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Originally Posted by jim
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I usually congratulate people when they tell me, “I don't know who I
am anymore.” Then they look perplexed and ask, “Are you saying it is a good thing to be confused?” I ask them to investigate. What does it mean to be confused? “I don't know “ is not confusion. Confusion is: “I don't know, but I should know” or “I don't know, but I need to know.” is it possible to let go of the belief that you should or need to know who you are? In other words, can you cease looking to conceptual definitions to give you a sense of self? Can you cease looking to thought for an identity? When you let go of the belief that you should or need to know who you are, what happens to confusion? Suddenly it is gone. When you fully accept that you don't know, you actually enter a state of peace and clarity that is closer to who you truly are than thought could ever be. Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself.
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I don't not know who I am. I know exactly who I am and I have never for a second doubted it. But I can't agree with you that looking at the range of identities and "defining" yourself as one - or identifying with one, because i feel like this makes a HUGE leap in assuming that identifying with a group as the same as defining yourself as, and limiting yourself to, that same set of identifying markers - is something that is INHERENTLY anti-peacefulness, anti-clarity, anti-acceptance of self. Identifying as part of a broader community based on my lack of identification with a larger community that I've been told for 20 years I'm part of, does not, to me, sound like what is being described as a limiting, confused experience.
I am not confused. I am not questioning. I am making public the degree to which I am certain that I will never fulfill the gender roles associated with the identity I've held up until now, and the degree with which I identify with and feel I am part of the broader trans* community.