[GoneGirl]

I believe that gender identity along with personality is hardwired at conception and during fetal gestation. By one's birth day, everything is set in stone. Cultural influences are real, of course. They tend to make people either reinforce their in-born nature, or they work to stifle it. Gender dysphoria arises in two stages. First, as a child grows, he learns to recognize the dichotomy between males and females and starts to identify with one side or the other with a great deal of parental bias at work. Second, his body develops to the opposite sex that he identifies with. The incongruity is amplified by the behaviors and interests that everyone expects of him based on his assigned gender role. If the disparity between his subconscious and his conscious gender sense is too great, chronic mental discomfort of one form or another occurs until the gender conflict is resolved.

Clara