[Pansy-Mae]

Maybe the differences in our personalities could account for how much or how little brain rewiring we experience?

I tend to agree about that, although there could be a chicken-and-egg situation at work. Surely the male/female hormone balance and the effect on the brain both in the womb and in life is going to be one of the biggest factors in expressed personality?

Or perhaps those who are more closeted about their gender dysphoria in real life are more likely to report having brain rewiring?

In the sense that those who have hidden it for a long time may get the biggest sense of relief? - that certainly has a logic to it.

My own gut feeling is that it probably has to do with the actual level of androgen exposure ( or lack of) in the womb. Those that have the 'furthest from normal' exposure to androgens will have the greatest need for oestrogen supplement subsequently to give the brain what it is programmed for. Logically then this ought to give rise to the greatest subconcious sense of mismatch, undefined disquiet and subsequent stress. In turn that ought to bring the greatest sense of relief once oestrogen becomes available, which would manifest itself as the 'brain rewiring' experience.

For me I've always said that I am right in the middle and comfortable with who/what I am, and I was aware of that 40 years before I ever heard of any of this stuff!

[flamesabers]

Maybe the differences in our personalities could account for how much or how little brain rewiring we experience?

I tend to agree about that, although there could be a chicken-and-egg situation at work. Surely the male/female hormone balance and the effect on the brain both in the womb and in life is going to be one of the biggest factors in expressed personality?

I'm in agreement with you. I'm interested in making more sense on this topic. I was thinking being an introvert would have a factor with my brain rewiring experiences.

[Pansy-Mae]

I'm not sure that I would actually describe myself as an introvert but I'm certainly more towards introvert than extrovert. However the female side of me, back in my active CD days, was very flamboyant and I was once asked if I was French because I used my arms so much!
I also wouldn't describe myself as a loner but I'm not happy in crowds and I'm not good at small talk, although I do get lonely if I am actually on my own for any length of time.

[Isabelle]

Aha Pansy Mae,

I think you nailed it. There's a couple of little glands at the bottom of the brain that make the hormones to direct other glands to make steroids. So what's different is not what happens inside the brain, or gestures that are directly controlled by nerve endings. It's the communication between your brain and your body via chemical transmitters. That's what hormones do.

I started seeing a therapist 5 years before starting hops. She says the way I think is still typically me. But after starting hops, I didn't feel like being out in drag any more. I also notice there's more ways my body and my mind communicate than there used to be.

Being alone or in company has more effect on how I feel than it used to have. Whether or not I enjoyed small talk was independent of how many people and who were around me. Right now, some people make me shut down, some get me going. It used to make no difference whether I was giving a presentation for five or fifty people. After hops, my presentation style became differentiated: more intimate for small groups, more theatrical for large audiences.

[FinallyCalm]

Unlike most, I'm not focused on PM for full MTF or massive NBE. I'm actually in it to get rid of the effects of testosterone. From teen years I've always had too much of it and it aromatased to give me A-B cup my whole life. I have hidden it with overweight for 40 years. Now I'm losing that weight and have my GP prescribing me finasteride to block the DHT and taking 2 Ainterol R1 a day. And as my username says, I'm finally calm. Gone are the bouts of raging anger, the lusting after porn. After 8 months I have to say my genitals are much smaller too, which as long as I can pee good riddance! My mind is clearer, I so enjoy the more feminine things in life - I love to shop, I can nail the clothes my daughters want pretty well (my wife's tastes are still challenging tho!). Just today I pulled into a parking spot and this guy jumps out of a car and starts screaming at me that he was going to park there. I actually felt threatened, pulled out and drove away! In the past there would have been an ugly situation...
Does PM and finasteride re-wire your brain? You bet it does...

[mady]

Hi all ,
I have a theory that the biggest change mind wise is our attitude in
that we start feeling more relaxed and accept who we are as well .
As our boobs start growing , wear bras more etc, we start to feel more fem .
As others have also experienced a more calming effect . ( could be
due to less testosterone ) . Any doctor will tell you .
" hormones control everything "
I feel that it does rewire our way of thinking . Xo

[Pansy-Mae]

After giving this whole subject some considerable thought, purely out of curiosity and a wish to make sense of it, I currently have this train of thoughts:

Although I do believe that there is a continuum from 'totally male' to 'totally female' and that the in-womb hormonal balance plays a big part in defining where we are on that scale, there must be more to it than that. As AbiDrew said, she prefers to think of it as a cloud and thats a pretty good way of putting it, I've said '3-D' myself, in the past, but even that is too rigid.

Soooo, I suspect that one/some of these other factors may be what tips an individual over the edge into being an all-the-way TS, even if the in-womb environment is what starts it. The basic logic behind this thought is that there does appear to be three distinct sets of effect from males taking female hormones, in whatever form: (a) Fully male males, get really upset, screwed up and generally react badly.(b) Some (the majority of us here) get a general sense of well being, reduction in stress, etc, and also a surprising reduction in the need to cross-dress and other female type interests. (c ) Some suddenly feel liberated, even more female and realise that they do indeed want to go all the way.
(a) Is logical and what we might expect and we can ignore that.
(b) Makes sense for the simple 'inbetweenies' who's brains expect a level of femaleness that their male bodies can't provide
(c ) There must be some other factor(s) involved to bring this fairly extreme need, to the surface, although I have no idea what they may be.

So, I don't think the term 'brain re-wiring' is correct. Re-wiring implies physically changing what is there now into something different. What we are actually doing is probably more a case of re-balancing - think of steering wheel judder that magically disappears if you get the wheels re-balanced and the whole car suddenly feels smoother and more comfortable. Maybe for TS's, they actually need not just a re-balance but a whole new set of tyres?

[AbiDrew85]

What we are actually doing is probably more a case of re-balancing - think of steering wheel judder that magically disappears if you get the wheels re-balanced and the whole car suddenly feels smoother and more comfortable. Maybe for TS's, they actually need not just a re-balance but a whole new set of tyres?

I love that analogy! And yeah, I think this is probably the most correct way of thinking about it. Our brains are quite evidently already wired differently, we're not changing that, we're just correcting the balance so the wiring works "as-expected". For TS's, the imbalance is so extreme that yeah, we just need to replace it all.

[flamesabers]

So, I don't think the term 'brain re-wiring' is correct. Re-wiring implies physically changing what is there now into something different. What we are actually doing is probably more a case of re-balancing - think of steering wheel judder that magically disappears if you get the wheels re-balanced and the whole car suddenly feels smoother and more comfortable. Maybe for TS's, they actually need not just a re-balance but a whole new set of tyres?

To borrow a term I've read in a book, an alternative to 'brain re-wiring' could be 'right-wiring'.

[sfem]

I for one could easily get behind the term "re-balancing" for this effect. I think it is much more descriptive of the change than re-wiring which I never felt was right. I like the tires analogy.

I see it kind of like this. My psyche is packaged in a container (my gender definition in this case). If it is too narrow and restrictive, my psyche rebels and pushes back against the restriction(s) (e.g. boys aren't supposed to take other people's feelings into account). If the container's shape isn't the same as my psyche's, my psyche deforms and I feel pressure to behave in ways that don't fit the restriction(s) (e.g. cross-dressing, and such).

Yes, re-balancing works for me.