Gender Dysphoria Is Normal

“Being a girl and hitting puberty is so traumatic.”

Flower Eater

Can I just de-blume the blossom?

An anonymous Tumblr post expressed a common shame in simple words. It rippled through Gender Critical social media in the form of screenshots after the original post was quickly deleted.

Her spurt of stifled frustration struck a chord, breathlessly relating a firsthand account of female suppression: “You go from being a genderless little free thing to being hit with shaving and makeup and growing breasts and skincare and menstruation and suddenly being sexualized, 

“When like a few years ago you could take your shirt off to play in the stream and trade cards with the boys and come home covered in mud and not even think about it.”

But eventually you realize everyone around you is thinking about it. Compliments focus on appearance or social skills, while questions often get uncomfortably personal. The sudden societal burden can combine with newly dawning self-awareness to create a perception of generalized critical observation.

Others have expectations you can’t meet, and a young person might not consider that those expectations are unreasonable. Especially when most people they know seem to be doing fine. Suppressing stories like this one furthers the myth that most girls are just fine with ‘femininity.’

“And then you spend years hating being a girl and hating everything puberty did to you and wishing you could be a boy or be completely genderless again and it takes you many years to come to terms with yourself,

“Or you simply try to Lean In to everything and do makeup tutorials on YouTube and claim it’s for fun. How can this be treated as normal?” This hatred-denial continuum seems to mimic the classic whore/virgin dichotomy, doesn’t it?

Frustrated With Flowers

We’ve been over this a thousand times!

The bitter invocation of Cheryl Sandberg taps a deep well of bile from digesting many betrayals. Powerful women often become so by learning the boys’ game, which many of us are just not very good at. They join in the elite chorus of supposed meritocracy, clinging to their ego-driven narrative as tightly as any man.

Naturally, the framing of this as a Women’s Issue had to be squashed: “To be honest, this sounds like the kind of thing a transgender or non-binary person who is AFAB might feel once puberty hits. I mean, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that, but it’s just what comes to mind.”

This person admits to not knowing what they’re talking about, but feels free to weigh in on this young woman’s life. And irony and misogyny continue their slugfest for supremacy.

But there were some responses claiming more authority: “100% this. I am trans, and this is what dysphoria feels like.”

“This is gender dysphoria.”

Let’s assume, for a moment, that this is true. If gender is a social construct that’s imposed on us, it makes sense that a one-size-fits-all approach will cause some people issues.

“I suppose it could be. Is it also possible that cis kids could struggle with puberty?” A reasonable suggestion! Let’s see how they disregard it – 

“Sure it is, and plenty of cis girls complain about how society’s perception of them changes and the pressure put on them to act a certain way increases. They don’t, however, spend years hating their bodies and never fully recover,Thanks for the heads-up that you have absolutely no firsthand experience with this topic. Women’s body issues are their own cottage industry!

Mirrored Yellow Shawl

Ugh, I’m hideous!

“…looking back and wishing they had never gone through puberty and that they still looked genderless. OP is trans/nb, 99%.” Oh, right, I forgot gender is innate and springs forth from deep-seated personal essence. It’s so easy to get confused when they oscillate more than Brian Eno.

And, of course, someone stepped in to tell her what a weirdo she is: “Look, I agree puberty isn’t fun but this is not a normal reaction to it. The person who wrote this seems like they are probably trans or nonbinary. Most people (regardless of gender) struggle with some aspects of puberty but it doesn’t make the majority of us hate who we are/our gender.”

Struggling with sexual stereotypes is the basis for a lot of friction and static in women’s lives. Far from demonstrating a lack of womanhood, it may be the most common shared experience. It speaks to the shame surrounding it that this sensation was only recently named.

But someone else came right out and said what they were all thinking: Fresh meat! “Maybe you are just a boy/genderless? Plenty of cis women can probably relate to not liking gender stereotypes or oversexualization but cis women don’t hate being women lol”

Plenty of women hate sex stereotypes and still find joy in womanhood because we’ve learned not to take them personally. We understand that stereotypes are like Bigfoot – Lots of sightings but very little proof. We understand that our culture’s idea of what women are is generic and shallow, disconnected from the reality of our lives.

