• Jun 22, 2023
My trans girl ‘Jill’ (not her real name) made a comment on one of my facebook posts that she was tired of it all and ‘death is better than all this’. I got in touch with her and was able to help her realize what she was feeling wasn’t wrong, but an internalization. A dangerous one.
As people, we often misinterpret things. We misunderstand others. We also mis-internalize.
Some event happens, and we say to ourselves ‘that person gave me the ‘evil eye’ and therefore they don’t like me. Or ‘they didn’t give me the answer or action I wanted, and so they don’t respect me’, even if their action or answer was completely appropriate for the request.
Coming out as transgender later in life teaches you patience, whether you want it or not. There is a process to get things done for medical transition. There is a process to legally change our name and gender marker. Patience is hard because we want the same things every cisgender person has. Today. Process is there to help protect us. And to make it harder for unethical people to abuse the system. But, it isn’t perfect. We need to have patience. We need to internalize that when things don’t happen the way we want them, it isn’t always about us.
In Jill’s situation she needed a signature to submit her name change petition. The process once accepted by the court takes about 8 weeks in Texas. Personally, I think that is too long, but, lots of other people think what they need from the court takes too long as well. Being us isn’t tied specifically to our name. I completely understand why she wants to get it done - today. I was the same. My petition was only just recently granted, and getting my ID to match ‘me’ just won’t happen quick enough.
But the day after I was notified my petition was granted, did it inherently change how I felt about me? Surprisingly, no. I still loved me. I was still happy with ME. Maybe a little happier. Now, a few weeks later, the big thing is the anxiety around when or if my petition would be granted is gone.
As humans, we often cast our feelings and perceptions on the other person. Or maybe ourselves. ‘They didn’t give me the answer or action I wanted, and so they don’t respect me, and would be happy if I was dead’. Some readers would say the leap to this thinking is ridiculous. For many people that might be correct. There is also a population where this thinking is natural.
Myself, and every other person in the LGBTQ+ community deal with a lot of mixed emotions from others. We may not be the direct target in many cases, but you still feel it. That makes it easy to internalize and mis-interpret the actions, or reasons, of others. Now, in some cases, their actions are deliberate. Like the man walking behind on an airport jetway getting off an airplane calling me ‘sir’. I had pink hair down my back, in a skirt and wearing sandals no men I know would wear.
In this situation, all you can do it ignore it. But you then internalize things and again understand the world feels more dangerous. This is the challenge with internalization. We all do it. Sometimes we are right. Sometimes we are wrong. The danger is when we start making decisions solely on our internalization and skip the ‘reality check’.
Was it easy for Jill to get to where she was? Absolutely. I have been there.
I am happy she realized her experience, while unfortunate and irritating wasn’t worth the price she was willing to pay. Jill has also established a plan on what to do if this situation arises again. These are things more people don’t have to think about.
For the rest of us, it is just a part of life.