Causes of Transgenderism

Transgenderism has been around since before the coming of Islam, so no one can blame GMOs, chemtrails or vaccinations, even though some drugs have been known to cause transgenderism.^[1]Children exposed to Di-Ethyl Stilbestrol (DES) in utero among other endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) were known to have experienced strong transsexual leanings. Greek and Roman mythology is rife with crossdressing. There have been hermaphrodite and intersex deities of African and Hindu traditions. It was spoken of by philosophers of the ancient world, some attributing its cause, like homosexuality, to astrological influences at the time of birth. Allen writes, “Some time between 6th Century and 1st Century BC, in the Greek Hippocratic Corpus (collection of medical texts), physicians propose that both parents secrete male or female ‘bodies’ and that if the father’s secretion is female (rather than male) and the mother’s is male, the result would either be a ‘man-woman’ (effeminate male) or a ‘mannish’ female.” In many societies, from the Far East to Africa, transwomen served as priestesses or servants of high priests. India has long recognized a third gender and has had whole transgender communities for millennia.

Today, there are two primary theories for the cause of transgenderism. One we can call “hormonal sex differentiation of the brain” nature theory, and the other we can call “fetishism in context of gender as social construct” nurture theory. Each theory has passionate supporters, which is why, Wikipedia for example, is not a reliable source for understanding transgenderism, since its articles are changed and updated often.

The difference between the two theories, as it concerns the Muslim, is understanding what role tarbiyah could play in the lives of their children, especially the first years, should we want to take extra measures to ensure a cisgender development. And theologically, if it proves hormonally based, it broadens our understanding of how Allah may choose to test parents and individuals from birth. Being born blind and deaf incapacitates our very ability to be held accountable by Allah. But could gender identification excuse us and provide us concessions in other ways as well?

 

Transgenderism as a result of embryonic and fetal hormonal development

 

What makes transgenderism interesting is that many – nearly everyone I’ve spoken to – will notice their feelings at a young age, even 4 or 5 years old.^[2]As with any group, big or small, they are divided and take sides among themselves. Many of those whose first remembered thoughts were “I’m a girl” prefer to call their condition “Harry … Continue reading Indeed, most transgendered learned of their identity at the age of 5, and nearly 75% all before the age of 10. This also agrees with my own observations in personal interviews. Furthermore, they may be an only child, or one of many, with male or female siblings. Their parents may be liberal or conservative, traditional or modern. There is no yet identifiable pattern of their upbringing and environment. India and Southeast Asia—areas which have always celebrated their most raw feelings—seem to have a longer history of transgenderism and you’ll find many more transgendered among them. Other regions of the earth have been heavily influenced by Christianity and Islam, where cultures have traditionally suppressed the expression of those internalizations. Nonetheless, books of history and fiqh do reveal the presence of the transgendered even in Muslim history. So there is scant evidence that nurture, or our environment and raising, plays any great role in determining transgenderism.

One of the most striking cases that has challenged nurturist theories was that of Bruce Reimer, or one could call him Brenda or David. While still a newborn, a hospital cauterization accident rendered him without a penis. His parents, unsure of what to do, came to know of a theory from a leading psychologist of Baltimore. They met personally with the doctor who believed Bruce to be the perfect candidate to experiment on and record his results. All the more so, since Bruce was born with a twin brother whose circumcision went smoothly. Bruce was turned into Brenda, and raised as a girl. The parents never told anyone, not even the boy’s twin brother, of Bruce’s first assigned gender. While the doctor fibbed his results and proclaimed his theory to be showing unparalleled success in Brenda’s development, “Brenda” never caught on. Despite hormone therapy, she would rip up her clothes, get into fights with boys, and never adapt properly to movements characteristic of girls. When her distress reached its limits and Brenda refused to see the psychologist again, her parents told her and her brother the truth at age 15. She immediately started living as a boy, Bruce. It would be some time before his story came to light, the subject of the book As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto, which was originally published in 2000, the author giving Bruce 50% of the revenue.

And while many children will eventually “grow out of it” naturally^[3]In spite of McHugh’s credentials and experience, he is not without strong Christian bias, and relies on a controversial theory, and is not up to date with cross-disciplinary research. Furthermore, … Continue reading and adjust to prescribed social constructs of gender bifurcation; for many others, these feelings will not dissipate over time. For some, the feeling is much stronger than others—which is why one transgendered’s feelings should not be assumed to be reflective of others. Yet still other individuals do not feel they are transgendered until adulthood, and may live life traditionally before realizing that or living homosexually before they discover why they’ve felt physically out of place.

