My dog is better than yours

I’m not a psychologist. I don’t have formal training; I don’t have the sheepskin claiming my expertise in human understanding. But I have graduated from the school of hard knocks. I’ve met and had more than a casual passing relationship with more transgender people in my life than most professionals will ever see in their careers. So why do I start tonight’s article this way? There’s an aspect to our condition that I’ve never read about, nor heard, but I have experienced.

In my own young life, I had a miserable time connecting with the others in my classes at school. My parent’s attributed this to the fact that I was a year ahead of my classmates as far as age was concerned. But as I look back on my experience, I know that it was something else. And I’ve seen it in others with the dysphoric experience. I was hopelessly immature.

I honestly can not believe, although I did feel, that the other children could see through my outer shell and observe the feelings I had of my physical sex. They could not comprehend my secret thoughts; wishing I were a girl. They could never hope to understand those things not demonstrably displayed in the way I was dressed. Yet, they treated me differently. Their actions were often times cruel and deliberately hurtful.

I was different. My abilities to interact were not developed. And in this respect, I was truly a dweeb. My physical attributes did attract young women. And for my early teen years, I managed to chase away every one of them after a casual introduction. Nothing could explain the burning and hurt I would feel after every episode. My skills in communication, body language, and thought were totally emotional. I could not introduce the thought process, evaluate, and further refine them. They existed in their grade school form for much of my teen years and took several years as an adult to fully develop, much less understand.

In the transsexual world I entered in the mid 1980’s I saw similar traits play out in others I would meet in their gender dysphoric movie. Failed careers, failed relationships, and a complete loss of structure in their lives appeared on the screen. Some had been able to transcend devastation by focusing on their education. Yet the characters were the same. The plot lines were nearly identical. The sadness and desperation were all too common. Trans gendered people all portrayed pictures of undeveloped personalities. We acted in so many ways like a bunch of young teenagers.

So why, did this never come up in a group therapy session, why did I not encounter it in personal therapy sessions? Why was this an unaddressed issue in helping us? I’ve never found out. Is it something that we are able to hide from professional therapists? Is the transgender dysphoria such a powerful problem that they are unable to see it? Are the two things inexplicably intertwined? Why can they not help us with this important problem in our lives?

Cindi

Copyright 2006 by Cindi Jones RSS and Atom feeds allowed. All other use by permission only.