My Theory

I think that we each have our own theory on why we are trans but one thing that I know is that I did choose to be trans.

Born This Way
“Born this way” has been an effective argument for our rights, but not every LGBTQ+ person feels it speaks their truth. How can we have a conversation around this without empowering anti-LGBTQ+ forces?
The Advocate
By Trudy Ring
September 19, 2022


Baby, we were born this way — or were we?

The “born this way” concept has informed LGBTQ+ political messaging for decades, long before the Lady Gaga anthem emerged. Recognizing that one’s identity is intrinsic and can’t be changed from outside, it’s been used to argue against discrimination and conversion therapy, plus to make the case that transgender people aren’t changing their gender but confirming an identity they’ve always had. It’s proved to be effective, but some activists and thinkers have always said it’s limiting.

One of the latest to put this idea forth is author Julia Serano. “Too many people seem to view that phrase through a lens of strict biological determinism, or presume that it means the number of LGBTQ people must be permanently fixed and static. Perhaps new language might circumvent these misconceptions moving forward,” she wrote recently in Salon.

I believe that we had a choice and that was a Hobson’s choice we could either accept being trans or not but either way we are trans. It is either living our life in the open or staying in the closet.

“It has been absolutely essential to winning legal protections,” Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, says of the “born this way” approach. “I think now would be the worst time imaginable to abandon that public education effort.”

But she suggested that “‘born this way’ may no longer be the most effective way to counter” the idea that anyone is able to turn anyone else away from a straight cisgender identity.

“None of us can precisely say for sure why we turned out to be gay, or trans, or otherwise,” she wrote. “Nor can we say why some people come to this self-understanding as children, others during adolescence, and still others as adults.”

I first crossdressed when I was in the seventh grade, when I first looked in the mirror something clicked and I felt… this is who I am. From that day I knew who I was.

What I believe:

• First, there is something in us that tell us who we are, male or female but like most things in nature it is not binary but rather it is continuum of a whole range of feelings, some people got the gender dysphoria bug so strongly that they had to transition while others it is only a flea bite that it is just an annoyance that needs to be scratch occasionally by crossdressing while others must transition.
• Second, it takes a trigger depending on how strongly we got bitten by the gender dysphoria bug, for some it might be noticeable but other needs more of an incident. For me I believe that trigger was the seventh grade initiation in Catholic parochial school where we had to crossdress. When I looked in the mirror something clicked and from that day on I crossdressed in secret until I was in my late 50s when I came out of the closet.

I also believe that like being left handed no one knows why we are trans. Whether it is in our genes, or something prenatal that happened in the womb I don’t think that we will never know. I know that my mother had several miscarriages between my brother and me… did they give her DES to prevent miscarriages I don’t know, was there some type of stressor during her pregnancy I don’t know.

What they do know is that there are a greater number of trans children whose mothers took DES during pregnancy, and that during the bombing of London in World War II there were a higher number of gay men born and they theorize that stress induced hormones cause the increase of gay men. So the environment of the womb can bring about changes.

Adds Sam Brinton, director of advocacy and government affairs at the Trevor Project: “At the end of the day, we have to trust our young people when they tell us who they are, because we know that support and acceptance can be lifesaving.”

There are no test to determine if we are LGBTQ+, there may never be a single reason why we are trans or LGB, there may an infinite number of causes and just like being left handed they will never find the reasons why we are LGBTQ+.