Latest / System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation / Guest: Lou Himes

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Guest: Lou Himes · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Over:
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the System Speak Podcast, a podcast about Dissociative Identity Disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to long time listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
• 0:59
  Our guest this week is Doctor. Lou Himes. Doctor. Himes is a licensed psychologist and gender specialist in New York. They identify as gender non binary and use theythemtheirs pronouns.
• 1:14
  Lou maintains a strong commitment to social justice and aspires to play an active role in eliminating mental health disparities from member queer communities. Lou has more than ten years experience working with LGBTQIA plus community. They are WPATH World Professional Association for Transgender Health certified in mental health and provides consultation regarding the current WPATH standards of care seven guidelines for the appropriate treatment of transgender individuals. In addition to their work in full time private practice, LU also offers a variety of educational opportunities for organizations or individual practitioners seeking to provide competent care to queer individuals. This includes basic practices for helping queer and trans gender individuals feel safe and welcomed into one's office, holy space, community, and or business.
• 2:14
  You can see their website at doctorheims.com. We have a trigger warning for this episode in discussion of gender, sex, sexuality, gender roles, identity presentation, identity expression, and related traumas. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you and welcome our friend and colleague, Lou.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Well, my name is doctor H. L. Himes, and that is my legal name. So I go by Lou, because I am a trans identified person and Lou is the name that I choose to go by socially. It's the name that I chose for myself.
• 3:01
  It is my name, which is a process as it is for many trans folks. So I am a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of New York. I had a group practice for a time focused on trans and LGB issues, mostly trans issues, you know, given some of the limitations of working in Manhattan, which was very, very expensive. I eventually did shut down that group practice and I'm back to a solo practice now, where I provide ongoing therapy. I do, psychological letter writing.
• 3:37
  Some people call them evaluations. I feel like that is not quite as supportive of a word as I would like to use, but I provide letters following a interview, getting to know a person for, surgical procedures related to physical transition. I provide supervision to others who are working with trans people and wanting to learn. And I also provide consultation in a variety of settings, I'm really quite open to anything in that regard. As long as people are wanting to learn how to better care for and be with trans folks, I'm open to providing consultation.
• 4:18
  I'm also just turned 40 this year. I have a spouse and a teenage son, and I've actually just moved out of Manhattan and up into the Ithaca area, up in the Finger Lakes of New York, which is just a really beautiful place to be.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: I am so excited to talk to you today. We heard you present at the ISSTD conference, and it was such a simple introduction to working with trans clients, and yet was such I want to choose my words carefully. The introduction that you did was so simple and yet very thorough, but criticalness, the criticalness and the importance of what you shared is everything.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Well I appreciate that feedback so much, and you know one of the things that I wanted to that I would like to actually, you know, hear from you, if you wouldn't mind sharing, is, you know, because I live in this world of transness and queerness, and to me, this kind of the information that I shared, I think, of feels like breathing in a sense. And I'm I'm also very curious to kind of hear, you know, what pieces felt so impactful, because you're right. I mean, in some ways, are very, very basic and very simple concepts about, you know, the differences between gender and sexuality that they're not the same thing. You know, the idea of a gender binary and how limiting that is. So and there's lots of other pieces in the talk as well, so, you know, I'm kind of curious from the perspective of someone who doesn't kind of live in a kind of trans bubble, to speak, or a queer bubble.
• 6:10
  You know, what felt so powerful and really stood out to you?
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: I think that the just the definitions and terminology you offered, which I actually want to go over a little bit conversationally with you, because I want people to hear this and I want people to understand. But also the underlying issue is that the reason it matters so much is simple respect of the person and how much it matters to connect with a person where they are and as they're experiencing life, rather than all these other lenses we can so easily put on and forget about the actual person underneath everything.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: that doesn't seem like it should be so profound, but but it really is. I really think it is everything, and and we can connect that back to trauma later just to get listeners on the same page. Let's go ahead and review just some of that terminology. I know that's a lot of work and it's once again an experience of where we're asking this other culture, right, to educate us so that we can be more sensitive when it's not really their job to educate us. So I want to acknowledge that as part of the process, but you taught it so well and it's such vital information.
