Something occurred to me yesterday morning at 4am. I was awake anticipating the alarm to go off on my cellphone. A set of thoughts creeped into my mind and I'm sure I'm not the only trans person to ever think of this.
So I was thinking as I often do about how cis people and society view us. In general, it's almost all negative. In fact, sometimes even our allies (not all of course) seem to be holding their nose while providing support. All of us cope with this on our journey and we often have to develop thick skin to counter it. Nothing new here; as a minority or a marginal class or as folk who look or act a little different, we can tend to evoke discomfort in mainstream cis-folk.
Then I realized that whenever one reads a story about some new statistic or study about trans people, it's invariably about the negative aspects. Certainly true and important. But if all one sees is the suicide rates and the violence perpetrated against us and the surgeries, then it's no surprise that we're having a tough time overcoming cis fears on a society wide level. We're a data driven society.
Like many of you, I took the 2015 survey – now, I think, one of the largest. So all good stuff. Data is important especially regarding our health. But here's the thing, I've always suspected that we transfolk are special in many ways. I for one wouldn't change my transness in spite of the trauma it has created in my life. I attribute my creativity, my mental flexibility, my intuition, my compassion and empathy, and many other positive elements of me to either being trans directly or significantly enhanced by being trans. Like you, I see the world through completely different lenses than 99% of the rest of humanity.
Now, that has to be important, right? There were no questions on that survey like: have you ever composed a song, written fiction, made art, cared for someone who is sick, raised or taught kids, saved someones life? Do you have a keen sense of what will happen in the future? I can't tell how many times I've been told I'm the smartest person someone has met or I'm so creative or the nicest person. I never solicit those comments but I don't think it's a coincidence. I don't know how to write survey questions and I know there's a science to it to weed out bias, but you get the idea.
So why aren't social and psychological scientists studying this? What if a study was published that compared trans and cis people's positive personality traits: creativity, empathy, openness to new ideas, etc. My hunch is that we'd come out on top statistically, on average. Don't you agree? Imagine the NY Times writing a story on a study of 1000 randomly selected cis and trans people that determined that we are statistically more likely to be creative or having higher emotional intelligence or just plain higher intelligence or something like that.
Then we'd begin to be special again. Again? See that's the thing. It takes 5 minutes of digging to find out that we were once considered a gift to cultures and societies and tribes from an anthropological point of view. We were healers and shaman and artists and warriors and advisors to power. We had a wisdom that everyone else did not have. We saw things no one else saw, and that perspective was so valuable. We were sought after as lovers and friends. What the hell happened? I don't know but we have a positive history and I think it's time to revive that history.
So I just wanted to plant this seed with any sociologists/scientists perusing our boards, maybe looking for anecdotal data or whatever. Here you go – someones future PhD thesis.
What an insightful post Lauren :) Sadly surveys are rarely unbiased, the funding for them has to come from somewhere, and the reason for that funding usually has an agenda. So often the questions are loaded to support that agenda and filters out anything that is deemed irrelevant.
This is true of all statistical surveys, not just those directed at trans people. I have read articles that have linked trans with creative types but they are usually written by trans people themselves.
Peace and love and all that good stuff,
Sadie