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I'm not sure if I was transgendered before I was castrated or if my castration caused me to change so that I now have more female characteristics. Perhaps the question is, "Is being transgendered what pushed you to become castrated without realizing that you were transgendered?" I really don't know, but as for myself, I think I had transgendered tendencies for a while, I think those tendencies are what pushed me to get castrated. I had an unstoppable urge to do it and did. Soon I'll be facing my new female urologist again. After my recent cystosomy, she gleefully told me she could put things back together, (my urehtra) but that's the last thing I want. I think I'll tell her that I have many transgender characteristics, markers, tendencies and that I would actually prefer to not even have a penis. Not sure what she'll say, I bet she's not quite 30 years old yet. Next Thursday is my appointment, wish me luck.

Hi there,

not sure I understand you right. So you say that although you identify as a heterosexual male (sorry, had to check your profile you now, since you had your castration, "feel", think etc. more feminine? Since you mention cystosomy, was your castration due to cancer then (again sorry; didn't want to wade through all your posts)? If so, how did/do you feel about your castration in general? Did/do you receive psychological treatment about it?

As for me, I actually do have experience with sexual orientation change due to a severe case of hypothyroidism (went along with other side effects like carpal canal syndrome) - besides a greatly reduced sex drive, during this time I identified as 100% gay (interested in men only; no interest in any fetish etc. at all). Before and afterwards I'm a pretty perverted bisexual (however much more "into" women submissive with several fetishes (love to crossdress, feet and high heels etc.)

My theory is that due to the greatly reduced sex drive all those fetishes etc. just disappeared and I was able to fully focus on the more attractive sex (No offence intended, just joking)

Wrote a blog entry about it back then - obviously noone else ever felt or experienced something similar, so I'm actually not sure as to what to think about it. Maybe it helps you.

Patrick

Hash (imported) wrote: Thu May 02, 2013 12:10 pm I'm not sure if I was transgendered before I was castrated or if my castration caused me to change so that I now have more female characteristics. Perhaps the question is, "Is being transgendered what pushed you to become castrated without realizing that you were transgendered?" I really don't know, but as for myself, I think I had transgendered tendencies for a while, I think those tendencies are what pushed me to get castrated. I had an unstoppable urge to do it and did. Soon I'll be facing my new female urologist again. After my recent cystosomy, she gleefully told me she could put things back together, (my urehtra) but that's the last thing I want. I think I'll tell her that I have many transgender characteristics, markers, tendencies and that I would actually prefer to not even have a penis. Not sure what she'll say, I bet she's not quite 30 years old yet. Next Thursday is my appointment, wish me luck.

I don't think that an accidental castration would cause an otherwise normal straight man to become transgendered. But for those who are trans it is often used as justification for what they want to do. In running trans support groups for years I have frequently heard this idea: "I'll arrange to have an "accident" and lose my balls, then let myself be convinced that it would be better to become a woman than commit suicide. (or become gay.)" Seems to be a common idea for trans folk who, for religious or other reasons, are unable to confront their parents and friends and need some excuse to do what they are going to do.

That said, we have such strong ideas about masculinity, and our genitals, so many beliefs about how men behave, that even if the hormone levels stayed the same, because of the Placebo Effect, the castration would cause much less masculine behavior (however you define it) and a shift to a more feminine personality. Our language reflects this: "that takes balls.," "he really got fucked." "man up." Or the bully threatening to castrate, "I'll turn you into a girl." Even trans women who intend to become "stone butch dykes," after SRS often report their personality drifting towards a more fem position, often including curiosity or more about sex w/ men. How much of this is expectations and the placebo effect, and how much is the effects of hormone changes, I would not care to speculate.

Transward

Hash (imported) wrote: Thu May 02, 2013 12:10 pm I'm not sure if I was transgendered before I was castrated or if my castration caused me to change so that I now have more female characteristics. Perhaps the question is, "Is being transgendered what pushed you to become castrated without realizing that you were transgendered?" I really don't know, but as for myself, I think I had transgendered tendencies for a while, I think those tendencies are what pushed me to get castrated. I had an unstoppable urge to do it and did. Soon I'll be facing my new female urologist again. After my recent cystosomy, she gleefully told me she could put things back together, (my urehtra) but that's the last thing I want. I think I'll tell her that I have many transgender characteristics, markers, tendencies and that I would actually prefer to not even have a penis. Not sure what she'll say, I bet she's not quite 30 years old yet. Next Thursday is my appointment, wish me luck.

