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There's one more week left in the summer semester. My pain levels are slightly higher, as they usually are when the classes are winding down. I have the stress of the two finals I have left. CompTIA A+'s certification test is the most important one for me. I'm sure my biology teacher would be disappointed to hear this, but I've figured out that a lot of what I learned in High school biology no longer applies. It's not just that it's paired down. It's that a lot has changed. But, this is entirely okay, I took the class to update my knowledge of biology and because the class interested me. I'll keep the textbook and tried to read it again when I have time. I'm afraid I couldn't learn as much in a summer class as I should have. The pacing is too fast.
However, that's not what is on my mind. I've been thinking about my bizarre relationship with Otherkin. Before I learned that this group existed, I held the belief that I have a female spirit and that was the cause of my gender identity issues. When I learned what Otherkin believed, I dropped the idea because I was embarrassed by it. I was even more embarrassed when they claimed they were the only people who could understand what transgender people were going through. I did not want to associate myself with people who believed that they had the soul of a dragon, a werewolf, a vampire, or a Tolkeinesque elf. It was even more embarassing when the Lord of the Rings came out and some of these people said the depictions of the elves matched their memories from their Elven lives.
My belief about my gender identity came from my Mormon background, where we have spiritual as well as physical bodies. It made sense to me that, for whatever reason, god would sometimes put a female spirit into a male spirt or vice versa. If you want to believe god is perfect and does not make this sort of mistake, you can shift the burden of blame to his angels. Some people reconcile this by saying god didn't make a mistake. Such placements, when they occur are deliberate. Like many people, I wanted a cause for my suffering. It's easier to tell yourself that god is testing you when you hold beliefs like I did. (Mormon theology holds that life is a test, after all.)
If pressed on this issue in public, I would not admit to holding this belief for the reasons state above, but like it or not, it is an explanation that dovetails nicely with Mormon belief. It also dovetails nicely with what Otherkin believe. This does not mean I am Otherkin; I associate this, -- rightly or wrongly -- with people who believe they have the soul of mythological creatures. I also no longer hold the Mormon beliefs about the pre-existence.
Taoism offers a better explanation for this, although modern science offfers the best one. The two dovetail with each other. I am transgender because of natural processes that occurred within my mother's womb that caused my brain to develop differently from my body. As someone whose gender fits neatly into the gender binary, I can at least fall back on this. I do not know if agender people will have a similar explanation or not later.
All of this may be interesting, but what I believe is not the important issue here. It's how I react to what other people believe. For a while I wondered if Otherkin suffered from a mental illness. I used to worry about it. (This makes sense if you know my history and understand the time when I fist encountered the Otherkin belief system.) Eventually, I came to the conclusion that as long as the vampires otherkin aren't killing and drinking the blood of others and the werewolves aren't actively hunting down their prey, that these beliefs were harmless. This is how I'm dealing with multiples right now, or at least how I am trying to understand them. There's no harm in saying that I do not understand multiples right now. The belief that they are inhabited by multiple individuals isn't much different from me recognizing thoughst as coming from different parts of myself. The only real difference is that I never felt the need to give these parts a name. Strangely, I've not felt that there are different parts of myself any more. Perhaps this is a side effect of transition. I'm no longer fighting between how I present myself to the world and how I feel about myself on most days. Perhaps it is not. Multiples who do not harm themselves or others should not be a concern for me. If they are wrong, they have committed no worse crime than being wrong. Heaven knows we've all done that.
P.S. I still believe in spirits and that spirits have gender. I just don't believe in the Heavenly procreation narrative the Mormons push.
However, that's not what is on my mind. I've been thinking about my bizarre relationship with Otherkin. Before I learned that this group existed, I held the belief that I have a female spirit and that was the cause of my gender identity issues. When I learned what Otherkin believed, I dropped the idea because I was embarrassed by it. I was even more embarrassed when they claimed they were the only people who could understand what transgender people were going through. I did not want to associate myself with people who believed that they had the soul of a dragon, a werewolf, a vampire, or a Tolkeinesque elf. It was even more embarassing when the Lord of the Rings came out and some of these people said the depictions of the elves matched their memories from their Elven lives.
My belief about my gender identity came from my Mormon background, where we have spiritual as well as physical bodies. It made sense to me that, for whatever reason, god would sometimes put a female spirit into a male spirt or vice versa. If you want to believe god is perfect and does not make this sort of mistake, you can shift the burden of blame to his angels. Some people reconcile this by saying god didn't make a mistake. Such placements, when they occur are deliberate. Like many people, I wanted a cause for my suffering. It's easier to tell yourself that god is testing you when you hold beliefs like I did. (Mormon theology holds that life is a test, after all.)
If pressed on this issue in public, I would not admit to holding this belief for the reasons state above, but like it or not, it is an explanation that dovetails nicely with Mormon belief. It also dovetails nicely with what Otherkin believe. This does not mean I am Otherkin; I associate this, -- rightly or wrongly -- with people who believe they have the soul of mythological creatures. I also no longer hold the Mormon beliefs about the pre-existence.
Taoism offers a better explanation for this, although modern science offfers the best one. The two dovetail with each other. I am transgender because of natural processes that occurred within my mother's womb that caused my brain to develop differently from my body. As someone whose gender fits neatly into the gender binary, I can at least fall back on this. I do not know if agender people will have a similar explanation or not later.
All of this may be interesting, but what I believe is not the important issue here. It's how I react to what other people believe. For a while I wondered if Otherkin suffered from a mental illness. I used to worry about it. (This makes sense if you know my history and understand the time when I fist encountered the Otherkin belief system.) Eventually, I came to the conclusion that as long as the vampires otherkin aren't killing and drinking the blood of others and the werewolves aren't actively hunting down their prey, that these beliefs were harmless. This is how I'm dealing with multiples right now, or at least how I am trying to understand them. There's no harm in saying that I do not understand multiples right now. The belief that they are inhabited by multiple individuals isn't much different from me recognizing thoughst as coming from different parts of myself. The only real difference is that I never felt the need to give these parts a name. Strangely, I've not felt that there are different parts of myself any more. Perhaps this is a side effect of transition. I'm no longer fighting between how I present myself to the world and how I feel about myself on most days. Perhaps it is not. Multiples who do not harm themselves or others should not be a concern for me. If they are wrong, they have committed no worse crime than being wrong. Heaven knows we've all done that.
P.S. I still believe in spirits and that spirits have gender. I just don't believe in the Heavenly procreation narrative the Mormons push.