You and Your Gender Identity Read online

  The increase in testosterone can cause:

  ________ Deepening of the voice/development of an Adam’s apple

  ________ Growth of the penis and testicles

  ________ Increase in amount of hair growth on the face and body

  ________ Greater than average height

  ________ Broad/muscular build

  ________ Increase in size of hands, feet, and shoulders

  ________ Widening/squaring off of jaw and face

  The increase in estrogen (as well as progesterone) can cause:

  ________ Growing breasts

  ________ Menstruation

  ________ Distribution of fat toward the hips

  ________ Subcutaneous fat padding/softness of the body39

  Going through puberty, did you wish you were developing any of the secondary sex characteristics listed above? If so, which ones?

  Reflecting on Your Adolescence

  This section is broken up into two age categories: 12–14 and 15–17. Take another look at your answers in the previous exercises in this chapter. Use these to help you see the full picture of this time in your life. Try to evoke your feelings, thoughts, experiences, physical sensations, and your visual memories.

  Tips to Help You Get Started

  • Draw pictures to express how you are feeling and what you are thinking.

  • Look back at childhood photos of yourself.

  • Listen to music you enjoyed during that time.

  • Create a collage.

  • Talk to others who knew you during this time (but be selective of who you pick).

  • Turn to the examples earlier in this chapter of how others described their experience for ideas about how to express yours.

  • Don’t analyze your answers right now. Write whatever comes to mind without second-guessing or judging yourself.

  Later in this chapter, we’ll take a closer look at the roles guilt and shame played during your growing up years. Be sure to list any examples of the emergence of guilt and/or shame, even if it’s something you didn’t know at the time but, in retrospect, are aware of now.

  REFLECTING ON YOUR ADOLESCENCE: AGES 12–14

  1. What thoughts can you remember having about your gender from ages twelve to fourteen?

  2. What feelings can you remember having about your gender from ages twelve to fourteen?

  3. How do you remember expressing your gender from ages twelve to fourteen?

  4. What was the reaction from those around when you expressed your gender in this way from ages twelve to fourteen?

  REFLECTING ON YOUR ADOLESCENCE: AGES 15–17

  1. What thoughts can you remember having about your gender from ages fifteen to seventeen?

  2. What feelings can you remember having about your gender from ages fifteen to seventeen?

  3. How do you remember expressing your gender from ages fifteen to seventeen?

  4. What was the reaction from those around when you expressed your gender in this way from ages fifteen to seventeen?

  SELF-CARE REMINDER

  What was the Post-Exercise Self-Care Activity you listed at the beginning of the chapter? It’s time to set this guide aside and spend time with your chosen activity.

  35 Dara Hoffman-Fox, Conversations with a Gender Therapist, Facebook post, n.d., https://www.facebook.com/darahoffmanfoxlpc/posts.

  36 Dara Hoffman-Fox, Conversations with a Gender Therapist, Facebook post, n.d., https://www.facebook.com/darahoffmanfoxlpc/posts.

  37 There are chromosomal and hormonal conditions (for example Klinefelter syndrome, Turner syndrome, XXYY syndrome, hirsutism, and intersex conditions) that can result in wide variations of development of secondary sex characteristics. If this is your experience, go ahead and answer these questions in the way most accurate for you, ignoring the separation between the two groups.

  38 In Stage Three: Exploration you will explore how you feel present-day about your physical body—the answers in this exercise are specific to adolescence.

  39 Henk Asscheman, MD, and Louis J. G. Gooren, MD. “TransGenderCare.com: Medical/Hormonal: Hormone Treatment in Transsexuals.” TransGenderCare.com. 1992. Accessed December 5, 2016. http://www.transgendercare.com/medical/hormonal/hormone-tx_assch_gooren.htm.

  Chapter 7

  The Role of Shame and Guilt

  Looking at the impact shame and/or guilt might be having on your gender identity journey is like checking for any leaks in your tires before going on a road trip. If these powerful emotions are not brought to light, they will eventually keep you from moving forward.

  Shame and guilt are words that are often lumped together. Sometimes it makes sense for that to happen—both feelings can come up as a result of something you did, that you think you did, or that you are even thinking of doing.

  DEFINING SHAME AND GUILT

  To truly understand how much these feelings might be impacting you, we need to look at them separately.

  Shame = “I am bad.”

  This is when you believe that something is wrong with you. Other words describing this deeply troubling feeling are:

  • Bad

  • Flawed

  • Insignificant

  • Unlovable

  • Meaningless

  • Unimportant

  • Lacking value

  • Worthless

  • Unwanted

  • Damaged

  • Sinful

  • Undeserving

  Shame can arise after you’ve done something which results in your feeling this way and/or if someone tells you should be ashamed of yourself. Sometimes nothing seems to explain where this feeling originated, as if you came out of the womb with this belief about yourself.

