“Reality" - The Transamorous Network

September 14, 2019

A Client Gets A Relationship, Part 2

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Welcome back.

Last time I wrote about Joe (not his real name) a client who met his ideal match in a transgender woman. Joe was excited about this. He felt the Universe designed this gathering.

It did.

But the “why” wasn’t what Joe thought.

This post details what happened after Joe’s initial excitement and enthusiasm. It also sheds more light on our framework. Why it is so powerful. And why we guarantee you’ll get your ideal match.

That and a whole lot more. Let’s get started.

• • •

By his ninth session, Joe’s enthusiasm disappeared. He was low-energy. Not the excited person from our cancelled seventh session.

Turns out Cassandra (not her real name either), the transgender woman he met, hadn’t spoken to him in a while. Despondent, Joe had all kinds of negative stories about why. Stories about the experience. Stories about himself. Stories about our approach.

Joe’s grumpiness matched all these stories. Joe thought something went wrong.

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Nothing went wrong.

Instead, Joe’s life experience showed him what he must change if he wants his ideal partner. Remy says this all the time. If you want your ideal match you must become a match to them.

Joe is not yet a match. So he drew to himself someone who matches where he is. The gift of this perfect relationship connection is, it showed this to him.

That doesn’t mean he liked what he saw.

But had he been able to, he would have benefitted even more from the experience.

Life is eternal. You always get more chances so nothing is lost. Nothing goes wrong. Ever.

The relationships with Cassandra didn’t show up as the relationship Joe wanted. But it did show Joe many of his disempowering stories.

And it showed him how his relationship behavior matches those stories.

Joe moved too fast. His stories about relationship scarcity caused had him cling to this relationship. As if there weren’t going to be any others.

Out of his desperation to have a relationship, he asked Cassandra if she was seeing anyone else, implying energetically, of course, that he’d prefer he be the only one she was seeing.

After all, he wasn’t seeing anyone else. But the reason he wasn’t seeing anyone else wasn’t because he had other opportunities. It’s because he is grasping desperately for THE relationship. Instead of enjoying life.

When Cassandra said she was seeing others, Joe played it off. But it was obvious in our call that answer was not the right one. It did match his stories though.

• • •

We know at The Transamorous Network that stories create reality. We also know momentum of stories told often enough can’t be avoided. That’s not how life works.

To slow old story momentum, a person must tell new stories. New stories which, over time, will build enough momentum in their own right. Meanwhile, old story momentum deactivates. They have less effect on reality. Including one’s behaviors.

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Joe didn’t focus on new stories after that exchange. That focus takes effort, which is why we offer our framework. Joe is only starting. So he doesn’t realize yet how to check in with his emotions early enough to halt old story momentum.

It’s a rare skill among people. Hardly anyone has the discipline and rigor to do such work on their own. Hardly anyone understands why we have emotions. We offer our framework for that reason.

So rather than focusing on new stories he is working on in our sessions, Joe allowed his old stories to continue creating his reality. Disappointment he felt isn’t about how the relationship turned out (it ended). Although that’s what Joe thinks is the reason he’s disappointed. He feels disappointment (and frustration and sadness and more) because he’s focusing on his reality. The reality his old stories are creating. Realities not matching what he wants.

Again, Joe is just starting. So he doesn’t get how important it is to understand the purpose of emotions. So instead of using his emotions they way they’re intended, he tries to behave in spite of them.

Meanwhile, his behavior faithfully creates outcomes matching his old stories.

For example, one night frustrated in not hearing from Cassandra, Joe drunk-dialed her. That didn’t go well.

Drunk-dialing is a classic knee-jerk reaction to strong negative emotions triggered by negative stories about relationships playing out in physical reality. Thinking that behavior would bring relief, people drink to numb the emotion.

But alcohol amplifies negative emotion. It adds momentum to stories. That momentum draws to it other stories like it. Your stories are living things. Not just words. Stories like company. They draw to themselves stories like themselves. That’s how story or belief constellations happen.

That’s also why drinking to numb pain usually begins a downward spiral. When it comes to a “failed” relationship, that spiral often includes drunk-dialing.

