Just finished a good cry, its been a rough week with round 2 of shingles starting in less than a month ( doctor said, unusual but not unheard of)....having begun new work with professional for healing resurfacing ptsd crap, and generally feeling mostly angry and sad. And being grumpy and unloving to those i care about most. And tears flowed when I got to these words, ‘inconsistent, lumpy, actual self who God loves madly’. I believe God loves madly... but i don’t think i know God loves madly. I want to know this deep in my soul. God this is my prayer!
First, I am so sorry that you're suffering. Pain is so hard. Second, I want you to know that there has never been a single day you've existed that God wasn't completely crazy about you. He made you and he's loves you. Even the weird parts of you that no one else gets. I'm also sorry that you've heard dumb messages about who God is and who he loves. We've all heard dumb stuff. Just allowing yourself to entertain the idea that God loves you is a beginning. Not only does he love you, he actually LIKES you. Hope this helps.
Maybe, i’m not sure...maybe you could say more. Faith and trust is difficult for me and while i can believe it in my head... i want a deeper belief ... like when i was younger before i had encountered deceivers, before relatives joined white supremacy churches, before they traded love and caring for each other for a ‘perfect truth’ and hatred of those different. Anyway... if you are saying God already loves madly... i want to know it more deeply with less doubts. Oh... spiritual things are difficult for me to put into words... thanks for your comment ... i will think on it
My 45 year high school class reunion is coming up in September. My hair is white as snow, almost all the women in my class dye their hair. I am still hanging on to my pandemic weight. I only make my bed right before I go to bed. This morning I woke up on the wrong side on the bed. (my bed is pushed up against the wall). Mos def feeling anxious, irritable and discontented. It is all very much a familiar space for me. Fuck it. This too shall pass. Thank you for being you. Thank you for a space in your corner.
I went experienced the same feelings before returning to my hometown for my 45 th high school reunion. My mind loaded with stupid questions like, Why didn’t I get in shape.. I knew this event was happening and had 20 years ago to prepare!!?
The actual reunion was hilarious, fun, touching.. and I am so glad I was there. I realized that I was not the only lumpy white haired person and embraced the chance to reconnect with old friends and people I barely knew in hs..I hope when you attend your reunion you can let go of your unpleasant thoughts and enjoy the experience.
There's that prayer, "Dear God, help me to be the person my dog thinks I am." I think there must be something to learning to see ourselves more as the people who love us (oh, and I guess God) think we are. Like, even if Nadia thinks she's still 90% asshole, that's not what those of us who find your work helpful and supportive think or focus on. I dunno; maybe if I knew you personally I might think, "You know? She's right; she's mostly an asshole," but I really REALLY doubt it. Many days I find myself thinking, "Why does anyone put up with me?" And yet, they not only do but seem to enjoy the fact that I'm around. (I realize that not everyone is lucky enough to have friends like that.) Back in my theater days, I learned that deciphering your character should include what your character thinks about him/her self AND what the other characters think about your character. I dunno; I feel like something about this being in community with each other stuff must include the gift of seeing others seeing our best selves and not all the crap that lives in our own heads.
So with every therapist I have worked with, I have asked "when am I going to not be worried about death. I've had this wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night dread, and here I am, 65, and I still have it eve though I have been in therapy forever." Finally, one therapist said to me "Denise, have you ever thought this is just part of being you? You're a poet and writer. Maybe this is why you write. Maybe this is what makes your writing what it is. It's just part of Denise." So I am trying to make friends with this part of myself. I try to say "hi" to it when it hits me instead of just being afraid. But I still wish I found a way not to be afraid. I'm not one of these folks who are sure of the afterlife. I'm one of these folks who are sure they do not want to be in a coffin, or in a crematory, or just not in the world anymore. I can't imagine what the next life (or not) will be, and I don't want to be an (or not). It makes me sad. So I do what my last therapist has said, and I do more of what I want to do and less of what I don't want to do, which is also hard for me since I don't like to disappoint people and will do what is expected or what I think people expect of me. The good girl who resents being good. And disappointing her mother, even though I know I will and do.
