DID and Gender Identity?

Would you say that your body is appropriate for your system?
Within your DID system do you feel gender identity issues?
Overall, is your body agreeable?

Because these might be hard questions, I will remind the reader that no one should change their body through transsexual transition--unless the feelings are persistent for years, and there is no other way to be happy.

[For me, I never felt completely male, and I had ruined my life trying to be something that overall I am not. It's funny that even if I have male alters, I feel that overall I am female, and that is my gender identity. The male parts of myself understand this body.

Until I was hit by a car, I was pretty athletic: 15 years of daily Tai-Chi practice, a kempo lesson here and there, when I could afford it, I mountain biked. The male parts of myself, as well as my protector and its not-so-human counterpart understood that I had brought flexibility to the body while losing strength. It was the deal I worked.

Because I have a lot of autistic attributes, I am not strongly gendered. I have littles with either an androgynous identity, or no gender identity. Overall though, my body was not that masculine, and I feel that my body issues had a great part in your gender identity.

Still, I am not spared grief. There are many ways to present myself. And some days, are just closet emptying days, so bad, I've even gone all the way around to the first thing I put on : ) ]

The body is not in line with all parts' gender but generally it is agreeable. For us personally the discrepencies about gender are more related to the abuse that caused the DID rather than the DID itself, if that makes sense...

We have certainly wondered if for transexual DID people, if being transexual and the problems that might arise from that contributed to the person having DID or if it was the other way around with the DID occurring first due to whatever factors were at play and this has caused the person to be transsexual. Either way, seeing as we know what it is like for some of us to feel our gender is not in line with our body, we can imagine this is a really difficult thing for some people to struggle with more persistently than we do. I'm having issues today with the fact that I'm wearing nail polish and it feels too feminine (We are female).

ellenofnine wrote: And some days, are just closet emptying days, so bad, I've even gone all the way around to the first thing I put on : )

Yeah we've done that too!

Hmm, good question. In me, I blamed gender problem on my abuse, but that wasn't right. Having been abused, I just made myself try to be something I wasn't--longer.

As I talked with people, I learned that most of the people I know who were abused were not transsexual.

It's funny, the parts of myself/alters I identify within myself are female.

salted lipstick wrote:We have certainly wondered if for transexual DID people, if being transexual and the problems that might arise from that contributed to the person having DID or if it was the other way around with the DID occurring first due to whatever factors were at play and this has caused the person to be transsexual.

I really have no idea about it. I've read in some of the DID literature that females might create male alters for protection, while males create females alters for nurturing. I've also read children are more "impressed" by stereotypes and that's why they attribute these strong gender features.

However writing here about it, I wonder... Children, specially children, are less prone to assign attributes to a gender; at least that's what I think and perceive. For me assign attributes is done by society.

Something else I also wonder, is why do we asigne things as feminine or masculine. ok, I know, the body has some differences. However, why do we say that something soft is feminine, or something strong is masculine? Or that something nurturing is feminine, and something violent is masculine?

I've gone beyond of physical stereotypes since I've since them culture related, and have even changed over time: Pink for women, in the past men used to wear pink, until a brand decided to market it for women. Heels for women, in the past men used to wear heels to feel taller and thus more powerful. Skirts for women; men use skirts in some countries. Short hair for men, many cultures value long hair for both men and women, for its abilities to sense beyond the obvious.

So, I've gone beyond the physical stereotypes and the gender roles, because I understand those are constructions. I still wonder if there is anything special that links some "emotional" non-tangible attributes to a gender, or if they are yet another social construction. Because I can feel nurturing, and strong, sometimes violent, others conciliatory, sometimes soft, others harsh.

I've also wondered about something related. Does abuse affect sexual orientation? According to what I've read there is no correlation between sexual abuse and sexual orientation. However, abuse does affect sexual behavior. So I guess I still wonder.

Great topic.

Sea

Hi to ellenofnine and to Seangel who is 31 and 3/4. And I bet you did not think I remember that. Haha.

