Transitioning Into You
February 20, 2013
Annika Penelope Gives Us A Peak Behind the Curtain
This blog post by Annika Penelope – read it! She is wonderful at communicating the cultural pressures that we ALL need to get over before we can be happy with who we are. Yes, it’s about her transition. Trust me – this post is also about something much more universal. It is about the cultural pressures we all face to be someone different than who we really are. You will be glad you read her writing regardless of your own relationship with your gender.
Eating Disorders and Transitioning Genders: What We ALL Can Learn From These Experiences
Of course recovering from an eating disorder and transitioning between genders are two completely different experiences. Completely. So don’t get me wrong when I talk about the things that I have learned from working with people on these two unrelated topics.
It is precisely because they are such different experiences that I find any similarities in these paths to be remarkable. We live in a culture that thrives on making us feel bad about ourselves. We are bombarded with advertisements, airbrushed images, reality TV shows, and so much more, all sending messages that beauty equals happiness, and anything less than a continual quest for physical improvement is akin to sin. This cultural pressure to focus on our appearances – specifically to focus on continually “improving” our appearance – takes a toll on our self-esteem.
Recovering from an eating disorder and successfully transitioning share this one thing in common:
Success requires finding and then tossing out the pressure our culture can put on us to be someone who we are not, in order to finally love who we are.
The Culture Of Authenticity
The first step in escaping the death grip of our cultural pressures is to recognize that there is no right way to be a male or female. Each one of us finds a new way to be the gender that we are. Some gals love flamingos and pink. Some gals are pilots. I know one gal who is a pilot AND loves flamingos and pink. Is she less of a female than me for working in a largely male dominant profession? Is she more of a female than me because she likes pink flamingos? Of course not. As Annika says in her post, “You deserve to live an authentic life.”
- Living authentically means recognizing that our cultural does a poor job of telling us how to live authentically.
- Living authentically means recognizing that how someone else chooses to dress or what they choose to do has nothing to do with what is right for you.
- Living authentically means recognizing that there is no one point that we are all moving towards.
- Living authentically means recognizing that you choose what is right for you and your body. Even if it is scary to let go of pressures to be something else. Especially if it is scary to let go of pressures to be something else.
- Living authentically means letting go of the idea of life as a destination, and begin to enjoy the journey of becoming.
Frances Ulman, Ph.D. 