"You go girl!" and the double bind: A Realization

[LeaP]

Having a bit too much time on my hands lately, I was recently musing over a positive response someone gave in a thread. For no particular reason, I found myself wondering why the comment was made in the form that it was.

It was short. it was supportive. It almost could have been "you go girl" - a phrase that is actually seldom used.

And that's when it hit me.

The TS members are often accused of being mean, depressed, serious, exclusive, etc. When these accusations come up, I usually respond by citing the positive things in the forum. No one ever responds to this, which always struck me as odd. The realization, triggered by that innocuous little comment mentioned above, was that positive things – the support itself – is what is being cast as mindless cheerleading!

In short, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. It's a classic double bind.

The interesting thing about double binds, though, is not merely that they happen. It is why they happen and where they come from. Double binds are the product of conceptual frameworks that marginalize and invalidate people.

The subtlety here is how the marginalization takes place. The two mechanisms (broadly speaking) are denial and exclusion on one hand, and the subsuming of differences on the other. Both are in play in this case. In (the non-TS) fighting our legitimate expression of experiences, issues, and concerns, there is a strong element of denial. But the rationale is the promotion of the big happy transgender family. The TS know where the big transgender family thing goes ... the disappearance of TS issues and concerns.

But the last bit of the realization, coming out of the knowledge of so many types of marginalization in the world, is the underlying human dynamic: These others may be drawn to us. They may want or need us. But they do not like us.

[KellyJameson]

I'm not a good "Cheerleader" which partly comes from my cautious nature, which is as much temperament as life experience.

Since puberty I have largely lived and breathed the LGBT world with an emphasis on the T and this is a big world on the west coast of the U.S

The self destruction I have seen is unbelievable and I think the only reason I avoided it comes from seeing what others were doing to themselves.

Our minds are dangerous to us and it is amazing the human capacity to rationalize anything. It is a universal trait that is practiced in one form or another by every single person in a multitude of ways

Self deception is "normal" and it is through self deception that we keep our will to live alive.

We build realities out of this frame work made up of self deception and much of the conflict between people is when their self deception bumps up against anothers with each person defending their idea of self deception as truth.

I will never know for sure if I have practiced my own version of self deception as I have embraced the idea of "my gender" and the implications this has meant for my own life.

I certainly would not have embraced this "gender identity" if I did not have the carnage of my own life to point to but for every rational reason I can give for "being a woman" I can also find irrational reasons for this belief.

I have the faith of a heritic searching for intellectual honesty within myself looking for the reasons that have shaped me into who and what I am.

This has been a beautiful terrible experience that is as fragile as crossing the Atlantic in a row boat.

I will never be able to say "You Go Girl" and every cell of my body wants to scream "Please do not go there but run as fast as possible in the other direction"

The problem is, I ran in the other direction for a long time and know it would be a sin to urge others to do the same, so I stay mute.

I will never know for sure what creates a transsexual but I do know that in that creation there is sadness and heart break.

Sometimes I feel we have been marginalized by something operating beyond human understanding or intent.

An aberration whose purpose is yet unknown and when I see someone fantasizing about being a woman I want to shake them violently to wake them up.

[Rianna Humble]

Kelly, I think that is a terrible admission - you will never encourage someone even when you see them timidly doing what is right?

Lea, to me, there is a difference between a simple "you go girl" response and one that encourages someone with positive reinforcement. The difficulty is that for the detractors, and unfortunately they are not always non-TS members, dismiss the positive reinforcement as mindless cheer-leading.

I agree with you that you will never convince the detractors because they do not wish to be convinced.