• 7:34
  I really want to just sort of review. So if you could walk us specifically, my question is if you could walk us through the slide, the specific slides you went through that were about gender identity and presentation and all those different layers, and we can kind of talk about it as we go. You shared some examples in your presentation just to clarify for people and educate educate people, and I can share mine too as we go and just sort of walk through it to help people think, if that's okay.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. So kind of like we'll start with just like what is gender, yeah?
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. What is gender? Let's just start at the very beginning.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Okay. So gender is an internal experience. It is not something that can be looked, at or seen by a person who's external to the individual. It's an internal or felt sense of self as traditionally either male or female, but as, you know we are evolving we're starting to understand that it can also be kind of an amalgam of both, or an experience of being neither male nor female or really some other variation kind of on that. And so there are people who identify as agender, who say, a meaning right without.
• 9:06
  So identifying as not having any gender or genderqueer can be a term that's used to basically say, you know, I'm not defining my gender according to any kind of known expectations. So if you wanna have a conversation about how I internally experience myself, we can talk about it, if that's appropriate, but it's not necessarily to be known. And so if some folks, identify as genderqueer, that is one of the ways that I identify, or gender non binary, another way that I also identify. And the binary is pretty simple. That's that's the traditional way that we've always thought about gender.
• 9:48
  It's that there are two options, right, and that's the binary. There's male and female. They're discrete categories, meaning they don't overlap and that they're distinct from one another. So you're either male or female, that's it. And that in a binary conception of gender, there's also a binary conception of sex.
• 10:11
  And when I say sex, I mean the physical body. So, that includes things like, hormones, that includes, secondary sexual characteristics, that includes genitalia, and so in a binary system, the internal felt sense of self can only be either male or female, and it must be connected to the perceived sex of the person. So basically, if a person has a penis, they are a male. If they have a vagina, they are a female. And it's that simple and that, kind of dictated by biology without really taking into account a person's sense of themself.
• 10:56
  But as we're kind of starting to understand gender in a more expansive way, we are seeing gender as having these other options that do not necessarily exist on some discrete binary, male or female, but that more of more likely, I guess maybe a better, analogy or way of thinking about it would be a continuum, a spectrum of experience that does not necessarily have to be defined outside by any kind of outside principle other than what an individual says about themselves. So genitalia does not determine gender, hormones do not determine gender, secondary sexual characteristics do not determine gender. What determines gender is what a person says about themself, how they feel internally. And again, that kind of comes back to where I started, is that gender is something that cannot be assumed simply by looking at a person.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: I think that this piece right here is so important. And I want to be sensitive. I know there are some listeners who are very familiar with all of this already, and there are other listeners who are brand new to actually understanding this conversation, and it's a bit of a challenge. And I just want to open up just to help, like to make it more neutral. I know this is not the same thing at all, but just to like give ways to think outside the box and really stay present and wrestle with it personally.
• 12:29
  There are so many examples of this that don't have anything to do with politics or religion or all these things that some people make assumptions about, where it really is about biology. Like people who are born with different aspects of both sexes or even women like myself. I had cancer and had to have hysterectomy and a lot of my parts, this time we're talking about physical parts not dystrophy parts, were removed. And that's not the same as like a whole lifetime of gender exploration or gender identity. But you can't even in that case, someone doesn't say just because you had cancer now your gender has changed, right?
• 13:22
  So like there are ways people are already familiar with some of this that they can hold on to long enough to listen to what the rest of what we're saying. And it's more than- it's more than just parts. It's more than just body parts. When- when I had cancer and went to have my hysterectomy, they- they also found more cancer and it turned out that it was because of scar tissue from my abuse. And so they just had to keep taking more and more parts than what they planned.
• 13:56
  They thought it was ovarian cancer, but then found out that's not where it started. And so they ended up having to take cervix and then vulva and then other these other pieces and like everything's all so close and like that really changes parts and that is an experience that impacts me, but it's not an experience that changes who I am on the inside. I don't at all- I do not at all mean to impose my experience on the trans community. And I don't at all mean that that experience that had its own layers of grief and wrestling and who am I and what am I and things like that- I don't at all mean that that's the same as having a whole lifetime of having to make sense of that. But I just mean there are such already contextualized experiences that are really common, that we don't have to pathologize it for everybody else.
