A friend of mine posted an essay on facebook. I wrote some comments in relation to it. These articles are extremely informative and work to try to inform the public of the experience of transgender individuals. While this article specifically addresses rapid onset gender dysphoria, it applies to also inform of general gender dysphoria. I’ll share it here:
There’s a lot of interesting stuff in here. Like this passage:
“For adolescent males with late-onset gender dysphoria, parents often report surprise because they did not see signs of gender dysphoria during childhood.”
There’s the expectation to be able to see it from childhood or there’s an expectation of signs of it. I think gender dysphoria is different for everyone and how it presents is really quite complicated, anything from anxiety/social anxiety to depression and lack of personal expression could be signs. This makes it more complicated I think because it’s possible the first encounter with gender dysphoria could be as a mental health issue. I think this might create frustration in that it was maybe easier to accept a mental health condition–being transgender or having someone that is transgender in your life is a whole different story. I think the current media representation is a cookie cutter story of “always knowing” but hind sight becomes 20/20 so for the person questioning or doubting it–well it’s just confusing when approaching it.
Anyway I think the expectation is that the people who have it should obviously have known, the parents should obviously have known–and surely professionals should have known–after all this is the narrative we’re hearing isn’t it? Those that specialize in treating this have come under greater scrutiny I think lately there’s a number of different directions. Those in their teenage years have it especially difficult they’re in a situation where they can hit the pause button and gain greater comfort in their gender identity. They have the greatest to gain and lose the risk is highest not because of the treatment itself but because of the changes that occur to there bodies because of the treatment course decided.
It’s true that as of now there aren’t tests for being transgender. They have identified trends with brain development with trans individuals that the pathways resemble the gender they identify with and I’d be curious to know if that’s something that is consistent or reliable. I don’t know that it’d be all that convenient/economical to give a brain scan (MRI?) to confirm whether one is trans or not. I think the joke in the community is something like “do you want to be a girl? Then you’re a girl.” I think it’s ironic because the experience individuals go through are typically never that simple for what I’ll call “decoding the soul.” I feel like this really is something along the lines of decoding yourself at the soul level because your mind may still act in alignment with how you were born. You were (likely) indoctrinated and assimilated into your sex’s sub-culture. The point is it’s really at the core of ones being, and the inertia is typically quite great. A transgender individual has likely invented a system of coping mechanisms to blend in and when this world cracks open, everything needs to be re-learned typically maintaining two identities during this phase “boy” mode and “girl” mode. This change that happens is daunting and requires breaking through the inertia, reprocessing ones life in light of new information revealed, reinvents a life with random encounters during transition that highlight gender dysphoria, identifying the coping mechanism developed, and finally observing the dormant seed of gender identity starving for attention.
I very much appreciate the analogy to left handedness. That connection is quite brilliant and easy to access–everyone understands it I think. I’m sure not everyone knows the history but in a way that’s part of the point.