What’s the cause? Is it physiological? Or is it all “in their heads”?

As a brief recap, if something is genetic, then it may pass from one generation to the next, perhaps recessive and canceled out by other genes in several generations. While a hormone is a natural substance that is produced in the body and influences the way the body grows or develops. It is produced by living cells and stimulates or controls a mechanism in another part of the body, through the blood stream. Genes can influence hormonal production, but so can external conditions and substances, making hormones much more difficult to control or pin down. And many laity misunderstand hormones as if it were a mystical force, where it is really just a secretion pumped into the blood stream giving signals. It would be as if someone dumped a bucket a red food coloring into a stream so that someone down river would get a particular message and perform a certain action. 

Psychiatrist Carl Jung (d. 1961) is one of the first to postulate the existence of masculine and feminine potentials for the brain. He “propose[d] the idea of Animus and Anima, that every male has some of the feminine in his unconscious (Anima), and every female has some of the masculine (Animus).”

Mari Brighe summarizes much of the latest research, and I am preserving her links to recognized medical authorities:

A 2009 study found a correlation between an increased number of a certain kind of sequence repeat in the Androgen Receptor gene and gender dysphoria. Another study in 2009 identified significant differences in cerebral grey matter structure in trans women who had yet to start hormone therapy when compared to cis men. In 2011, researchers noted that the structure of a sexually-dimorphic region of the brain, known as the intermediate nucleus, of trans women fell somewhere between cis men and cis women, while a similar difference was not noted castrated cis men. A 2013 functional brain imaging study of adolescents with gender dysphoria demonstrated a tendency for trans teens to perform more similarly to their identified sex (as opposed to their assigned sex) in a verbal fluency assessment, with similar correlation in brain activity during the assessment. Lastly, in 2013, a large study of monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) twins where at least one twin was transgender showed a far higher concordance of a diagnosis of gender dysphoria among monozygotic than dizygotic twins (33% vs 2.6%), which is strong indicator the existence of a biological factor in a trait.

What causes these striking differences and similarities? Hormones, like testosterone, are what make a man feel like a man. His testosterone increases when he lifts weights, looks at women, and does manly things, or even watch Stallone and Schwarzenegger movies. Like a set of gears, one influences the other. Testosterone makes him want to do those things, and by doing those things, it allows more testosterone in his blood stream. Transwomen severely lack secretion of this hormone in their system from a young age, even before birth. Either that, or some of the organs, including the brain, down stream, did not react to the message and remained in a feminine state. This and other hormones influence bodily change, from physical growth to neural development, affecting cognitive function. The glands that pump testosterone in the blood stream to trigger the changes that shape the body and even the mind towards the male gender are weakened for the transgendered. Thus, a discrepancy occurs between the reproductive organs and the brain, specifically, the hypothalamus which has been identified by many as being the neurological seat for gender identification. Further evidence indicates that genetics may be responsible for the ill timing or weakened male hormone gland. The point is, telling them to simply lift a bunch of weights or watch Rambo will typically not make any more difference for transwomen than it does when a normal woman lifts weights. So scientifically, without even asking such a person how they feel, experiments could theoretically show that a person, on a hormonal level, and all that is affected by hormones alone, may be more likely to identify as a gender that differs from their anatomical make-up. So yes, there seems to be a physiological basis for transgender phenomena. One researcher described, “Then in 1996 Arthur Arnold, a UCLA brain researcher confirmed the hormonal influences on human brain development. These findings corroborated the prior research done by Dr. Milton Diamond and Gunter Dorner in Germany and by Carl W. Bushong, Ph.D.” They stated, “All males start out as female embryos. However, somewhere between the 8th week to the 24th week a change to male occurs if the chromosomes are ‘XY’. They ‘XY’ chromosomes cause Testosterone to be produced and released by the body in the fetus body. In the fetal brain this testosterone is converted into a type of estrogen which masculinizes the male brain. The hormonal washed must be very precisely timed for this process to be successful.” As for the transwoman’s brain, “the hormonal washes as faulty. They are either insufficient or ill timed. When this happens, the fetus develops a male body. However, some of the default (original) female brain processes remain intact.” ^[4]As for FtM (female to male) transgendered, “Even though the ‘XX’ chromosomes have ordered no hormonal washes to take place, testosterone is still introduced. For example: An errant fetal … Continue reading

