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Healing
The secret ingredients for powerful counseling
LUNCH
W eekend B runch
D inner
This essay is the first in a series o f four by
Christa-Margaret Nelson reprinted in Just Out
from trans awareness workshops sponsored by
Basic Rights Oregon. "Healing" was presented in
June for the employees o f William Temple House,
which prorides resources to low-incomc adults.
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M usi c D u t c i o «
ne of the most personally empowering
statements I heard while coming out as
trans some five years ago while living in
the Austin area of Texas was from Dr.
Jane Wray.
Dr. Wray was a large woman, perhaps in
her mid-50s, and not only was a practicing
children’s endocrinologist, she was also sympa
thetic to trans people and provided hormone
replacement therapy. l>. Wray had lived most
of her life as a straight woman with a husband
and child, hut in midlife both she and her
husband came out as gay and divorced.
She was a strong, wise woman— a medical
doctor and a Ph.D. in philosophy (as well as
in the process of acquiring her black belt in
Kenpo). Toward the end of my
second appointment, we discussed
how hard it can he living as a
trans person in this culture.
She jooked at me squarely and,
with much conviction, told me an
affirmation that I carry with me to
this day: Trans people have a
much greater knowledge of them
selves and the gender system than
most people in the world. In this,
she said, “You’re right, and they’re
wrong.”
For the most part, the world is
not an affirming place for trans
people. All we see is traditional
BY
gender— clearly delineated ideas of
CHRISTA
men and women. And, while
MARGET
there are strong progressive aspects
NELSON
such as the capacity for women’s
empowerment or some space for
sensitive men, most are hound by fairly rigid
roles, behaviors and expectations.
Really, when it comes down to it, the hoys
are boys, and the girls are girls.
Gender expectations are culturally
enforced with severe consequences for trans
gression. One of the ways these expectations
are enforced is through the concept of nor
malcy, and, in this, any transgression of tradi
tional gender is seen as “abnormal," with more
extreme cases seen as a pathology.
Historically, trans people have been diag
nosed as suffering from gender dysphoria. Tins
term refers to negative symptoms such as
excessive anguish, agitation, restlessness and
malaise that gender-variants often experience
and seek counseling for. Since variance from
cultural gender norms is most often interpret
ed in the negative, gender dysphoria has been
treated as a sickness in itself.
Now, there arc progressive and enlightened
approaches that do not treat trans as a “sick
ness” hut, rather, as an identity that is quite
legitimate, with symptoms traditionally
ascribed to gender dysphoria arising out of
either an inability to manifest and live one’s
own sense of personal gender or from the cul
tural response in doing so.
O
I
n August of 2001 I moved to Portland by
myself, never having been here, not know
ing a soul and supplied only with two duffel
Christa-M argaret N elson presents personal
essays at trans workshops in the Portland
metro area
hags, a thousand bucks and my wits. I had
been doing well for myself in Texas until 1
came out as trans. T hen things became diffi
cult, and I lost a great deal.
W hile being a somewhat more affirming
environment, it was still difficult being a quite
visibly out trans woman alone in Portland. So
I sought counseling at William Temple House.
I was blessed by being assigned a very pro
gressive and thoughtful counselor, and, while
this person may not have had much experi
ence in trans issues, she made up for it in clar-
► ity, wisdom and compassion. I was taken “as
is”— I never felt like I was seen as sick or ill
and being diagnosed for treatment, hut rather
as someone who had experienced a trauma
and who had suffered loss.
We did not spend most of our time investi
gating the reasons for my gender variance;
instead, we worked toward making the most
j out of my life with the choices I had already
made. O n top of this, my counselor was an
excellent role model for me in my new gender.
II trans people appear to he showing symp
toms of being sick or confused, it is not
because of a gender variant identity, it is from
how we are treated in our world. W hat needs
to he accomplished through counseling and
therapy is an affirmation and techniques for
self-empowerment within that world.
At this point in history, being trans can he
a very difficult journey, yet having access to
counseling that is affirmative, rather than
guilt- and shame-ridden, will result in a person
working toward individuation rather than liv
ing with forced repression. This not only ben
efits the clients in the quest for self-realiza
tion, hut it also begins to slowly place the cul
ture as a whole down that same path. JH
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C h r is t a - M a r g a r e t N elso n is a free-lance
• writer, musician, m em ber o f the Trans Adi'ocacy
Group at Basic Rights Oregon and facilitator o f
the Jirans Youth G roup at the Sexual Minority
Youth Resource Center.