Transgender: Rejection of Ego or Rejection by Society
What is transgender? You may not be familiar with what being transgender means, so to explain, we first we need to look at the concepts of sex and gender. Sex is biological; it refers to your biological status at birth and is associated with physical anatomy, hormones and chromosomes. Gender, on the other hand, refers to social roles, behaviors and attributes that a society deems appropriate for males or females (Transgender FAQS). It is difficult to imagine how dreadful it feels if every time you look in the mirror you see the reflection of a stranger looking back at you. The image reflected was not the “real you” physically and definitely doesn’t portray the gender of the human being you …show more content…
“The boy I felt inside just didn’t match what she wanted- or had planned- for her daughter” (Bono 17). In addition, there were fights and snide comments from Cher about clothes and hair. He acknowledges that his mom seemed uncomfortable with his gender identity and this may have contributed to the repression of Chaz Bono’s challenging feelings. He felt his certainty of being a boy disappeared as soon as his awareness that it was “wrong” increased. This was reinforcement for the super- ego to control his actions. It was the beginning of a lifetime of pushing away thoughts and feelings about his gender …show more content…
Freud explains that, “What is bad is often not at all what is injurious or dangerous to the ego; on the contrary, it may be something that is desirable and enjoyable to the ego…there is an extraneous influence that decides what is to be called good or bad” (Freud 85). Society began sending him the message that his “normal” behavior was not “normal” for a girl. Chaz Bono was at odds; happiness or loss of love. It is human nature to want love and acceptance from family, friends and society. Freud explains that it is a primal emotion to feel that loss of love equals loss of protection from danger. Deep inside every human being we crave safety. Safety can come in many different forms from the obvious, shelter, to the more abstract, the safety of feeling it is okay to be who we are without fear of punishment. Freud further states a sense of guilt comes when we do something bad or think about doing bad things (Freud 84). For Chaz being bad meant feeling that he was essentially a male although his body was female. The sense of guilt would build like a snowball to an avalanche and affect his life in profound ways as he tried to decide how he could thrive in
What is transgender? You may not be familiar with what being transgender means, so to explain, we first we need to look at the concepts of sex and gender. Sex is biological; it refers to your biological status at birth and is associated with physical anatomy, hormones and chromosomes. Gender, on the other hand, refers to social roles, behaviors and attributes that a society deems appropriate for males or females (Transgender FAQS). It is difficult to imagine how dreadful it feels if every time you look in the mirror you see the reflection of a stranger looking back at you. The image reflected was not the “real you” physically and definitely doesn’t portray the gender of the human being you …show more content…
“The boy I felt inside just didn’t match what she wanted- or had planned- for her daughter” (Bono 17). In addition, there were fights and snide comments from Cher about clothes and hair. He acknowledges that his mom seemed uncomfortable with his gender identity and this may have contributed to the repression of Chaz Bono’s challenging feelings. He felt his certainty of being a boy disappeared as soon as his awareness that it was “wrong” increased. This was reinforcement for the super- ego to control his actions. It was the beginning of a lifetime of pushing away thoughts and feelings about his gender …show more content…
Freud explains that, “What is bad is often not at all what is injurious or dangerous to the ego; on the contrary, it may be something that is desirable and enjoyable to the ego…there is an extraneous influence that decides what is to be called good or bad” (Freud 85). Society began sending him the message that his “normal” behavior was not “normal” for a girl. Chaz Bono was at odds; happiness or loss of love. It is human nature to want love and acceptance from family, friends and society. Freud explains that it is a primal emotion to feel that loss of love equals loss of protection from danger. Deep inside every human being we crave safety. Safety can come in many different forms from the obvious, shelter, to the more abstract, the safety of feeling it is okay to be who we are without fear of punishment. Freud further states a sense of guilt comes when we do something bad or think about doing bad things (Freud 84). For Chaz being bad meant feeling that he was essentially a male although his body was female. The sense of guilt would build like a snowball to an avalanche and affect his life in profound ways as he tried to decide how he could thrive in