You and Your Gender Identity
Page 20
Using the Exploration Ideas section, start to keep track of when something doesn’t feel accurate to you, as well as Exploration Ideas that result from this.
2. Ask yourself, “Who and what am I drawn to?”
Since you are in the process of discovering your gender identity, it makes sense to seek out others who you identify with (this is separate from who you are sexually/romantically attracted to, although the two can overlap).
Take note of when you notice a person (or something about a person) followed by you comparing yourself to them, trying to mimic them, or imagining yourself looking or acting like them. These can be people who are trans, not trans, celebrities, people you know in real life, etc. You may come across them by accident or you may seek them out purposely.
For instance, resources such as Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube are visual mediums where you can find a lot of people you might be drawn to. Pay attention to when your gut says to you, “Yes, I like that, I can connect with that, I want to give that a try.”
Using the lines below, start to keep track of when you realize you are drawn to someone in this way. Record any patterns you pick up on (e.g., certain types of people, certain fashions) as well as Exploration Ideas that result from this.
3. Look at pictures of yourself.
This might end up being a really difficult task for some of you, so be sure to think about whether or not you should undertake it. Although it can be helpful and revealing, it can also bring up painful feelings. If you decide to try this out and are aware that it could be challenging, be sure to turn to your Self-Care Checklist afterwards.
Looking at pictures across the span of your lifetime can provide you with information such as:
• Recognizing times where you could tell you were expressing your true self (for instance, as a young child) and can then see where that began to change.
• Remembering how you were feeling and what you were thinking during certain times of your life.
• Sorting through current pictures of yourself with the question, “How much does that reflect who I truly am?” and paying attention to your response.
Using the Exploration Ideas section, start keeping track of how it feels to look at pictures of yourself. List any times of your life where you feel you were more you and how you feel when you look at current pictures of yourself, as well as Exploration Ideas that emerge from doing this.
4. Tap into ideas that have been inside you all along.
Chances are you have been unconsciously gathering Exploration Ideas for a while. This collection of ideas can be tapped into, with a little bit of prodding. We discussed this in Chapter 11, so revisit the exercises Opening a Dialogue with Your Child Self (page 160) and Getting to the Truths of Your Present-Day Self (page 163) to access these ideas.
Transfer any helpful answers from those exercises to the Exploration Ideas section. Continue to take note of any dreams, fantasies, longings, wishes, etc., and record them as well. See what Exploration Ideas are revealed to you through paying attention to these clues.
5. Gather ideas from others you have connected with.
In Chapter 10, you took steps to learn from the stories of others, connect with others online, and connect with others in person. More than likely, you’ve been exposed to their Exploration Ideas and can now use the ones that sounded interesting to you. If you haven’t heard any yet, or can’t remember if you have, revisit those stories and/or the persons you have connected with and see what you can learn from them. Remember, this can also include what you learn from fictional characters in novels/literature, television series, motion picture films, fan fiction, comics, etc.
Using the Exploration Ideas section, start keeping track of ideas you get from others.
EXAMPLES OF EXPLORATION IDEAS
To get you started, here is a list of Exploration Ideas that can be used to actively explore your gender identity. They are broken up into categories of semi-private exploration, public exploration, and internal exploration to help you better gauge which types of explorations you are ready to move forward with.
As you read through the following list, take note of any Exploration Ideas that appeal to you. Circle the ideas that appeal to you, even if you are not sure if you can follow through with them right away.
Semi-Private Exploration (others may or may not notice)
• Undergarments: bra, panties, boxers, boy shorts
• Wearing a sports bra/sports binder/chest binder/girdle
• A low dose of hormone replacement therapy
• Binding your chest
• Using an item (such as a packer) to create a bulge in your pants
Public Exploration (others are likely to notice)
Add, subtract, or change:
• Your name
• Your pronouns
• The manner in which you walk/carry yourself
• The manner in which you talk/communicate
• The manner in which you gesture
• The manner in which you sit
• Types of shirts/tops worn
• Types of pants/shorts worn
• Types of coats/jackets worn
• Dresses/skirts
• Your swimwear
• Your active wear
• Your uniform
• Headwear
• Padding your chest, hips, and/or buttocks
• Scarfs
• Pantyhose/stockings
• Bags/purses
• Wallet chains
• Watches
• Sunglasses
• Necklaces/chokers
• Your nails
• Your eyebrows
• Your sleepwear
• The colors you wear
• Ties
• Cosmetics
• Bracelets/wrist wear
• Eyewear
• Earrings
• Other piercings
• Footwear
• Socks
• Tattoos
• Your hair cut, style, color
• Facial hair
• Body hair
• Writing as your true self (under a pseudonym or not) in a blog
• Social media profiles that better reflect who you are
Internal Exploration (usually private, although you can share with others of your choosing)
• Brainstorming/daydreaming/visualization
• Dream interpretation
• Creative writing from the perspective of who you imagine yourself to be
• Expressing yourself through art, music, video, etc.
