I recently saw an long interview with Lance Armstrong, talking about the effects of his doping revelations. To me, he missed the biggest takeaway from the story: He is a bully.
Using focus, intimidation and every trick you can find to win, crushing all who challenge you in the process, from friends to reporters to officials to team mates to partners isn’t yet something he sees as a problem. That’s just what a winner does, down to asking your girlfriend to lie to the police about who was driving when you hit the parked cars.
This “stop at nothing” mindset is part of the American mythology. We make a plan and then we execute on it, crushing everything that gets in our way. We have a single and bloody minded kind of focus which lets us believe that the end justifies the means, that getting ‘er done is the highest value, that winners don’t ask for permission or even forgiveness.
I have seen people with this tradition approach transgender emergence handle it like they do everything else in the world, trying to crush trans.
They tend to put their head down and bull through the steps, rushing to get permissions, believing that when they finish transforming their bodies they will have finished transforming their lives. They often approach trans as as series of hurdles to be overcome in the most efficient and expedient way possible, another challenge to win.
The ultimate trans surgery, in my experience, is when you pull the stick out of your own ass. That process starts with dropping your armour, sorting through your past, seeking to find that trans heart you so long ago felt the need to bury so you could try and be a winner in the eyes of the world.
Trans emergence is a restart, a do over, this time making choices based on opening your heart rather than denying it. It demands processing all the crap that you have been running from for so long, not just burying it deeper. It means you have to go through the stages of ecstasy and freedom, of struggle and recalibration, of letting go and learning to fit in, of finding a new balance of wild freedom and tame assimilation.
Transvestism is about changing your clothes.
Transsexualism is about changing your body.
Transgender is about changing your mind.
Crushing transgender, bullying it and the world into the way you want it to be, has not proven to be a very successful approach. It is hard to surrender to your nature when you struggle to control. Strength, serenity and wisdom are required.
The way you do anything is the way you do everything. Crushing projects is a way to try and win, but it isn’t really a way to try and blossom. Showing weakness and vulnerability is the way we ask people to connect with our heart, not being demanding and tough.
Transgender emergence isn’t something you can win. It is a chance to reweave a more authentic, fulfilling, connected and happier life for yourself and for the people you love. It requires compassion, for yourself and others, and compromise.
Trying to bully it all to get it the way you think it should be is often the root of the problem, and is never the solution.
Callan 