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Thoughts from a Former Dysphoric
When I was a little girl, I wanted badly to be a boy. Boys got to play the games I wanted to play and had an exclusive claim on the adjectives I hoped to apply to my adult self, such as courageous, honorable and adventurous. I was in the wrong body to be what I wanted to be.
I shudder now to think what would have happened to me had my parents been encouraged, by childrearing experts and the general culture, to take me seriously when I vociferously and persistently declared my desire to be a boy.
My discovery of feminism cured my gender dysphoria. The problem, as the ’70s-era feminists defined it, wasn’t that my female body and individual personality were mismatched, but that the definitions of female and male were unnecessarily and irrationally narrow and pinched.
Feminism declared that I could play baseball and cops ‘n’ robbers, dream of any number of interesting and noble futures, be completely myself, and yet be a completely normal female too. This was liberating.
Naturally, feminist theory didn’t solve all the problems of embodied female life. Biology is what it is: I still had to endure menstruation; rape was a seemingly omnipresent threat (the statistics are a whole lot better now, FYI), and, when the time came, the physical and emotional demands of pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and childrearing definitely got in the way of my becoming a rodeo rider, relief pitcher for the Orioles, or an FBI agent.
Well, that’s life.
Which is to say; that’s biology. And it is biology that the transgendered are struggling so desperately against, which essentially means they are mad at life itself. Or, specifically, that part of life that is most relentlessly gendered because genitals=genesis=genes=generation=regeneration … the original and still the best explanation for why little boys have lingams and little girls have yonis.
Yes, we humans are astonishingly plastic but remain, nonetheless, sexually dimorphic mammalian creatures. Just like chimpanzees, chipmunks, and Chihuahuas, we reproduce by means of sexual intercourse as it is enacted by persons defined as male and female by anatomy and chromosomes.
Clearly, human beings can decide not to reproduce — traditionally, by refraining from heterosexual intercourse but also by using our minds to invent workarounds. We can be involuntarily sterile, for that matter, but the essential anatomy and physiology that distinguishes — absolutely — male from female, and the purpose for that distinction remains. Celibate nuns and lesbians still menstruate and ovulate; gay men and men who believe themselves to be women nonetheless produce sperm.
As a little girl, I wanted to be what I imagined a boy was. Having never been a boy, I didn’t really know. And, I would posit — with all due respect and much, much sympathy — that a man cannot be or become a woman, or genuinely experience life as a woman. He can only experience life as he imagines a woman experiences it.
Why, though, can he do this? Why can the impression that a man — Caitlyn Jenner, say — actually is a woman be so incredibly powerful?
As a working hypothesis, the disorders of our minds arise out of our mental capabilities. There has to be an ability that precedes the disability. I nominate empathetic imagination as the ability gone awry in the transgendered mind.
During the Olympics, I watched a figure skater fly around the ice and leap into the air, spinning then landing lightly on one blade and swirling away: I didn’t just apprehend it with my eyes and mind, I felt it in my body. For long seconds, it was as if all I’d have to do is leap up from my comfy chair, throw on a pair of skates and my limbs would know how to do that magical thing.
Indeed, this may be why we are capable of finding joy in watching sports (or, for that matter, porn) because we can imagine ourselves into other bodies. Heck, we can imagine ourselves into the bodies of animals: the best equestriennes, dog trainers, and lion whisperers are surely those who teeter on the edge of identifying “as” rather than merely “with” their animals.
As an adult, I am a happily female mother of six adult children who looks forward with stereotypical eagerness to being a grandmother. And yet, I work primarily and gladly with men — specifically the courageous, honorable, adventurous men who work as game wardens in the Maine woods. I am frequently, and very comfortably, the only woman in a roomful of people and often the only woman for miles of snowy, woodland “around.”
The imaginative empathy that allows me to be with them might be on the continuum with that which once demanded I be them, no?
Activists who scornfully declare that a white, straight, middle-class man cannot possibly understand what it is like to be black, gay, poor, or female … are wrong.
That’s what the transgenderism “movement” demonstrates — not that we can or should determine our own gender (or race or whatever) “identity,” but that human beings are indeed capable of profound empathetic imagination. Because we can imagine ourselves into our neighbor’s lives, God’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself” is difficult … but it’s not actually impossible.
The transgendered provide perhaps extreme demonstrations of what is our common and sacred gift. Tyrants of various stripes urge us to suppress that talent — don’t feel sympathy for the deported Jews! Don’t imagine yourself an occupant of that basket of deplorables! Christ, however, asked us to nurture and encourage our capacity to truly see, truly understand and in some sense, at least for a long second, be and therefore truly love: it is the gift of which he was both giver and exemplar.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
I was thinking the exact same thing, Nanda. I suppose this is perhaps one of the curses that accompanies a secular, affluent society: The expectation that life should and can be free of suffering. Now that is truly delusional!