For me to attempt answering the question, "Can castration cause one to become transgendered?", please forgive me for having made an intense study of biology, and human sexual biology, using college and higher level resources, starting very early during third grade, when I was eight.

Please ignore what does not make sense or is not worth bothering about, in this post; perhaps it is a tad PhD-ese...

My view? For some people, "Yes," and for other people, "No."

For me, the only person about whom I am the most authoritative person on Earth, the answer is simple. Being transgendered is something I was vividly aware of long before I was born. For me, "the quickening" (as in, "the baby has started kicking") was about exploring my physical body and its capabilities, something that has continued ever since. As I explored my body and its surroundings in utero, I was not aware that my touchable environment was me; amniotic fluid is largely a cellular filtrate, filtered by the kidneys of the fetus, and the placenta is fetal, not maternal, tissue. That was not apparent to me before I was born, and not apparent for many years after I was born.

However, when my hands got around to exploring my genital region, what I found I experienced as foreign to me, my penis, and especially my scrotum, after my testicles descended, seemed like a (to paraphrase a notion of "The Telephone Company" (remember the movie, "The President's Analyst"?)) "foreign attachment." Something my brain/mind told me was not supposed to be there.

In the days of "The Telephone Company," when it was usually impossible for anyone other than "The Telephone Company" to own a telephone, a little rubber thing that allowed using a telephone with both hands available for doing something other than holding a telephone handset, the little rubber thing was deemed a foreign attachment in violation with the state tariffs that regulated telephones; to safely use a telephone while not holding the handset in a hand was, in effect, unlawful. What about the person born with only one arm who has to write down something during a telephone call? Well, along came the Carterphone decision, and foreign attachments were allowed once The Telephone Company turned over ownership of telephones to the telephone users.

I worked in hospitals and and observed, while helping as a supposed medical technologist during surgical procedures, that surgery can be dangerous and even life-threatening when something goes seriously amiss. So, I am likely to seek, and get, surgery only when not getting it scores as more dangerous than not getting it in my weltanschauung. "weltanschauung?" read on... more about weltanschauung later...

Many, many things and events have come to my attention, during the past 74 or so years, that my brain and mind tell me would be better were they, in some not-yet-real future, to not be as they are.

When I was eight, my family moved to Wisconsin, where the house in which we lived was two stories, with the only bathroom upstairs. While we had lived in a two story house in California, immediately prior to moving to Wisconsin, that house, as was so for every house we had previously lived in since I was born, had a main floor bathroom. With no first floor bathroom available, my parents put a small metal cup in the bathroom in our Wisconsin house, so people could conveniently get a drink of water in the bathroom. My mother had studied nursing after high school graduation and prior to studying education in college and at university, and the arrangement with that cup was, whoever used it was to wash it so the next person to use the cup would be using a clean cup.

That cup was about 1-3/4 inches in diameter and in height. Soon after we moved to Wisconsin, I had done my bathroom duty, and was thirsty. After getting a drink of water, I put the cup over my genitals and recognized that my body "looked right" if it was as though penis, testicles and protruding scrotum were not there.

Yes, I did wash the cup before putting it on the shelf for the next person's use...

In my "weltanschauung" (a German word for which I am unaware of any English word that is a truly accurate translation, but, to me, is sort-of a word for a person's sense of the person's total world-view-transcending existential experience), whatever happens as it happens is inescapably both necessary and sufficient, this being so because whatever actually happens is what actually happens and whatever does not actually happen does not actually happen and what does not exist is a, pardon my English, "bloody basis" for a life of attempted thriving.

Do I understand what it is like to be bothered by "foreign attachments"? Vividly, methinks.

In my weltanschauung, being of transgendered nature is as normal as is anything else, but that may because I find the whole of life to be normal. Anyone here familiar with the so-called "bell curve" of statistical analysis? It is sometimes called, "the normal curve," and some folks near the middle of the bell curve regard only the middle of the bell curve to be "normal," and people like me who may be a few standard deviations from the mean of the bell curve may be deemed to be "abnormal" for not being in the middle part of the curve.