I hope the young woman who wrote this has found a more understanding audience, but I was glad to see it floating around. The more stories like this are shared, the more obvious it will become that ‘gender dysphoria’ is a normal part of growing up.

Grumpy In The Corner

Leave me alone – Today I identify as wallpaper!

Individuality is our strength, but conformity makes us disposable. This is exactly how Patriarchy wants to see us, and normal mental development plays right into its hands.

Part of it is the shock of sudden self-awareness that strikes with puberty. Younger children are less conscious of how they are seen by others, dwelling blissfully in the warm glow of their own ego. Around the age of 12 or so, neurological development reaches the conceptualization of those same passions in everyone else. Suddenly the world is looking back at you, and just when you’re least prepared!

In the cataclysmic shifts of body and mind, chunks of once-established reality come into question. Social pressure can be one of few beacons of certainty.

The gender industry relies on these stories remaining shameful secrets. This young woman’s experience may be more extreme than some, but these commenters used women’s isolation in suffering to tell her she was alone. Divide and conquer. Rinse, repeat.

It’s normal and rational to get jetlag on the trip from subject to object. It’s painful to squeeze an entire human being into a shallow stereotype. If this is gender dysphoria, we all have it.

Noble Sigh

Sometimes all these layers feel so stifling!

Embracing this would defang it, robbing this discomfort of the power to overtake our psyches. Rejecting the stigma of failing to adhere to ‘feminine’ ideals is an important step on the road to liberation, and it would show young women that we all carry this burden.

Struggling as most women do doesn’t make you less of a woman, and we are stronger together.

 

The Cure For Victimhood

There are, of course, those who do not want us to speak. Why? Because, while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. 

My DVD copy of V For Vendetta froze about halfway through, not so much as a smudge on it. Not currently available on any streaming service, the eloquence of the fictional freedom fighter was out of my reach.

Binoculars

I almost saw it!

Strangely fitting for this Guy Fawkes Day, when even words have fallen under suspicion. Transwomen are women, and women are birthing people. 

Words offer the means to meaning and, for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there?

As ravenous Capital tightens its grip, controlling the narrative becomes more imperative. Censorship methodically blocks off neglected corners of culture, authoritarian crackdowns increasingly enabled by the nasty – but very quiet – contagion of learned helplessness.

Freedom of speech is the bedrock of a free society, but saving it won’t accomplish much if we are unable to speak.

Existential Agency

New research brings new words that may be the right reinforcement for our crumbling collective consciousness. In a recent interview, podcaster Chris Williamson spoke with an expert in the emerging field of existential psychology.

Dr. Clay Routledge’s work, examines how the human need for meaning in life influences and is influenced by different cognitive processes.” He tells Chris how fascinated he is with “existential agency” –  The belief in our own ability to determine our life’s meaning. “You need to feel like you have the ability to take action,” rather than just accepting an externally-imposed purpose.

Sad Seamstress

One of these days, I am so out of here!

“This is very, very early work, but it seems like people who have a strong sense of existential agency are the most motivated, they’re the most driven, they’re the most resilient. They feel like, when life feels meaningless, they can change it.”

But he’s not talking about some bootstrap bullshit wrapped in statistics – “This isn’t to take away from real structural challenges that people face. But if we’re only talking about those things that we think of as outside of people’s control, we’re neglecting the fact that humans have all this cognitive horsepower.”

Chris Williamson latches onto the inspirational implications of this and runs with it: “I think that people intuitively are aware of it. Think about why anyone finds it emotionally fulfilling to see those transformation photos – They’ve done that through their own agency.” 

External Control

The last few years have seen the inspirational narrative of transformation being subsumed more and more by the concept of transition. The story of finding the True Self through long-term medical assistance has been framed as the path to Salvation.

And where once, you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.

Your True Self isn’t within you, it’s in a surgeon’s office.

Dr. Routledge addresses this more broadly, “Part of the reason I wanted to really start to figure that out is because I feel like we are increasingly living in a society where people are acting like you’re not in control of anything.”

Pouty

You don’t understand – She made me hit her!

“There are privileges and advantages but, regardless of that, there’s something going on within humans that gives us a great deal of cognitive freedom – If we choose to act on it.”

Getting excited, Chris fills in the rest – “The victim mentality outsources existential agency. And if Man can make a Heaven of Hell and Hell of Heaven, then your ability to interpret the world is more than fifty percent of the battle.