• 14:54
  And even for people with strong faith traditions, in my background, one of the things that is sort of not a tenant of faith, but something that's really important to my faith tradition is about how gender is an essential and eternal characteristic. So even outside of this mortal body and mortality of this life. But can you imagine- well you maybe imagine- I want listeners to imagine if that were true, then how distressing would that be if in the messed up world of biology, where we have challenges like my son who has cerebral palsy and my son who has autism and my daughter with a restricted airway, where things happen to bodies, where bodies are not matching what your needs are, what your identity is, or like that would be so distressing if gender really is. And I want to bring that up because I think sometimes people use that piece to say, oh, like trans experience, for example, is not real. When really, I think the truth is, is that it's that real, because it's bigger than- it's not just limited to right now, this moment.
• 16:11
  It's not- it's not like a passing fad. We're talking about identity.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah. And I mean, there are lots of places that you can go to actually learn more of trans history, and it's an extensive history, and I'm not gonna get into that because I don't think it really, you know, fits the, the topic that we're on today, but absolutely. It's not a passing fad, and it's not something and I think this is what you're getting at. It's not something that is specifically, like, related to trans people. Right?
• 16:41
  Everyone has gender. Everyone has an internal experience of themself. And, you know, the example you gave of, you know, having cancer and having to have certain parts of your physical body changed, and I would imagine perhaps to some extent unwillingly, right? Like that that wouldn't be the ideal that for for a lot of people that can create questions around gender, like, you know, am I still a real woman, or am I still a real man if I have, you know, experienced a loss of some, you know, physical part of myself. And it's you're right.
• 17:21
  I think within those contexts that people who don't have to daily face and think through their gender experience can have kind of a window into thinking about it. Right? It's kind of the same idea of, you know, you know, talking about, like, whiteness and the idea of of privilege. When you're when that is the the air you breathe, you don't see it. You have to kind of come at it from another perspective in order to see the experience that you're living in, and it's very much the same with gender.
• 18:00
  It's not that only trans people have gender, we all have gender, but it's not as easy to see the gender that you experience when it fits in with this norm that society so thoroughly, supports in every way. Right? Like, mean, from gender reveal parties to, you know, using pronouns in utero to once school starts and, you know, boys line up here, girls line up there. It's just reinforced everywhere, everywhere in our society over and over and over again, and as a non binary adult who would prefer to not have any kind of, you know, kind of salutation used at me other than, you know, doctor, which even that doesn't make me horribly comfortable, but, you know, miss or ma'am or mister or sir, it's offensive, and it's it's othering, and I'd much rather not have to deal with that, but it's something I deal with on an absolute daily basis. And it's just it's just another way in adulthood that those gender binary norms are just are reinforced without people even thinking about it.
• 19:19
  And the more service you know, folks in service that you interact with, the more you're gonna get kind of pigeonholed into one end of the binary or the other, more likely than not. But for those for whom that is for whom that fits and that's normative to them, it doesn't, there's no, there's nothing that stands out that gives them a moment of pause to stop and think about it.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: That's trauma. The misattunement of your emotional or internal experience not being noticed, reflected and met, that's like the very definition of misattunement. That's relational trauma.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And it's a daily experience for trans folks. I mean, daily, even when people know. And it's worse, right, when people know how to appropriately attune, but they choose not to. It's one thing when it's a stranger who you've never met who's misattuned and it, you know, you kind of get that punch in the gut kind of feeling, like just a moment of, you know, taking in your breath and, like, holding it, which we all know.
• 20:22
  Right? Is a is a somatic. It's a body response, which is absolutely a kind of reaction to a harm. Right? But it's even worse when it's a family member who knows what your correct pronoun or name is and they just refuse to use it.
• 20:36
  That becomes much more, significant. So if that is related to the experience of gender or sex and people's assumptions about sex, can you explain about gender assigned at birth and the difference between that and identity and presentation? Yeah, so we often talk about sex assigned at birth or gender assigned at birth, and you'll hear terms like AFAB or AMAB, and these are acronyms that stand for assigned male at birth or assigned female at birth. And, basically, what you're saying is this is how society saw you when you were born, and so this is the category that you were put into and socially reinforced to stay in even if it was misattuned, even if it was incorrect. And so I myself am an a fab individual.
