My Story Part 52 – Mirror

Wow! It has been one year since I started writing this column.

I am not talking about the mirror that you look in, but the image that society mirrors back to you. We all respond to the way society sees us and reflects back to us and it gives us the sense of who we are, the mirror validates us. For trans-people it is even more important, for us because it reflexes back the image that matches our soul. Each time I go out, I am at easy because the image that I project is the image of my inner self. It is that validation that I get every time that I go out when people say ma’am or miss or having the door opened for me that is validating. It is also is the interactions with others that I find validating. When I sit down with a bunch of classmates and we are interacting, and my transness is not an issue, that is strongly validating to my inner self. It is when they treat me as a person, not a trans-person

When I was first going out in public and someone ‘Sired” me, it was devastating because I hadn’t had many positive instances of mirroring to reinforce validation. However, now a vast number of people validate me daily. It still gets me mad, but I don’t go into a depression like I use to in the past.

There is a paper by Aaron Devor called “Witnessing and Mirroring: A Fourteen Stage Model of Transsexual Identity Formation” in it he says,

There are two overarching themes which run throughout the entire process of transsexual identity formation which, indeed, run though the lives of many people as they search for self-understanding. Each of us are social beings and as such we live in a sea of other humans with whom we interact during most of the waking hours of our lives. Even when we are not in contact with others, we devote a tremendous amount of our psychic energies to being psychologically engaged with others. It would therefore be difficult to underestimate the powerful effects that the opinions of others have on each of us.

Each of us has a deep need to be witnessed by others for whom we are. Each of us wants to see ourselves mirrored in others’ eyes as we see ourselves. These interactive processes, witnessing and mirroring, are part of everyone’s lives. When they work well, we feel validated and confirmed—our sense of self is reinforced (Poland, 2000). When the messages which one receives back from others do not match how one feels inside, various kinds of psychological distress and maladaptive behaviours can result. When the situation is especially severe it can lead to psychotic and/or suicidal behaviours.