Strike a Pose! On Trans and Crossdreamer Cultures.

The TV series Pose tells us how amazingly creative crossdreamers and trans people can be, when they need to explore and express who they are.

Poster for the TV series Pose.

Crossdreamers are people who sometimes or constantly dream about becoming another gender. They may identify as trans, cisgender or nonbinary. There is an amazing variety in the way they dream about – and express – their longings.

You should think the fact that we have this cross-gender orientation in common, would make us want to share and learn from each other.

But no, instead the interplay between gender roles, sexual orientation, assigned gender and race has divided us into different tribes.

This is unfortunate, because there is so much to learn from how other crossdreamers have expressed themselves and explored their identities.

This is one of the reasons the TV series Pose should be of great interest to all crossdreamers and gender variant people.

Pose is a work of fiction, but it follows up the 1990 documentary Paris is Burning, a film about the 1990s ball culture of New York.

New Research on Genes and Gender Identity

The feedback-loops between gender identity, real life experiences, cultural concepts, genes and hormones are complex and messy, but there is a growing consensus among scientists that hormones do play a role in the creation of transgender identities.

The main focus is on the pre-natal period, when that person is still in its mother’s womb, being exposed to hormones aimed at triggering the development of gender specific organs and a gender identity.

Mapping the genes of trans women

In a paper called “Genetic Link Between Gender Dysphoria and Sex Hormone Signaling” Madeleine Foreman, Lauren Hare, Kate York, Kara Balakrishnan, Francisco J Sánchez, Fintan Harte, Jaco Erasmus, Eric Vilain and Vincent R Harley reports on a research project including 380 transgender women who have transitioned and 344 control male subjects.

They have looked at associations and interactions between variants of 12 sex hormone–signaling genes and gender dysphoria in transgender women.