Quote Originally Posted by donnalee View Post
Christina, although I sympathize with your quandary, I really must object to your using Stockholm Syndrome as one possibility for it.
Stockholm Syndrome is where someone kidnapped and/or held hostage and in fear of their life starts to sympathize with their captors and enlists themselves in their cause, no matter how absurd it may be; a good example would be Patty Hearst, who not only did this but participated in at least 1 bank robbery with her captors.
Have the LGBT groups held you hostage? If not, your use of this term is not only incorrect, but insulting to those groups; as an educator, you should know better.
I'll admit that wasn't the most appropriate use of the term. No, of course I don't view the LGBTQ community or the groups I support as holding me hostage. I merely used the term to convey my own insecurities that perhaps because I spend so much time interacting with the LGBTQ community that I'm begining to identify as an LGBTQ person myself as a result of those affiliations. I used the term Stockholm Syndrome purely to convey the idea of relating to and identifying with someone else because of repeated exposure.

You're right though, I shouldn't have said that and I'm sorry if I offended anyone. Even as I reread my last paragraph, I can easily see how inappropriate the analogy was. Comparing it to Stockholm Syndrome, even in the way I meant it, makes it sound like I'm blaming the LGBTQ community for "making" be a crossdresser/non-gender conforming, which of course I do not think is true.

But again, this is the root of my problems right now. For whatever reason, I keep trying to justify my crossdressing and gender identity because it's so new to me that I feel compelled to convince myself that I actually HAVE been the person longer than I realize. I feel like I need to prove to myself that I've always been genderfluid but have only recently realized it so that I don't feel like a phony or "going through a phase."

As many have suggested, I am looking into finding a gender therapist. This is the worst time to be doing so, of course, because of little free time during the holiday season, but I'm making it my top priority for the new year.