Furthermore, theorists distinguish between at least three spheres that contribute to a person’s gender picture. One being the anatomy or “primary sexual characteristics” or the reproductive organs. This is sometimes called the “biological sex” or simply the “sex” of the individual. Sex has to do with reproduction and mating. Other spheres of the human experience are psycho-neural characteristics like gender “social” identify, or one’s feeling of “being a man” or “being a woman” masculine or feminine. Finally, the sexual orientation, or which gender(s) they feel sexually attracted to. This hedges upon the difference between heterosexuality, homosexuality and potentially dispositional bisexuality.^[5]As opposed to what could be termed “situational bisexuality” when a person feels temporary arousal for a member of their gender while it is not in their habit nor preference to desire sexual … Continue reading

Nurture: Transgenderism as a symptom of mental illness and secret fetishism turned lifestyle

As for the original theory for transsexualism etiology, it is often championed in light of the belief that “gender” is a social construct and there is no such thing as a “brain sex” or “brain gender” – considering that no evidence of differentiation exists in the hippocampus of male and female children.^[6]Feminists along with Christians are the major proponents of this theory—along with a small minority of transsexuals. Some feminists blame transsexuals for reifying gender, while others hold that … Continue reading All instances of transgenderism must have psychological or sociological roots. Femininity is therefore an artificial act that humans with vaginas have been nurtured to perform. Neurological experiments, especially those in the studies of transsexualism, are greatly flawed and irreplicable. Furthermore, the brain’s plasticity is firmly established, and that it can and does change and re-network itself greatly throughout its holder’s lifespan in response to the life of its possessor which is in many cases, a response to how society treats them. These cerebral changes do not necessarily occur as natural processes like teething, puberty or menopause, but in response to experience on a psychological and sociological level, like relocating, marriage and divorce, having children, and similar life-influencing events. As for “gender roles” then they become ingrained and reinforced by social conditioning and consistent universal parental and social understanding of how to raise and cater to male and female offspring. Any distinct difference in so-called “internal wiring” or male and female psychological dimorphism is simply a product of the conditioning that males and females were subject to in their infancy and early development.

This is the oldest theory in the modern West, and so “curing” it was done through the Freudian psychoanalytical method of discerning what particular childhood incidents or relationship drove the person this way. For example, one’s relationship with their mother or father or some traumatic sexual episodes. This nurture theory also states that gender dysphoria and transgenderism in general are merely symptoms of other mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, depression or schizophrenia.

How then do transgendered enter the picture? If they were raised and treated like boys and enjoyed the “privileges of manhood” what on earth drove them to identify as women?

Dr. Ray Blanchard postulated a theory based on autogynephilia, or sexual arousal by imagining one’s self as a woman. He created two subgroups. A homosexual man’s desire to appear more feminine to attract heterosexual males, or the arousal of a heterosexual imagining themselves as the other gender, aka cross-gender arousal. In other words, all transsexualism is motivated by sexual arousal. However, a great many transsexuals do not fit into these two models. Also, most people who experience an arousal by something—whether pastrami, apple pie, animals, cadavers, filth, leather whips, or pirates—usually experience it as a phase they go through. Such phases can be passed on if one simply avoids arousal altogether for some weeks until they essentially reboot themselves–unless their environment causes them to relapse. Such ideas may make a person incorporate something into their sex lives or commit something in private, but to make a career change (e.g. sheep herder, or join law enforcement, etc.), or face social stigma and abuse by identifying as transgender is a whole different ballgame. It is more appropriate to consider autogynephilia as a symptom or phase of transgenderism and not a cause, except for a small number. Most of the transgendered I’ve communicated with greatly resent being sexualized by men and have more interest in seeking a heterosexual male life partner. However, the fact that multiple groups of people could each identify as TS should not be surprising, especially when society encourages it, and youth like to be unique. There are multiple causes and symptoms of depression, PTSD, and lots of other conditions and identities.

