This is a question that has plauged me ever since I realized I wanted to be a girl: why? Why am I trans? What did I do to deserve this fate? Is it biological? Is it spiritual? Why me?

Sadly, I have yet to find a satisfactory answer. I believe that there must be a biological basis for it. I am a materialist, so I think literally everything has a physical basis. If I invoke spiritual reasons it’s simply to give meaning to the physical. Also, it is very common for trans people to report knowing their true gender at a very early age, which I think points strongly to the cause not being social or psychological. Even I showed signs of this, because despite having no formal concept of wanting to be a girl as a child I naturally gravitated to taking the girl roles in games I would play with my friends.

Let’s consider the physical causes. I have only very sketchy and faint evidence of any kind of developmental difference in my body. There are a few things about me that are interesting, but nothing strong enough to ever make a doctor question if I was in any way intersex. Consider:

• As a young adult, I never developed any whiskers around my mouth or any mustache. My facial hair was mostly non existent in those areas. Below the jawline I did have facial hair, but it was thin and scraggly.
• My first endo had me submit a sperm sample before starting HRT. He told me I had a low sperm count and asked if I had trouble providing the sample, because he also said it was a low volume sample. I could only reply that the sample I provided was normal for me and I had no trouble giving it.
• When I had gender reassignment surgery, my surgeon told me he had to alter his normal surgical technique because my penis and scrotum were smaller than average.

Were these signs of some sort of developmental disorder? It could be, but I’ll probably never know since there was no testing done on me. I will add, though, that when my mother was carrying me she had cysts on her uterus, and I know those can alter the environment in the womb. Maybe there was some developmental abnormality as I grew in her belly. Again, we will never know. She had a hysterectomy after I was born, and the cysts were not cancerous, but I don’t know of any details about what the cysts really were, and she did not remember.

I would really like to get my DNA sequenced. There are quite a few gene variants associated with disorders of sexual development (DSDs) but at this moment in my life I have other, more important things to deal with.

So what about the spiritual side of things? Regardless of the biological reasons for being trans, whatever they may be, what did I do to deserve this seeming punishment, for that’s exactly what it felt like for many, many years. I am Wiccan, and we teach a doctrine of reincarnation. I have considered the following:

• In a past life I was unappreciative of being a woman, and so I was reincarnated with a male body as a lesson to learn. I will admit, that having to fight and struggle against family, society, and my own body has made me deeply appreciative of the gift of womanhood. If this is what happened, then please, Goddess, consider this a lesson learned!
• Between incarnations I decided to intentionally reincarnate as trans to challenge myself and make myself grow in ways that I could not do as a cis person. This is the happier possibility since it implies that I have a somewhat advanced soul seeking to push the boundaries of what I can be. In modesty, though, I don’t really think this is the case.

So there you have it. I don’t know why I am trans, either from a biological or a spiritual standpoint, and this bothers me. It’s not satisfying at all to think that this was all just down to random chance and that it has no meaning or explanation. I wish I had a better conclusion for this blog entry, but I just don’t.