Transgender People & Identity View
So I notice sometimes that being trans is categorized as identity view. I can see why people would do that, given how being trans is often described as gender identity.
However, I'm going to say as a trans person this has not been my experience. In my experience personally and in working running a trans support group, it seems more there is frequently two layers:
1) Trans as bodily misalignment leading to dysphoria (physical illness generating suffering)
2) Trans identity arising from cultural association, separation and discrimination (identity view)
The former (1) is what generates dysphoria, which is the experience of the primary and secondary sex characteristics misaligned with the brain, causing suffering. This suffering is resolved primarily through the treatment of the body (form) via surgeries and hormonal treatment. Many words arise to articulate the nature and treatment path, such as transsexual, Male to Female, Female to Male, etc.
For example, in my own case I had suffering arising from possessing male sex characteristics, this suffering then decreased and partially went away through surgery and hormonal treatment.
The latter (2) is a constructed impermanent identity arising from association and engagement with various cultures. Such as American culture saying "men do this, women do this". The LGBTQ community has created many more specific words to identify how an individual views themselves in relation to this culture or how they don't. This tends to influence how an individual feels it is appropriate to dress, what jobs they should hold, how they should and shouldn't respond to others. Such as people who see themselves as women desiring to carry and give birth to children.
In my own case, through practice I came to set aside the idea that I fit inside a specific gender role and opted to identify as a less definitive kind of gender (non-binary) precisely because I don't feel it's important to the path, practicing virtue or meditation. Yet if I were to not identify this way by choice the phenomena itself would still remain, the lack of adherence to or sense of the importance of gender identity wouldn't change.
At the same time, no one likes false accusation, hence this post.
Do you have thoughts on being transgender and how it relates to identity view in the Buddhist context? Are you trans yourself?
Thoughts and words appreciated.
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