I’ve found a lot of progress in some of the ideas of Buddhism. The central idea, an accessible one, is that craving is the beginning of stepping away from the big Now, and we can learn to identify that craving and relax it-- craving is a muscle tightened. This craving can be about many things, but especially about what we think of as our identity. It’s not that identity isn’t real, it’s just that it’s a structure that emerges based on all the stuff that happens and out habitual reactions to them. There are records that we play over and over, so much that the grooves are deep, but they are just stories we’ve told ourselves and have come to believe. The record is real, but there was a moment before the record started that we forgot, so the record isn’t permanent, it’s just something we play without being aware of it, and we think that we are the record. The awareness of the record playing is mindfulness, and developing mindfulness means learning to catch the record playing enough to go “ah there’s the record playing again”, and in that instant we are no longer the record, we are a person playing a record. That place, where the record no longer is “I” but instead an experience, is where change happens
Thank you for this..."...mindfulness means learning to catch the record playing enough to go “ah there’s the record playing again”, and in that instant we are no longer the record, we are a person playing a record." So meaningful for the record players out here like me. Deep grooves
Oh, good grief. I needed this. REALLY needed this. I was awake at 5:00 a.m., watching TV and eating a tub of orange sherbet, and all because I'm none of the things I wish I were (including someone who can sleep all night).
I love the image of the god who is a god of all Rhinos! And I love it especially because if they were a god of all Gurus, they'd be a god capable of loving only one type of human... because the capital-G Gurus are, at root, the same idealized creatures, all blurry at the edges, essentially having no edges at all...
This reminds me of a college semantics class back in the '70s. The professor, Ms. P, was outwardly a product of her generation -- heavy makeup, sprayed hair, and flouncy dresses -- but she was beyond doubt a feminist who Took No Sh!t... and she told us about something called the "ladder of abstraction." The idea is that types of things, such as people, fall generally into more general or more specific categories, which can be thought of as positioned higher up or lower down the ladder. (Note that these aren't better-or-worse positions, or powerful-vs.-weak. They're just concepts: more abstract at the top, and more concrete at the bottom.)
To the point: she talked about a strain of casual feminist thinking at the time, in which a woman might say, "I just want to be treated like men" or "...like a human being." While sympathetic to the sentiment, Ms. P wanted to point out to us that its expression in those particular terms was 100% off-base and possibly not at all what the speaker actually wanted. The reason: to be treated the same way as someone else ("like men") or as everyone else ("like a human being") is to be denied your individuality, your uniqueness. It's like asking to be regarded as and treated like a two-dimensional blank cartoon of a human being, with no beauties (and yes, no ugliness) of your own, i.e. with no specific features which make you, well, *you*.
So yeah, give me the Rhino-loving god any day. I don't want their regard of me to be colored at all by what they think -- or, haha, *hope* -- to be true as all the other kids on my block!
Thank You Nadia for inviting me to get off the treadmill, to have my practice be 1% less of an asshole. That is doable in all areas of my life. I so appreciate your honest humor that invites to look at ourselves with a light and gentle heart.
God willing I will ALWAYS be completely and totally unbothered by saying that I am still an alcoholic. And God help me if I ever deny it. I, too, believe people can change. And here is my favorite joke that proves it:
Two southern bells are sitting on a porch having tea.
Lady 1: Did you see the ring my Henry gave me? extends hand
Lady 2: Oh, how nice.
Lady 1: And did you see the new car my Henry dear bought for my birthday?
Lady 2: Oh, how nice.
Lady 1: Oh, and my Henry says he's taking me on a European vacation!
Lady 2: Oh, how nice.
Lady 1: So what has your hubby done for you lately?