Who decides what is abnormal, who decides what is abnormal for me as an individual person? If I decide, I will decide that my whole life, in every aspect and every detail, is perfectly normal for me. Anyone get the joke? "Normal" and "abnormal" are conventionally defined in terms of the characteristics of a group comprised of individual people. While the properties of a group can be derived from adding up the properties of the members of the group, the properties of any individual member of the group cannot be derived accurately from the properties of the group. Okay?

Alas, "normal" and "abnormal" in conventional, as described in, e.g., Seligman, Walker & Rosenhan, "Abnormal Psychology: Fourth Edition." Norton, 2001, are group norms and not individual norms. I am an individual person, no matter how many "personalities and/or subpersonalities" the traumatic abuses of my encounter with the group norms of the aspects of human society in which my life has been surrounded have led me to devise as the only way I could find to stay alive.

I did study probability and statistics as part of my formal education, however, I put more effort into studying Bayesian probability and statistics than I did in frequentist probability and statistics. Why? Because I have consistently observed that frequentist statistical and probability methods are atrociously biased against history and historical learning. Yes, having to estimate priors is prone to bias, but rejecting priors is stunningly moreso biased against the life process of learning.

I harbor the view that it is wise for people, including people who function as scientists, to be skeptical of beliefs and observations...

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/fmrisalmon/

I have learned one lesson that, for me is a decent candidate for the most tragic and most tragically important, lesson of my whole life. If I am not true to myself, I cannot be true to anyone else.

If I am willing to be hurt by other people in ways that deny the normalcy of my actual life, surely I would be willing to hurt other people for not replicating my actual life. A greater insanely tragic atrocity I have never been able to imagine.

In situations that resemble your upcoming urologist encounter, I have chosen, first and foremost, to be true to myself.

Rather than wishing for you, "luck," my wish for you is authentic decency and kindness.

janekane,

Great post and thorough thinking, thanks for the wish for decency and kindness. I do have a lot more to think about myself and even with my new urologist, I want her to understand me and not allow any predispostions to interfere with her care of me. Whether she'll listen and do for me what I believe I need is up in the air, I just don't know. I don't know if I say that since my castration I've developed transgendered characteristics, if that will help or hinder. We will see. I know she said that everything looks good and that she could put me back together as a functional male, meaning that she'll reverse my reroute, but of course that's not what I want. I want my penis glans stitched back together and my reroute made permanent. Hopefully that's what she'll do. I kind of think she'll be somewhat dismayed when I tell her this, maybe she suggest a shrink, if she does I just might get up and walk out. Hash

Hash (imported) wrote: Thu May 02, 2013 10:02 pm janekane,

Great post and thorough thinking, thanks for the wish for decency and kindness. I do have a lot more to think about myself and even with my new urologist, I want her to understand me and not allow any predispostions to interfere with her care of me. Whether she'll listen and do for me what I believe I need is up in the air, I just don't know. I don't know if I say that since my castration I've developed transgendered characteristics, if that will help or hinder. We will see. I know she said that everything looks good and that she could put me back together as a functional male, meaning that she'll reverse my reroute, but of course that's not what I want. I want my penis glans stitched back together and my reroute made permanent. Hopefully that's what she'll do. I kind of think she'll be somewhat dismayed when I tell her this, maybe she suggest a shrink, if she does I just might get up and walk out. Hash

I did the "shrink" thing, some psychologists and psychiatrists actually believe in social and cultural norms. But no "shrink" could successfully perform a "mind-shrink" on me. There are psychiatrists, psychiatrists, social workers, and other "counselors" (both professional and amateur) who do understand something of the immense expanse of normal human sexuality. I found some.

There still are physicians and surgeons whose mental model of "normal" excludes much of what is actually normal and decent. They can be very dangerous. Like castrating a boy who had functional testicles and genital anomalies that led a surgeon to attempt to convert the boy into a girl to satisfy the delusions of the surgeon.

Physicians and surgeons who impose their deceptive understanding of human biology on patients can do formidable harm.

