Existential Discomfort: Where Transtrenders and Christians Agree
When I was young, I wanted to be Adam Ant.
My Adam Ant phase was during the 1980s, and I went to school one day in cream-colored pants pegged above the ankle, a Members Only jacket (borrowed from my sister — thanks, Lara!), and penny loafers with no socks. I was a sight to see. Another student, dressed similarly, asked me a question about a band I had not heard of. When I displayed my ignorance, he called me a “NewRo poseur.” Technically, he called me a “poser” with that Los Angeles fluid ‘O’ and hard ‘R.’ Nonetheless, I was crushed — in no condition to provide a lesson in semantics.
Kids These Days
I have little doubt that youth today treat each other with a similar level of disgust and disrespect. That said, I have observed behavior around me that I can only describe as a deep sense of discomfort. This discomfort appears to go beyond “fitting in.” It is not discomfort in whether the clothes are right or the makeup is right or the music is right.
I am not speaking about fashion.
What I sense is a discomfort in everything not being right, a discomfort at the thought of existing at all. An existential discomfort that asks, “Who am I to live in this body, in this society, with this expression of identity?”
Do we choose an identity or do we express it? What I observe is discomfort that arises from choosing somebody else’s expression of identity instead of our own. As a result, an external, unfamiliar, inappropriate form of validation ends up being required. We need somebody else to tell us that we are worthy of existing, that our membership in the group we chose to join is valid. We become dependent upon the movement of the group to define our identity.
Aspects of Existential Discomfort
An example of existential discomfort comes from reading Reddit posts and Discord servers targeted to the transgender community. I observe transgender women (typically in their 20s) who make nitpicking themselves a daily habit. The focus of transition shifts from aligning physicality with psychology to a hypersensitivity on hormone blood concentration, incremental physical changes, and the expectation that surgery is a panacea.
This behavior displays a shift in the discomfort experienced from gender dysphoria to what I have termed “numerical dysphoria.” That is, the burning desire to change numbers as an expression of identity as opposed to creating the identity with action. Oddly, some people I have watched suffer from a 2mm aberration in facial structure appear to ignore more subtle aspects of the opposite gender, such as comportment, the fit of clothes, the use of makeup, and the use of speech and diction.
Lest my transgender sister and brothers think I target them alone (blessings of the Goddess to you all!), I have also observed a competition of self-righteousness within religious communities. As opposed simply to worshiping in private, the focus shifts to how many times one prays, goes to church, and whether or not one has tried to “save” anybody recently (particularly if the target is in the transgender community and has better things to worry about).
In the religious scene, the competition rages over how many people to harangue as opposed to being — oh, I don’t know — a decent person? I have watched otherwise kind and gentle people bare three-inch stainless steel claws to fend off a supposed “attack” on their religion by LGBTQ people minding their own business. What causes this sudden neglect of expressing positive aspects of identity in favor of counting trivial aspects of a group’s platform?
The Inevitable Results
When existential discomfort occurs, attention to easily affected aspects of identity, such as numerical values, occurs as a result of one action in particular: the attempt to choose an identity. As opposed to viewing natural association with other people as a form of validating the identity though shared experiences, the desire is to assume an identity by joining a group. By membership in a group, we hope that the behavior and experiences of our peers will grant us the same status, a form of “identity by association.”
The conservative narrative regarding the transgender experience centers on a supposed ability to choose an identity, but this is not possible. Our identity exists outside physical, psychological, and social pressures. We have no choice but to express who we are in our consciousness. Unfortunately, suppressing the identity leads to mental health issues, possibly suicide.
To play the Devil’s Advocate for a moment, existential discomfort and the attempt to assume an identity is precisely how the conservative narrative explains the “transtrender” phenomenon. To be fair, however, it also explains impressionable children who grow up in a conservative religious environment, but break violently from that background as they become disillusioned over time by a community not interested in supporting members not completely bought into the platform.
We have no greater responsibility than to create who we are by expressing it around ourselves. Certainly, there are times when expressing parts of our identity could be dangerous; caution and common sense need to be followed. But none of us is compelled to join a group. We need to find the causes, the fashion, the beliefs that resonate inside us. We need to seek the experiences that inspire us and make us feel a sense of wonder and surprise. These thoughts and experiences are where the identity lies. Joining a group will not make you more of what that group wants. It may end up damaging you.
Where Does This Leave Me?
In observing the existential discomfort I see around me, I must consider my own story, my transition. (And seriously, I wonder what happened to that Members Only jacket!) Why is it that I have been capable of making changes to myself and my lifestyle in the last ten years without being able to identify with the person I see in the mirror?
I have a guess. Obviously, physicality is only part of the picture of identity, but more than that, my superpower has long been introspection. Even if I did not have a strong identification with external aspects of myself, I possess a very strong connection to my internal identity, the consciousness.
There is a distinction between internal and external representations of ourselves. The consciousness might not represent the body with which it senses the physical world. The body might not represent the consciousness that screams to express itself in a society that would not understand it. The mismatch between them, and the extent to which it affects our lives, is The Reflection in a nutshell.
When I was young, I wanted to put on a physical appearance in order to create an internal feeling, almost like trying on clothes at the Sherman Oaks Galleria. I was fortunate, at least, to have my connection to consciousness and my (at times) ruthless introspection. That introspection is a two-edged sword: while I have been capable of building an identity without identifying with my external representation, I have also felt that same lack of identification very keenly as the stifling blanket of gender dysphoria.
If we are missing the connection to consciousness — if our sense of self is largely based in physical appearance because we either have not connected to or do not want to connect to our consciousness, we are walking a razor’s edge that leads to the existential discomfort that I believe is pervasive today.