• 21:35
  I was assigned female at birth and was socialized as a female because that's how other people saw me. When they looked at me, they made an assumption about my gender, and even on a deeply unconscious level, they treated me as they would treat a female person or treat a woman or a girl. And so I took in that socialization very unconsciously and very directly, but there were also very conscious ways that because of how I felt about myself internally, I actually would choose in some instances to adopt a more what would be thought of as male or masculine socialization. So, you know, I would hold doors because, you know, as much as that is now understood to be fairly misogynistic and sexist, that's what I was taught was appropriate for men to do, and that was something I made a conscious choice. I wasn't just gonna have doors held for me all the time, I was also gonna adopt this more masculine as I saw it at the time, though I realize now that that is a more toxic form of masculinity, but that I was going to play that role.
• 22:48
  And so that's another piece here. Right? There is the identity or the gender experience which is internal, and then there's the roles, the gender roles that we play, whether we're conscious of them or not. And in some ways as a as a teenager especially, I was conscious that I was choosing a more masculine role, and you know there are many ways that we play a gender role that has been informed, by a social construct or or a social idea of how a quote unquote man should act or a quote unquote woman should perform, right? So there are men's activities and there are women's activities and there are men's toys or boys toys and there are girls toys.
• 23:32
  And we put gender on actions, on behaviors, on objects, and we say, well, as a person who's performing the role of woman, these are the things that you do or don't do. So there's there's the role aspect, the identity aspect, and there's also a presentation aspect. And presentation, again, which is what kind of this is the factor that kind of really stumps a lot of people because they're so used to looking at someone, and based on their presentation, the way that they are revealing or showing aspects of themselves in their clothing, in their haircut, in their what jewelry they choose to wear or not wear. They are presenting an idea of themselves, and often that idea, that representation is gendered. So, we might and one word that we use commonly, actually, even if you're not kind of in a trans bubble, like I live my life, would be androgynous.
• 24:36
  So we've actually thrown in kind of a third term there that is kind of more socially culturally normative. Who would say dress masculinely, femininely, or androgynously, and that's talking about gender presentation. So for example, I will use myself here, even though I identify as non binary, which to me means I'm just Lou. I'm neither male nor female. I certainly have whatever characteristics that I have, and damn you, if you try to label those as either male or female, I'm just Lou.
• 25:15
  But my physical gen and gender presentation is actually very masculine. I shop exclusively in the men's department. I do not like wearing clothes that have a feminine quality or cut or aesthetic to them, but I do not identify as a man.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: That's so interesting. I'm just reflecting on my own family, and as far as roles, I am married to, well let me back up so I can practice, right, because I want listeners to hear. So if I'm reflecting on what you shared, then I know that I was AFAB because I was assigned female at birth and I married someone who is AMAB. They were assigned male at birth. But as far as roles, we absolutely have what normative people call role reversal.
• 26:17
  Because that is like one way of sort of dismissing who we are a little bit, and a little bit of a dissociation really from just this is who we are, as opposed to oh no these are your circumstances and you're making do as best you can. No, this is who I was before I met him. It is who I am now and it's who I'll be whenever he's not here. This is who I am. I don't want it dismissed even as role reversal, and I'm really sensitive to that, because I don't want to be pigeonholed into what someone else thinks a wife and mother should look like.
• 26:55
  And so I'm the one who works full time, I'm the one who, pays all the bills, I'm the one who can fix things or whatever, you know. And so there's those kinds of ways that I am the- we have again what they call role reversal. That- those are my roles in traditional senses, whereas the husband absolutely cooks for the children and changed as many diapers as I did, if not more, and takes them to appointments and things like that. There are some of that overlap because we have six children, but they are adopted children and they are not children I gave birth to. And people will assume even that.
• 27:43
  They will say, oh it's because you had cancer and you can't have children And so you had to adopt them as if somehow that makes me a better woman or a more full womanly experience. Well, that's just not true. He and I agreed to foster and decided that before we ever got married. And we filled out the paperwork to foster on our honeymoon. Like that's what we did for our honeymoon, was fill out paperwork.
• 28:07
  And so like even in those ways, people just make assumptions and how we're supposed to be or present or whatever. And I think that as far as presentation, he presents as male, but is also pretty verbal about being asexual really. And I mean he shops in the men's department as well. I have more neutral clothes. I could have some clothes that have a bit more feminine cut or like flowers on them or something.
• 28:49
  Like I don't care, I shop for my clothes by how they feel. Like I touch them and what feels comfortable and soft and feels like I can wear pajamas but people think I'm wearing clothes, those are the clothes I buy. I don't wear makeup and I don't- I'm not like super femme, right? But I have a daughter, my youngest daughter. Like right now it is Thursday in our fourth month of quarantine after our first year of quarantine.