There’s no doubt that psychological response to societal drawn lines of gender roles, even as they vary from one civilization to another, plays a large part in dictating the differences between men and women in society. But how much of the “social construct” was in fact caused by those physiological differences between men and women, and not the other way around, and how much is cultural fluff?^[7]Many critics claim that getting a sex-change operation means submitting to the social construct and further promoting it. In other words, it furthers the idea that to be fully woman, one must have … Continue reading  And how much of a role does it play compared to genetics and hormones?

 

The Preferred Opinion

 

In light of the Quran and Sunnah, I am more inclined to believe in the sexually dimorphic brain theory, even if proof of pre-pubescent divergence as of early 2015 is scant. Absence of knowledge is not knowledge of absence (عدم العلم ليس العلم بالعدم).

The dimorphic brain theory appears to be supported by the agreed upon hadeeth from Bukhari and Muslim where the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ once described women as “of reduced intellect”. When questioned, he referred to the Quran‘s differentiating between the minimum required number of male or female witnesses of loan contracts:

قَالَ : أَلَيْسَ شَهَادَةُ الْمَرْأَةِ مِثْلَ نِصْفِ شَهَادَةِ الرَّجُلِ ؟ قُلْنَ : بَلَى ، قَالَ : فَذَلِكِ مِنْ نُقْصَانِ عَقْلِهَا… أخرجه البخاري وغيره

“Isn’t the testimony of one woman equal to that of half a man?” The women said: indeed. So the Prophet ﷺ said, “then that is from the reduction of her intellect.”

Regarding the verse in question from the Quran:

{… وَاسْتَشْهِدُوا شَهِيدَيْنِ مِن رِّجَالِكُمْ ۖ فَإِن لَّمْ يَكُونَا رَجُلَيْنِ فَرَجُلٌ وَامْرَأَتَانِ مِمَّن تَرْضَوْنَ مِنَ الشُّهَدَاءِ أَن تَضِلَّ إِحْدَاهُمَا فَتُذَكِّرَ إِحْدَاهُمَا الْأُخْرَىٰ ۚ …} ﴿٢٨٢﴾ سورة البقرة

“And seek the observance of two witnesses from your men. And if there are not two men, then a man and two women from whom you’re pleased of as witnesses – so if one faults, the other can remind her.” [2:282]

One could say “but the Quranic prescription for witnesses here is simply a test” then that would negate wisdom behind Allah’s rulings and leave us to believe that Allah decreed senselessly or even harshly and unfairly, and negate that the Sharia has objectives. One could say, “The ‘reduced intellect’ and differing female brain is just a symptom of how powerful the social construct is.” Even if that were true, it would not explain why transwomen brains, who grow up raised as boys and experiencing a completely unique life and social experience that women fortunately do not have to, yet have similar looking brains, different from cismen. And as ibn Ḥajr used to say, “صاحب الدار أدرى بمحتواها”.  Rather than ask someone who cannot relate, it makes much more sense to ask TS individuals what they feel, when why and how, especially if they are not demonstrating any sign of neurosis in other aspects of their lives. Rather, most are quite insistent upon the immutable nature of their gender identity, and many of them have stronger personalities.

||NOTE: The hadeeth quoted above is sometimes improperly used to justify misogyny. To answer the question, “what does it mean”, the Prophet answered. To extend the meaning to other areas of neurological process or intellectual capacity would be to shoot blindly into the unseen. And if one looks at the entire story, they’ll find that the Prophet first said the words in the context of his amazement and admiration at the influential capabilities women possess over even the most determined of men. Also note the translation as “reduction” and not the common “deficiency”. The latter is a translation I have since abandoned.||

This conclusion does not negate the existence of transwomen who take on the transgender identity for other reasons. The conclusion also does not negate the huge role social constructs play in shaping our identities. For example, one invalid cause of transgender behavior that could come from someone who isn’t genuinely transgendered was related to me by a female professor of UIA Malaysia, Dr Saodat, who said a male student used to come in with make-up on. She told him to stop and act like a man, and asked him why he did so. He said he was raised by his older sisters who decided to raise him as a girl(!) He did stop and later got more into male activities. In southeast Asia, the transgender phenomenon is more widespread, and it may lead many people to falsely assume, after some incidents or feelings, that they are transgendered. Another one I met from Thailand said their first feeling of being transgendered was at age 15 when they decided to come to the aid of a girl who was being bullied and then hang out with her afterwards. Such a story is far less convincing than those who noticed the feeling since young age.

