Predisposition

With no prior cross gender identification, many gender variant males seem to begin dressing in female clothing around the age of puberty.They become aroused and then begin a pattern of lifelong beaviour. Harry Benjamin would have typically placed these patients into his types I and II but I have always wondered how predisposition plays into the formula. There seems to never be a questioning of birth sex but instead the establishing of a pattern which typically involves reaching a sexual climax and things being put away until the next time.

As an example, my younger brother was sometimes dressed up by my sisters who were older and he did not even react to it. He grew up and never gave it a second thought and has never put on an article of female clothing since. However for others there is a moment at which a spark is lit which could involve some level of predisposition already present which I tend to contrast from transsexualism due to not questioning birth sex.

So when I write about arousal it is here where it gets interesting because without a questioning of core identity it can become an end goal in of itself. The problem then becomes confusing what might only be pure expression for something more or conversely, underplaying feelings of identity as merely a habit because there were sometimes sexual feelings present. The latter is what happened to me.

If you fall somewhere in the middle of the expression and identity axis it can be very difficult to figure out who you really are and require more introspection than existing on the extreme ends of the Benjamin scale. All the more so if you grew up ingesting very fixed ideas about gender.