Ann Louise
11-07-2013, 11:55 AM
Being a new Facebook user, I've been amazed at the range of contact that I now have with many of my friends here, and family, and friends from long ago. As I've spread my wings living my genuine life, I've been emboldened to establish and foster contact with many, many people who as a reclusive, closeted transsexual, I never would have imagined possible just a couple of years ago.
I've limited my range of FB "friends" to all of my contemporary contacts, and none of those from the past who remember me as "he who shall remain unnamed." But I had a surge of courage a couple of days ago, though, and sought out a couple who I'd known long ago, back in my crazy days of anything-goes hippy life, offering friendship, and a brief hello message. Fingers crossed, and really excited when they both replied and accepted my friendship request, I commenced to engage in some very heavy reminiscing, and started to make enthusiastic plans with these old friends, who seemingly were totally on-board with my transsexuality (I mean, we're "hippies," for gosh sakes, of course we're cool with that...).
After one long evening and a following morning of heavy back-and-forth texting, though, I started to notice a disturbing trend becoming evident in the communications. All, and I mean all of the chat was about "me" and them as I used to be (of course, right?), and none of it was about the here and now, life now, religion and politics, future plans, none of it. I felt a sinking feeling developing, as the sentences were sent back and forth, and then Bam, there it was. "Dude" started to be used. In a conversation about our collective interaction on something that happened to us long ago, the dreaded "he" and "him" would (seemingly) innocently arise.
Then came the coup de grace: "We're soo glad you've made contact... you're nothing like you were before. In fact, we didn't really even like you much back then!"
What? Gulp... [LOL]
:sad: Well, ok, I can accept that, I guess. Of course, I was no angel, but was I really that bad? And then they launched into more back and forth in a light-hearted, reminiscent litany of all the screwed up male things that I did back then (it was brutal truth among old friends, she said), and I recognized that it was all oriented around the false machismo that was the principal feature of my old emotional armor back then.
Gosh, will I ever live that down? Can I ever really come to peace with that? In fact, I thought I had. But why does my chest feel like there's a hole in it then? I was living as a male then, but that's all over now, right?
Many other doubting, conflicting emotional questions swirled up as I mixed together all the "he's" and "him's," and the brutal truth of my old friends. And I then came to the personal realization that perhaps many of us, in particular those who are having a difficult, agonizing time coming to terms with their transition and separating their hearts from aspects of their old, false lives, are actually clinging to the old shell, and are in effect repeatedly misgendering themselves because it was "him" who set all that up. Not you, now. Over and over the self-inflicted misgendering is repeated. Old friends, wives, brothers and sisters, of course mom and dad, all these important people in our foregoing lives, with whom we wish to maintain contact, may implicitly serve as the catalysts of our own personal misgendering of ourselves.
It is any wonder, therefore, that we have emotional wounds and scars that never seem to heal and truly disappear?
I'm not proposing that we TS cut loose of all our old contacts and break completely from the past, although we all might have contemplated doing just that. But, I am noting here that the act of maintaining those old ties might implicitly set up a misgendering dynamic of our own creation, repeatedly resurrecting "he who shall remain unnamed," and we are the agent rubbing misgendered salt in our own emotional wounds, rather than it being done by others.
Just something I'm thinking about. Love to you all,
)0( Ann )0(
I've limited my range of FB "friends" to all of my contemporary contacts, and none of those from the past who remember me as "he who shall remain unnamed." But I had a surge of courage a couple of days ago, though, and sought out a couple who I'd known long ago, back in my crazy days of anything-goes hippy life, offering friendship, and a brief hello message. Fingers crossed, and really excited when they both replied and accepted my friendship request, I commenced to engage in some very heavy reminiscing, and started to make enthusiastic plans with these old friends, who seemingly were totally on-board with my transsexuality (I mean, we're "hippies," for gosh sakes, of course we're cool with that...).
After one long evening and a following morning of heavy back-and-forth texting, though, I started to notice a disturbing trend becoming evident in the communications. All, and I mean all of the chat was about "me" and them as I used to be (of course, right?), and none of it was about the here and now, life now, religion and politics, future plans, none of it. I felt a sinking feeling developing, as the sentences were sent back and forth, and then Bam, there it was. "Dude" started to be used. In a conversation about our collective interaction on something that happened to us long ago, the dreaded "he" and "him" would (seemingly) innocently arise.
Then came the coup de grace: "We're soo glad you've made contact... you're nothing like you were before. In fact, we didn't really even like you much back then!"
What? Gulp... [LOL]
:sad: Well, ok, I can accept that, I guess. Of course, I was no angel, but was I really that bad? And then they launched into more back and forth in a light-hearted, reminiscent litany of all the screwed up male things that I did back then (it was brutal truth among old friends, she said), and I recognized that it was all oriented around the false machismo that was the principal feature of my old emotional armor back then.
Gosh, will I ever live that down? Can I ever really come to peace with that? In fact, I thought I had. But why does my chest feel like there's a hole in it then? I was living as a male then, but that's all over now, right?
Many other doubting, conflicting emotional questions swirled up as I mixed together all the "he's" and "him's," and the brutal truth of my old friends. And I then came to the personal realization that perhaps many of us, in particular those who are having a difficult, agonizing time coming to terms with their transition and separating their hearts from aspects of their old, false lives, are actually clinging to the old shell, and are in effect repeatedly misgendering themselves because it was "him" who set all that up. Not you, now. Over and over the self-inflicted misgendering is repeated. Old friends, wives, brothers and sisters, of course mom and dad, all these important people in our foregoing lives, with whom we wish to maintain contact, may implicitly serve as the catalysts of our own personal misgendering of ourselves.
It is any wonder, therefore, that we have emotional wounds and scars that never seem to heal and truly disappear?
I'm not proposing that we TS cut loose of all our old contacts and break completely from the past, although we all might have contemplated doing just that. But, I am noting here that the act of maintaining those old ties might implicitly set up a misgendering dynamic of our own creation, repeatedly resurrecting "he who shall remain unnamed," and we are the agent rubbing misgendered salt in our own emotional wounds, rather than it being done by others.
Just something I'm thinking about. Love to you all,
)0( Ann )0(