No, it’s worse than that. It infects even Christian culture, too – this idea if you’re willingly bearing a burden, you should be happy about it, and if you’re not happy about your suffering, you’re doing something wrong.
Consider this attitude:
“Remember – having a good attitude is the most important thing.”
“So if I’m sad or afraid or feel like crap sometimes…”
“Then… it will be your fault.”
I can’t say for sure if the “positive attitude” approach is more common among God-fearing Americans, but it’s not significantly less common. Willingly bearing a burden despite its not being the kind of burden you find it possible to have a positive attitude toward just doesn’t cut the mustard in America, and is marked out as a “sin” against Americanism, even if it’s not a sin against God.
In this environment, it doesn’t surprise me that some deeply unhappy people would prefer drastic solutions to that feeling of moral inferiority that comes from being born in a way that leaves it very easy to fall short of that positive attitude.
“Act cheerful even when you aren’t” is one thing – at least that acknowledges the artifice and labor involved in seeming pleasant during tough times. But an expectation that comes close to “be cheerful even when you aren’t” – I think a lot of unhappy people believe others expect that of them, and that expectation does a lot to make suffering repellent, too, since it’s an attitude that marks all suffering out for shame.
Not endorsing this *at all*; coping/bearing up is not all sweetness and light granted…In fact, anyone who tells me it is – is gonna get slapped upside the head – by my pastor…”Muscular Christianity” of the Victorian/Edwardian vintage is a caricature of true Christian forbearance that acknowledges the difficulty and unites it to Calvary…Sharing the difficulty with those who understand it, while brushing off the condescension of those who don’t.
I simply don’t recognize, at least in my Catholic circles, the attitude the cartoon illustrates. That’s psychology, not theology. Yes, we are to unite our sufferings to Christ and in that way we participate, so to speak, in the process of redemption, but apart from that aspect (and “offering it up” is a Catholic, not Protestant, thing) I don’t think Christians demand that we be cheerful, though I do find that trying to maintain a positive attitude is, in fact, very helpful when bearing burdens. Nor do I agree with your statement, “Willingly bearing a burden despite its not being the kind of burden you find it possible to have a positive attitude toward just doesn’t cut the mustard in America, and is marked out as a “sin” against Americanism, even if it’s not a sin against God.” Or, to be more accurate, I would say that though this might be true now, it certainly wasn’t in the past, and indeed I think of cheerfulness despite adversity as an American virtue that has largely been lost. What comes to mind are song lyrics from my parents’ time, who were born in the twenties. “Smile, though your heart is aching, smile, even though it’s aching, although a tear may be ever so near…..you’ll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile”. That was common.
I don’t doubt either of your experiences. I just admire them for being fortunate experiences, and regret they’re not more common.
I agree that more tradition-oriented Christianity (which includes but isn’t limited to Catholicism) is more resistant to the, um Pragerian approach (is it OK if I call it that?) imposing the moral obligation to be happy on every American.
Lost in what way? If the loss is as great as conservatives often fear it is, I don’t think the loss is only the loss conservatives often complain about – the “entitled snowflake” loss. There’s also the expectation that we learn to experience (or at least market) our adversity as something other than adversity: modern Americans – especially modern American conservatives – absolutely eat up narratives of the sort, “I thought my adversity was adversity until I realized it was my special opportunity for success!”
Obviously, finding a way to leverage adversity into opportunity is a smart strategy, if you can accomplish it. It’s not only American, but also practical, to seek out strategies which turn adversity into an advantage. But it leaves less room for adversity to be adversity as such, rather than a marketing ploy. Admitting, in the face of adversity, “I’m at a loss,” or “I don’t know what to make of it,” means admitting one’s failure to leverage. On the other hand, those who do capitalize on their victimhood status, even in a way that sickens conservatives, are doing something quite American: leveraging their adversity (such as it is) into an advantage.
@titustechera might hate me for @mentioning him, but maybe he has better words for what I’m getting at.
@midge, if the attitude @painterjean and I described isn’t common among Christians in your ambit, please find some additional believing friends! Life is hard enough without believers adding to its burdens…When St. James says, “Consider it all joy…” [1:2-8], I don’t think he’s referring to pasted on smile/happy talk games. He may well be asking us to recall the joy of knowing/being ransomed by Christ – joy no one/thing can take from us – without feeling “happy/useful/productive/worthy”. This has nothing to do with a purported national/philosophical identity. It has everything to do with *survival*…
There’s a piece at the Federalist.com today about the side-effects of what remains a largely experimental treatment for gender dysphoria, namely the infusion of hormones into patients.
A couple of things struck me: First, that the bodies of transgendered persons are not receptive to the hormones of their “true” sex—their bodies want to be what they are, and must be forced into appearing to be the opposite of what they are.
