Sidebar to the Crossdreamers.com blog post "Does the effects of hormones on transgender prove that crossdreaming has a biological component?"
One of the leading experts on crossdreamers is Dr. Anne Vitale. She is herself a transsexual woman, and has helped a large number of transgender patients, from those who identify fully with their target sex and want to transition (transsexuals), to non-transsexual crossdressers.
She has written one of the best books on transgender conditions that also covers crossdressers and crossdreamers.
I must admit she sometimes appear a bit too essentialist for my taste. She writes, for instance, that the defeminization of the brain in perinatal males experience leaves them "incapable of female behavior and sensibility," (Perinatal refers to the period around childbirth).
I find no support for the idea of a unique "female behavior and sensibility", as no temperaments, interests, abilities or behaviors are exclusive to one gender. The sense of feeling like a man or a woman cannot be reduced to a function of the way you behave. (More about this here!)
Still, her idea about crossdreamers and male to female transsexuals being poisoned by testosterone is interesting.
In her book The Gendered Self, Vitale suggests that the variation we seen between transsexual and non-transsexual male to female transgender is caused by variation in the prenatal androgenization/defeminization processes, leading to different degrees of feminization of the brain, including female like hormone receptors.
In a separate note on hormones she writes:
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| Anne Vitale presents a theory aimed at explaining dysphoria in MTF crossdressers and crossdreamers. Illustration: Jupiterimages |
One of the leading experts on crossdreamers is Dr. Anne Vitale. She is herself a transsexual woman, and has helped a large number of transgender patients, from those who identify fully with their target sex and want to transition (transsexuals), to non-transsexual crossdressers.
She has written one of the best books on transgender conditions that also covers crossdressers and crossdreamers.
I must admit she sometimes appear a bit too essentialist for my taste. She writes, for instance, that the defeminization of the brain in perinatal males experience leaves them "incapable of female behavior and sensibility," (Perinatal refers to the period around childbirth).
I find no support for the idea of a unique "female behavior and sensibility", as no temperaments, interests, abilities or behaviors are exclusive to one gender. The sense of feeling like a man or a woman cannot be reduced to a function of the way you behave. (More about this here!)
Still, her idea about crossdreamers and male to female transsexuals being poisoned by testosterone is interesting.
 |
| Anne Vitale (from her home page) |
In her book The Gendered Self, Vitale suggests that the variation we seen between transsexual and non-transsexual male to female transgender is caused by variation in the prenatal androgenization/defeminization processes, leading to different degrees of feminization of the brain, including female like hormone receptors.
In a separate note on hormones she writes:
"It is beyond dispute that there are both androgen and estrogen receptors in the brain. Genetic males normally have more active androgen receptors than women and women have more active estrogen receptors than men. That this normal distribution of estrogen and androgen receptor cells can be different in some individuals appears to be a possibility. It therefore follows that androgenic and estrogenic compounds will result in a modified-to-counter expected behavior in affected individuals. For reasons beyond the scope of this Note and as counterintuitive as it may seem, it can only be assumed that testosterone plays a crucial role in forcing certain male individuals to crossdress and experience femininity to the maximum degree possibly."
