So a lot of my friends and colleagues from the past are finding out about my transition lately and there seems to be a lot of confusion.
Confusion about how much of this is a choice and how much of this is not a choice?
My doctor is named Dr. Carys Massarella, one of Canada’s only transgender physicians. She runs a gender clinic in St. Catherines Ontario Canada. I love her model….her model is really transitioning based on a model of identity not based on a model of disorder. A model of consent. Most people don’t understand that today the system within Canadian Healthcare still sort of forces a Transgender or Gender Non-Conforming person to prove their identity by diagnosing one with a level of Gender Dysphoria or Displacement in order to be able to undergo HRT. Hormone Replacement Therapy.
Going to her, you’re explaining who you are and what you want to happen. WPATH. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health would probably call this Target Gender a new term used in medicine; which is when you allow a patient to transition based on what they feel and think is appropriate. That there is no strict guideline or process to be ‘fully transitioned.’
It’s hard to say what is a full transition. A lot of Cisgender individuals could view it as black and white. If you didn’t know what Cisgender means... it means that you do identify as the sex you were assigned at birth. Black you’re male and white you’re female and what a Neutrois like me are doing a half-transition?
Regardless usually the question I get is..
Why?
Asking someone WHY? Asking a transgender person WHY? Asking a Non-Binary person WHY? Usually comes with sensitivities. This is because the ignorance or the simple unawareness that another individual could ever not identify as the sex they were assigned at birth… comes with questions.
See.. immediately asking ‘why?’ forces a transgender or gender non-conforming person to justifying their…. identity, actions, behavior… etc. And this can become problematic.
Just the other day I received a question from a few cisgender friends of mine…”Well I’m very proud of you for being strong enough to do what you really want”…another message I received was…”I care about you and concerned. I am here if you need someone to listen to you or a shoulder to cry. Mental health can be challenging at times.”
The first comment was an implication that what’s happening to me is a choice and the second comment was an assumption that what I’m going through has something to do with mental illness. This is where things get complicated… as I was speaking to a friend of mine last night who is also non-binary… about thoughts versus ideas… and I mentioned “Well how much of transitioning and going on HRT is about..”
“..What feels like a choice and what doesn’t feel like a choice?”
I’m almost 3 months on Hormone Replacement Therapy and things have been getting intense. Socially intense. So intense I feel the need to make write a Medium post about it… you see… all I get are questions now asking me why am I doing this. Just because a lot of people around me are probably trying to figure out how this matters to them. What does this mean for them? What does this mean for me? In relation to them, why and how did I come to these conclusions about myself. Furthermore…it’s simply confusing for a lot of people.
I posted a Facebook status the other day… I said..
“If you actually understood what is happening to me, you would probably wish it was just about getting attention.”
A lot of people don’t know what Transhumanism is. I can explain to you what it’s NOT. No it’s NOT a theory, it’s NOT a conspiracy, and it’s NOT a type of person. It’s just a word. Google explains it as this…
Transhumanism (abbreviated as H+ or h+) is an international and intellectual movement that aims to transform the human condition by developing and creating widely available sophisticated technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. -wiki
The problem I have with the concept of Transhumanism is self identifying as a Transhumanist. Why? Because the reality is the no one really knows that Transhumanism looks like. This goes the same with wearable technology. No one really knows what wearable technology looks like. Slapping a bunch of computer chips on an arm band I don’t think… is wearable technology. At least its a start, but I really think it could be more than that. Transhumanism for me is very much a philosophy. A form of thinking. That’s it. There are many forms of transhumanist thinking. Concepts if you will…
Morphological Freedom is one of them.
Morphological Freedom refers to a proposed civil right of a person to either maintain or modify their own body, on their own terms, through informed, consensual recourse to, or refusal of, available therapeutic or enabling medical technology.[1]
The term may have been coined by transhumanist Max More in his 1993 article. - wiki
At this point you might be asking what does this have to do with being transgender or gender non-conforming? You see I think this simple concept is the solution to the issues we have in Canadian Healthcare in regards to transgender or non-binary individuals wishing to go on Hormone Replacement Therapy.
This idea simply says… we should all have the freedom to design our own body based on our own consent.
