“When your sense of yourself is strong and you feel centered, other’s stuff is just that; their stuff.”
Shannon Petrovich
Reading Shannon Petrovich’s new book “Out of the Fog Into the Clear” I am struck by how lucky I am. One, to have met Shannon in person and had her wise help. I also realize that I consider myself lucky to have been gender dysphoric my entire life.
What makes me feel this way? When I was growing up the words “gender dysphoric” had yet to be put together. I was identified as a tomboy. Like many fictional characters, and many girls in life, this identity was accepted when I was young. It was also expected that I would grow out of it. I knew that I was a girl, and I knew that I felt more like a boy. I wanted to play the games boys played, wanted to do the things boys did and be taught the things that boys were taught by my family and society in general. I did not grow out of it.
It was tough to grow up knowing I was a girl and dreaming and feeling like I was a boy. There was a lot of social pressure to conform to gender norms that did not “fit” for me. There were a lot of implications that I was weird or abnormal, from both other children and from some adults.
What I recognize now is that this gave me a strong sense of self. I knew I could not conform, so I did not try. Well, the truth is that I tried a little. This is to say, I tried not to stick out too much. I tried to conform in the areas that didn’t conflict with my sense of self, such as wearing my hair longer, which most girls did and a few boys did. I did not conform in the areas that would have denied my sense of self, such as attire. I absolutely did not wear dresses unless it was non-negotiable, such as my father’s wedding. In order to take care of myself I learned to be ok with who I was, even if others were not ok with it.
Growing up in this body which identifies me differently than others around me I feel has given me a strength. My wellbeing depended upon not trying too hard to make people happy at my own expense. That ability that I learned- the balancing of how to go along with the group, but also hold on to who I am and carve out my own path-has served me. I don’t expect others to understand or support that path. And, I was lucky growing up to have many adults who did their best to support me. The world is changing, but some people will always feel different from who others see them to be.
Reading Shannon’s book I was able to see clearly how the hardships of my youth had become the very things that made me a resilient adult. It is the gift of difficulties- that we learn from them, even when we don’t know that or what we are learning. It is the gift of difficulties that we learn to continue to move through them, learning that things do change over time. We find new friends and communities that hopefully love us for who we are. We find through trial and error, much like Goldilocks, to discover what is comfortable for us; what circumstances, situations, people feel right to us, trying many uncomfortable ones first.
If my parents had been able to protect me from all those pressures and uncomfortable places, how would I have learned who I was? Are we as parents willing to find the courage that it takes to let our children discover who they are?