• 29:18
  Like we're in serious lockdown because she has a restricted airway, right? And she- I'm like, I don't even know where my shoes are anymore. And she is wearing a dress up frou frou gown with a crown and clip on earrings and high heel shoes that I don't even know who gave them to her. Like just- just I don't know where she gets that from. I don't even carry a purse, like she doesn't get that from me.
• 29:46
  Where does that come from? Because everyone's like oh, oh this or that. Like it just shows like so much is in experience and so much is in part biology and part experience and part internal who you are, and that's how she presents like all the time. She would wear that to bed if I would let her, but I'm like you're gonna choke on all your accessories, like you have to take these off. But that's not me at all.
• 30:12
  And then I have, two other girls who kind of like to wear dresses if they're play dresses, but they live in the trees. Like I'm like, you guys really just try on a pair of pants, like to see how it works out for you in the trees, because I can't get you down from your dress being caught in the branches. And then my sons, I have two sons- well I have three sons, but two of them are as boys all get out in traditional roles and identity expressions. But I have a third son who we are really having serious conversations with him because I don't think he fits traditional anything. And people will say, oh do you think your son is gay?
• 30:53
  And I'm like, he's 11. If he knows that, that's fine, but if you're talking about sexual development, he's not there yet. He certainly has part of his identity present very differently. He would like to wear a suit every day, like a Sunday suit, full up with a bow tie and everything. There's- that's just part of who he is.
• 31:18
  And so how is that any different than why are you like labeling that as problematic when my daughter can be super femme and dress up and you think it's cute?
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we just we have we are socialized to have such strong, opinions about gender expression and gender role. And we're socialized in such a binary way, right, that one thing means one thing, right? If a dress means girl, you know, a suit if you have to knock him down and, you know, drag him into it, well, a suit then is a boy thing, unless, you know, the the little boy enjoys it and then maybe he's gay. Right? It's just we have such strict and frankly silly social norms around gender and particularly gender expression.
• 32:15
  But you're absolutely right, and I think people also, you know, will take that a different route and say, well, you know, your your daughter likes pink dresses and frou frou dresses because she's a girl, that's biological, and that's just how it's supposed to be. But then what, you know, what does that say about your other two two daughters? Right? And I think we when we try to impose some external standard onto a person's internal experience. That's where we start to get into a place where we could do some harm.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: That makes sense. That makes sense. It is incongruence again between what they are experiencing and what we're putting onto them instead of listening to who they are. Absolutely. So the last step of- you shared so much, but the last step of what you shared that I wanted to talk about today was you talked about the difference between physical attraction and emotional attraction as part of identity and and who people are.
• 33:17
  Can you share about that?
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure. I mean, one of the one of the pieces, I'll backtrack just a little bit, that we didn't really talk about today, is how sexuality is also different, right, from gender. And in the past, gender or I should actually say sex and sexuality have been also kind of linked kind of on a similar kind of binary. Right? If you are female and you have, female genitalia, female sex, then you are, of course, going to be attracted only to men.
• 33:54
  And that was a way that we looked at sexuality, linking it with sex. And of course, you know, the civil rights movement around LGBTQ issues in this country has helped us, I think, to some extent to be able to separate that, sex does not determine sexual attraction or romantic attraction. And similarly, right, gender is also a factor in there because if a person has a physical body that's afab, but their gender identity is, let's say, non binary, just to simplify this a little bit, and they're attracted to only, people who were assigned male at birth or only people who, you know, present in a masculine way regardless of their assignment at birth, right? I mean this gets infinitely more complicated really quickly, and it can really kind of make your brain explode. And I think in in part, our brains, right, we just evolutionarily, we just kind of prefer simplicity, but that preference for simplicity is what has kind of got us culturally and socially into a point where, you know, we do harm to folks who have a more complex experience, by trying to oversimplify it and trying to push people into those smaller boxes.
• 35:13
  So I'll just start by saying that. So this is the kind of other component, right, of of attraction, and yeah, there are there are actually folks who break this down a lot farther than probably I even really fully understand right now, just, kind of off the top of my head. But the the parts that we talked or that I talked about in my, presentation a few weeks ago were, emotional attraction versus physical or sexual attraction. And I mean, that that kind of is what it sounds like. Right?