Remember, in the last post I cautioned Joe about what was happening. I said Cassandra was a perfect match to Joe’s stories. That she is a perfect match is an excellent indicator.

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What do I mean by that?

I mean, Joe got to see exactly how his stories create his reality. A reality which includes transgender women not all that interested in Joe for Joe.

To Joe, she seemed interested. At first. But later she wasn’t.

By our ninth session, Joe was not in a good place at all. He couldn’t see the extraordinary benefit of a relationship like the one he got.

• • •

Then one day, Cassandra contacted him after a long absence. He said she asked him to pay for something for her. Joe didn’t have the money. He hasn’t heard from her since telling her so.

Of course, Joe’s old beliefs showed up again. “That’s all she wanted me for”, He told me during our session.

That story can be extended more broadly about all his relationships with transgender women, women who usually are sex workers.

Joe left session nine pretty negative.

If Joe continues the work, this could be a turning point for him. His stories are screaming out loud. Now that he has some grounding in “Stories” and how they create reality, he is getting first hand experience in his own life experience how stories do that.

He’s not happy about that.

But this is the process. It’s how it works.

I reminded Joe his unhappiness is an emotion telling him something important. It’s telling him his stories about this situation aren’t consistent with what’s really happening.

Again, of course, Joe didn’t want to hear this. He defended his stories as “true”, which they are. But he refused to understand that they are only true because his stories have created a reality consistent with them. They are no more true than any other story he might tell often enough to create momentum and a new reality consistent with that.

And that is the work. Using one’s life experience as a living classroom, our framework shows clients how to tell new stories. New stories told frequent enough so their reality changes to match them.

Then they have a new truth. A life experience that contains everything they want.

Including their ideal partner.

Joe is continuing the work. We’ll see whether his relationship with Cassandra was the last one he’ll let his old stories dictate.

August 17, 2018

Can Trans People Oppress The Majority?

Andrei Lazarev Opression FB blog — Photo: Andrei Lazarev

It can sure feel that way. But when the majority feels oppression, you’re winning.

Hear them:

“Seriously, what’s going on? Where are all these people coming from claiming there is something more than “man” and “woman”? Don’t they realize they sound delusional?”

So go the thoughts of those whose world view depends on immutable “Laws” about “reality”.

“Immutable” means “unchanging over time. Fixed, carved in stone, permanent or rigid”.

None of those words can be applied to life or being human. Both are forever changing and evolving for the better. Diversity is the norm. The more the better

And there’s no limit on what that diversity will look like.

People who need a “rigid” “unchanging” reality are deeply ensconced in fear and insecurity. They have lost the flexibility of their childhood, where reality was much less “hardened” than the adult world.

When something from outside that hardened world view meets that hardened-ness head on, the jarring feeling, the discomfort people who don’t understand being transgender feel, triggers reactions remarkably similar to those attributable to racist behaviors triggered from white fragility.

White fragility is defined in an excellent 2011 research paper written by Robin DiAngelo for the International Journal Of Critical Pedagogy, aptly titled “White Fragility”.

White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium. Racial stress results from an interruption to what is racially familiar.

This would be a great definition for “Anti-Gender-fluidity Fragility”. Something I just made up 🙂

Replace “racial” with “gender”:

“Anti-Gender-fluidity Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of gender stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate cis gender equilibrium. Gender stress results from an interruption to what is with regard to gender, familiar.”

Interesting, isn’t it?

We could even go so far as to say Anti-Gender-fluidity Fragility, in extreme cases, results in attempts to coerce and control: humiliating, threatening, being aggressive towards and even waging violence against those perceived to threatened a hardened world view, i.e. transgender people.

Isn’t that what we’re seeing today?

What this means is, there is nothing personal about a non-trans person becoming hostile or trying to censure transgender people’s rights. They’re just acting out of extreme insecurity as they are confronted with circumstances outside their comfortable world views or stories.

In other words, they are scared.

And when a person who is used to being in control feels scared long enough, they find ways to ameliorate that fear. In most people unaware of their stories, “control” means trying to manipulate things (situations, laws, who can use which bathroom) and people (kicking them out of the family, for example).