Second, “hormones” are neurotransmitters; anyone who has any familiarity with mental illness must know that estrogens and androgens have complex effects on mental functioning and health. Any woman who has experienced PMS, pregnancy or menopause (and many of us have done all three) knows that hormones affect mood and cognition, not just the distribution of body hair and fat. What would possess a physician to introduce these variables for what amounts to cosmetic reasons when the patient, by definition, is mentally fragile?
It seems really crazy. Maybe one of our doctors could weigh in on the thinking, here?
Which is a reason they’re an attractive thing to monkey with. People who aren’t trans have had their mental health helped by monkeying with their hormone balance.
If the conservative cure for trans feelings were giving trans people more of whatever hormone’s associated with the parts they were born with, would that upset you? That is, if you could help a person born into a woman’s body feel less alienated by that woman’s body by giving female hormones, or a person born into a man’s body feel less alienated by that body by giving male hormones, would you do it?
I doubt the real objection is “hormone treatments are unsafe”. I suspect the real objection is more like “hormone treatments that don’t already match your body are bad”.
I may have stated it a trifle strongly, but nonetheless, I do think my objection would be that hormone treatments often have serious deleterious effects on mind and body whether they match your body or not, and should be regarded warily. I’m old enough to remember when menopause was routinely treated with supplemental estrogen until women began developing cancers because of it. And that was estrogen being added to women’s bodies.
I can only assume that the body of a man who believes himself to be a woman is not rendered more receptive to female hormones by his mere belief. His body will continue to produce androgens; the introduced hormones will have to be given in doses sufficient to counter these. High doses of hormones seems like a bad idea, especially if the results are essentially cosmetic. That isn’t to dismiss them: appearances can matter a lot. A person scarred from facial burns will probably find the risks of plastic surgery more than worth the potential improvement to his daily life, and all of us can sympathize. For that matter, a soldier who has had his genitals badly damaged in combat might want to have these reconstructed; might even hope for a transplant. Who would blame him? He wants to look like, feel, lie and (ideally) function like a man. But he is a man: XY throughout.
My relative (who went female to male, at about the age of 45) is sixty-ish and has already had bypass surgery. One of the listed effects of taking androgens is a heightened risk of cardiovascular disease. Is my relative paying for her lowered voice, male-patterned baldness and wispy beard with twenty years or more of his life?
Why doesn’t it make more sense to attempt to change the troubled mind, especially given that my relatives other mental health issues were not ameliorated by the “transition” and may even have been exacerbated by the chemicals introduced to effect it? You might argue that the chances are good that a transgendered person has already tried to alter his or her mind, and it didn’t work.
Twenty years ago, I would have been inclined to assume this was true, and to give medicine the benefit of the doubt. That is, I would assume that doctors were simply doing the best they could to relieve the discomfort of clearly troubled people, and of course they proceeded with caution, and tried everything, blah blah.
But the past few years have seen such a dramatic increase in loud public assertions like ” a man can have a uterus.” These are presented by medical entities—Planned Parenthood for example—as fact, not hypotheses let alone tactful elisions of a reality some may find painful.
And speaking of Planned Parenthood: It offers a nice little case study in how medicine can not only be used for immoral ends, but the practitioners will do their best to persuade themselves and everyone else that what they are doing isn’t immoral at all: it is “care” that all right-thinking, decent people should applaud and only bigots question let alone oppose. So it no longer seems unlikely to me that doctors are providing “treatment” for the transgendered that fits a political agenda rather than a purely medical one. And that means that vulnerable patients are being subjected to treatment that isn’t going to truly solve the problem—as Renee Richards points out, the doctors didn’t actually make her a woman—and stands what looks like a good chance of causing or exacerbating other, potentially lethal problems.
I cannot speak for your relative, but for desperate, miserable people, 20 more years of expected desperation and misery is something they might pay a pretty penny to avoid. The life-shortening aspect of a risk which may (or may also not) drastically improve life quality, but at a potential cost of years of life, is sometimes not a bug, but a feature. If you get really lucky, the risk pays off big time and your life really improves. If you get really unlucky and you’re just as miserable after the risk and you die 20 years early, well that’s at least 20 years of misery you didn’t have to live through!
In the past few years, I think the change has been greatly exaggerated. Of course the most flagrant aspects of the shift make the press – over and over again. But it seems to me attempts to change the troubled mind first are still the norm. Indeed, they’re still the norm even when it turns out there was a very real underlying physical problem!
People are naturally judgy, even “tolerant liberals”, and it remains inconvenient and, well, just awkward… for one’s darling Samuel to become Samantha, or vice-versa. Most people are pretty conventional, sexually, at heart, even those who pay lip-service to the latest trendy way of breaking taboos. Paying lip-service to taboo-breaking is one thing, but even “tolerant lefties” usually end up hoping that breaking the taboos is an adventure for “Other People’s Kids”, not their own.