Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men

6: Inner Turmoil and Moving toward Acceptance

6 InnerTurmoil and Moving toward Acceptance I always just felt wrong, like something wasn’t right and I hadn’t a clue as to what that was. I gradually figured more out as I became interested in girls, because I knew that I wasn’t attracted to lesbian girls, just the straight ones. So after a while, being strange became the norm, until I got to college and was more suicidal than ever. I started looking for answers, and found them, because I had to. I’d never heard of problems with gender before. Nobody talks about this stu= because they don’t want it to exist. Well, news flash (especially you fundamentalists out there) it does exist. And it’s not a choice. Not many people feel like they are in the wrong body for the fun of it. (Alex, FtM) I feel absolutely no shame in being transgendered, but I have felt shame at being seen as female. It’s an anger that my male side is invisible, as well as an embarrassment that another’s view of me is so limited. There is also, undoubtedly, some internalized misogyny, which can be directly related to the culture. (Tristan, FtM) It would not be accurate to say that every trans-identified person is suicidal , mutilates his or her genitals, or has an eating disorder. However, a significant number of them do experience a range of emotional problems as a consequence of being stigmatized for not fitting in with cultural expectations : confusion and shame for being di=erent, and anguish over losing community ties, relationships with family members, and friends. These personal crises can occur at any age and last briefly or for a lifetime. Having an authentic self is essential for positive mental health and nourishing, mutual relationships. According to Miller and Stiver (1997), individuals will use “strategies of disconnection” in order to maintain their relationships by denying parts of themselves that others may find objectionable or unacceptable. In other words, trans-identified people often have to abandon their true selves or hide parts of themselves in order to stay connected to people they care about. They are forced to silence themselves to avoid the pain of losing relationships. Jean Baker Miller (1988) calls this “condemned isolation”—being locked out of authentic human connection. Members of marginalized groups often are silenced and isolated as a result of dominant groups defining what is acceptable. In the case of trans-identified individuals, the policing of dominant gender norms force those who are variant to hide their authentic self and try to make their gender nonconformity invisible; their feelings of shame lead to selfdoubts and a sense of unworthiness (Jordan 1989). If they internalize the culture’s transphobia, these individuals may also go through periods of self-loathing and even self-inflicted punishment for their supposed perversion or abnormality. Stigma of Difference The experience of being di=erent very much defines the notion of “abnormal .” One’s status as someone abnormal manifests itself in how others treat you and also in how you feel about yourself. Transman JT touched on both of these issues: Well, according to the dominant culture I don’t even exist. There isn’t even a transman stereotype (yet). So for years I thought I was simply “sick,” a failed person. . . . The issue of gender in social interaction is so large (at least in my experience) that if you aren’t “properly gendered” or don’t adhere to the rules accordingly every single interaction from conversations to eating to simply walking down the street can become negative or create insecurity. For example, throughout school many other students wouldn’t interact with me or were rude to be because I was very masculine (by US standards) and they thought that was weird. People wouldn’t eat lunch with me in jr. high and high school because I was “that weird girl” or “that lesbian,” and of course they would say mean things about my appearance behind my back. And from grade school until the start of my transition, every other time I walked somewhere people would comment—“What are you? Are you a boy or a girl?” or simply stare. Many people I talked with spoke about not fitting in and being “unusual.” Dawn (hermaphrodite) said: “I’ve always felt like a freak. Being made fun InnerTurmoil 155 of...