  Guilt = “I did something bad.”

  This can result from a belief that you have done something wrong to someone else. This can be something that:

  • You have actually done to someone, either on purpose or accidentally.

  • You are thinking of doing, but feel guilty when you imagine the hurt you might cause to someone as a result of what you are wanting to do.

  Additionally, it can be caused by a belief that who you are as a person makes others feel disappointed, uncomfortable, or angry—even if you have done nothing wrong. This feeling of doing something wrong to someone else can also be applied to entities or collectives such as a deity, your culture, your tribe or group, or your society.

  Shame + Guilt: When you feel both shame and guilt at the same time, it’s usually because you feel guilty for something you have done or are thinking of doing, and then feel shameful about yourself because of that. This painful combination can lead to self-loathing.

  During this phase of your journey it is essential that you take time to examine whether or not you are wrestling with the presence of shame and/or guilt. If these feelings aren’t brought to the surface, examined, and worked through, you could end up making life choices from this place of shame and/or guilt, leading to deeper repression of your authentic self.

  In this chapter, you will first look at shame and guilt separately to better understand the roles each one might be playing in your life during your gender identity exploration. Then you will look at the role they might be playing together and, therefore, how much self-loathing you could be struggling with.

  PREPARE FOR SELF-CARE

  Take a look at your Self-Care Checklist and find an activity you will do before working on this chapter and an activity for afterwards.

  Which Pre-Exercise Self-Care Activity did you choose?

  Which Post-Exercise Self-Care Activity did you choose?

  Now, set aside a few minutes to do your Pre-Exercise Self-Care Activity. When you are finished, turn the page to begin the first exercise.

  How Much Is Shame Controlling Your Gender Identity Exploration?

  There are two ways the feeling of shame can originate:

  Shame Around Something You Did or Caused

  You did not previously feel there wa
s something wrong or bad about who you were, but then something happened which resulted in these feelings of shame arising.

  Typical examples of this type of shame would be if you were to either accidentally or intentionally injure or kill someone, or if you decided to have an affair. However, it can also be the result of doing something that, in and of itself, isn’t truly wrong or bad, but on some level you end up believing it is. An example of this is when you discover something surprising about yourself that you had unknowingly repressed for years and when you share this with the people in your life, they get upset.

  Following these types of experiences, you might assign meaning to what you’ve done as being something that only a bad person would do, thereby considering yourself to be a bad person.

  Can you relate to these examples of shame? If so, describe below.

  Shame Around Your Very Existence

  Some people feel shameful over their very existence and are unable to remember a time during which they didn’t feel that way. It’s challenging to pinpoint where this originates, for the answers are unique to each individual. Here are a few theories regarding the possible origins of this type of shame:

  • The parent/child bond was somehow disrupted early on. This could be either through the physical absence of a parent(s) due to death, abandonment, or distance, as well as emotional disconnectedness.

  • Religious teachings leading a child to believe that who they are as a person goes against their higher power and/or belief system.

  • Having an innate sense of self in direct odds with cultural, societal, or community expectations of acceptable behavior.

  • Unaddressed mental or emotional challenges (such as mental illness, hormone imbalances, or learning disabilities).

  • Having physical/medical and/or behavioral challenges that consumed a great deal of time, energy, and finances.

  • Having a personality type that is seen as outside the norm, weird, or weak. For example, being introverted, highly intelligent, intuitive, sensitive, creative, etc.

  • Having identity confusion arising from the lack of positive examples from the surrounding world to help support one’s inner world.

  • Having experienced emotional, verbal, physical, and/or sexual abuse at a young age, resulting in a belief that for some reason one deserves such punishment.

  • For those who believe in past lives or reincarnation: that you are picking up from where you left off in the last life and are still living with something you did in a previous life.

  Can you relate to any of these examples of origins of shame? If so, describe below.

  THE PRESENCE OF SHAME IN YOUR CHILDHOOD YEARS (AGES 3–11)

  Look back on your answers from the exercise in You and Your Gender Identity: Childhood (starting on page 60). Read through your responses and search for the presence of shame. Remember, shame feels like something is wrong, bad, weird, or flawed about who you are as a person. Even if you didn’t know it back then, you will more than likely recognize it now.

  Did any of the thoughts you had between ages three to eleven result in you experiencing shame? If so, describe them here.

  Did any of the feelings you had between ages three to eleven result in you experiencing shame? If so, describe them here.

  Did any of the ways you behaved between ages three to eleven result in you experiencing shame? If so, describe them here.

  Ranking the Intensity of Your Shame During Childhood

  On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being not very much and 10 being very much, how would you rank the intensity of the shame that resulted from these thoughts, feelings, and behaviors during childhood?