“You have people in terrible situations who are able to be relatively fulfilled, and people that seemingly have everything that kill themselves. Your material situation is an influence but it’s not a determinant.”

“It predisposes but it doesn’t predetermine.

“I think framing things that way – ‘Take advantage, take control of the direction your life is going’ – I think that’s a smart area of research.”

Science For Better Living

Dr. Routledge is gracious, bringing the discussion back down to earth. “You summed it up perfectly. Your example’s a dramatic one, but even little things – There’s lots of little things that people do every day.” He uses the example of simply deciding to walk more, or take the stairs instead of the elevator. 

But he also pulls in some heavier stuff: “The victimhood narrative – which you see a lot – is, ‘alcohol abuse isn’t really a choice because it’s a genetic disposition, and it’s a disease.’ But, thanks to our scientific understanding of genetic vulnerabilities, you just armed somebody with information.

“Learning about genetics gives me information about my personality, my vulnerabilities. That doesn’t mean you’re just being pushed around by these external causes, they’re information that can help you make choices to live a better life.” Except that self-reliance is out of fashion. Independent thinkers tend to be subversive, and not very kind!

Gloves Off

I have opinions, and I’m not afraid to use them!

“But my feeling is, that’s a minority position in modern day Western scholarship. The more we learn scientifically about that, the more people intuitively seem to think that you have no control over it. People seem to think, ‘here’s another reason why it’s not your fault.'”

Thing is, if it’s your fault, you might be able to fix it. 

How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well, certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But, again, truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease – There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.

Fear got the best of you.

Fear Of The Unknown

The pioneers on the frontiers of human understanding are just beginning to conceptualize existential agency, and not a moment too soon. As communication has become easier than ever, the deluge of information was infused with contaminants. Bedrock has been eroded and our course has become murky. 

Preserving a popular sense of our ability to write our own stories may be the most effective tool against external control. 

Our authoritarianism is gentler, with no High Chancellor to rally against. But those who would control us for their own ends benefit from every unasked question, every unpondered thought. Controlled speech is controlled speech, whether the mechanism is shame or black bags.

Symbols are given power by people. Alone, a symbol is meaningless, but with enough people…

…We can change the world.

Handing over our agency in exchange for safety never works. Putting everything in the hands of authority just spreads the insecurity of relying on others for meaning. We have all lost something of ourselves to the growing climate of fear on all sides. Many of us have even lost our words.

…For now. Material reality is still out there, and a rose by any other name will still prick you. New terms like existential agency can help us find our way through choppy seas to make our stand on solid ground. 

Trans People Are Mentally Ill (It’s The Comorbidities, Silly!)

I am done mincing words.

Truth Coming Out Of The Well

Liar! Liar! Pants on fire! …Hey, those are mine!!

Comorbidity sounds really heavy, but it’s just a psychology term referring to someone dealing with more than one mental issue at the same time.

Psychologists have noticed some enduring patterns. It’s very common for someone to deal with, say, depression and anxiety together. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 7% of the US will suffer through a major depressive episode at some point.

There’s reason to believe it’s much higher than this. Besides life being hella depressing sometimes, the stigma surrounding mental and emotional struggles keeps many people from talking to anyone about them.

And it’s usually difficult to tease out what causes what. Depression and anxiety go together particularly well, functioning almost as a negative continuum between action and inaction.

I bring all this up to point out that mental illness also has some predictable effects on someone’s life.

Depression and anxiety both shorten your life because they change how you choose to live it. Depressed people are more likely to smoke and drink, so they have higher rates of stuff like alcoholism and cancer, too.

Whenever I hear about how trans people have a ‘very high incidence’ of things like suicide, poor health outcomes and violence (for varying definitions of ‘violence,’ I assume…) I find myself yelling at my screen, “Yes, that’s because they’re mentally ill!”

Everything seems to be en pointe lately, I can’t seem to get away from it. This week at church, Father Mike’s thesis was, “Crazy people are just like the rest of us, only moreso.” This got a good chuckle from the assembled group, but I found it to be a dangerous oversimplification.

He prefaced his speech – Sorry, sermon – by saying he first encountered ‘real crazy’ his first year in seminary. Which I guess is why he finds such glibness amusing.

