everyone as a sort of hapless dolt, and stereotypically male (in either body) since gender isn't all that much of a big deal. Nobody actually cares what gender you are, nor what gender you become, other perhaps to compliment you on the new colour of your eyes, or the artistry of your new and improved body design. In Bron's world, people change gender like Paris fashions, and last year's look just won't do for the terribly chic.

Would that it were so, and spare us all this angst, concealment, and fabulation.