On Saturday, I listened to a fascinating program on NPR radio station about the male hormone testosterone. The piece was an episode of This American Life series produced by Chicago Public Radio.
The segment of the program I found to be most interesting was the experience of Griffin Hansbury, a man who used to be a woman and underwent sex-change. One of the steps in his sex-change process was to get injected with the male hormone testosterone. She - who is now a he - talked about how the increased testosterone levels made her/his view of the world go through a paradigm shift. He describes how much his thought processes when approaching women changed from what they were "before T" to "after T" (his phrases). Griffin used to be a lesbian woman before T, and during those days, when he saw another woman he was attracted to, his mind would go through a whole narrative sequence on how he should approach the woman and get to know her based on her interests and personality. After T, when he saw a woman he felt attracted to, before any coherent thought even had a chance to form, his mind would be flooded with "pronographic images" involving that woman! In other words, he experienced what it is to be a man.
I thought it was very cool that one person could experience sexual attraction as both a woman and a man in one life time. As I listened to his experiences, it hit me that he was able to know what men go through only because of his testosterone treatment, and almost no other woman (except for rare exceptions) will ever know how men really feel about sex, and why we act the way we do.
If just testosterone could cause such a difference in the personality, imagine how much more differences there must be due to all the other things which go into determining our genders. Men and women might belong to the same species as far as biology goes, but in many aspects of psychology, we might as well be totally different animals.
You can listen to the full episode by visiting this page: 220: Testosterone. If you want to listen to just the segment I am commenting about, you may move the slider of the audio player to the 15-min mark and you should be all set.
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One of my friends in school had a brain tumour which caused hormones to go awry, so he had to take testosterone replacement gel (topical). He actually stopped it for a while and said that his entire view of life changed. Not drastically or anything like people on the radio (and he mentioned NPR-- other programs) predict. He just said that he would look at a woman and think that this is the kind of lady he may be interested in. I can send a link to the essay if I find it.
ReplyDeleteI've only just found your blog and am diappointed that you will not be writing anymore. It's rare that someone will write about sex changes (especially a straight man) and the changes of desire when this happens. I agree, it would be an amazing experience to feel what another gender feels when experiencing desire. I always think we have a little of each gender in us...that is my take anyway.
ReplyDeleteAlso, upon reviewing your blogs I've found them very interesting, but also found myself wondering what it is you really want out of a relationship. You never manage to say what that is and what it is that disappoints you so much. Maybe that is not the point of your blog and I'd imagine that could reveal more than is comfortable for most.
Anyway, love will always be there whether we like it or not. It may never be exactly as we would like it to be, but it's good to remind ourselves that love is out there even if it's in the form of friendships. Let love in all it's forms give you happiness Libran! Good luck!
-G (Aries woman!)