But it can also including appropriating the victim role even though they enjoy privilege of [gender] acceptance.

A lot of people have said it: “When you’re used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”

The cool thing is, as history has always shown, actual oppression waged by the majority on a minority usually causes the cause of the minority to win.

Are you prepared to win? Don’t worry, when you do, they will too. But not in the way they think.

HT to this guy’s experience

April 24, 2018March 21, 2018

Science catching up with the transgender conscience

This has always been the case – always – that science ends up confirming what we intuitively know. People who believe religiously in science often point to early civilizations as examples where science has helped humanity. These people point to these early civilizations’ beliefs that the world was flat, or that the sun went about the Earth as examples of these “backwards” beliefs.

But what these people don’t recognize is the process by which these civilizations came to that distorted understanding. For before those erroneous conclusions, civilizations had massive and complete understanding of the universe’s workings. Interestingly, at the same time, some civilizations which held these distorted beliefs, also had fantastic grasp on things like astronomy, and other topics that could be classified among the natural sciences.

But I digress.

Interestingly, those who most stridently deny “trans-ness” tend to point to “science” and it’s “facts” to support their denial.

Well, in the last few months, science is confirming what members of the transgender community – including trans attracted men who have come to grips with their trans attraction – have known for some time: That transgender people are NOT simply choosing to be trans.

This first study, shared in our IN YOUR FACE (see the video above) show back in March, reveals that transgender women’s brain structure features characteristics distinctly different from both male brains and female brains. From the Online News site Medical Daily:

[R]esearchers from the Medical School of the University of São Paulo, Brazil, decided to investigate this by recruiting 80 participants between the ages of 18 and 49 years. They were categorized into four groups of 20 members each: cisgender women, cisgender men, transgender women who had never used hormones, and transgender women who had used hormones for at least a year. MRI scans were then used to look for differences in gray and white matter volume of the brains.

It was revealed that both groups of transgender women had variations in the volume of the insula in both hemispheres. The insula is a region of the brain that reads the physiological state of the body, thus being responsible for body image and self-awareness.

“It would be simplistic to make a direct link with transgender, but the detection of a difference in the insula is relevant since trans people have many issues relating to their perception of their own body because they don’t identify with the sex assigned at birth,” said Professor Geraldo Busatto, a researcher in the study. In addition to the internal struggle, he adds a reminder that transgender individuals may end up suffering discrimination and persecution.

Several medical news sites picked up the study. We’re eager to see the study repeated in the US, but for now, the tide of medical research and other scientific approaches to confirming or understanding “reality”. In the meantime, we’re happy to see science beginning to get it right.

MRI screen shots — The cross-section in image “a” shows the left-hemisphere insula, which has a reduced volume in transgender women who have never taken hormones compared with the volume in cisgender women; the same can be seen in the right-hemisphere insula (R). Image “b” shows the reduced volume of the left insula in hormone-treated women compared with cisgender women, and again, the same can be seen in the right insula ®. (Source: https://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2018/03/brain-structure-transgender-people-investigated-study_

We here at The Transamorous Network have a broader perspective on transgender people, a perspective agreed with by most indigenous/aboriginal cultures. That is that trans people are a separate type of human being. Separate from “male” and “female”. This separate type represents an “exalted” state of human consciousness, one worthy of respect and honor. It’s no surprise that these indigenous/aboriginal cultures not only honored transgender people, but they also revered them for their closer station to the divine.

We know that will likely piss some readers off. We wonder if those who resist our perspective have swallowed the gender binary indoctrination trope, causing them to want to be seen as “male” (for trans men) or “female” (for trans women), when, in fact, they are neither. But in their “neither” they are something “better”.

The future is surfacing more evidence that those who resist the “transgender phenomena” are pushing against the very future from which the evidence comes. That has historically proven to be a losing proposition. That means, transgender acceptance is a done deal. Everything points to that outcome, including the strenuous arguments of those whose worldview is threatened by transgender people and people who are attracted to them.

September 19, 2017September 15, 2017

California courts side with trans people

Slate Online just published an important article which should be shared throughout the transgender community. It accurately clarifies how the oddest allies of the transgender community, Richard Simmons, and his loss in a California libel suit has benefitted transgender Americans.