Why allow a urologist to make decisions for you? If your urologist disrespects you and your inner quality of life, finding another urologist would seem to me to be wise.

However, if your urologist can actually listen to you, as the person you really are, then a strong, and truthful, stand holding that you understand your life and needs better than the urologist may help you get your needs well met.

How to I know this? By living it. When one physician "did not get it," I sought, and found, one who "did get it."

janekane (imported) wrote: Thu May 02, 2013 10:48 pm How to I know this? By living it. When one physician "did not get it," I sought, and found, one who "did get it."

Thanks janekane, yes, I know this and am hoping that this young urologist is compassionate and sympathetic. Appointment is May 9th. Hash

Hash (imported) wrote: Thu May 02, 2013 12:10 pm Next Thursday is my appointment, wish me luck.

Good luck, Hash! I think I learn more from your and janekane's posts than anywhere. If memory serves me right, your new urologist is with the VA, correct?

Well, it is a start. You can move to more Fem if you wish, but can't go backward.

No, Castration does not cause one to be transgender.I was castrated by accident and was a well adjusted Eunuch for over five years. I am now fully transgendered and enjoy being a woman. After my initial surgery (castration) I was left permanently impotent because of damage to my penis. I was put on bi-weekly Testosrerone injections. That almost sent me crazy with all the desires of a man and none of the ability to get relief. I stopped and adjusted and settled into the life of an assexual eunuch with absoletly no libido and would have continued until I ran into oestoporosis. I could not contemplate going back on T. I started on Estrogen and immediately liked the mental and physical effects. I began to develop breasts. They erupted very quickly and within three months I really needed a B cup bra and I could not hide them even under baggy clothes. I decided to go the full distance, went on full HRT, breasts went to a D cup the same as my sister and mother. I had trans surgery in Thailand and am enjoyong my life now. I can now orgasm for the first time since i was castrated. It is different to what I remember but is very enjoyable. Had I had a better experience with Testosterone I would never have taken Estrogen but I certainly have no regrets. I am still attracted to women only as,while I was a man ,I was totally straight. As a Eunuch I had no sexuality but my orientation was straight. Nothing changed in that department. I am now in a relationship with a natal woman. Castration did not cause me to become a woman but bone problems put that option to me and I took it.

littletits (imported) wrote: Mon May 13, 2013 11:25 pm No, Castration does not cause one to be transgender.I was castrated by accident and was a well adjusted Eunuch for over five years. I am now fully transgendered and enjoy being a woman. After my initial surgery (castration) I was left permanently impotent because of damage to my penis. I was put on bi-weekly Testosrerone injections. That almost sent me crazy with all the desires of a man and none of the ability to get relief. I stopped and adjusted and settled into the life of an assexual eunuch with absoletly no libido and would have continued until I ran into oestoporosis. I could not contemplate going back on T. I started on Estrogen and immediately liked the mental and physical effects. I began to develop breasts. They erupted very quickly and within three months I really needed a B cup bra and I could not hide them even under baggy clothes. I decided to go the full distance, went on full HRT, breasts went to a D cup the same as my sister and mother. I had trans surgery in Thailand and am enjoyong my life now. I can now orgasm for the first time since i was castrated. It is different to what I remember but is very enjoyable. Had I had a better experience with Testosterone I would never have taken Estrogen but I certainly have no regrets. I am still attracted to women only as,while I was a man ,I was totally straight. As a Eunuch I had no sexuality but my orientation was straight. Nothing changed in that department. I am now in a relationship with a natal woman. Castration did not cause me to become a woman but bone problems put that option to me and I took it.

I continue to ponder human biological diversity. It is my nearly lifelong experience that what seems to "cause" something for one person often does not "cause" it in someone else.

With my long years of hanging out with very biologically diverse people, I have known folks who, because of prostate cancer, were castrated and kept living for many years, some of whom experienced becoming functionally transgendered after their castration, whereas others had no such experience.

My view of a complete answer to the question originally raised by Hash is, "Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes something other than yes or no."

Were I ever to be in a witness box in a court of law, and asked a question that did not make much sense to me, and ordered by a judge to "answer yes or no," my answer might be, "Yes or no?"

