Repossessing Normal

queenemily’s Questioning Transphobia post on the “self-narrating zoo exhibit” really struck a chord with me. For the past few months, I’ve been thinking about an experience I had while doing yet another diversity training, a duty which I have decided ends the minute I leave for graduate school.

While I don’t have the most experience with public speaking, I’ve done a good share of diversity trainings in my day. I’m not unused to once again trotting out my story for public consumption by total strangers. But I go into every training with a policy to be honest when telling my story. Which means I do, in abbreviated terms, mention that for most of my childhood I was emotionally abused and manipulated by my mother, with serious consequences.

At one talk, however, this abuse became the crux on which the discussion turned, to the point that my cisgendered listeners felt comfortable passing judgment on my own, very personal life choices. This isn’t exactly uncommon—when other, non-“trans” factors become part of a trans person’s life experience, all previous context does an acrobatic swan dive out of the collective windows of cisgendered listeners’ minds, and the entire conversation shifts to how one’s past has “contributed to” or “caused” their transness.

Linkblogging: RLE and detransitioning

Not much of a content post this time around, but some links to chew on. At Pam’s House Blend, Autumn Sandeen and LenaD discussed “Real Life Experience” and detransitioning, in this case focused on the public de-transitioning of LA Times sportswriter Christine Daniels back to her original name, Mike Penner. I find this paragraph of Autumn’s post especially interesting:

I know there are other reasons than the ones my therapist cites. Sometimes the reason is relating to faith, where one becomes an “ex-transsexual” or “ex-transgender” (the trans equivalents to “ex-gay”). Sometimes it’s because the person really isn’t a transsexual, and an unsuccessful RLE catches them before they experience transsexual regret. Since my therapist doesn’t practice conversion (or reparative) therapy, she wouldn’t see those who are detransitioning for reasons of faith. But, it is interesting that in all the years of her practice, she’s never seen a transsexual who has detransitioned due to because the detransitioner has figured out that he or she really wasn’t transsexual — all of her detransitioners have detransitioned due to external pressures.

I’m not really sure what I think on all of this and don’t feel qualified to comment; I’m more in the “listen and process” stage. However, this did strike me as interesting in light of Lisa’s post at Questioning Transphobia on “I wouldn’t wish transsexuality on my worst enemy.” If nothing else, the assertion that ‘those who detransition do so due to outside societal pressure’ matches up with her belief–a belief I agree with–that “being trans is just like being cis, except, well, for not being cis. It’s not worse or better.”