Lady 2: My hubby? Well my hubby sent me to charm school. I used to just say "Fuck you," but now I say "Oh, how nice."
I just finished reading your post and re- opened the book I was reading: "Sooner or later we must distinguish between what we are not and what we are. We must accept the fact that we are not what we would like to be. We must cast off our false exterior self like the cheap and showy garment that it is. We must find our real self in all its elemental poverty but also in its great and very simple dignity: created to be a child of God and capable of loving with something of God's own sincerity and his unselfishness." --Thomas Merton
At the risk of raising a topic that’s too controversial, how does this insight apply to kids who want to transform their bodies to be their ideal selves (or perhaps they would say, actual)? I’m referring to young teens who want double mastectomies or tweens who want to take hormones that have affects on bone density and can atrophy certain parts of the body. I’m not asking out of hatred for anyone, but out of concern. I feel the need to think about this as a mom of a young girl close to puberty so that if it does come up I’ve put some thought into it in advance. I feel like all of my life experience makes me feel in my gut that I should teach her that physically she is already perfect as is because it’s how she was made, but the mainstream right now is pushing the message that to teach that is somehow to support a genocide, that instead you should teach your child to question whether their body is “right”. If we’re going to spend time thinking about our ideal vs actual selves and human transformation, because I’m a mom, I can’t help wondering how this all applies to kids. There was an article in the Atlantic recently about transhumanism and the push to have humans be able to alter themselves. If the AI industry is to be believed, on some level our culture will be asking us all very soon, not just kids, to answer difficult questions about physical reality and identity. It all seems very sci-fi and it makes me wonder what it even means to be human, and whether our physical reality should ever be considered holy.
Hi. I'm not a pro in anything related to transgender issues for any age, so feel free to ignore my comment if you disagree. First, thank you for putting your concerns into such respectful language and for adding this perspective to the subject at hand. It makes it easier to connect to what a person is saying when the tone is respectful.
My take on it is this: The kid who questions their gender isn't automatically a kid who needs gender reassignment. I think that leap (from questioning to reassignment) is generated by lack of understanding and leads to fear. Professionals (in medicine and psychology) know that there are a lot of things that need to happen before hormone therapy and surgery.
And that's how this topic applies. Before anyone gets into transition, there has to be a lot of counseling on issues related to self-esteem, body image, gender roles, and basically how a person's life is going. Does a girl desire gender transition because she hates how women are treated (or how she, individually is treated)? A counselor will recognize that as NOT a need for gender reassignment. Does a kid desire steroids or other hormonal treatment in order to be a better/stronger athlete? That's an issue related to accepting the rhino that one is.
There's always a need to take the medications and other helps we need to function as the rhinos we are. We wear glasses when eye sight needs correction. We take daily meds for things like diabetes, hypertension, ADD, depression, etc. None of that is about trying to be a unicorn.
So, the best I can say is to trust the professionals and be open to dialog on these issues. With kids questioning their gender, listening and having respectful dialog is always going to be better than dismissing the topic.
Thank you Ellie, and MJ - MJ for asking your question in such an open way, and Ellen for providing information in such a respectful way. If we can learn from these conversations about respect for one another, we have so much to offer each other in a loving way. It would make ourselves, our country, and the world a better place.
