Discontinuities of an Identity Variety

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I identify (on this board and elsewhere) as a schizophrenic, specifically as a schizophrenic of the activist variety, against forced treatment, claiming my right to embrace my mental condition or mental difference or whatever you wanna call it. I come by it honestly: 35 years ago I was under a lot of stress about my gender and sexual-orientation identity, was harboring a bunch of notions and ideas that weren’t exactly mainstream (still aren’t) and getting very excited about them; I had no one to compare notes with and get the validation that ordinary people get from other ordinary people all the time in their daily lives, validation which helps people know that their feet are solidly planted on real ground. That, in and of itself, doesn’t make one’s mental content a barrel of nonsense, but it significantly increases the likelihood.

At a certain point, I was definitely out to lunch, embracing as real some ideas that any mainstream shrink would agree is symtomatic of mental illness. But alongside of the weird-ass notions were some concepts that I never stopped thinking were valid, things that addressed my gender and sexual-orientation situation. Ideas I thought, and still think, are important.

At the same time, I identify (on this board and elsewhere) as a gender invert, a specific type of genderqueer person akin in a lot of ways to transgender people you’ve probably heard more about. It was precisely that batch of questions and answers about gender and sexual orientation identity that I was obsessing about in 1980, 35 years ago. I figured out that essentially what was going on with me was that I was a girl (not a regular guy, not somewhere in an androgynous middle-ground but seriously over on what was considered the wrong end of the spectrum for a male-bodied person), that I was attracted to female-bodied people, but that the experiences I was wired to find erotic with those female people were all immersed in desires and expectations I had that more more typical of women’s desires and expectations of sexual and romantic connections, from the level of role in flirting and courting to the level of priorities and long-range sense of desirable outcomes. And that, unlike the closest approximation to my situation that I could find written about — transsexual people —I didn’t have an issue with my body, didn’t think I was born in the wrong body or wish I was female, etc.

Umm, yeah, so raise your hand if you see a potential problem in reconciling these two identities.

** raises own hand **

Short summary: if I believe my gender etc notions are logical and accurate and explain not only my own situation but that of other people, and really does represent a meaningful batch of thoughts to share with the world, then for me to stress an identity-in-common with other folks diagnosed schizophrenic might get in the way of that. On the other hand, to continue to believe with such fervor that I’ve come to an understanding of gender identity, all by myself and with no community of like-minded people to lead or to get support from, is pretty fucking crazy, isn’t it? After 35 years you’d think I’d have lit a social fire with this spark if it had some burning explanatory power for other people, if I were indeed genuinely part of a phenomenon that just didn’t have a good spokesperson yet, wouldn’t you?

I suppose I’m OK with it either way. Maybe I have to be. Maybe there’s no way to do this without being OK with the possibility that I’m just batshit insane and these ideas only make sense to me.

Do you think I have to pick between my politics and STFU about one or the other in order to keep from sabotaging my own attempts to be messenger?

When I was 23, I had a seriously melodramatic sign on my bedroom door: IF I THOUGHT IT WOULD RESULT IN YOU UNDERSTANDING THE THOUGHTS IN MY HEAD I WOULD GLADLY PLUCK MY HEAD FROM MY SHOULDERS AND DASH IT OPEN AT YOUR FEET; I WOULD GIVE MY LIFE TO ATTAIN A MEANINGFUL COMMUNICATION WITH YOU. (Yeah, OK, so I was kind of given towards lurid overdramatic statements when I wa 23) (Besides, if you’re going to be a lunatic rights activist you don’t have a lot of reason to tone it down, ya know?). Anyway, I still feel that kind of frustration sometimes.

Arrogant fucking windmills. They could at least do the courtesy of looking worried and talking among themselves about the threat posed by the guy trying to weild the lance…

2

I don’t think your gender identity can really be something where your mental interpretation is out of touch with reality, because there is no reality but your mental interpretation. I do understand wondering what your gender identity would be like if you weren’t schizophrenic and never had the break you described.

To tell the truth, you’ve always come off as someone who is managing their schizophrenia, someone who has developed coping mechanisms. That you’ve worked to force your thoughts to be coherent. But I’m a bit concerned for you right now, because you’ve been posting these screeds multiple times, as if you are yourself seeing warning signs. And this particular one, while mostly coherent, has a few incoherencies, like why in the world politics are involved. And you seem to be starting to have a bit of a larger than life view of yourself.

Though it could just be you going through a philosophic midlife crisis phase.

3

Well… honestly per the above you sound like some women’s dream come true. A man who is completely in sync with the needs and desires of a woman. Depending on how you played it why couldn’t you make that insight work for you big time in pursuing female relationships? Do hetero women sense the “female” in you and reject it or embrace it? Is the desire for a sensitive man attuned to women’s needs not really what they want. It sounds like it would be kind of an advantage in relationships, where did it all fall apart?

4

You’d think so, yes? I certainly thought so myself, rounding the corner between puberty and adolescence: “the girls are going to like me better”. Didn’t work out that way. The majority of women seem to like their males to be men. In addition, among those who find a girlish kind of male who is apparently flirting with them to be intriguing and interesting, many women can’t figure out how to proceed. Who does what? The conventional allocation of dance steps is very much wound up with gender diffs, notions about what the sexes are like and who wants what and so on.

It does work but I have to look for the people with whom it’s likely to work.