Gender Discrepancy as the 'Sickness Unto Death'

[Shana A]

Gender Discrepancy as the 'Sickness Unto Death'

Filed By Drew Cordes | August 09, 2011 11:00 AM

http://www.bilerico.com/2011/08/gender_discrepancy_as_the_sickness_unto_death.php

"Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self." These words appear at the beginning of Soren Kierkegaard's "Sickness Unto Death." Writing from a Christian perspective, Kierkegaard believed in the existence of life after corporeal death; therefore, the only True and Eternal sickness unto death was a sickness of the spirit, of the self - namely, despair. Kierkegaard identifies various types of despair in his book:

    the unconscious despair of not knowing oneself;
    the conscious despair of not wanting to be oneself;
    the conscious despair of the perceived inability to be oneself; and
    the conscious despair of wanting to be oneself.

Each of these forms of despair is paralleled in the struggles of gender-nonconforming individuals to identify their True selves and integrate their ideal gender expression with their identity.