I see a lot of that openness in many of these comments. What a joyful way to communicate. Well done ❤️
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I wish I could trust the professionals, but I feel like I have to do my own research whenever the medical industry is involved because of its history over the last couple decades. Of course, some doctors are great, but many can’t say what they think for professional reasons. I definitely agree on the ideal of strong safeguards. I’ve been taking a deep dive into researching this topic for a several months now to try to understand what’s happening and I find what I’ve learned about the gender clinic industry to be somewhat troubling. I want to be clear that it is the industry that disturbs me, not the people who seek help from it. I have two good friends who are therapists in the DC area and the Bay area and they both tell me that the new standard of care is that therapists, particularly in more liberal states that follow the gender affirming care guidelines, are pretty much required to immediately accept a person’s self-diagnosis or statement of identity and not ask any questions to probe deeper into someone’s background or medical history to see if there are any underlying issues before diagnosing teens with rapid onset gender dysphoria. I’ve also learned that it’s extremely easy to for tweens and teens to get medication prescribed on a first or second visit. My therapist friend in the SF Bay area (who is part of the lgbt community himself, for whatever it’s worth) has been working with adolescents for 20 years and he said he used to have to see clients for several months before making a gender dysphoria diagnosis, and there was a specific protocol he had to follow; now he is expected to immediately diagnose with no questions asked, and this bothers him because he thinks some kids have deeper unresolved issues that need attention. I agree with Gloria that it’s important to listen to kids and let them figure things out, but the reason I bring this up in relation to this post of Nadia’s is because, to me, identity feels like it is essentially a spiritual/philosophical question. I feel like I’m supposed to teach my daughter that her only identity is a child of God or essence in almost a buddhist sense. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that kids actually need their parents to tell them who they are, to teach them what identity is, if identity is an entirely spiritual thing. If there’s an innate gender soul residing in each of us that needs to be discovered, that would be about faith. That’s the sense I get from reading some people’s stories...that it’s a bit like a soul to some people; other people say it’s a psychological condition to be treated. I don’t know how we can know, since essentially it’s a matter of faith if the soul has a gender, since nobody understands the soul. I think it’s important for people to be able to have dialogue about what part of identity is spiritual and what part is psychological in respect to this, even if it only results in dialogue and rather than answers. I mean, it’s super confusing, and if adults have trouble understanding the philosophical/spiritual/psychological concepts of identity, then I can’t imagine that tweens and teens find it easy to grasp. Anyways, there are definitely huge societal changes right now and I think no matter what people think about this topic, 99% of parents just want their kids to be safe, happy and healthy into the future. Sorry to ramble on so long. It’s a huge topic that matters to me as a mom.
Thank you for trusting me to hear about your experiences and thoughts. These issues of identity are layered with uncertainty, pressure, trust, history, and more. I suppose that is why we seek spiritual guidance: because we want to make the right choices (or at least the best choices possible) as we make our way through the miasma of emotions that make it impossible to walk quickly and confidently on the path of life.
My experience is it's maddeningly uncomfortable to be in the middle of this fog. Or, perhaps, a better metaphor would be one of fire: it's hot, it's frightening, it's hard to see and nearly impossible to breathe. Either way, I suppose, it's yucky.
But I believe it's the right place to be. Perhaps the uncertainty makes it possible for me to have humility, and humility is the only way I'm able to accept that I am human (ie, not all-knowing). Humility makes it possible for me to seek help and to accept guidance.
Ultimately, I believe it is this seeking that helps us to build the caring and safe community we need. I will not always be right, but I will not be alone.
I don't have answers, but I am willing to affirm and support your journey.
As a person who makes my bed every day, no judgment here! My current dilemma is excercise. I have to find something I enjoy doing that has the hidden benefit of exercise. It just never works for me to exercise with the hidden benefit of having fun. Today I am trying bike riding. I love your thoughts Nadia. Thanks for sharing.
This is such a great shift in thought. I found making the shift from telling myself, "I need to exercise" to instead "I need to get movement for my body" made all the difference in my approach too. More gentleness, less punishment!
Just finished a good cry, its been a rough week with round 2 of shingles starting in less than a month ( doctor said, unusual but not unheard of)....having begun new work with professional for healing resurfacing ptsd crap, and generally feeling mostly angry and sad. And being grumpy and unloving to those i care about most. And tears flowed when I got to these words, ‘inconsistent, lumpy, actual self who God loves madly’. I believe God loves madly... but i don’t think i know God loves madly. I want to know this deep in my soul. God this is my prayer!