To which the judge might say to me, "I ordered you to answer yes or no."

To which I might reply, "That is exactly what I did."

Checkmate? In chess, I understand that "checkmate" is a mangled version of "Shah mat," meaning, "the king is dead." Fortunately, a chess piece king was never actually alive as a king? So, "checkmate" is not murder?

In the manner of a Jeopardy television show question, "What is contempt of court?"

Castration might not cause one to be transgendered but it certainly changed the way I look at sex and people and how I feel about both. I lived to long without T and when put on full replacement could not deal with all the sexual desires and had to lower my T drastically. Before my medical problems I was a full blown red neck and as straight as they come. Without T I have come to enjoy the beauty in both sexes and although I have never been with a man still find them as sexually attractive as women. I like Hash would like to have a reroute done and my penis removed so I was completely asexual as that is how I feel. If I were not married I probably would have tried estrogen because I feel I lean more to the fem side if any. If I could get my wife to understand how I feel I would actively pursue these changes.

Lots of clever folks here, so this regular ol' nutless one needs to take care: I am struck how life is often in stages, and events including many birthdays bring on new stages. So, changes with age are not unusual, and I suspect changes with castration also. Part of my sexuality is in my brain, telling how to relate to the world, but i am aware that this and other cues tell the world how to relate to me. While my T is within normal limits, I feel the same straight attractions as ever, and the world appears to react as ever it did. There was a brief period when I had no HRT and I noticed first that I continued for months to view the world, straight as before. However, I also became aware that skin oils and odor changed from the familiar to something not like me at all. Not unpleasant, or stinky, just different. At this time it was clear that relations with male and female became different. To males, the usual mix of fellowship and competitive confrontation gave way to something between indifference and almost exclusion. To women, the temptation to flirt, even mildly, vanished completely but was not replaced by increased inclusion -as might be expected by a move from M->E->F. Maybe pheromones have more to do with the human animal too. I suspect that there is less of a simple continuum of sexuality that hormonal changes can slide back and forth. So I became less male, more eunuch, and not female.

Now I am older, more established as eunuch, I can see such states as nullo and TG from maybe closer than before. If i wanted them, I feel they are now more accessible than before castration.

So, for my 2 cents, yes loss of balls +/- T can change one's place in the world, and so can the passage through life. These are changes to be embraced and to give opportunities of enjoying another facet of life's rich pattern. For now it's good to be a eunuch, and tomorrow, who knows?

WHAT? Castration take care of a problem between your legs, your gender is between your ears.

River

Riverwind (imported) wrote: Tue May 14, 2013 4:00 am WHAT? Castration take care of a problem between your legs, your gender is between your ears.

River

Not that simple River, as was explained previously by Daifu and others.

Not so easy, I think. External genitalia can be modified, pruned -all cosmetic?

I like to think that what passes for a brain orders my life. (Used to be balls.)

In turn, it has many inputs, sensory (? incl stink), hormone and social interaction.

We are complex creatures. -And maybe so are gender and sexuality.

littletits, by your comments you're showing that castration can lead to transgender characteristics. Think about what you said. You were castrated, you lived as a eunuch for over 5 years. So what motivated you to change and decide to become a woman? You were left impotent because of damage to your penis? Then you couldn't take the testosterone injections, they made you crazy because you couldn't get any relief? Is that why you decided to become a woman? You couldn't get relief? No sex-change doctor would allow you to use that as a reason to become a woman. So you started taking estrogen and you liked the effects of it. So then estrogen started to change the way you thought and that's why you decided to become a full-fledged woman? So maybe castration didn't cause you to become transgendered, but it sure played a role in it. If you hadn't been accidentally castrated, would you still be a man?

A Friday, and I find myself agreeing with Hash! -I also understand LT's view. I don't know what it is, but there is something other than T that goes with the balls. Whatever it is, it accounts for the differences in us who have normal HRT T levels but still find differences in hair pattern, ED, and mental outlook. If I had not written down thoughts of years ago, I would not have believed how my views on TG/TV, same sex marriage, castration, penectomy & reroutes, the nullo condition have all changed from varying degrees of no, to degrees of acceptance of all of these. The most remarkable change is to be able to imagine one's self related to these in a way unthinkable before. The change happened slowly, almost imperceptibly, and I think largely independent of the change in mainstream values in recent years. No, I believe that medicinal T is not a complete reversal of the effects of castration. I am happy now, and enjoy my changing view of the changing world.

