[DiBi]

hi julie, thank you for posting this paper, i found it very very interesting.
unluckily it is still an "intuition", but looks like it has some funding, in my opinion.
the matter is that the brain operation is still widely unknown, and the interactions occourring inside it as well, and i'm afraid that researchers have not enough money available to explore this specific area :-(

on my side, in this short period i'm experimenting with pm, i had reactions similar to sfem and pansy.

if i look at my past i'm lead to think that also other things influenced me, for example when i was still prone to stress, when under pressure my fem side was rising (i say "when i was" because since several years i acquired a quite complete control over stress), so i may think that, at least for me, even adrenaline plays a role.
another thing i noticed: during summertime, when my main activity is tanning :-) , i have less fem inclination, so i think also processes and hormones' production activated by sunlight (like melatonine, that is a precursor of melanine) may have a role as well.

to complicate things, we must consider that all of them (hormones, enzimes, endorphines, etc.) plays with and against each other, on a bunch of neurons deep in the most primitive area of our brain, so identifying things is a very complex issue also for brain research...

if you find some more essays of this type, please post them or post a link to them

[julieTG]

Yes DiBi

The same on sunlight , how weird,

I have noticed every Winter,

Dark nights come, I go GIRLY,

How strange

Julie

[chrissie]

For many years, I was aware of a seasonal change, in sex drive; so I am well aware of the complex of things, affecting hormone levels.
To answer the question of, what is TS, you need to look at a totaly different thing.
All TS have had an overwhelming feeling, from early childhood, that they were born the wrong gender. It is not hormone driven, although the hugely powerful effect of T, may contribute to suppressing it. As with most conditions, some are effected more strongly, than others and we all cope in different ways. The simple truth, however, is that ultimately, it will become so dominant, that we have to accept it, or be destroyed by it. The fall in tostesterone levels, that come in middle age, seem to be important; they, in my experience, remove the only real defence, you have, in fighting your transsexuality; a fear of becoming assexual.
In short, TS has nothing to do with hormones, but they may play a role, in suppressing it. Lberated, from that trap, as a MTF TS, oestrogen, in the form of PM, is the best thing that has happened, in my life.

[julieTG]

Yes indeed Chrissie, thanks for that ,
So if your TS and knew from the start ,

I had no inclinations and neither did many on here ?

So what are we ?

Do we have a label ?

Are we pioneers on PM, ?

There are many sub stealth partial people on synthetics which is too harsh,

In my mind we are "balancers",

Many on here do not wish to be women, some do,

Are we a unique subset ?

Everything I seem too read says we are

Men with boobs, not Ts`s in transition,

Julie

[beverley.rose]

Yes indeed Chrissie, thanks for that ,
So if your TS and knew from the start ,

I had no inclinations and neither did many on here ?

I was not consciously TS, but looking back there are incidents in my past that stand out that indicate early leanings towards being TS. My earliest was at age 5.

Are we a unique subset ?

Everything I seem too read says we are

Men with boobs, not Ts`s in transition,

Possibly, but for those of us on a TS journey we share some (all?) of your ambitions. We maybe just have a few more on our list.

Beverley

[dargona]

I would just like to throw in my two cents and discoveries since joining these forums and taking PM. I am on my 4th bottle of PM and have rarely missed a dose, i came out to my wife and things have slowly recovered relationship wise. The hardest part of my gender identity experience has been figuring out which side of the fence i was on per say, but it took me a solid month after opening up to realize that i was having such a difficult time figuring out what I wanted for myself. Now that I am growing breasts, i know that i want them all the time and am not ashamed, but i never felt as though i could make the full transition as a woman and if I even wanted that. I have personally come to the conclusion that i would be happiest if i had evey body part and could just be comfortable someplace in he middle as both genders, a mix of the two or possibly a third gender. This noion isnt very prevalent in the united states but few other countries have recognized the concept and ai have felt a lot better inside since accepting the idea that being in the middle is exactly where I have always been stuggling so hard to get out of but is where i belong.

[Pansy-Mae]

Hi Dargona,

Glad you have sorted yourself out. Don't worry, there are quite a few of us on here who are content to be in the middle ground, neither fully male nor fully female.

[chrissie]

I have dear friends, who occupy the "middle ground" Just as I cannot really understand their ambiguity, they cammot really undrstand my transexxuality. However, we remain friends and know that there is a communality, in our feelings, about life.

[dargona]

I wouldnt say that i dont understand those who make the full transition to either male or female, but rather all of my life when I have read personal success stories of transgendered peoples they almost always describe it as they knew from a young age that they were the wrong gender or should have been born the opposite gender. For me i could never rationalize the idea for myself, as I didnt feel exactly that same way but I knew that there was something inside me keeping me from being content living within the biological and predefined social norms of what it is to be a man. Continuing from others experience in this threar since taking PM my desire to cross dress has also dropped significantly but not completely which i hadnt even gave thought to until i read this. I wont pretend to have answers for eveybody and gender identity is not cut and dry, black and white, or male and female in each case. Everybody is different and we just need to accept that for ourselves and for others and be open with ourselves to express how we feel. I would consider myself more on the female mentality and mindset but at the same time enjoy the moderate amount of maleness that i possess. Socially it will be awkward for me appearing as male to have breasts but I am at terms with that scenario and am embracing it!

[sfem]

Your approach sounds like a mentally healthy one, dargona. Congrats on having the courage to be open with your wife about it, and it's good to hear things are moving in a positive direction for you.

I think there are a lot more people "in the middle" than the straw poll would show because I believe a very hefty portion (maybe 80% or more?) of those who would be in that bucket absolutely will not admit it even to themselves. I think we should count ourselves among the fortunate few who have whatever it is that allows us to explore that aspect of ourselves instead of continuing to repress it to our inevitable ends. I really doubt the ones who allow themselves to be held trapped by the social views of the moment will ever do much to help take the species anywhere along evolution's path.

Welcome to the revolution!