Identity?

[Guest Jeannine Bean]

So for me, a lot of things were not such a big deal. Internal shifts seem most important of all. I started transitioning once and ran out of money, and thus eventually decided that it might be easier to change my brain than my body. Recently, after years of expensive experiments, I decided that's incorrect. So a milestone was my own personal realization, then coming to think it was not a bad thing to do... just who I am.

Years ago I "came out" to my family and friends, then went through a time where most of them knew I was trying to "get over it." They all stopped calling me "Jane" and many went to "J," which is what some of my best friends called me ever since. But before that I was out at work, voice training, dressing shaving and Nairing all over the place, taking hormones and wearing shirts to show off my little sprouts I felt so proud of. Prior to all that, and during my time of trying to "get over it" I think most folks thought I was as flaming as a nine dollar bill. So I've always been deeply feminine.

So many of the "big deal" stuff, like learning to walk or talk, or even spending some time on hormones (only made four months though)... or coming out. None of that is a very big deal to me this time around. My parents just shifted into calling me Jeannine with hardly a blink. My sister likes talking about her big sis..

Bear with my preamble, I fear people may have the tendency to read their own experiences into mine, write what I am saying off as the rantings of someone who is "just starting (again)" and miss what I'm about to say.

I started wondering, because I don't think I'm ever going to "pass" well -- not easily. Not until I have some serious FFS, probably. So I wanted to find the ultimate internal shift, something inside that I could pin my sense of identity on. Lets say that, for me, "something" needed taken care of. In my first post to this forum, I said I wanted my gender identity to fade into the background of my life. I already had a deep heartfelt belief that I'm a woman, and I think there's something in my brain from birth that is biologically female, unlike my body.

And I had to ask myself, if someone who is XY, and raised as an identifies herself as a woman were to be in a horrible accident, where her genitals were destroyed, and her face was disfigured, even if it ruined her voice, or if we went so far as that it took her arms and legs too... why, when I imagine this, do I still know that she is a woman. I thought and thought about that. My first conclusion, after a day or two of thought was "smell."

Then, to test that, I imagined a situation where a woman was taken, against her will, and had her sex changed and was given hormones and stuff to turn her into a male... now when I imagine that, again with someone who actually is a woman (not a transman, for whom this would essentially be the reverse), saaaay for the sake of argument, Nicole Kidman... still I know she is a woman, even in the altered state.

Why?

I like to call this "spirit" as in team spirit, or the spirit of a mountain climber. Some mountain climbers lose even both legs and then they climb everest or Ranier with metal and plastic limbs. Those people are mountain climbers to the core, and it's basically impossible to take that away from them. It's just who they are. I think "spirit" is a subtle thing, and in the case of male or female identity, it can be very subtle and hard to pin down. Also, in our language there are no words for feelings and kinaesthetics.

Yet I am starting to find this. It is close to the identity I already held. I probably could not have found it had I not already held a sense of being a woman (I think with an intention like this, it's important to have something to calibrate to... otherwise how would I know when I was going in the direction I want?)..

I think there's something beyond even what I was born with, perhaps a deeper wisdom. Maybe it's just something that matters to me. I think it's something that some need to cultivate over a lifetime, and others simply make a decision. Maybe it comes with SRS for some people, or ten years after. I think some people make things real when they are intense, for others things take time, or repetition, or nearness to them. I can't really know what other people feel, but I'm very good about knowing my own feelings, and I've usually been correct about what I "would" feel in a given situation, even one that I've never experienced...

All these tools are good for calibrating. But lets say I had an amount of this womanly "spirit" from the start. I think I can actually cultivate this a lot further, and build it into something quite remarkable. This process is more something I'm integrating into my movements with Qi Kung practice and breathing meditations, and letting it flow out into the rest of my life from there. I also am discovering my own avoidance strategies, and where I get to choose to allow a lot more of this "spirit."

Sometimes it helps to let myself say "no" before I can say "yes"

And as it is said, "In the Dao, everything changes"

I hope what I've said helps some people be who they want to be.