First, I am so sorry that you're suffering. Pain is so hard. Second, I want you to know that there has never been a single day you've existed that God wasn't completely crazy about you. He made you and he's loves you. Even the weird parts of you that no one else gets. I'm also sorry that you've heard dumb messages about who God is and who he loves. We've all heard dumb stuff. Just allowing yourself to entertain the idea that God loves you is a beginning. Not only does he love you, he actually LIKES you. Hope this helps.
Aren’t there holy people and traditions that say our desire isn’t the starting point? We are responding to an invitation already extended.
Maybe, i’m not sure...maybe you could say more. Faith and trust is difficult for me and while i can believe it in my head... i want a deeper belief ... like when i was younger before i had encountered deceivers, before relatives joined white supremacy churches, before they traded love and caring for each other for a ‘perfect truth’ and hatred of those different. Anyway... if you are saying God already loves madly... i want to know it more deeply with less doubts. Oh... spiritual things are difficult for me to put into words... thanks for your comment ... i will think on it
Querida Nadia,
My 45 year high school class reunion is coming up in September. My hair is white as snow, almost all the women in my class dye their hair. I am still hanging on to my pandemic weight. I only make my bed right before I go to bed. This morning I woke up on the wrong side on the bed. (my bed is pushed up against the wall). Mos def feeling anxious, irritable and discontented. It is all very much a familiar space for me. Fuck it. This too shall pass. Thank you for being you. Thank you for a space in your corner.
Love,
Kat
Love it and great idea to make the bed before going to bed! 😉🙌🏽
I went experienced the same feelings before returning to my hometown for my 45 th high school reunion. My mind loaded with stupid questions like, Why didn’t I get in shape.. I knew this event was happening and had 20 years ago to prepare!!?
The actual reunion was hilarious, fun, touching.. and I am so glad I was there. I realized that I was not the only lumpy white haired person and embraced the chance to reconnect with old friends and people I barely knew in hs..I hope when you attend your reunion you can let go of your unpleasant thoughts and enjoy the experience.
There's that prayer, "Dear God, help me to be the person my dog thinks I am." I think there must be something to learning to see ourselves more as the people who love us (oh, and I guess God) think we are. Like, even if Nadia thinks she's still 90% asshole, that's not what those of us who find your work helpful and supportive think or focus on. I dunno; maybe if I knew you personally I might think, "You know? She's right; she's mostly an asshole," but I really REALLY doubt it. Many days I find myself thinking, "Why does anyone put up with me?" And yet, they not only do but seem to enjoy the fact that I'm around. (I realize that not everyone is lucky enough to have friends like that.) Back in my theater days, I learned that deciphering your character should include what your character thinks about him/her self AND what the other characters think about your character. I dunno; I feel like something about this being in community with each other stuff must include the gift of seeing others seeing our best selves and not all the crap that lives in our own heads.
Good point!
Cool theater perspective.
Wonderful thoughts! Thanks!
So with every therapist I have worked with, I have asked "when am I going to not be worried about death. I've had this wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night dread, and here I am, 65, and I still have it eve though I have been in therapy forever." Finally, one therapist said to me "Denise, have you ever thought this is just part of being you? You're a poet and writer. Maybe this is why you write. Maybe this is what makes your writing what it is. It's just part of Denise." So I am trying to make friends with this part of myself. I try to say "hi" to it when it hits me instead of just being afraid. But I still wish I found a way not to be afraid. I'm not one of these folks who are sure of the afterlife. I'm one of these folks who are sure they do not want to be in a coffin, or in a crematory, or just not in the world anymore. I can't imagine what the next life (or not) will be, and I don't want to be an (or not). It makes me sad. So I do what my last therapist has said, and I do more of what I want to do and less of what I don't want to do, which is also hard for me since I don't like to disappoint people and will do what is expected or what I think people expect of me. The good girl who resents being good. And disappointing her mother, even though I know I will and do.