Some of us had adventures in the Land of Make-Believe a lot earlier. Some of us went against our will, not out of the kindness of our heart. Some of us have been there, done that, got the t-shirt, and burnt it.

Some of us recognize this stuff when we see it as well as we recognize our own family.

Kowch No Turning Back 08

There’s no place like home!

A video celebrating what’s become of Ellen Page made the rounds last week, and I couldn’t get through it. Hearing her talk about finally being comfortable in her body – only after having prominent parts of it removed – broke my heart.

Only finding happiness under the scalpel is mental illness, end of. That is not up for discussion. Anyone saying anything else is selling something. Find me proof the euphoria doesn’t wear off, that it’s not an addictive rabbit hole.

We all understand that people like Catman and the Human Barbie are both a little sideways, but they’re not hurting anyone. They’re not insisting laws recognize their right to live in a zoo, or to lay naked on the floor of little girls’ bedroom closets.

That’s the problem here. The Human Barbie is not going to sue you if she overhears you tell someone she isn’t the real Barbie.

Because she makes no claim to that. Even the Human Barbie knows that would be absurd.

Trans people suffer high rates of all kinds of bad outcomes because they are mentally ill. They lack the wherewithal to properly care for themselves. And they often do encounter prejudice in their daily lives, stemming from the stigma surrounding mental illness.

It’s all fairly run-of-the-mill stuff. Their need to be seen as a new, unique brand of creature just looks pretty damn narcissistic. Narcissism has a very high comorbidity with depression, because life never seems to quite live up to their bloated expectations.

I am sick of being told how vital it is that trans people get ‘affirming’ care. Because no, it isn’t. I’m sick of hearing how dysphoria that persists beyond puberty is a sign of real transness. (Gatekeep much??) This is exactly the opposite of my experience.

Dysphoria beyond puberty is a symptom of unhealed trauma, full stop. Healing is scary because we have to go to the dark places, but the only way out is through. How arrogant to suggest anyone is exempt from learning hard lessons in life!

Can't Even

Seriously y’all, I just can’t even anymore!

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Marion Millar has been charged with two counts of ‘Malicious Communication’ for tweeting about women’s rights, which is so Orwellian they ought to make him an honorary Scottish citizen. Hubs has been cranky and the kids are all home from school, again.

But I couldn’t let this go any longer. All the droplets condensed into a downpour in my mind and it overflowed onto my keyboard.

Trans people are mentally ill. Indulging them in their parallel ideations serves no one but those looking to profit off of them.

I’ve learned not to be upset when someone accuses me of hating trans people, but sometimes it bites back at me in the form of a stubborn lump in my throat because nothing could be further from the truth. Sometimes loving someone means telling them a hard truth or two.

I can’t affirm someone’s destructive delusion, no matter how many authorities they may invoke. I won’t be beating about the bush on this point anymore, I have seen too many mastectomy scars. For all of the women who I love, I have to rise to the occasion.

Dementia Trumps Donald?

The time has come once again to name names. Donald Trump is draped in red flags.

I usually save my political rants for more general social themes but, once in a while, I feel compelled to get specific. If you like my Trump posts you are in for a treat. If you don’t…. who am I kidding? No way Trumpers read my blog!

Donald Bemused

Not many Trump fans around here!

Several years ago I worked as a Certified Nurse Aide. Seldom have I felt as entitled to the space I take up as when I was changing dementia patients’ diapers. (Not sure what that says about me, but I digress.)

Years before that, I watched first one grandmother and then the other completely forget everything and everyone.

But, I’m a nerd, so my horror led me to research. I have seen and read quite a bit about dementia and, with my family history, it’s seldom far from my mind.

I say all this because, when I tell you that Donald Trump is in trouble, this is my basis for comparison.

Last month video made the rounds of him seemingly losing the word ‘origins.’ He went for it on his mental shelf and it just wasn’t there.

But the really worrying thing is that you can tell he knows. He knows he said the wrong word but can’t do anything about it. He doubles back on his thought and restates it. That goes well so he gets brave and tries again.

“The Mueller Report, I wish, covered the oranges….”

Trump, New York, Usa 15 Aug 2017

Hey, my words mean what I say they do!

