Recent threads, correspondence, and conversations have me thinking about identity. Some of the questions that have cropped up recently are:
Am I fooling myself? If so, how can others not see it? What does it mean to be a woman/man? What about stereotypes? And everyone's favorite ... what is the nature of transsexuality? Finally, what's the difference between gender vs trans identity?
But the focus here is normalcy. More and more I see normalcy as the concept that ties these together. It's why discovery crises end, why stereotypes are irrelevant, why successful transitioners wind up leaving trans identity behind, and why there is so little transsexual community.
Most importantly it's why identity seems to recede to a vanishing point. We talk about this in several ways, including acceptance, the calmness and changes in thinking after an extended period on hormones, chasing down rabbit holes in our psyches, reflection, and integration.
They share a common characteristic - that the focus stops being identity per se and turns to living. That suggests a key concept: someone focused on identity is either still fighting themself, or is not transsexual.
The sense of normalcy for anyone who has lived a reactive life, however, is disconcerting. The focus might turn to living, but you don't necessarily know how! The bit about fooling yourself and others comes in here. It's as if the drama and upset never happened. You start to feel like you have always been like you are now ... even though you know you have not. But recalling - feeling - like you used to becomes more and more difficult. How many times have you heard someone long post-OP say that they wonder if they really needed to transition (speaking about how they feel, not what they know), or that they no longer perceive themselves as ever having been any different?
It really is normal to make decisions about your life, even fairly unconscious decisions. But without the driving pressure of a psychological crisis, a therapist's direction, a spouse's priorities, or even our own inner conflicts, it can feel oddly detached. This is one source of renewed wondering. "Maybe this isn't real…"
Strange thought when you think about it. In other contexts, it would not occur to you to question making routine decisions. If you have children, for example, you might question your competence, but you would not question your role in this manner – i.e., whether you are crazy simply because you were taking care of your children. No, this is something that you only do to yourself when you're transsexual, because the nature of suppression is to deny yourself the right to be.
To be normal – for a transsexual – is to not question your identity because you are firmly in the binary. And when that finally sinks in, you will eventually stop thinking about it. Gender identity vanishes with it. Confirmed, but "gone"!
Last thing… I'm finding the circle of trans people with whom I identify drawing smaller and smaller. It could be another vanishing point – or you could be those whom I met in my dreams.
Originally Posted by becky77
Lallie