Transgender health has really been based on a model of disorder or dysphoria for decades up until now. Now we are heading into a model of identity where individuals simply explain clear signs of this identity. But if you think about it…what could solve all of this is a model based on consent.
Where ALL individuals should simply be given the freedom to design their own bodies at will. As Alex Pulec would put it… body building and plastic surgery is a form of body design… the freedom to go on birth control or have an abortion... these are all common practices of the 21st century that fall under an act of Morphological Freedom.
I will say I am fully aware of the hesitation and risks to giving people that kind of freedom ― almost the freedom to allow anyone to change their sex at will, the question really remains…
What is freedom?
...because if we all have the freedom of thought regardless of our bodies…does having an identity even matter at this point?
[UPDATE]
After reading this article that I wrote three months ago I think it was about time for it be released. I am on 6 months on HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) now and reading this article I think things have become even more clear..
I’ve come to understand that the person that ‘the self’ is always changing. The self makes up our identity and what you become is something we can’t really choose, but we choose the things that create the self.
These things are the actions we take to fulfill what we want our minds to become. Going to the gym to get a 6 pack body. Eating cake because we enjoy it. Asking someone out on a date because we feel loved or understood by that individuals. I’ve come to understand that actions really do speak louder than words because it’s what we WANT and DO with our lives that create our identity.
Our identity is also rooted in genetics. I mean I don’t want to rant on about recent finding in EPIGENETICS (The study of how our actual genetics change throughout our lifetime based on environment and lifestyle choices) but the evidence that academic Juan Enriquez has discussed countless times show that the choices we make throughout our lives could possibly create mutations in our genes. Altering your genetics. Another thing to remember is that HRT does in fact change your ‘Gene Expression.’ Changing your actual ‘Genes’ (DNA) is a conversation about CRISPR and entirely new form of medical technology that I’ll have to save for another article.
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The point I want to make is that there is high probability that our upbringing, genetics AND the choices we make may be what is responsible for our identity let alone our gender identity.
The word ‘identity’ is there really for the politics; for the human rights but if you think about it... it shouldn’t be necessary. This is why I think PRONOUNS are actually slightly more important than IDENTITIES now because if you think about it... it really shouldn’t matter if someone identifies as a tree and uses leaf pronouns. What matters should be respecting the name, the pronouns, the being of another individual when engaging with another individual. What matters should be what we can DO with our identity. It makes sense to me why all trans support groups I go to start the meeting with... What is your name? and What are you pronouns? I may not entirely know what I am, but I know what I am not. I’m still figuring things out but I have definitely concluded that more people need to make the distinction not just between Sex & Gender or Gender Identity & Gender Expression but being Transgender and the act of Transitioning. Not all Transgender individuals Transition. I think the hostility against the Trans/Non-Binary movement is really the stigma against those that don’t transition. Is it really that hard to grasp? Realizing you don’t identity as the sex you were assigned at birth is within itself the definition of Transgender. The act of this realization is a product of our thoughts not our actions. It makes sense to me now that realizing you are transgender is not a choice but the decision to undergo a social, medical or non-binary transition is quite possibly a choice.
This might sound controversial, hey this might even sound transphobic but I really believe that one needs to make a distinction between the mind, the body, your consciousness and the choices you make. Which I know... is a whole other article within itself (cough cough) Neutral Monism.
I’ll end this article with this... it really goes back to consent. It’s honestly that simple. It’s really not your choice what someone wants to be called. Respecting consent, the consent of an individual. Yes... respecting the individual. As I have written in other articles on how language is evolving, philosopher Alan Watts once said “Language is a bi-product of philosophy.” Language is the second result. We are first, we are the philosophy and pronouns, the language we use is a second result to who we are. The first thing we do when we engage with another person, is engage with language. Using our words and pronouns to connect with another individual. The third result are the actions and work produced to create society... Also known as real life. Real Life lives outside of our consciousness and comes after the communication.
Language is also limiting because not everyone can put to words how they feel, what they are thinking, why they like something. Not everyone can put to words what their identity is, but doesn’t everyone have the ability to respect each other?
Learning to respect someones name AND pronouns could possibly be the beginning to one day not needed them, not needing words.
Not needing language, not needing identities.