How to Help Overcome Internalised Transphobia

[battybattybats]

As Internalised Oppression appears a big problem for us (just like many other groups) I thought it a good idea for us to discuss the advise given for groups to overcome it and consider how it can help our community. So I thought we could begin with the steps from: http://ctb.ku.edu/en/tablecontents/sub_section_main_1172.htm which I've linked to here previously for us to use as a stepping off point for the discussion.

How do you help people heal from and overcome internalized oppression?

There are several different ways that people can work together to overcome internalized oppression. Here are some steps you can take.


1. Become a close friend, ally, or mentor to individuals who are struggling with internalized oppression.

2. Take pride in and celebrate culture. Learn about and celebrate your own culture, and learn about others as well. Placing your own culture in a world context can help you understand its development and value.

3. Meet in groups with people from similar backgrounds, to heal from the emotional hurts of internalized oppression.

4. Take action against injustice and oppression. Taking positive action on your own behalf is the most powerful cure for internalized, as well as external, discrimination and oppression.

5. When you notice internalized oppression operating in groups, point it out, and help the group change direction.

6. Protect young people from the effects of oppression.


More details on each step can be found at the link.

Will this work well for us when so many of us are closeted?

How can we use these ideas to help our community both here and beyond the forum.

How can those who feel they need to currently stay within the closet help with these?

Are their alternate ways for us to help each other overcome Internalised Transphobia?

[Marlena-4now]

I've got to say I think you are really incredible! Just when I have about given up on this forum you come out - once again - with an eloquent post which really causes me to re-examine the way I way I trully feel about myself and the fact that I need to CD.
I think your 6 ways to overcome internalised transphobia are a great blueprint for anyone, myself included , who is struggling to attain self exceptance and a positive self image. And I do think they can work wether or not one is in the closet. Of course the meeting in groups part could be tough - but we can meet virtualy here on the web and help heal each other, can't we ? And perhaps , if more of us defeat our internalized transphobia more of us will decide we don't need the closet any longer.
I am going to memorise your "6 ways" and really try to practice them in my evryday life. You have given me renewed hope that I can eventually attain that elusive self acceptance and positive self image that seems to come so easy for some of us, and so hard for others such as myself.
Kudos to you once again, Batty! And thanks.

[deja true]

All the suggestions pretty much boil down to the injunction that we all should have learned in grade school..."Do unto others..."! But that 'prime directive' is one that many of us forget as we get older and more concerned with our selves and our own troubles. In fact, as times get tougher and the competition for jobs, social standing and "stuff" gets even more intense, the memory of it becomes even dimmer.

To reach out and help anyone, in any disadvantaged sector of society (not just the trans community) benefits the giver as much or more than the recipient. By putting yourself second, you're actually putting your own mental well-being first.

In the big picture, we are as specks of dust...

[battybattybats]

All the suggestions pretty much boil down to the injunction that we all should have learned in grade school..."Do unto others..."!

That is a big part of that, but it is more than that. Each of those steps allows thoughts feellings and acts in direct opposition to the fears and feellings and beliefs we have taught to us by the transphobia in society. The transphobia is self-perpetuating otherwise. But each of these steps rob it of a different facet of it's power.


To reach out and help anyone, in any disadvantaged sector of society (not just the trans community) benefits the giver as much or more than the recipient. By putting yourself second, you're actually putting your own mental well-being first.

True. And following these steps heal the individual and the community.

These steps Rob ITP of it's power to hold us down and keep us enslaved. It Robs ETP of it's greatest proponents, the self-hating and often repressed CDs. And it enables the building of community that will give us the strength and capacity to change societies views and gain acceptance equality and fairness.


In the big picture, we are as specks of dust...

I disagee. Each one of us in even the smallest decisions can have collossal impact. We each can be the butterfly's whose wingbeats change the course of hurricanes. And every single persons actions and choices count.