And I think I can talk about this cuz our bigger people said it is okay. We have a girl body that is 52 which is really old. Haha. But that is our body not a person. We have 47 inside people. And only five guys including me and I am eight and a half. And of course I would like to have a you know what so I could pee standing up. And when our body used to get the girl thing each month it was gross and I would hide until it was over. But I would never want to make our body a boy cuz then 42 girls would get really mad at me and I am not the boss and don't want to be. And I know I am a boy even if the body is not.

Joseph who is eight and a half

-- Fri Dec 05, 2014 2:58 pm --

Is our body agreeable? Well, I'd like a little more frontage. We're a "double A."

Laura (17 1/2)

Hahahaha Hi Joseph!!!!

MakersDozn wrote:Hi to ellenofnine and to Seangel who is 31 and 3/4. And I bet you did not think I remember that. Haha.)

Hahaha this really made me laugh!!

I didn't know wether you had seen the post. Though I, guessed you would remember it.

You're very right the body age doesn't reflect how the person feels.

You're very thoughtful for not wanting to change the body, an good thing you know you're a boy.

I don't see having the moon (the period) as something gross. But well, that's a whole other topic.

I'm so glad to read you again, I hope the girls, and everyone else are feeling better. I read the post Charity and others made, and have been thinking in something to respond but dunno what to say.

Sea

Hi Seangel,

Thank you for writing back to Joseph. And for asking about me. We appreciate your kindness.

I have written more online during the past week than I have in I don't know how long. It can be a big struggle for me even at the best of times.

Trigger Warning:
Much of my recent upheaval is no doubt triggered by the fact that our father passed away at the end of September. I was not close to him (Allegra was the closest), but I think that in many ways I was the most like him.

There have been certain defining incidents in our life, as we posted previously while recounting our life story. Losing our father has been one of those defining times. Losing our mother was very different, because our relationship with her was very different.
End Trigger Warning

The good news is that I feel less burdened having talked about all of these things. I'd like to believe that there's hope.

Charity

MakersDozn wrote:I have written more online during the past week than I have in I don't know how long. It can be a big struggle for me even at the best of times.

I'm glad you're writing, for me writing is healing.

I'm sorry about all that is going on. You have every right to feel how you're feeling. One good thing, is that this won't last for ever. All of the turmoil has a very specific reason, and "this too shall pass".

I'm glad you're feeling there's hope, and less burdened. I'll try to write on the other post, so that we don't hijack this one, with this very interesting topic. I'm glad to read you, and read good news about you. (Hi Jo, your post still makes me smile, you have such a good memory. )

Sea

Most of them are females. One or two males. One who doesn’t think he belongs to the rest of them, has detached himself almost completely from others and the body. Is annoyed when ends up “in that wrong body” as he is male. Doesn’t talk. Lives his own life somewhere. And another holds a guess a lot of aspects the abuser had, also gender. Think am female for the most part. Sometimes think people perceive me as no-gender… wonder at times if others are not sure which gender I am and that can be confusing. (Want to convince them that am female when this happens).
I think Sea is right that children don’t decide what is masculine and what feminine by themselves. But I do think that children are interested in what is feminine and what masculine and at the age of 3-6 are very categorical about the differences and any definitions about life,society, themselves they’ve been given by adults. A girl toy for me and a boy color for him etc. Of course those attributes have been given by the environment but children tend to boost their own identity and social group according to grown-up-example and are more rigid in that… If a child is told men don’t cry, the child literally believes this to be true and is truly surprised to see a man crying. Where an adult knows that nothing is so set in stone. For a child telling that there is nothing mom, police or doctor can’t fix is an important illusion and very real! And so are the attributes given about gender. And so based on those messages the child receives he/she can use when creating alters to nurture, protect, “to hold anger”, “to hold vulnerability” or sexuality etc.

Oh, just remembered there might be one who is transgender inside but not sure if I just made that up or was that a real bit of info that popped up