There's zero science behind my post. This is just my own life and some things I've pulled together that have sparked interest over the last few years, given other research I've read and things that have happened to me. I know no one has tied this together in a scientific matter, but here's my experience.

When I think back to my first memories between 3-4 years old they center around three or four things. One, the birth of my sister. Two, an injury I had from falling into the wooden arm of a chair at my grandparents' house that split my face and lip completely from the bottom of my left nostril through my lip, leaving a very unique facial scar. Three, my grandpa's foot, which had a pretty severe wound from being shot in WWII. My entire life he had a noticeable limp.

A few years later, around 5-7 years old, he was cutting grass pushing a riding mower on a hill, slipped over the edge and into a ditch by the road. He broke his leg and ankle and was yelling for help, but I was afraid. The mower was still running and I'm sure he thought it might fall on him. He wanted me to go to the neighbor's house next door, but they had a terrifying dog. Finally, some strangers stopped and helped him out of the ditch and turned off the mower. My next memory is him in a cast.

If my grandpa thought he had something to do with my BID he would die all over again. However, this is where my brain has led me over the years. He almost never showed his foot with the gunshot wound, but when he did it was fascinating to me. My grandpa was a major part of my life. He pretty much took care of my sister and me while my parents worked, since he retired early. He never talked about WWII, but I knew he had earned medals as well as a Purple Heart. After he died my grandma told me he had shot himself in the foot. I don't know the real truth. Perhaps he did shoot himself because he was afraid of dying and wanted out. Perhaps it was an accident while cleaning a gun, which I also heard from his nephew. Perhaps he was shot in combat. He's been gone for 20+ years, so I'll never know the truth.

He was also, by the way, completely toothless. Apparently he let the army dentist pull all of his teeth. I know dental health would have been poor for someone born in 1911 and growing up during the depression, so maybe it was simply better to wear dentures. Again, this is my brain fitting pieces together to make sense of my need to be an LAK amputee. Here's another interesting detail. Before my grandma died I heard her say my grandpa wasn't that sexually interested in her until she got sick and had to use a wheelchair. Maybe he had regrets. Maybe it was an attraction. I'll never know.

This is when things really began to feel like there could be some sort of genetic link.

A few years ago, before my middle child graduated college, they told my wife and me they were non-binary. Researchers studying BID and gender incongruence have noted overlapping neurological mechanisms, suggesting the two conditions may share common ground in how the brain maps identity onto the body. Based on what we now know, transgender and non-binary identity sits close to BID in that landscape. There's a lot of speculation on my part, I know that. Maybe I'm hoping there's a link so I can put a finger on the cause. I've never felt brave enough to ask my child how they really feel. It just felt like their personal identity. We accept and love them completely, but after twenty years of knowing them as a daughter we still struggle with pronouns sometimes. They know it's not on purpose, and we keep trying. Maybe someday I can have that deeper conversation with them.

If you have similar self-made hypotheses I would love to hear them.

By the way, I did search the forum to see if there was already a topic related to this matter. I could not find anything. If I somehow missed it please let me know and I can move this post.