I am reading an article printed from the Dutch newspaper site 'Trouw’ that tackles the issue of transgender-ness. It is called ‘Morrelen aan man en vrouw’, which translates as ‘Doctoring man and woman’.
The article expresses caution, though not passing judgement and reading it made me revisit my own view on this now emerging trend, which view I have not read anywhere else.
I’ll start with relating a personal experience that began in around 1990. It was the result of a process to get in touch with - that is: become aware of - my feelings. This process was triggered through some prior counselling in which I had participated. At that time I was told: ‘I have never met a person who denies his feelings the way you do!’ This I knew was true; I’d always felt ‘blind’ with regard to other people’s feelings. I had repressed my feelings since I found them confusing and interfering with my goals as a newly landed immigrant in 1959.
I brushed my hair and teeth with my left hand, stirred my coffee that way, deliberately and continuously being a ‘lefty’ as much as was practicable.
So, years later in 1991 I decided to do something on my own in order to get to know my feelings better. Having read extensively in C.G Jung’s collected works I was familiar with the idea of the underdeveloped aspects of the human personality, which Jung calls the shadow. This under developed side is represented in the body in the lack of dexterity in the left hand, when your right side is the dominant one. This is my case.
Hence, in order to develop the underdeveloped feelings I decided to start doing a number of acts using the left hand in order to get in touch with my underdeveloped feelings by means of association. That was the time I started my Left_Hand art work as posted in part on my website.
I brushed my hair and teeth with my left hand, stirred my coffee that way, deliberately and continuously being a ‘lefty’ as much as was practicable. The hundreds of drawing of my Left_Hand art work were the major effort in this regard.
The rational for this process is that, being right handed as I am, it will do the most logical and efficient action and override a possible impulse of ‘Why not try it this way?’.
The logical conscious acts as a censor, because it is prefers the most efficient and has survival value if you want to give a rational. The uncensored left hand will give expression to the creative part that will not necessarily lead to the aimed for end result, but could produce something of unexpected value. Art!
It constituted a deliberate and conscious attempt of making conscious that what had been kept repressed during the many preceding years till this time at my middle age.
So far my story about how I learned to become more aware of what played inside of me, which included feeling values that were now expressed through my self imposed left hand activities.
It constituted a deliberate and conscious attempt of making conscious that what had been kept repressed during the many preceding years till this time at my middle age. This repression of interfering feelings had the function to help me fit and function within society in a more or less acceptable manner. That worked, but of you want to continue growing and develop in a balanced way, unless the repressed aspects and abilities are be exposed to day light of conscious awareness.
This then became my project in order to get in touch with my feminine aspects, as I phrased that at the time and still do. I knew at the time that for each gender the biological difference between being either female or male, is small. [Phone call with Els of 30 minutes] To be continued.
<9:39am; see tomorrow‘s entry.