With love,

Jeannine

[Guest Elizabeth K]

I think there's something beyond even what I was born with, perhaps a deeper wisdom. Maybe it's just something that matters to me. I think it's something that some need to cultivate over a lifetime, and others simply make a decision. Maybe it comes with SRS for some people, or ten years after. I think some people make things real when they are intense, for others things take time, or repetition, or nearness to them. I can't really know what other people feel, but I'm very good about knowing my own feelings, and I've usually been correct about what I "would" feel in a given situation, even one that I've never experienced...

One of the realizations i had early in therapy, after I had been told I was transsexual, was that there was a mindset and an attitude I had all my life, one that never set well with others, one that marked me as different. I wasn't feminine acting but I was feminine thinking. So when it became apparent I was one of those rare beings who didn't integrate mind and body, it seemed I would have to transition to 'find myself' I thought I would need to work hard and study what women do, how they walk and stand, how they sit. And so on.

I was partially wrong. Of course it is useful to see what women do and how they act, but I found out there was an easiler way. I just allowed my female self, what I had been my entire life, to emerge. Suddenly I was walking and standing, sitting... and so on, like I had been female my entire life!

Why?

Because I HAVE been female my entire life.

So the rest was physical transition. All I had to do was let my body catch up with my mind. So I thought.

I reacted early and with great vigor to HRT. One day I looked in the mirror and was startled! So then I had to let my mind catch up witch changes to my body, basiclaly by memorizing what I look like now and use that image as my new self image! YIKES.

So it moves around - body and mind - two race cars almost neck-to neck - always getting more toward my ultimate goal, full transition and integrtion of body and mind.

I think this is kinda what you are talking about. And I want to add one more thought. Everytime I feel so female, my body advances and I realize I had no idea of what being a total woman is like, that there is a huge coordination with the body. In many ways we women are our body - that's the nature of us, our connection to the world.

Lizzy

[Guest Jeannine Bean]

I like what you have to say... You've got an interesting way of going about things. I think I understand where you're coming from.

I think this is kinda what you are talking about. And I want to add one more thought. Everytime I feel so female, my body advances and I realize I had no idea of what being a total woman is like, that there is a huge coordination with the body. In many ways we women are our body - that's the nature of us, our connection to the world.

This touches on something else I've been pondering. I've been doing Kung Fu and specifically a Chinese form of Qi Kung called Wujifa for awhile. I practice (almost) every day. I've learned some rather remarkable connections within my body and how to bring those out into the world, and connect with others.

I have watched sisters and brothers at the school of cultivation and practice master some really amazing physical feats as well. And I've watched the teacher connect through other people's bodies to show them ways of feeling things they didn't even know were there. I believe that pushing Hands Kung Fu requires an incredibly high level of feeling and being in the flow of a million things changing all the time. It's an amazing sport, I think, with a huge bearing on the rest of life.

Basically I have come to believe that everyone, men and women, are, in many ways, their bodies... I wonder sometimes if I shut off a lot my connection to my body because my brain and body are at odds with each other? If there's a biological basis for being Transwhatevered, and I think there is, then I would expect that dissonance with the body to create interferences with my awareness...

Or maybe it gives me even more insight because I am hyperaware in some ways of things outside most people's awareness...

We say in Wujifa, "your strength is your weakness"

I hear the saying works both ways.

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Also you said, "I was partially wrong. Of course it is useful to see what women do and how they act, but I found out there was an easiler way. I just allowed my female self, what I had been my entire life, to emerge. Suddenly I was walking and standing, sitting... and so on, like I had been female my entire life!"

I think I've had a similar experience. When I tell my girlfriend, "I was being so butch and masculine when we first met, I thought I had come to the point of actually being a male in a male role." She gets that very firm "no" look and shakes her head, like I've just suggested that the sky is actually not blue but perfectly reflective silver and we can watch our own reflections in it. Not that I was doing everything in a culturally "feminine" way, but that the underlying, deeper movements and speech patterns and "vibe" and all that were fundamentally those of a woman.

I'd like to hear more about your experience of accepting this realization about yourself and letting the transformations in your behavior happen naturally.

--Jeannine