In my case, the transphobic abuse I've experienced - continuously - over the last three decades has left me with an official diagnosis of PTSD (although I favour it being described as trauma, with PTSD left for those whose trauma also involves death).
As for others with scarred psyches, I'm in the process of trying to write a book on the topic, arguing that being a bit kinder to others - and ourselves - is the cure, and also pointing out that many conservatives are particularly scarred.
I've just come a passage in a book a biography of Robert F. Kennedy titled "Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon" by Larry Tye (pub. Random House, New York, 2016, ISBN 978-067964207, Amazon), which illustrates some of what I am talking about.
After his brother's assassination, which was the third death of a sibling (together with a major health issue with another sibling) that he had experienced, Bobby Kennedy obviously took some time to recover. As he recovered, he decided to get back into public service - which is what serving in elected office is, but was struggling with campaigning effectively. After a TV interview that he subsequently realised he had handled well, his confidence grew, and he started campaigning - and living - more effectively.
From the book (p. 332):
"His hands still trembled . . . But he finally displayed bits of the old joy not just with crowds of voters, but with the kids whom he had always touched and been touched by."At a rally, he spoke encouragingly to a young girl who was embarrassed by her freckles. The book continues:
"He never knew that what he'd done sent Cathy "prancing around this house like no one you've ever seen," according top her mother. "He was no more capable of doing that in the beginning of that campaign," added Feldman, "than he could fly."In the context of what I'm aiming to cover in the book I'm trying to write:
- Bobby Kennedy started his life with quite conservative leanings - even aiding the appalling Senator McCarthy early on, and showing fairly conservative leanings in his work as an Attorney-General.
- The great Dr Martin Luther King Jr. thought Bobby Kennedy had potential. From page 236 of the above-mentioned book:
"Somewhere in this man sits good," the preacher told his lieutenants early on. "Our task is to find his moral center and win him to our cause."
- Contact with other people, combined with his own suffering, overcame the scars (which is what they are) of conservatism around his heart, and allowed him to realise his potential.
- The scars of small-mindedness afflicted those who left the young girl, Cathy, with embarrassment about her freckles.
- The kindness of the newly healed Bobby Kennedy was able to help heal Cathy's scars.
- The only people not helped here are those who encouraged Bobby Kennedy's conservatism (his father, predominantly), and those who affected Cathy.
Now to see if I can apply some of that to myself . . .
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Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2024 NO AI
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