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I'm a survivor of childhood abuse. The abuse most often took the form of neglect, but was reinforced by somewhat extreme physical punishment. When you are being told that you are the problem, that you deserve the treatment you are getting, that somehow its your fault for the pain you are going through, you begin to think that maybe if you were different... that it wouldn't be happening to you.
So as a kid I often wished I was a girl, because I saw girls receiving love and acceptance that I wasn't getting. I know now that girls are abused as well, but I was a kid and didn't have that clarity. I also sometimes felt (and even now often feel) that I wasn't human at all, since being human meant having to deal with emotions and pain and a lot of stuff that I couldn't (and in some ways still can't) handle. I wished I was Vulcan, like Mr Spock, because he was immune from any feelings and didn’t have to deal with them. People would say "I know this makes you mad" and Mr Spock would say "I am incapable of being mad."
Even though I had these fantasies, I knew I was male and anyone talking to me for a half an hour would figure out that my issues were about love and acceptance and not my gender because I would have expressed it that way: “I wish I was a girl because I perceive people giving them hugs and telling them they care about them and they get attention for who they are, not what they do ‘wrong.’” It was never “I wish I was a girl because I KNOW that I am a girl inside.” Similarly, I would say “I wish I was an alien because they don’t have to have emotions and feelings and because of that they can’t be hurt by what other people do to them.” It was never “I wish I was an alien because I KNOW I am an alien inside.”
I don’t really talk about this stuff (which is odd because I talk about EVERYTHING, as a defense mechanism,) and I know that a lot of detractors of the idea of trans-ness would point at those things and use them as arguments against the transition of kids, (that it comes from abuse or neglect) but I don't think that way. I’m saying that I recognize the difference and I recognized it when I was a kid and could have told you as much.
Kids that are saying that they KNOW they are wearing the wrong gender, are saying something different than I said as an abused little kid. I was saying, “help me find a way to get love and acceptance, help me to experience and process these feelings of rejection and pain that I shouldn’t have to handle at this age, and BTW please stop hurting me.” These kids are saying “I may die if I have to live in this costume that is not in alignment with who I know I am, at my core.”
While my issues aren't the same as dysphoria or dysmorphia, they are close enough that I can sympathize. I can imagine that they feel different from normal people. That there is something wrong needs correction on a very basic level, and that they have no power to correct it, and that they have to hide how they really feel from everyone.
So as a kid I often wished I was a girl, because I saw girls receiving love and acceptance that I wasn't getting. I know now that girls are abused as well, but I was a kid and didn't have that clarity. I also sometimes felt (and even now often feel) that I wasn't human at all, since being human meant having to deal with emotions and pain and a lot of stuff that I couldn't (and in some ways still can't) handle. I wished I was Vulcan, like Mr Spock, because he was immune from any feelings and didn’t have to deal with them. People would say "I know this makes you mad" and Mr Spock would say "I am incapable of being mad."
Even though I had these fantasies, I knew I was male and anyone talking to me for a half an hour would figure out that my issues were about love and acceptance and not my gender because I would have expressed it that way: “I wish I was a girl because I perceive people giving them hugs and telling them they care about them and they get attention for who they are, not what they do ‘wrong.’” It was never “I wish I was a girl because I KNOW that I am a girl inside.” Similarly, I would say “I wish I was an alien because they don’t have to have emotions and feelings and because of that they can’t be hurt by what other people do to them.” It was never “I wish I was an alien because I KNOW I am an alien inside.”
I don’t really talk about this stuff (which is odd because I talk about EVERYTHING, as a defense mechanism,) and I know that a lot of detractors of the idea of trans-ness would point at those things and use them as arguments against the transition of kids, (that it comes from abuse or neglect) but I don't think that way. I’m saying that I recognize the difference and I recognized it when I was a kid and could have told you as much.
Kids that are saying that they KNOW they are wearing the wrong gender, are saying something different than I said as an abused little kid. I was saying, “help me find a way to get love and acceptance, help me to experience and process these feelings of rejection and pain that I shouldn’t have to handle at this age, and BTW please stop hurting me.” These kids are saying “I may die if I have to live in this costume that is not in alignment with who I know I am, at my core.”
While my issues aren't the same as dysphoria or dysmorphia, they are close enough that I can sympathize. I can imagine that they feel different from normal people. That there is something wrong needs correction on a very basic level, and that they have no power to correct it, and that they have to hide how they really feel from everyone.
