By the by, my reader’s can see Kay’s book on Amazon as well as her website.

Kay, thanks again for stopping by! It’s quite an honor to have you visit with us and your certainly welcome anytime,

Becki

I still struggle sometimes realizing that we can be a mixed breed. I wrote about my experiences in my book called Bad Girl Gone Mom for two reasons. I want to hep change the US society so that there is recognition and I want to help those who are suicidal know that it gets better as long as you can continue to face your fears. http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Girl-Gone-K-C-Lauer/dp/1456823388/ref=sr_1_cc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294943241&sr=1-1-catcorr

No offense at all. Your comments are welcome here as is the open discussion on this important topic.

Thank you!

Becki

Here’s a bloggy sort of response–not directed at you personally, so don’t take offense–but written for all of your readers.

The finding isn’t the least bit shocking or surprising in the context of the gender binary. A fundamental part of this concept is that everyone can be placed into one of two categories–the concept denies gender variance. The result is that the concept of gender we all learn growing up has no place for the reality of gender variance. This leaves us unable to even comprehend gender variance. “Us” here doesn’t just mean gender variant people, it means everyone who hasn’t thought long and hard to develop a mental model that allows for gender variance. By my observation, binary thinking is so pervasive that even most gender variant people have trouble thinking beyond it.

Viviane Namaste, in her book Invisible Lives explains how this thinking drives society to actively eliminate gender variant people from existence She calls this “erasure” and certainly encompasses harassment as described in this study.

Binary thinking explains so much. It explains the difficulty of friends and family to accept us (us gender variants.) It explains rigid models of gender variance, such as have been thrust on us by the psychiatric community over the years. Moreover, it explains our difficulty in understanding findings about gender variance, such as this article. We are have been indoctrinated by binary thinking just like everyone else.

Another example of a gender variant “finding” is when we find ourselves to be gender variant. With only gender binary education, we are unequipped to understand, accept, or even recognize ourselves. This leads to all sorts of self-esteem issues. At last Saturday’s Tiffany Club house party, for example, a friend was telling me how her outlook had dramatically improved in the month since I had last seen her; improved with the realization that much of her life had been controlled by shame. Shame of what? Of not fitting into the binary. In order to get over this, she had to develop mental concepts that allowed for the resistance of a person outside the binary. (Then of course, she had to take ownership and move in.) This realization comes to her at age 58. I think she’s lucky. I think most transgenders never see this light.

Sonia Keys,
Student of gender enlightenment