I’ve found a lot of progress in some of the ideas of Buddhism. The central idea, an accessible one, is that craving is the beginning of stepping away from the big Now, and we can learn to identify that craving and relax it-- craving is a muscle tightened. This craving can be about many things, but especially about what we think of as our identity. It’s not that identity isn’t real, it’s just that it’s a structure that emerges based on all the stuff that happens and out habitual reactions to them. There are records that we play over and over, so much that the grooves are deep, but they are just stories we’ve told ourselves and have come to believe. The record is real, but there was a moment before the record started that we forgot, so the record isn’t permanent, it’s just something we play without being aware of it, and we think that we are the record. The awareness of the record playing is mindfulness, and developing mindfulness means learning to catch the record playing enough to go “ah there’s the record playing again”, and in that instant we are no longer the record, we are a person playing a record. That place, where the record no longer is “I” but instead an experience, is where change happens
Wow! I'm so grateful when I realized so many things were just stories I told myself. How freeing it was to let go of the grooves of the record!
Thank you for this..."...mindfulness means learning to catch the record playing enough to go “ah there’s the record playing again”, and in that instant we are no longer the record, we are a person playing a record." So meaningful for the record players out here like me. Deep grooves
Oh, good grief. I needed this. REALLY needed this. I was awake at 5:00 a.m., watching TV and eating a tub of orange sherbet, and all because I'm none of the things I wish I were (including someone who can sleep all night).
Insomnia is the worst, sorry you suffer with it too
I’m right there with you! My starting points are: fuck you, seriously?, and you’re an idiot please shut up. Thanks for the post.
Thank you Nadia from this 76-year-old guy still trying to change the world, or at least my little part...
Beautiful!! The conundrum of being and becoming, one day at a time; with occasional setbacks.
I’ve never figured it out, though I do see progress. Wild grace abounds. I am grateful.
I love the image of the god who is a god of all Rhinos! And I love it especially because if they were a god of all Gurus, they'd be a god capable of loving only one type of human... because the capital-G Gurus are, at root, the same idealized creatures, all blurry at the edges, essentially having no edges at all...
This reminds me of a college semantics class back in the '70s. The professor, Ms. P, was outwardly a product of her generation -- heavy makeup, sprayed hair, and flouncy dresses -- but she was beyond doubt a feminist who Took No Sh!t... and she told us about something called the "ladder of abstraction." The idea is that types of things, such as people, fall generally into more general or more specific categories, which can be thought of as positioned higher up or lower down the ladder. (Note that these aren't better-or-worse positions, or powerful-vs.-weak. They're just concepts: more abstract at the top, and more concrete at the bottom.)
To the point: she talked about a strain of casual feminist thinking at the time, in which a woman might say, "I just want to be treated like men" or "...like a human being." While sympathetic to the sentiment, Ms. P wanted to point out to us that its expression in those particular terms was 100% off-base and possibly not at all what the speaker actually wanted. The reason: to be treated the same way as someone else ("like men") or as everyone else ("like a human being") is to be denied your individuality, your uniqueness. It's like asking to be regarded as and treated like a two-dimensional blank cartoon of a human being, with no beauties (and yes, no ugliness) of your own, i.e. with no specific features which make you, well, *you*.
So yeah, give me the Rhino-loving god any day. I don't want their regard of me to be colored at all by what they think -- or, haha, *hope* -- to be true as all the other kids on my block!
Thank you so much, Nadia!
Thank You Nadia for inviting me to get off the treadmill, to have my practice be 1% less of an asshole. That is doable in all areas of my life. I so appreciate your honest humor that invites to look at ourselves with a light and gentle heart.
God willing I will ALWAYS be completely and totally unbothered by saying that I am still an alcoholic. And God help me if I ever deny it. I, too, believe people can change. And here is my favorite joke that proves it:
Two southern bells are sitting on a porch having tea.
Lady 1: Did you see the ring my Henry gave me? extends hand
Lady 2: Oh, how nice.
