Editor's note: This writing feels like a piece of a larger work I'm starting to form that collects concepts I've discussed on the blog, and so it's not really "done." I'm sure there's more to be said on this topic, but I want to share what I have so far.
I’ve been using the term “reintegration” to refer to the process of reconciling with one’s pre-transition self. Cultural messaging often encourages trans people to dismiss or even hate our pre-transition selves, which strikes me as suspiciously aligned with both older transnormative gatekeeping practices (leave your loved ones, change your name, skip town) and with the exaggerated narratives that trans people have used (and often internalized as a consequence) to work around those same gatekeepers (I’ve always had a clear conception of my gender, I hate my body to the point of self destruction). The value system that created both viewpoints is one of assimilation or death. Imagine instead a world where trans people are typical members of society who still retain our uniqueness, a world where transition can be celebrated as an act of enormous personal growth.
If we cannot regard our past selves with compassion, how can we expect to grow as emotional beings? How can we expect others to share in our joy if we start from a basis of self-hate? I think the harder but ultimately more fulfilling path for the individual is to acknowledge who we were, and find love and understanding for that person, however problematic and dissociative they might have been.
To speak from experience — Deadname was a prior version of me who had dismantled access to his full set of emotions in order to protect himself from feeling the dangerous gender feelings. He dissociated regularly using computers and a heavy weed habit, and he was cranky when he was sober most of the time. That crankiness now reminds me of how babies get cranky — they don’t know how to understand the feelings from their body and it just turns into an emotional outburst.
Deadname tried really hard in therapy to learn tools to feel his emotions, but it was never going to work because his emotions were intentionally sabotaged. It’s taken some time, but I now feel compassion for him because of how much he struggled in life. I also feel gratitude for how he tried so hard to protect me and get me to a safe space to come out. There’s also some guilt for how he hurt people in his life because of his immaturity, and I’m still dismantling many of the defense mechanisms that he built. I don’t resent him, but there came a time for us to separate because I was just being weighed down.
What reintegration has looked like for me since then has been identifying and changing the maladaptive behaviors and views that Deadname put in place in order to protect me. This has required a lot of introspection, creativity, and willingness to try new things. The first place I started was being open to the idea that I have always been transgender, and walking through my past with that lens. When I think of my childhood as a trans girlhood, suddenly a lot of strange or frustrating experiences make more sense. How I formed (or failed to form) relationships, how people treated me in gendered environments, rules that I put in place for myself, old habits and interests that no longer suit me - all of the logic behind these things has begun to come into focus and I can see how I arrived at my present. Once I could understand my past self’s subconscious motives, I could begin to develop empathy for who I was before.
Other parts of reintegration are more focused on the present, and learning to see myself as I am rather than as how I’ve thought of myself. Some of this has been personal growth not unique to trans people — developing body positivity, embracing the erotic and rediscovering my relationship to pleasure, working on vulnerability and intention in my relationships. These are things that my past self was incapable of approaching with candor, and so now is the time to pursue them.