Trauma and self realization among older transgender people

Older transgender people can suffer from trauma and suppressed anger issues stemming from needing to hide and face rejection from family, friends and society as a whole. The roots of this trauma can sometimes date back to very early in childhood. 

Guest Post by Joanna Santos

Having grown up under a rigid binary where their identity was forced underground often meant dealing with internalized transphobia while trying to adapt within the framework of a society that didn't suit them. 

This trauma can be insidious and is often forced into hiding under layers of life distractions which can mask it. The underlying turmoil can then surface with a vengeance later on in life which is often referred to as the "cracking of our egg". Even someone who may have achieved a certain level of early self-acceptance still faced huge challenges attaining a peaceful and harmonious existence. 

Dealing with this underlying trauma can be delayed but not indefinitely and once major life distractions fall away with age there is no place to hide from it. 

Avoidance and reflection

We human beings have immense talent for deflecting and avoiding hard questions dealing with their psychological obstacles. We use methods which can work for a time such as plunging into career, focus on raising children. Sometimes we aid the subterfuge by indulging substance abuse habits, overeating, or some other method of distraction. 

Metacognition is the exercise of thinking about our thinking. It is about focusing on our beliefs and placing them under a microscope to check their veracity. We examine preconceived notions about our own natures to hopefully reveal some inner truth which may have been masked via our early indoctrination. 

We may have put decades into a thought process which one day results in a more fundamental understanding of self. It can be a painful and blunt exercise but unavoidable if we are to get to some inner truth and address any trauma we harbored. 

This exercise will not resolve all of our life challenges, but hopefully produce a more balanced and cohesive version of the self by removing obstacles to authenticity. It should also help determine how much choice we are exercising. In other words, how much is innate behaviour and by extension unchangeable core identity. 

Trauma can also be unrelated to gender and occasionally people will seek a remedy through transition. This is a red flag which avoids the underlying causes and seeks to repair them with an unrelated solution. An experienced sexologist should be able to weed this out in therapy.

Shame stands in the way

Older people, much more prone to suppression for years if not decades, often sought solutions by distracting attention away from the core problem. Coming to a realization of identity is made more difficult when the impediments of guilt, shame, fear and deeply internalized transphobia were drilled into them since childhood.

Sorting all this out can result in a misdiagnosing (underplaying or overplaying) their place on the spectrum of expression and identity. Today's more expanded terminology can contribute to a more nuanced self understanding, which is good, but it is also adding confusion as to how to proceed towards some form of resting point. 

Having invested heavily into adapting to the rigid gender binary means their psychology needs to be reformed to allow for their suppressed identity to surface. Their investment into neuroplasticity is regrettably now further complicated by life commitments already made which can make coming out all the more daunting. 

Every person is different with each journey seeing a wide array of decisions made and paths followed. However the underlying trauma needs to be addressed if we are to be truly honest with the self. The wound is treated and a solution found which, if not ideal, at least helps elevate self-esteem and encourage psychological harmony. 

Youth today can avoid decades of trauma through self-rejection and/or the rejection of others. The subject matter is better understood, the public is much more aware plus clinical help is available to them much earlier. However this does not mean they are free of obstacles in an age where the options are so varied and so easily accessed. Moreover, it seems to be the goal of anti-trans activists to bring us back to an age similar to the one that created the trauma of many older trans people.

Nevertheless, as someone now in their 60's, I prefer where we are today by a long shot.

Illustration: Getty