  THE PRESENCE OF SHAME IN YOUR ADOLESCENCE (AGES 12–17)

  Look back on your answers from the exercise in You and Your Gender Identity: Adolescence (starting on page 70). In the same manner in which you approached the previous exercise, read through your responses and search for the presence of shame during your adolescence.

  Did any of the thoughts you had between ages twelve to seventeen result in you experiencing shame? If so, describe them here.

  Did any of the feelings you had between ages twelve to seventeen result in you experiencing shame? If so, describe them here.

  Did any of the ways you behaved between ages twelve to seventeen result in you experiencing shame? If so, describe them here.

  Ranking the Intensity of Your Shame During Your Adolescence

  On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being not very much and 10 being very much, how would you rank the intensity of the shame that resulted from these thoughts, feelings, and behaviors during your adolescence?

  How Much Is Guilt Controlling Your Gender Identity Exploration?

  The feeling of guilt comes from believing you have done something wrong to someone else. The emergence of guilt is a complex and multilayered experience to wrestle with, and here are a few reasons why:

  • The definition of what constitutes something being “wrong” differs from person to person (for instance, you did something that upset one parent but not the other).

  • The definition of what constitutes something being “wrong” differs from situation to situation (for instance, it was fine if you behaved a certain way in the privacy of your home but not if you behaved that way in public).

  • The definition of what constitutes something being “wrong” changes with time (for instance, behaving a certain way when you were younger was okay, but behaving that way when you were older wasn’t okay).

  • Your own definition of what is “wrong” was determined by feedback you received from others in your lifetime, making it difficult to know what you really believe to be wrong.

  • Even thinking about something you’d like to do that could potentially hurt others may result in feeling “wrong.”

  • If there’s something about yourself that you don’t see positively reflected in your society, you may experience guilt as a result of feeling “wrong” for making others uncomfortable, angry, or disappointed.

  Can you relate to any of these examples? If so, write them here.

  THE PRESENCE OF GUILT IN YOUR CHILDHOOD YEARS (AGES 3–11)

  Look back on your answers from the exercise in You and Your Gender Identity: Childhood (starting on page 60). Read through your responses and search for the presence of guilt. Remember, guilt is when you feel like you have done or would end up doing something that would hurt, anger, or disturb someone else. Even if you didn’t know it back then, you should be able to recognize it now.

  Did any of the thoughts you had between ages three to eleven result in you experiencing guilt? If so describe them here.

  Did any of the feelings you had between ages three to eleven result in you experiencing guilt? If so describe them here.

  Did any of the ways you behaved between ages three to eleven result in you experiencing guilt? If so describe them here.

  Ranking the Intensity of Your Guilt During Childhood

  On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being not very much and 10 being very much, how would you rank the intensity of the guilt that resulted from these thoughts, feelings, and behaviors during childhood?

  THE PRESENCE OF GUILT IN YOUR ADOLESCENCE (AGES 12–17)

  Look back on your answers from the exercise in You and Your Gender Identity: Adolescence (starting on page 70). In the same manner in which you approached the previous exercise, read through your responses and search for the presence of guilt during your adolescence.

  Did any of the thoughts you had between ages twelve to seventeen result in you experiencing guilt? If so describe them here.

  Did any of the feelings you had between ages twelve to seventeen result in you experiencing guilt? If so describe them here.

  Did any of the ways you behaved between ages twelve to seventeen result in you experiencing guilt? If so describe them here.

  Ranking the Intensity of Your Guilt During Your Adolescence

  On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being not very much and 10 being
very much, how would you rank the intensity of the guilt that resulted from these thoughts, feelings, and behaviors during your adolescence?

  How Much Are Shame and Guilt Controlling Your Gender Identity Exploration?

  When you feel as though aspects of who you are (shame) cause only hurt and pain to the people you care about (guilt), it can be an enormously painful burden to bear. You may feel like the only solution is to cast these feelings into the Trunk of Secrets, effectively repressing them.

  When you live your life under the control of guilt and/or shame, you deny a crucial part of who you are through this line of reasoning: “I am unable to become myself because I am afraid of hurting others.”

  This painful state of feeling trapped, caged, and powerless often results in turning to unhealthy coping methods as a means of escape. This could manifest in the form of alcohol and/or drug use, emotional outbursts, volatile mood swings, isolation, lying, suicidal ideation, and so on. Ironically, these damaging behaviors end up hurting the very people you hoped to shield in the first place, leading you to feel even more guilt and/or shame than you started with.

  REVEAL THE DEGREE TO WHICH SHAME AND/OR GUILT ARE CONTROLLING YOUR LIFE

  Take a look at this formula:

  Shame about who you are + Guilt over hurting others = Degree to which shame and guilt are controlling your life