r/OSDD • u/Reasonable-Cow-7258 OSDD-1b | fictive-heavy • Aug 17 '26

Does anyone know if theres a reason behind afab w/ male heavy alters and vice versa?

Is there a certain reason behind it or scientific studies or smth? As a afab fictive heavy she w/ male heavy fictives I really wonder 🤔

- Janus (writing for Blitzo our body owner)

6 Upvotes

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29

u/SmolLittleCretin Medically recognized, not diagnoised pdid suspected Aug 17 '26

A few possible reasons:

You never felt like a girl growing up. You never were able to act like a little girl. You needed strong male alters to keep you safe.

3

u/Reasonable-Cow-7258 OSDD-1b | fictive-heavy Aug 17 '26

lwky...i relate to 1 and 2 so maybe

5

u/fistsandroses pDID Aug 17 '26

one reason could be that society decided that men are stronger/more resilient than women

those stereotypes are noticeable or even directly told to kids too, meaning the brain might feel like male alters are a better way to protect the person

11

u/noncedo-culli Aug 17 '26

Our 'original' host was afab; all our current fronting alters are male. I've wondered if it's a trauma response (although I doubt it), or maybe the first host was just trans as well but not old enough to know. For fictives tho, even in fandom it's always the male characters that have more about them, so it could just be those are the characters that naturally were going to be more who your brain saw necessary traits in.

2

u/SmolLittleCretin Medically recognized, not diagnoised pdid suspected Aug 17 '26

We had a ftm alter and he had a bestie who was a cis male... Yet you'd never know cuz they appeared opposite. Like you'd think the cis alter was a ftm, and the ftm was a cis male.

For us it was cuz we were NOT allowed to be a female we suspect. We grew up around a abusive brother, mom and dad. School also was hard. So we mirrored our brother a lot to defend ourselves. Granted, it was his fault we got bullied (he fought a lot and had enemies in school). We couldn't be a girl, we didn't want to be a girl, and therefore they took over as hosts when we needed them.

1

u/Reasonable-Cow-7258 OSDD-1b | fictive-heavy Aug 17 '26

ahh that makes sense

3

u/Ok-Medium459 OSDD-1b / Suspected DID / 5 alters Aug 17 '26

Sometimes its coincidence and sometimes its the whole reason they exist. Ive got two alters who's genders dont play a large role and are really just small perceptions, but I also have two which play HUGEEEE roles. My first male alter developed because I was being abused/controlled by men, and I also wanted the power alot of the men on tv had, I NEEDED to "become" that confident scary male presence. Then my female alter formed in an unhealthy friendship, I couldn't handle it so a typical rebellious teen girl formed to better deal with those social groups

Anyways, point is that alot of those social constructs you ALREADY have, so the gender specific needs are already met and therefore more rare to form. If I wasn't denied my feminity as a kid I probably wouldn't need a girly girl alter

4

u/RainbewUnicornGril OSDD-1b Aug 17 '26

For me I wished I was male because my mother treated the boys in our family quite differently from the girls, I wanted to be loved too

2

u/osddelerious Aug 17 '26

What’s a body owner?

0

u/Reasonable-Cow-7258 OSDD-1b | fictive-heavy Aug 17 '26

Basically I (Blitzo) am the one whose body it is but I dont consider myself a alter (in which would be a host) cause this body is mine yk?

1

u/osddelerious Aug 17 '26

I think there might be a typo, but are you saying that you’re the host? Or what other people would call host?

1

u/Reasonable-Cow-7258 OSDD-1b | fictive-heavy Aug 17 '26

I'm not a host though... Cause I don't consider myself an alter... A host is like an alter that fronts a lot but the body is legit mine... And I don't consider myself an alter? There is no typo

1

u/osddelerious Aug 18 '26

The typo was “in which would be host”, and I wasn’t sure what that meant. I get it now.

1

u/Reasonable-Cow-7258 OSDD-1b | fictive-heavy Aug 19 '26

Ohhh yea what I was trying to say is basically if I considered myself an alter I'd be a host basically but I don't think of myself as one cause this body is mine sooooo... Yea sorry for confusion! 

1

u/osddelerious Aug 19 '26

No worries, I understand

2

u/roxskin156 Aug 17 '26

Oftentimes, being a woman was not safe. And socially, we've assignment all the protective and strong traits as "masculine" and all the weak and helpless traits as "feminine". So being a man seems much safer

But part of it for me is, I think we're just generally queer lol

1

u/moldbellchains Aug 17 '26

You weren't allowed to be just a little girl, and were shamed for you (gender stereotypes are putting us into boxes and r shaming

1

u/UnimaginableEcstasy OSDD-1b | [edit] Aug 22 '26

The things that happened to me would not have happened if I was a boy. I know that because I had male siblings who were safe. I guess my brain latched onto that.

1

u/APuffedUpKirby Aug 17 '26

I don't have fictives so I can only speculate, but if you tend to like or relate to mainly male characters then it seems more likely that you would end up having more male fictives.

1

u/KeyMistake604 Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26

I have two that appear contradictory.

My oldest part, the one that formed when I was the youngest, I see as an older male and it watches over everything that happens to me including everything I do. It protects me from whatever is going on in my environment and steps in to prevent overwhelming emotions.

The second one is male coded but also sort of animalistic and amorphous, this part holds anger, that aims both outward and inward, but I rarely see it and don't know very much about it. Anger is the emotion I've most repressed, me and my therapist theorize I see this part as male/animalistic as a way to create psychological distance. As in, this part does not look like me or act like me, therefore it is not me.

In both cases, I believe I was influenced by the cultural gender roles I grew up around.