• 35:47
  It but it's breaking down the concept of attraction into different levels, or different not even levels, just two separate kind of distinct categories that co occur or co exist at the same time. So you can be attracted to a person's physicality, but perhaps not have an emotional attraction to that same physicality. And actually, interestingly enough, this is something that I see with trans guys a lot that I work with, and and this is also true for myself, that there are certain aspects of stereotypical male physique, and in my case, it's like a very athletic kind of muscular physique that I find deeply attractive, in a physical sense. And emotionally, there's absolutely zero attraction there. And the way I've come to understand that, and a way a lot of my trans guys understand this experience for themselves, is that it's, it's an attraction based on desire for oneself.
• 36:58
  So when one's body does not align with, you know, the internal experience of gender, an attraction can grow that's not about desiring the other, but it's about desiring aspects of the other's body for oneself. And that can actually be really confusing sometimes for trans guys who have only ever really desired sexual romantic relationships with women. It wouldn't necessarily be so confusing perhaps for a trans man who identifies as gay. So a trans man, who is assigned female at birth but is male and has, perhaps transitioned to some extent, into a more masculine physique, a male physique, and is sexually attracted to men. That might not be as confusing for someone, you know, coming from that perspective, But for others, like such as myself, it can be kind of confusing.
• 37:51
  Why do I find myself so oddly attracted to some men? And and that's kind of weird for me. Right? But it kind of illuminates this distinction, between kind of a physical attraction and an emotional attraction. And I also think this is something that can be be true for folks who identify as bisexual, and there is a lot of animosity, lot of misunderstanding that bisexual folks encounter, and I really just wanna name that because it's it's such it's such a sad position when your own community as well as communities that you have felt othered from find ways to reject you or other you, and that is very true, for bisexual folks.
• 38:35
  Often, they do not find a home that is welcoming and understanding within the LGBT community, but, but bisexual folks, not all of if one, of course, there's no, you know, rule that applies to everyone, but it is frequent. It is common for a person who identifies as bisexual, meaning, they can be attracted sexually, or romantically to both men and women, that folks who identify as bisexual may have physical attraction and sexual attraction to both binary sexes, but may have a romantic preference or an emotional preference. So though it's possible for them to be in a relationship with either a male person or a female identified person, they may actually have a sex or a gender that feels more comfortable for them to be with. And this becomes problematic, I think, when a person who, let's say male who's bisexual, ends up marrying a an AFAB person, a female identified person. Well, and then people will say, oh, well, you know, he's he wasn't really ever bisexual, see?
• 39:55
  And that's just so demeaning and, again, misattuned and harmful. It may simply be that he has a greater, preference for attraction, emotional attraction to a female partner or specifically to that female person. It does not mean, that, you know, his sexual identity is completely erased, and he's no longer bisexual. We just loop him back into the norm because that's what makes us most comfortable. But it's a situation like that where we can kind of see a little bit of how there can be physical attraction or sexual attraction, and some people do split those up.
• 40:39
  Again, that gets into kind of, a territory that I'm not quite as familiar with, but, know, that even that could be divided and, emotional attraction.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: I actually appreciated so much that you shared this, and I had my husband watch your whole talk over with me because I was like, look, they put words to everything. Let's talk about this. And what you just said is basically what our relationship is like. He well I won't speak for him, I'll just speak for myself. Like we are both basically what you just said, and it we are married together because we specifically chose each other as people.
• 41:19
  It was not about sexual attraction or about being straight. And so for myself, before meeting him, I was not with a man, like ever dated a man or wanted to be there. But dealing with cancer and my own trauma issues, I was not in the place to be in a relationship with anyone and wrestling with even like religious abuse issues in my past. It was not a time to commit to someone else. I needed to take a break from dating anyone at all and really commit to I need a season of caring for myself well and a season of exploring what healing is going to look like for me.
• 42:10
  And I took several years where I did not date anyone at all, and then I met him through some pretty crazy circumstances. But he specifically is the kindest person and most gentle person I have ever met in my life. And for me in that place where I was in my life, that was worth choosing as a companion. And that for me was more trauma based than anything really, and I'm aware of that. And so it's something that we talk about even, just because even to be best friends, that's really something we have to work through.