• Exploring ideas from the semi-private and public lists when you are alone
A NOTE ABOUT HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY (HRT)
Starting Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) is an option some will want to include on their list of Exploration Ideas. Others will want to actively explore their gender identity for a while before deciding if they should begin HRT, while others may never want to use HRT. Remember, there is no definitive way you have to go about your gender identity exploration, including whether or not you start HRT and/or at what point you would make that decision.
CHECK-IN TIME
Take a few minutes to record how you feel now that you’ve finished this exercise. What did you learn about yourself? What was challenging about this exercise? What did you gain from this exercise?
Managing Exploration-Related Fear and Stress
“Here are ideas as to how you can actively explore your gender identity … ”
Everyone who reads this phrase will be struck by it differently. On the one hand there’s: “This is what I came all this way to do, so let’s do this!” On the other hand there’s: “You know, I’ve been thinking about it and … I don’t think so.” There can be constant vacillation between these points (and everywhere in between) on a day-to-day, even moment-to-moment basis. This back and forth can be exhausting and stressful—enough to make someone want to pack up their bags and
return home before they’ve obtained the Elixir.
To refresh your memory as to why this is a predictable element of the Hero’s Journey (and therefore your journey) let’s revisit what you learned about your Bodyguard in Stage One: Preparation (page 20).
WHAT HAS YOUR BODYGUARD BEEN UP TO?
Recall how your Bodyguard has been keeping an eye on you since birth, acting as a psychological defense to help keep you safe. They have your best interest at heart—however, it is to an extreme. They are willing to go to great lengths to keep you away from harm, which includes trying to keep you from discovering truths about yourself that the rest of the world may not like. The most common way your Bodyguard does this is by trying to scare you out of doing it.
When you reach the Dark Night of the Soul, your Bodyguard realizes you are about to make significant discoveries about yourself that will more than likely change you forever. Therefore, with all of the tough love they can muster, they are going to throw everything they can at you, making one last ditch effort to convince you to, “Pleeeeease … don’t do it.”
What fortresses, blizzards, and armed guards will your Bodyguard call upon to try to stop you? For that you can return to the Calling Out Your Fears exercise from Stage One: Preparation, where you listed at least five of your biggest fears going into this (page 15).
What fears did you list in this exercise?
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Your fears will manifest themselves into people, places, and situations in your everyday life. Even if they don’t look like fortresses, blizzards, and armed guards, they will feel just as threatening. In Chapter 3, you learned how you can become more aware of these fears and what you can do to better manage them (page 23). You learned how to:
• Get to know your Bodyguard.
• Set appointment times with fear.
• Take a positive approach.
• Get into the habit of being kind to yourself.
• Find a mentor.
• Build a support team.
These tools, along with the awareness you are gaining from having them, are incredibly useful for you to carry with you as you actively explore your gender identity.
Do you need to revisit any of these exercises? If so, now’s the time to do so before you go any further.
MANAGING THE STRESS OF YOUR BODYGUARD (A.K.A. YOURSELF)
Now that you’ve seen how your Bodyguard may stress out (and therefore try to stress you out) during the Exploration stage of your journey, let’s look at two ways you can prepare yourself for these potential challenges.
Stress Reducer: Putting Together a First Aid Toolkit
First aid kits have a useful array of items to help someone with a physical injury: bandages, gauze, little scissors, ointment, medical tape … It’s so nice to have something prepared and ready to go—that way you don’t have to worry about it in the middle of the crisis.
In this exercise, you are going to put together your own version of a First Aid Toolkit to have on hand in case you encounter emotional and mental injuries as you actively explore your gender identity and need to tend to your wounds.
When creating your First Aid Toolkit:
• Make it something you can actually hold in your hands (i.e., not just a list of ideas you keep somewhere).
• Organize your toolkit before something happens that wounds you—that way it is ready for you if and when you need it.
• Add to your toolkit as you continue to learn more about what it is that helps you feel better after you’ve been emotionally and/or mentally injured.
Step 1: What will you use as a toolkit?
See if you already have something in your home. If not, check out thrift stores and garage sales for ideas. Choose a size that makes the most sense, considering what items you will want to store in it.
Examples: an empty shoebox or cigar box; a plastic bin; a large envelope; a small trunk; an arts and crafts container.
Step 2: Design the outside of your toolkit
Imagine you are in an emotionally difficult state and you go to reach for your First Aid Toolkit. Design it in such a way that you will automatically feel at least somewhat better as soon as you see it. It’s up to you if that means it should make you smile or laugh, help you feel calm, inspired, empowered, etc.