Of note, there are some thinkers who simply consider transgenderism a complete delusion, akin to anorexics believing themselves to be overweight. I am less inclined to believe this, because transgendered individuals existed during the time of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. If transgenderism was a sickness with a readymade cure or a symptom of demonic possession, I have no doubt the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ would have suggested a cure, or performed ruqyah on the afflicted, or given them a warning or encouragement to return to expected behavior. The fact that he didn’t is very telling. As legal theorists have all agreed, it was obligatory upon the Prophet ﷺ to clarify a ruling whose time had come (لا يجوز تأخير البيان عن وقت الحاجة في حقه عليه السلام). The fact that he didn’t when the  time was there shows that there is no “cure”. Rather, mukhannathun were considered distinct people. However, there are no doubt some individuals who are deluded into believing they are someone they aren’t or are being pressured into the transgender lifestyle.

 

What could this mean for Muslim apologists critiquing transgender claims?

 

This means it is incorrect for those attempting to “refute” transgenderism with the slippery slope argument, to say, what if I identify myself as a vampire or my toddler identifies himself as a Pokémon or my wife thinks she’s really a butterfly, when will it stop? The hormones that influence the body are limited in their influence to human dimensions. As for people who do believe themselves to be vampires, cats, lizards, etc., then yes, no doubt, that is a delusion. There may be men and women who, out of delusion, believe themselves to be a member of the opposite gender, but they are likely a tiny percentage of the transgender community.

And equally incredulous, is invoking nature (ṭabī`ah) and disposition (fiṭrah) as justification for condemning transgenderism. A reporter interviewing TS biologist professor Joan Roughgarden, author of Evolution’s Rainbow, summed up her book and theory as “Diversity of sexual behavior and gender roles, whether in the animal or human kingdoms, is not an aberration. More than 300 species of vertebrates have sex with the same gender. There are gay sheep and lesbian lizards. Some animals change gender or have more than one type of male or female.” The gender lines in nature are not as concrete as we might think, and for afflicted individuals, telling them to revert to their default innate nature is exactly what transsexuals are trying to do. Furthermore, even in nature, zoologists can point out some varieties of animal species, especially among frogs, that change their sex during their lifetime. “There are transgender animals. Male and female bluehead wrasses, a coral reef fish, look similar when young, but develop later into three genders, one of which starts and stays male, one which begins and stays female and a third which starts as female and morphs into a male. Damselfish have a gender that turns from male to female. Another fish species, hamlets, are hermaphrodites and change back and forth between genders.” As for the fitrah, there is no strong scriptural evidence to suggest that it refers to anything more than every human being’s innate dispositional need to recognize his and her All-Knowing All-Powerful Creator Above.^[8]Much of the Sharia may be immediately reasonable, and it all contains great wisdom, but it is not readily fashionable by the intellect or fitrah, nor are its individual rulings recognized by the … Continue reading It must be recognized that some people are tried by Allah in this manner from birth. This does not negate that other men may cross-dress in private to satisfy a perverse fetish, but do not identify as transgender, but rather feel very comfortable with being male.^[9]While some sexual orientation and gender identity seems to be physiological, other perversions may be the result of the volatile malleable nature of sexual arousal, and what accompanies it and thus … Continue reading Others may cross-dress as part of sexual fantasy, and become so happy with it, they wish to assume a cross-gender lifestyle, or perhaps even transition. Others may have, for example, missed a father-figure in their lives so they became feminine to attract a man. The point is understanding the real issue. Some people have a temporary or part-time fetish that has nothing to do with their internal wiring and brain structure. Or the influence on their brain may be in minimal amounts, while others have a far more permanent issue or they may also be living a transgender lifestyle due to other psychological issues they need to confront and pray about.

For Muslim callers dealing personally with the transgendered, a better approach may be to recognize the internal feelings of this and other sexual minorities, while acknowledging that this is a great test from Allah for those people. It may be equal in severity or perhaps more severe than the test of people who might have a genetic propensity towards quick anger or promiscuous behavior, or due to in utero conditions carry an addictive personality, always fighting gambling or drug addictions. Genetics, hormone secretions, and the conditions of our fetal development all play a role in making us who we are and the trials we face throughout our lives, while family and society make other important contributions, but none of that overpowers the human will to do what is within physical capacity.

Next page: transgenderism in Islamic history and traditional fiqh