This is called aphasia, and it’s a symptom of dementia. Specifically, something called non-fluent variant Primary Progressive Aphasia (nfvPPA.)  The University of California Wellness and Aging Center writes,

“Because it primarily affects the front part of the brain, nfvPPA is considered a subtype of a large group of brain conditions called frontotemporal dementia (FTD).”

Patients usually begin to show signs in their 50s or 60s. Donald is 72.

Many people think of dementia as the granny who goes shopping in her housecoat. Confused, befuddled and comical, depictions of this disease are glib and play for laughs.

But,

“The nonfluent PPA variant accounts for about 20% of all people with frontotemporal dementia.

“People with nfvPPA gradually have more trouble expressing themselves, even though they still understand the meaning of words…. Reading and writing skills usually remain good…. They may have increasing difficulty with pronouncing or mixing up sounds in familiar words.”

Donald Shows Palms

If I speak with authority, you won’t notice I have no idea what I’m talking about!

Trump almost tweets more than he speaks, if not for his tendency to ramble at the podium.

Which, incidentally, is another red flag according to Science Alert:

“New research suggests that rambling and non-specific speech could be early signs of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.”

The article cites, among others, Ronald Reagan as an example of a still-functional person who showed early signs of language difficulties.

The findings were presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston by Janet Cohen Sherman. She is Clinical Director of the Psychology Assessment Center at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The Guardian sums it up,

“Scientists compared the language abilities of 22 healthy young individuals, 24 healthy older individuals and 22 people with MCI [mild cognitive impairment].

“When given an exercise in which they had to join up three words, for instance “pen”, “ink” and “paper”, the healthy volunteers typically joined the three in a simple sentence, while the MCI group gave circuitous accounts of going to the shop and buying a pen.”

Donald Touches Temple

My mental precision is as good as it’s ever done!

Sound familiar?

The Guardian continues:

“They were much less concise in conveying information, the sentences they produced were much longer, they had a hard time staying on point and I guess you could say they were much more roundabout in getting their point across,” said Sherman. “It was a very significant difference.”

Sherman stressed that just being a windbag is not the issue. The issue is deteriorating mental precision.

“Another study, based on White House press conference transcripts, found striking changes in Ronald Reagan’s speech over the course of his presidency, while George HW Bush, who was a similar age when president, showed no such decline.”

So, not only is this a plausible scenario, it has happened before.

Dr Lawrence K Altman bears witness to this for the New York Times. He writes,

“In 1980, Mr. Reagan told me that he would resign the presidency if White House doctors found him mentally unfit. Years later, those doctors and key aides told me they had not detected any changes in his mental abilities while in office.

How Has The Donald Ducked Life's Lessons?

I don’t even know who Ronald Reagan is!

“Now a clever new analysis has found that during his two terms in office, subtle changes in Mr. Reagan’s speaking patterns linked to the onset of dementia were apparent years before doctors diagnosed his Alzheimer’s disease in 1994.”

His doctors might not have been concerned, and even Dr. Altman insists that Reagan was not impaired enough to have affected his Presidential judgment (although that would be a dandy excuse for a few things.) But not everyone was so confident.

The article begins,

“Even before Ronald Reagan became the oldest elected president, his mental state was a political issue. His adversaries often suggested his penchant for contradictory statements, forgetting names and seeming absent-mindedness could be linked to dementia.”

Reagan was 73 in 1980.

The sample size of the language study is small, but it overwhelmingly supports my own observations and those of many others. Often the first signs of dementia are subtle linguistic anomalies.

Donald Arms Crossed

I’ve never done anything wrong in my life! I always have reasons!

And a guy like Donald is the kind of guy who would hide it. Deny, deny, deny.

“People with nfvPPA tend not to show the behavioral characteristics of FTD until quite late in the disease, and they are keenly aware of their difficulties.”

Not to mention an old man who is estranged from his wife, in trouble with the law and apparently spends a shitton of time watching TV and surfing social media:

“Depression and social withdrawal are common features of nfvPPA.”

I am neither the first nor the most qualified person to suggest that Donald is suffering from some kind of mental deficiency. It would be easy to brush off such claims as haters hating.

But even if I thought my personal axe-grinding makes any difference, the man speaks for himself.