• 42:48
  And what are the parameters of our relationship and what does it look like? And now we have this whole family and a lot of people make assumptions about our family that are not at all true. And that shows up in all kinds of ways. But the children asked, I don't know if they're just getting older or if they saw a movie, I don't know what triggered the question, but they asked last week actually, if one of us died, would we get remarried again? I told the children, like without hesitation, I will absolutely not marry a man again ever.
• 43:25
  Like it's not something I'm at all interested in. I'm okay with this particular guy living in my house and sharing this relationship that we've built. It's very unique, but I don't think other people understand it. And I think people question him and question me and like, why are you guys doing what you're doing? But what we're doing for us is the right thing and we're committed to that.
• 43:47
  But it's not something I want again ever, as far as like if I were just- if he died, I'm never gonna just go out, man I really need to get a man and marry him. Like we don't want another relationship with a straight man, whatever, all of these stereotypes people are trying to put on us. But for him, despite his background and his identity and things that are his issues, he told them that he would get married simply because he needs the help and companionship. He said that he's not strong enough to face some of those issues by himself, and the world is not safe enough for him to do it in other ways, And that that's what he would choose for himself, which I thought was really interesting. But we are in such a complicated story because of just how our lives unfolded, and sometimes it's really hard when people make assumptions about what that means.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so much room for our individual needs and for this real richness in relationship. I think when we can step outside of what is quote unquote normative, the normative social constructs and values that we put on ourselves and on others around gender, around sexuality, they're just so confining. And I think in that way, they're actually they're really traumatizing, like culturally, and not just to queer people, but to everyone. And I actually think that's one of the things that I love the most about that the word queer and why I use it, not because I don't understand the the historical context of how that was used as a slur, but because it really and not even because I'm wanting to, like, reclaim it. It's really just a great word to remove gender as such a central aspect of being, and it what queer is to me is you know, and I hope I hope you don't mind a little cursing, but I'm queer, so it just comes with the territory.
• 46:03
  But it's kind of a way of saying fuck you to the world. Queerness is about saying you can take your boxes, you can take your assumptions, you can take your preconceived ideas about me based on what you think you see, and you can shove it. Like, I'm not going to be confined by who you think I should be, what my body tells you about me, and so queer is not a label that I use, exclusively for you know, same sex folks, same sex attracted folks, or gender diverse folks. Queer to me includes like, you know, polyamorous folks, and folks who are kind of kinky, and folks who are out there socially and politically, because it's really just a way of saying I am not going to be confined by normativity. I'm going to be me, and I think that making that statement is radical, and it then puts you in a position to actually be hated, by anyone who is so steeped in any kind of normativity.
• 47:17
  And so for me, being queer is very bold. It's very courageous, and it's a radical choice of self.
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: I feel like that is so deep. The roots of that normative stuff is so deep, even with people who think they are figuring it out. I remember being on a date once with a girl who said to me, I'm trying to remember, She said to me, and and those were her pronouns, she said to me you are how did she say it? Let me think. I wanna get it right.
• 47:54
  She said you are too girly to be butch, but you're too ugly to be femme.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Oh my god. That is
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: terrible. That's what she said to me. I did not go out with her a second time, but that's what said to And I was and and then she said, so what are you? And I was like, I'm I'm just me. Like, how do you answer that question?
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Wow. Ugh. That's so offensive and hurtful.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: Another example, another example we share in our book actually, we just released a memoir about DID, and we share in the book this story of our mother like screaming at us as a young- I think we were a young adult, I think I was young adult. I can't remember, time is so blurry. But she was screaming at us like she had found out that we had a girlfriend and she was screaming at us, tell me the truth, tell me you're not gay, tell me the truth, tell me you're not gay, and like just raging and screaming. And I was like, which do you want? Like I can't give you both.
• 49:04
  Have to pick one of those. Do you want the truth, or do you want me to say that I'm not gay? Like I can't, I can't do both.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: So, so just, so there's all kinds of that trauma from trying to make assumptions or trying to get other people shaped into who we want them to be or those kinds of things. But what about trauma like developmental trauma and abuse or things like that from when people are little? How does that impact the trans experience
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: or treatment of it? Sure. Gosh, that is such a complex question. I mean, one of the things that I said in my presentation, and one of the things I really believe, is that being trans and and in some ways also, you know, being, gay or lesbian or bisexual, but but in a very particular nuanced way, being trans is developmentally traumatizing in and of itself. Because if there is a culture that says it is bad to be x, then we are going to try to hide x if it's there.