Lady 1: And did you see the new car my Henry dear bought for my birthday?
Lady 2: Oh, how nice.
Lady 1: Oh, and my Henry says he's taking me on a European vacation!
Lady 2: Oh, how nice.
Lady 1: So what has your hubby done for you lately?
Lady 2: My hubby? Well my hubby sent me to charm school. I used to just say "Fuck you," but now I say "Oh, how nice."
I just finished reading your post and re- opened the book I was reading: "Sooner or later we must distinguish between what we are not and what we are. We must accept the fact that we are not what we would like to be. We must cast off our false exterior self like the cheap and showy garment that it is. We must find our real self in all its elemental poverty but also in its great and very simple dignity: created to be a child of God and capable of loving with something of God's own sincerity and his unselfishness." --Thomas Merton
.......hmmm
At the risk of raising a topic that’s too controversial, how does this insight apply to kids who want to transform their bodies to be their ideal selves (or perhaps they would say, actual)? I’m referring to young teens who want double mastectomies or tweens who want to take hormones that have affects on bone density and can atrophy certain parts of the body. I’m not asking out of hatred for anyone, but out of concern. I feel the need to think about this as a mom of a young girl close to puberty so that if it does come up I’ve put some thought into it in advance. I feel like all of my life experience makes me feel in my gut that I should teach her that physically she is already perfect as is because it’s how she was made, but the mainstream right now is pushing the message that to teach that is somehow to support a genocide, that instead you should teach your child to question whether their body is “right”. If we’re going to spend time thinking about our ideal vs actual selves and human transformation, because I’m a mom, I can’t help wondering how this all applies to kids. There was an article in the Atlantic recently about transhumanism and the push to have humans be able to alter themselves. If the AI industry is to be believed, on some level our culture will be asking us all very soon, not just kids, to answer difficult questions about physical reality and identity. It all seems very sci-fi and it makes me wonder what it even means to be human, and whether our physical reality should ever be considered holy.
Hi. I'm not a pro in anything related to transgender issues for any age, so feel free to ignore my comment if you disagree. First, thank you for putting your concerns into such respectful language and for adding this perspective to the subject at hand. It makes it easier to connect to what a person is saying when the tone is respectful.
My take on it is this: The kid who questions their gender isn't automatically a kid who needs gender reassignment. I think that leap (from questioning to reassignment) is generated by lack of understanding and leads to fear. Professionals (in medicine and psychology) know that there are a lot of things that need to happen before hormone therapy and surgery.
And that's how this topic applies. Before anyone gets into transition, there has to be a lot of counseling on issues related to self-esteem, body image, gender roles, and basically how a person's life is going. Does a girl desire gender transition because she hates how women are treated (or how she, individually is treated)? A counselor will recognize that as NOT a need for gender reassignment. Does a kid desire steroids or other hormonal treatment in order to be a better/stronger athlete? That's an issue related to accepting the rhino that one is.
There's always a need to take the medications and other helps we need to function as the rhinos we are. We wear glasses when eye sight needs correction. We take daily meds for things like diabetes, hypertension, ADD, depression, etc. None of that is about trying to be a unicorn.
So, the best I can say is to trust the professionals and be open to dialog on these issues. With kids questioning their gender, listening and having respectful dialog is always going to be better than dismissing the topic.
I hope that helps.
Thank you Ellie, and MJ - MJ for asking your question in such an open way, and Ellen for providing information in such a respectful way. If we can learn from these conversations about respect for one another, we have so much to offer each other in a loving way. It would make ourselves, our country, and the world a better place.