Hash,If I had not been castrated I would without doubt still be a man. While intact I enjoyed being a man and the idea of becoming a eunuch or a woman never entered My head. I decided to try estrogen for a medical problem. I did not want to go back on T unless I could not handle the E. I found I liked it and suddenly I had full breasts,a well rounded butt and girly looking legs. It was impossible to conceal by expanding jiggling bust under clothes and for any physical activity of more than walking a Bra was a must I had a choice either to have a mastectomy and continue outwardly as a male of embrace the other option of becoming a woman. Since I never could be a man again becoming a woman was my preferred option and I have no doubt that it was taking E that changed my thinking to a more female thouht process. My doctor took some convincing at first but is now fully supportive. Yes castration played a role in my transgender but If I had better experience with T injections I am sure I would be taking them. It was without doubt the right decision. Once a man and in particular a eunuch takes estrogen his thought processes are permanently altered to the female pattern.

Hash, what do you think? I suspect that the eunuch begins to think differently from the start, gradually more so. Maybe LT's bra was assured from the start, just a matter of time.

A while back, Nick Connor noted from the Samui Clinic: "NULLIFICATION

(Total Penectomy) The removal of the penis is desired by some males. Occasionally ' Eunuchs' desire

penis removal later after having been so for several years...." This would suggest that LT might have woken up one day as a nullo rsther than a woman. Could the E have made the particular difference, but there was going to be a difference anyway? -but then we'd have missed out on the tits. What do you think, LT? could you see yourself nulled instead?

daifu-orchid (imported) wrote: Sat May 18, 2013 11:36 am Hash, what do you think? I suspect that the eunuch begins to think differently from the start, gradually more so. Maybe LT's bra was assured from the start, just a matter of time.

A while back, Nick Connor noted from the Samui Clinic: "NULLIFICATION

(Total Penectomy) The removal of the penis is desired by some males. Occasionally ' Eunuchs' desire

penis removal later after having been so for several years...." This would suggest that LT might have woken up one day as a nullo rsther than a woman. Could the E have made the particular difference, but there was going to be a difference anyway? -but then we'd have missed out on the tits. What do you think, LT? could you see yourself nulled instead?

My empty scrotum and limp penis was not a problem and if it was not for bone problems I would still be a contented,adjusted eunuch. As my body feminised my shrunken penis really looked oddd between my smooth fem thighs. The E is responsible for the eruption of my breasts(and there is no other word for it. Now a full D and hope they have stopped growing) my rounded butt ,smooth skin and girly legs.I do enjoy my breasts and sometimes go without a bra. While they are on the large side there is thankfully very little sagging, unsupported. I planned on just having a labia plasty without the vaginal canal which is little more than being nulled. My surgeon advised me to go the whole way as while I did not need a vagina then I might have a change of heart later. Surgery in this case would be difficult or impossible so I am as close to a natal woman as possible. Naked, no one would have any idea I was ever a man unless they were told. It was without doubt that it was the E that made the difference. If circumstances were different it is very difficult to say whether I would be eventually be nulled or not. My penis was totally useless except for a more convienent way of using the toilet.I certainly do not miss it. In hindsight when the medics were trying to save it I would be very disappointed if it failed as a portion of my glans is now my pleasure button. At the time I remember saying to the surgeon "whats the use of a limp cock with or without out balls. Just cut it off". Thankfully he did not at the time.

Interesting sequence: M, E, F, and contentment. All are fine parts of the human condition, but LT's account raises a new possibility. If the glans is most treasured as a pleasure button (good thing too!), and a vagina was not really wanted, do we know of anyone who has elected to be nullified but keep just a button -with or without urethra? This M->E->F with HRT seems to create a very different animal than the asexual E. If so, maybe M->N+button+HRT is a very valid choice? Maybe the question is wider than transgendered, perhaps new-gendered? LT seems wise to keep the options open, and should be wished every happiness.

I can't help but admire LT's adaptability to such a change in life role.