Another trans-woman has committed suicide last week, Chrisie Edkins an activist for trans-rights and singer who has performed at LGBTI pride events around the world. It was reported in Gay Star News that she was struggling over whether to have surgery.
Society’s pressure to conform is never ending for those who live their lives outside of the norms. The pressure to conform starts the day we are born, we are wrapped in pink or blue just by a quick glace to see what’s between our legs and for some the outside doesn’t match what is inside.
Lesbians, gays, and bisexuals have a high suicide rate, but for trans-people it is even higher. According to one recent national survey 47% said that they had attempted suicide that is 1 in 2 trans-people. Before I came out I never knew anyone who had committed suicide. Now I do and I know other who have attempted it and I have lost track of the number of cutters. I am one of the lucky ones who never attempted suicide, I just wanted to be a hermit, just get a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and be by myself.
I don’t know how many times I cried myself to sleep curled in a ball praying stop the feeling and the desire to be a woman. I used to have four or five panic attacks a year and all that ended once I transitioned. However, society’s pressure never stops. The other day when I was in the check-out line, the clerk smiled and said can I help you sir.
No one knows why people are transgender or gay or lesbian; however, there is general consensus that it has something to do with fetal brain development. Yesterday I wrote about some interesting research in our genetic makeup and how we may have more than one set of DNA in our body which creates some interesting possibilities and other research has shown that we all have a deep sense of our gender identity. One researcher studied intersex babies who were surgically altered and assigned female gender, of those babies around 60% of them identified as male even though surgery and hormones made them female bodied. They knew their true gender.
You can see that pressure to conform in the comments left on news websites with articles the trans-students. It takes a strong willed person to stand up to comments like that day in and day out. For many that pressure society puts on them is too hard to bear. Even de-transitioning does not help because the internal pressure builds up again so we are constantly balancing the internal and external pressures.
The only thing we have is hope for the future. There has been an amazing change in societal attitudes about trans-people in the last fifteen years it is amazing. The idiots are becoming fewer and their voices are being drowned out. There is hope for the next generation.
Society’s pressure to conform is never ending for those who live their lives outside of the norms. The pressure to conform starts the day we are born, we are wrapped in pink or blue just by a quick glace to see what’s between our legs and for some the outside doesn’t match what is inside.
Lesbians, gays, and bisexuals have a high suicide rate, but for trans-people it is even higher. According to one recent national survey 47% said that they had attempted suicide that is 1 in 2 trans-people. Before I came out I never knew anyone who had committed suicide. Now I do and I know other who have attempted it and I have lost track of the number of cutters. I am one of the lucky ones who never attempted suicide, I just wanted to be a hermit, just get a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and be by myself.
I don’t know how many times I cried myself to sleep curled in a ball praying stop the feeling and the desire to be a woman. I used to have four or five panic attacks a year and all that ended once I transitioned. However, society’s pressure never stops. The other day when I was in the check-out line, the clerk smiled and said can I help you sir.
No one knows why people are transgender or gay or lesbian; however, there is general consensus that it has something to do with fetal brain development. Yesterday I wrote about some interesting research in our genetic makeup and how we may have more than one set of DNA in our body which creates some interesting possibilities and other research has shown that we all have a deep sense of our gender identity. One researcher studied intersex babies who were surgically altered and assigned female gender, of those babies around 60% of them identified as male even though surgery and hormones made them female bodied. They knew their true gender.
You can see that pressure to conform in the comments left on news websites with articles the trans-students. It takes a strong willed person to stand up to comments like that day in and day out. For many that pressure society puts on them is too hard to bear. Even de-transitioning does not help because the internal pressure builds up again so we are constantly balancing the internal and external pressures.
The only thing we have is hope for the future. There has been an amazing change in societal attitudes about trans-people in the last fifteen years it is amazing. The idiots are becoming fewer and their voices are being drowned out. There is hope for the next generation.
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