I see a lot of that openness in many of these comments. What a joyful way to communicate. Well done ❤️
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I wish I could trust the professionals, but I feel like I have to do my own research whenever the medical industry is involved because of its history over the last couple decades. Of course, some doctors are great, but many can’t say what they think for professional reasons. I definitely agree on the ideal of strong safeguards. I’ve been taking a deep dive into researching this topic for a several months now to try to understand what’s happening and I find what I’ve learned about the gender clinic industry to be somewhat troubling. I want to be clear that it is the industry that disturbs me, not the people who seek help from it. I have two good friends who are therapists in the DC area and the Bay area and they both tell me that the new standard of care is that therapists, particularly in more liberal states that follow the gender affirming care guidelines, are pretty much required to immediately accept a person’s self-diagnosis or statement of identity and not ask any questions to probe deeper into someone’s background or medical history to see if there are any underlying issues before diagnosing teens with rapid onset gender dysphoria. I’ve also learned that it’s extremely easy to for tweens and teens to get medication prescribed on a first or second visit. My therapist friend in the SF Bay area (who is part of the lgbt community himself, for whatever it’s worth) has been working with adolescents for 20 years and he said he used to have to see clients for several months before making a gender dysphoria diagnosis, and there was a specific protocol he had to follow; now he is expected to immediately diagnose with no questions asked, and this bothers him because he thinks some kids have deeper unresolved issues that need attention. I agree with Gloria that it’s important to listen to kids and let them figure things out, but the reason I bring this up in relation to this post of Nadia’s is because, to me, identity feels like it is essentially a spiritual/philosophical question. I feel like I’m supposed to teach my daughter that her only identity is a child of God or essence in almost a buddhist sense. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that kids actually need their parents to tell them who they are, to teach them what identity is, if identity is an entirely spiritual thing. If there’s an innate gender soul residing in each of us that needs to be discovered, that would be about faith. That’s the sense I get from reading some people’s stories...that it’s a bit like a soul to some people; other people say it’s a psychological condition to be treated. I don’t know how we can know, since essentially it’s a matter of faith if the soul has a gender, since nobody understands the soul. I think it’s important for people to be able to have dialogue about what part of identity is spiritual and what part is psychological in respect to this, even if it only results in dialogue and rather than answers. I mean, it’s super confusing, and if adults have trouble understanding the philosophical/spiritual/psychological concepts of identity, then I can’t imagine that tweens and teens find it easy to grasp. Anyways, there are definitely huge societal changes right now and I think no matter what people think about this topic, 99% of parents just want their kids to be safe, happy and healthy into the future. Sorry to ramble on so long. It’s a huge topic that matters to me as a mom.
Thank you for trusting me to hear about your experiences and thoughts. These issues of identity are layered with uncertainty, pressure, trust, history, and more. I suppose that is why we seek spiritual guidance: because we want to make the right choices (or at least the best choices possible) as we make our way through the miasma of emotions that make it impossible to walk quickly and confidently on the path of life.
My experience is it's maddeningly uncomfortable to be in the middle of this fog. Or, perhaps, a better metaphor would be one of fire: it's hot, it's frightening, it's hard to see and nearly impossible to breathe. Either way, I suppose, it's yucky.
But I believe it's the right place to be. Perhaps the uncertainty makes it possible for me to have humility, and humility is the only way I'm able to accept that I am human (ie, not all-knowing). Humility makes it possible for me to seek help and to accept guidance.
Ultimately, I believe it is this seeking that helps us to build the caring and safe community we need. I will not always be right, but I will not be alone.
I don't have answers, but I am willing to affirm and support your journey.
MJ this is such a big question. I wonder if the idea is to let the kids figure it out and then be their support.
As a person who makes my bed every day, no judgment here! My current dilemma is excercise. I have to find something I enjoy doing that has the hidden benefit of exercise. It just never works for me to exercise with the hidden benefit of having fun. Today I am trying bike riding. I love your thoughts Nadia. Thanks for sharing.
This is such a great shift in thought. I found making the shift from telling myself, "I need to exercise" to instead "I need to get movement for my body" made all the difference in my approach too. More gentleness, less punishment!
This is where I'm heading!!😬
Love the statement 'my first reaction to almost everything is fuck you' that's me right there!! love that.