• 50:19
  Right? We're not gonna want anyone to see that aspect of us if it's present because we know that culturally that is quote unquote bad. So there's there's built into one's own identity shame, intense shame for simply existing, for simply being who you are. And of course, then any thoughts or behaviors that that also might come out of who you are also then continue to produce, shame. And so being trans, unless you just have these, like, incredible parents
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: who
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: from a very young age are so attuned that they perhaps just ask you about, hey. Are gender neutral pronouns maybe something more fitting for you? Or, you know, it seems like you like to wear dresses at home. Like, does that mean something more? Can we talk and I'm talking about two and two and a half year old, right?
• 51:25
  Like, and what parents do you know? And I know I'm a little biased in my profession, I'm sure you are as well, that it doesn't feel like there are a lot of those parents out there who are that well attuned and that open minded about their children and willing to accept their children for who they are. But you know it's that parent who can perhaps make enough space in the home for a trans child to really be seen accurately, and then I think the developmental trauma wouldn't exist. But for everyone else who doesn't have those miraculous parents, if there's any hint of disapproval and actually I think if if there's even not just open celebration of transness and trans people in the home, then the assumption is going to be that that it's negative, because that's what's in the culture. And so unless parents are actively working to counteract that, that is the message that's going to be taken in.
• 52:28
  And so being oneself is inherently then bad and must be hidden and kind of like, with the example that you just gave, which was really a perfect example of denial, right? Like, tell me the truth and tell me that this is not true, even though it's so evident that it is true. But it's the same thing, I think, for trans kids with parents who don't want to know that they're trans. If their parent doesn't want to see it, they are not going to see it. It could be right in their face, but if they don't wanna see it, they're not going to see it.
• 53:06
  And so inevitably, that trans child then is not properly attuned to. They are not properly mirrored, and so this aspect of themselves becomes a, a bad other or a shameful self, and the true self gets buried and a performance begins. A performance of gender, a performance of normativity that in and of itself is that is traumatizing to not be able to be seen accurately by by parents, by society. And so and and again, I think this this absolutely happened with gay and lesbian and bisexual folks, you know, in the in the fifties and sixties and seventies and even eighties, and it's getting better, I think. I think parents are more likely to be accepting of sexuality in their children that, you know, is not quote unquote not normative.
• 54:00
  I use the quote unquote there because I don't I don't see it that way, but but it's much harder when the child is expressing gender difference because as you were mentioning earlier with your son, understanding one's sexual attraction happens much later in development, but gender is developing very early, perhaps even, you know, from the moment of birth. And so it's a much more fragile part of the self that needs help in development and that can be damaged in the sense of being overlooked.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: It's so important to understand and to listen and to pay attention and to find support. And I think it once again, matters about the relationship. And having relationship with people, whether they're your children or your friends or whoever, that relationship is more important than anything else. And you can't have an authentic relationship without seeing who they are and hearing who they are and letting them be who they are. Whether that is anything, whether we're talking about racial issues or this stuff or disabilities or all of these kinds of things, that people aren't the same as everybody else, but we're also not meant to be.
• 55:25
  And people who think they're the same aren't really the same either. Like we're all so different, but it's in beautiful, beautiful ways. Mhmm.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: I completely agree. And when we deny that difference, and that beauty, the world becomes a very hostile place, right, even to oneself. Yes. This has just been an absolute pleasure and I, you know, I love to continue the conversation in the future if that's something you're open to, like we could go on and on with gender and I've so enjoyed this invitation and getting to talk with you and just wanted to say thank you.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: I'm so grateful, thank you really for coming on and for sharing with us.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I really hope that, you know, this podcast also has, you know, some positive effects like, you know, on on your listening community just like it I hope it also did for ISSTD, right, to to learn some of these things and that's what I'm all about. So I really appreciate the opportunity.
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: I feel like it's an example of preventing trauma as people learn these things, which is powerful.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely. And it's part of, you know, ethically as a professional what I feel like I need to be doing to be advocating for, you know, the trans community. And of course, obviously it's deeply personal as well. And so it's on both levels. It's just, something that I choose because I I need to, right?
• 56:56
  Like, it just needs to be done.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: You are so very welcome and thank you and thank you so much.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening. Your support of the podcast, the workbooks, and the community means so much to us as we try to create something together that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing, and you can join us on the community at www.systemsbeat.com. We'll see you there.