From back then to now...
First off, my apologies ahead of time for any tangential divergence herein.
I am profoundly saddened, but I remain hopeful.
I have known I was transgender since I was five, even if I had no name for it until many decades later. I am Bipolar secondary to PTSD as a result of sexual trauma as a child. Contrary to some gravely erroneous and supremely non-scientific assumptions, transgender identity does not arise from trauma. Most TG survivors were abused AFTER they began to discover who they were. But that's what all too many people still believe; an opinion emboldened by the people currently in charge.
Only in the last several years have I come to recognize that much of my idiosyncratic behavior can be attributed to experiencing a higher-functioning aspect of the Autistic Continuum. My son and daughter-in-law are aware of all three of the above aspects of my personhood and lovingly support me.
All this to say that it is frightening that all of these parts of me reflect a sad commonality with a growing number of folks under attack by certain aspects of our government. To wit, my only vaccine until the outbreak of Covid was my Salk shot when I was 12. But some would have us believe that we are TG or Autistic or other conditions because of the water we drank as kids or the shots we received.
If there are more of us who are visible, it's because until recently, we became less fearful and had finally seen acceptance. We're not who we are because of a fad, but because we finally found the support and care that made us safe to be who we are. But once again, we are to be cured or sorted out. People with little understanding of any atypical human condition see us as problems to be solved.
When my Mom was a kid, she went to a religious school where the teachers would hit her left hand with a steel ruler to get her to write only with her right. *Sinister.
Tenacious girl that she was, by the time she left for public school, she was able to write in gorgeous cursive...with BOTH hands. We can't stop being TG or any of the other things we might understand about ourselves. WE define who we are!
Anyway? Here's to those who paved the way for us, and all of my prayers for all of us who will continue to deal with this!
Love y'all!
*PS: the word sinister, is often used to define evil intent. It is derived from the Latin word SINISTERE -from the left.
Comments
It should not be so complicated.
Dysphoria, PTSD, autism spectrum disorder . . . Many people see the list, and see nothing more. But we aren’t just a collection of issues, or ann itemized list of ways we differ from the species averages. Anyone who can’t see more than a list will never know what a beautiful, caring, funny person you are, ‘Drea.
Their loss.
— Emma
When I Was A Child
Well, the term 'transgender' didn't even exist, and there was no internet. The news services scorned the likes of us and so did many parents, so we hid. It was only in my late teens that I came across a couple of autistic people and came to realise that they functioned differently to most others, not necessarily badly...just different.
As time went by society began to recognize that one size doesn't fit all and there was a very small space for us and for the autistic. There were sympathetic portrayals in movies. While general acceptance was never on, there was at least tolerance, and medical/psychological procedures were developed to help us.
There has been much discussion about the 'explosion' of transgenderism and autism but I think that's because individuals and their families no longer felt the need to hide, or pretend there is no problem and they seek professional help. Andrea is correct.
Now it has all gone into reverse. Being TG is virtually criminal in some countries (and I'm not counting Islamic nations) and assistance for autism is being restricted on spurious 'scientific' grounds. I don't know how long it will take us to recover from these new assaults on our conditions.
Change of attitude
Growing up in the 1970s I am fortunate not to have encountered the sinister physical abuse your mother experienced. Though there were some teachers in our community who did so until the very late 1970s. My high school math teacher was such a victim. He would write general text on the black-board with his right hand, but as soon as he had to draw a diagram the chalk went into his left hand.
Though I know of teachers who would hit pupils with a rod on their hand once for each spelling mistake in a dictated text way into the 1980s, and possibly into the early 1990s.
My personal experience is more with public shaming, kind of like a pillory used from the middle ages to the early 1900s. Given the tropical climate our classrooms were built in rows with outside windows on both sides for ventilation and a porch on the side where the door was. And for various “infractions” (yes not having done your homework was also considered an infraction) we would have to stand outside the classroom door or next to a porch post in view of the whole school yard. Sometimes it would escalate to the point that we would have to stand next to the flag pole during recess (yes in the beating sun).
Because I am neurodivergent (both ADHD and Autism Spectrum) and nobody, except my parents, was interested in finding out what was going on with me or trying to find ways to help me function up to my very obvious potential, I was deemed to be the problem of the class (or even the class problem) and have suffered my share of public shaming on the virtual pillory. Some teachers would then add injury to insult by encouraging the class and school bullies to engage in mobbing of “the guilty”.
"You write with your right hand!"
My high school girlfriend's mother was so inundated with that command, because she simply couldn't write legibly with her right hand and continued to write with her left, couldn't keep it straight in her mind which was right and which was left.
As a result I was told when acting as navigator for her in a car that I was to tell her to turn to the driver's side or the passenger side.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Hayfoot, strawfoot
I've had left-handed friends who had similar accommodations. One referred to Ralph and Louie to keep things straight and the other's workaround was right out of the Muppet movie. "Bear Left! Right, Frog!" :)
Oddly, to me, these purely linguistic solutions worked perfectly!
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Well
I'll just leave this here...
Love, Andrea Lena
We are each individual and special
And yet we share some common attributes and problems. As I’ve gotten to know a wider community of those transgendered and others in the queer community, I’ve become even more aware of that. Most of us try to accept the differences but seek a community in commonality.
But so many politicians and certain religious leaders insist on stamping out those attributes they don’t like or understand.
And their actions are truly sinister.
Gillian Cairns
Goodness, that takes me back.
My niece, now safely into her thirties, went to an inspirational Sixth Form College, and their mantra was exactly what you have just said Gillian "Everyone is an individual, an exception to be treasured"
She was nurtured by their teaching to move from a shy and quiet sixteen year old, to become a confident and assertive eighteen year old, who went away to University, and was inspired enough to take up teaching as a career.
There are still people and institutions who work to encourage others to fulfil their potential. Sadly, it isn't fashionable, but fashions change. Remember, shell suits were once "de rigour".
Lucy xx
"Lately it occurs to me..
what a long strange trip its been."