Examples: stickers; pictures (from magazines, online, personal ones); paint; construction paper; markers; string; fuzzy balls; plastic jewels.
Step 3: Start with your Self-Care Checklist
To begin, take a look at your Self-Care Checklist and choose your top five favorite items from it. If they are activities, write them down on separate pieces of paper and place them in the kit. If they involve tangible items, place those in the kit as well.
Step 4: Find items that require the use of your senses
Actively engaging your senses is a proven grounding technique, and therefore needs to be included in your kit. This can include seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling. The stronger you are able to experience the sensation, the better. Also, make sure you choose items that aren’t associated with something that will accidentally trigger you (i.e., something with which you have had a negative experience).
Examples for sight: pictures of things that bring up strong positive emotions (of loved ones, your heroes, nature, baby animals).
Examples for smell: essential oils; scratch and sniff stickers; candles; incense; a recipe for something you should cook.
Examples for hearing: mix CDs of songs that will evoke strong positive emotions or a reminder to listen to a certain playlist on a tech device; recordings of loved ones saying encouraging words to you; recordings of motivational speakers; audiobooks which inspire you.
Examples of touch: stuffed animals that will fit in your toolkit; cuts of fabrics that you enjoy the feel of; a sleep mask; clothing items such as hats, scarfs, pajamas, blankets.
Examples of taste: hard candies (especially ones that will shock your taste buds such as hot or sour flavors); gum; breath mints; Tabasco sauce; lemon juice (note: be sure to choose items that won’t attract insects).
Step 5: Have reminders of who you can talk to
When you are in the midst of going through a painful emotional experience, it can be difficult to remember who you can turn to. It’s also important to have several options available in case there are people on your list who aren’t able to talk with you when you are in need. You can either write their names down or use pictures of them to place in your toolkit.
Examples: members of your support team; your mentor(s); individuals you have met online or in person; your therapist (if they take after-hours calls); local and national crisis line numbers.
Step 6: Find someplace to store your First Aid Toolkit
Make sure you store your toolkit in an easily accessible spot that you won’t have to work too hard to reach when you find yourself in need of it. However, if your living situation requires you to keep your toolkit away from other members of the household (since you may have very private and personal items in it) then be sure to make the extra effort to store it somewhere that others will not stumble upon it.
Stress Reducer: Creating a Personalized Risk Assessment Tool
Your Bodyguard isn’t entirely wrong about the existence of risk in actively exploring your gender identity. Your Bodyguard might frequently remind you that this world still has a ways to go before it truly understands what it means to be transgender, nonbinary, and/or gender diverse. The key is to be mindful of the potential challenges you might encounter while actively exploring your gender and to create a realistic plan based on possible risks.
Risk = the potential for something to happen that you would consider detrimental to the current state of your life.
You’re going to need something to help you do this: your very own Risk Assessment Tool. This tool will be individualized based on you and your life circumstances. Now, although this is a helpful
tool to use for brainstorming, organizing, and preparing, it cannot be used to predict actual outcomes of your gender identity exploration. These outcomes will remain a mystery for some time to come, regardless of how much you utilize this tool.
Each Risk Assessment Tool consists of:
1. An example of something you would like to do from your list of Exploration Ideas (page 193).
2. Answering the question, “How noticeable a change will this create?”
3. Looking at the areas of your life that might be impacted by your taking this action (both public and private).
4. Answering the question, “How much risk is involved in this?”
5. Answering the question, “Can I do this in steps to help minimize the potential impact?”
6. Ideas as to what you can do to prepare for the possibility of each of these areas from the third column being detrimentally affected.
Step 1: Exploration Idea
In the first column, write down an example of something you would like to try from your list of Exploration Ideas.
Examples: Get my hair cut shorter; shave my legs; use a different name; wear a binder; buy more feminine clothes; buy boxer shorts; get my ears pierced.
Step 2: How noticeable a change?
On a scale from 1 to 10 (with 1 being “barely” and 10 being “extremely”) how noticeable a change does this create? Write your answer in the second column.
Examples: If you were to cut your hair shorter, how noticeable would that be compared to your current hair length? If you were to shave your legs, how noticeable would this be?
Step 3: What areas might be impacted?
What are the areas of your life that might be impacted by your following through with this Exploration Idea? These can be public areas of your life (i.e., your external world involving other people) and/or this can also be private areas of your life (i.e., how this would affect your inner world). Write your answer in the third column.
Examples: My relationship with [fill in name of a person]; my career; my physical safety; how comfortable I am socially; my life at school; my self-consciousness.
Step 4: How much risk?
On a scale from 1 to 10 (with 1 being “extremely low” and 10 being “extremely high”) how much risk is involved in following through with this Exploration Idea? Again, this means the potential for something to happen that you would consider being detrimental to the current state of your life. Write your answer in the fourth column.