This was, originally, going to be a short post in support of a trans woman who posted on Facebook about how she’d come in for some stick from one of her “friends” recently.
Was going to be…but if you read thru, you’ll see that it poses some other awkward questions as well.
First, the abuse. Out in the supermarket, this individual was approached by another woman, who proceeded to say what low self esteem she must have to “do all that” (meaning transition) to her body.
Huh? Much envy (or other issues!). I posted back to say that maybe she used to have self-esteem issues, but maybe rather fewer now. I know: I speak from experience. As friends constantly remark: I am now a more confident, outgoing, extrovert sort of person than i was all of two years ago.
Or as someone said yesterday, there’s an obvious joy to how i am nowadays. I love the post-transition me: love the experience, love the discovery.
Not always: there are still dark moments, mostly late at night, when i am overwhelmed with grief by the unfairness of it all. How wonderful that i can transition now. How lovely. Yet how unfair that i am only doing so now: that i will never have been a young woman. Worse, that i wasn’t born to a life that should have been.
Enough. Just thinking it makes me sad.
And inbetween times, the general sense is positive.
Not only: but it is now “official”.
Many years back i took the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI). Ignore the jargon: its one of those tool things that your employers will subject you to from time to time to identify your strengths (and weaknesses) and therefore where and how you need training. The result. I came out as INFP (that’s introvert, intuitive, emotions-based and fairly unscheduled in how i approach the daily grind). There are 16 types and…not many INFP’s. Just 3 out of 200 tested in my workplace.
It tends also to be more regularly associated with being female than male.
What else? The INFP is a shy, dreamy sort of person. “Usually talented writers”, they have a sense of wonder and tend to see life through rose-tinted glasses. Oft to be found working as Writers, Counselors, Teachers or Psychologists. The profile label is something like “Idealist”
Anyhow, i first took the test 20 years ago and have done so at intervals since. Never once have i strayed from coming up as INFP. Until the weekend, when i took it once more and bingo! ENFP. The same. Except the I (introvert) rating has swapped for E (extrovert). And not
marginally, either.
The profile is not dissimilar. Think INFP – only with a tendency to communicate a lot more and enjoying interactions: one profile page gives us as “charming, ingenuous, risk-taking, sensitive, people-oriented individuals”.
There’s still the tendency to be found in roles helping others, but with an extrovert twist: TV presenters now feature, as well as actresses.
All good stuff. All going toward supporting my basic thesis – that if gender was your issue, transition is likely to do you nothing but good. In my own case, it took me from the sidelines, where i always felt somewhat frustrated by what was going on around me – and dumped me into the middle of things.
Have i changed? Dunno. It may be that i was always a covert ENGP – and the introversion was just performance, to disguise my confusion at the world around.
And there is where i would have left it, were it not for a slightly contrary note that i write about below.
jane
xx
