By Guest Writer Joanna Santos
From the moment we are born we are slotted. For millennia we were taught (with rare exceptions) how to behave, dress, gesture and play without being given much choice. This is largely still true today despite the cultural progress we have made over the last few decades.
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| Photo: The Gender Spectrum Collection, Alyza Enriques |
Conditioning children
We inflicted rules on children rather than respect their inclinations because society ran on preset expectations rather than on basic rationality. The comfort of high predictability was preferred with most people acquiescing rather than honour instincts which would have led them in other directions.
The enforcement of these rules were particularly harsh on children who were born different. The gap between their authenticity and the imposed regulations was then left to fester and remain an unfulfilled wish which, in some cases, deeply impacted the psychology into adolescence.
It is what we eventually defined in the early 20th century as "transsexualism" (which eventually became generally known as suffering from intense gender dysphoria); a condition whose worst suffering lay in the suppression of natural instinct.
The natural mosaic which is humanity allows for the development of beings which are the product of a combination of many factors. In the parts of the world governed mostly by open minded and compassionate people we have wisely decided not to stifle their authentic selves. This despite their journeys butting head first into conventions that instill fear in society's ignorant.
The balance needed
In these parts of the world the gap between social conformity and natural identity is treated much earlier, which is good. But there are risks in intervening too soon.
If we acted too slowly and carefully in the past, the pendulum has swung towards a great malleability of self definition; one which does risks people making more mistakes with their medical interventions but at does avoid decades of silent suffering before doing something.
Gender dysphoria acting as an agent of chaos can be treated in proportion to its strength which means today we can tailor made approaches to deal with dysphoria. We can reduce the gap between societal obligation and identity in such a way that it minimizes the chances of doing more than the person requires; something that was less possible years ago when a stealth life became a safety necessity.
And no, I am not saying that I believe systems that treat trans people with respect forces young people to transition today. The regret rates for medical transitioning are extremely low, below 1%. The main problem is clearly the way politics and health system forces gender dysphoric people to wait too long before they are given a treatment that can make them feel at home in their own lives and their own bodies.
What I am saying is that the more old fashioned health systems only gave gender variant people one of two choices: Stay in the closet or transition fully into "the other gender". Now young gender variant people have many options in between, and they are given the space and the time needed to find out who they are for themselves.
Biology and culture
I am all but convinced that a gender identity contains both biological predisposition as well as aspects rooted in nurture. This means that those who suffer gender dysphoria don't do so by choice. The solution then lies in finding a formula of expression and identity which results in an authentic being rather than a slave to cultural norms.
With the David Reimer case, John Money was proven wrong regarding gender being exclusively something we can impose on a child. Social conditioning and propaganda do not work. Instead we need to wait to see how the combination of factors which makes them unique play into the creation of the self. The interplay between sexual orientation, expression and identity need to solidify over time as the child matures into young adulthood.
Shame, guilt and peer pressure made sure that many people never reached an honest version of themselves in society. This often meant the creation of hidden lives where the authentic self was able to be expressed behind closed doors. This secrecy had definite consequences on the psyche and fed into the inability to reach self acceptance as well as self respect.
The backlash
The search for personal authenticity has collided headfirst into the percentage of society that has invested heavily into keeping the status quo. Power dynamics baked into gender have been challenged which makes some people deeply fearful.
I shouldn't have to state the obvious: namely that sexual plumbing doesn't determine identity and instead brain chemistry does. However some people are too invested in their standard to allow reason into the discussion. This why they find it more interesting to talk women's sports, single sex spaces and public toilets. They want to dumb things down for the general public as well feed outrage.
What is fascinating to me is that we used to categorize people outside the gender norm against a standard which itself fabricated. In other words, the natural mosaic of society was made invisible through artificial imposition.
Today that standard being dismantled has left many people confused regarding what clan they belong to. Thus the terminology has expanded to try to capture this wider array of behaviour.
The power dynamics were easier to understand when the black and white rules were in place. However to keep the "transgender agenda" at bay, strange alliances have been made between radical feminist groups and the right wingers who hate them. All this for the sake of returning things to a state which is all but impossible.
People fear what they do not comprehend and the efforts of gender criticals to quash transgender people is a testament to it.
A reservation
If I have one reservation is that this wider playing field risks producing some mistakes. You remove the constraints and more people jump the gun to copy someone else. All the more if they aren't prone to introspection before leaping.
If nothing else, people behave predictably because what drives them is almost universal. The search for identity within a tribe that accepts them is part of our genetic code.
That being said, this isn't much of a problem as regards social and legal transitioning. If you find out that you have moved too far, there is nothing to stop you from finding another space for yourself to thrive in. And puberty blockers can give young people the time they need to confirm their identity, before the hormones of puberty make permanent alterations to their bodies.
A new world
We are currently in the midst of redefining our societies in the most radical way since this latest world order was created in 1945. The result of this exercise will include reshaping cultural norms even further as millenials and GenZ generations slowly but surely take the helm.
They have been spared the trauma of conditioning and haven't lived in secret the way many of us did.
But of course, authenticity isn't just about sex and gender. It is about allowing people to live as they choose within parameters that don't bother anyone else; or at least shouldn't. Regrettably however, many people just cannot help but weigh in on the lives of others especially when their own lives feel much more constrained.
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