The article requires careful reading. Here’s the background:

A tabloid called Simmons a transgender woman. Simmons sued for libel and lost. What the judge said in his ruling was the key stroke which establishes a legal landmark for trans people:

For the first time in United States history, Keosian declared that misidentifying a person as transgender is not defamatory because it does not subject that individual to “hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy.” Keosian further explained that the judicial system should not countenance anti-trans animus, notwithstanding its existence in pockets of society. “While, as a practical matter, [transgender persons can] be held in contempt by a portion of the population,” Keosian said, “the court will not validate those prejudices by legally recognizing them.”

From the actual court document, which you can download here.:

The court does not mean to imply in its holding that the difficulties and bigotry facing transgender people is minimal or nonexistent. To the contrary, the court has reviewed the evidence submitted by Simmons regarding the deplorable statistics relating to transgender people….However, this court finds that even if there is a sizeable portion of the population who would view being transgender as negative, the court should not, in the words of our cousins in Massachusetts, “directly or indirectly, give effect to these prejudices.” (Albright, supra, 321 F.Supp.2d at p. 137–138.) Similar to the that court’s reasoning regarding the prejudices facing homosexuals, “[i]f this Court were to agree that calling someone” transgender “is defamatory per se—it would, in effect, validate that sentiment and legitimize relegating [transgender people] to second-class status.” Such a finding is consistent with holdings that misidentifying one’s race, medical condition, or sexual orientation is not libelous per se simply because there exist a portion of the population that expresses prejudice towards those groups.

The entire Slate article is worth a read. What it tells me is the legal foundations of the country are increasingly coming down on the side of transgender people. Added to this is the current administration’s hardline on indicting murderers of transgender people with federal hate crimes, and you have just a boatload of positive news about how society is shifting.

Good news all around!

September 12, 2017September 8, 2017

The difficulty of being the “woke” police

MUNROE - WARROR OR FOOL — It depends on your story.

Monroe Bergdorf. Bless her heart.

She’s been the topic of wild criticism of late, having offended an entire race of people. Some within that race are more open-minded to her criticism. Others, less so.

I can see her point. I can also see her critic’s points. Everyone has a story. Each is valid for the person holding it. So, how do we as a species, as a group of people, get along in the wake of all this story-making, much of which has to do with pointing fingers at what we dislike or disagree?

If everyone is telling stories and those stories are creating evidence confirming it, is it possible for us to all get on the same page? Is it possible for all white people to acknowledge their in-born privilege? Is it possible for all black people to acknowledge their victim mentality? Is it possible that you, or I, can tell a person he’s wrong, when the world is providing him evidence which confirms his stories?

For me, what matters is this: Are you happy in your personal life?

Whether you are trans, or cis, male or female, that question can be a guiding light for you. Answering that question doesn’t have to involve anyone else. For if you can find personal happiness, and tell stories from that place, your life will shape over time in favor of those stories. As that happens, people inconsistent with the happy stories you’re telling will fade out of your life and those who are “in tune” with your happy stories will fade into your life. It all begins with the stories you’re telling.

I worked several months with a person who defined himself as an activist, much like Munroe. The problem with being an activist is, it’s not a very happy life. This guy I worked with one-on-one was trying so hard to right the wrongs of society – in the areas of class warfare, wealth inequity, racism, sexism and more – all he could see when he looked out into society was a pandemic of problems, problems that, no matter how hard he tried, he acknowledged he was making very little progress in abating.

Ironically, he was making himself miserable! He was depressed, pessimistic. He had little hope for humanity. And, if matters for him weren’t bad enough, he was miserable over his eyesight which was increasingly failing on him. I find that situation ironic too: The more he focused on seeing all the negative in the world, the worse his eyesight seemed to be getting…

It’s one thing to want to make the world a better place. But you can’t do that telling stories about how wrong people are. Nor can you do that with your actions alone. All you do is make people defensive. You make them dig into their already negative stories, thus creating more of what you think must change. Not less.

Is there a place for activism? You bet. But there’s got to be a better way than throwing blame around claiming to have the high ground on woke.