{"id":7430,"date":"2021-02-19T18:50:53","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T23:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/?p=7430"},"modified":"2021-02-19T21:03:21","modified_gmt":"2021-02-20T02:03:21","slug":"diagnostic-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/2021\/02\/diagnostic-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Diagnostic Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In some ways it feels like transness is a thing for Other People<\/em>, to explain to them why I’m not behaving the way they expect me to. For my part it’s more like I’m finally getting care for a condition that was negligently misdiagnosed and so has gone untreated all my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It kinda feels like\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 making a transition from, say, an assumed free-breather who keeps coughing all the time, goddamn, to an asthmatic. Like, this was probably always the case, right? Or more close-to-home, a transition from a neurotypical to an autistic with ADHD issues. I was obviously never neurotypical; that doesn’t even make sense. Pinpointing my neurological situation is about correcting for a previous set of false assumptions and lack of care and support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the same reasoning, at no point did I ever agree to my gender assessment. I just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 didn’t want to argue<\/a>. It’s neither here nor there that as a result of that misdiagnosis it took me 40 years to work out what was wrong with my situation. It happens all the time medically. I’m not changing anything. This is a diagnostic process. All I’m doing is correcting for other people’s mistakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sense where I am obviously gloriously correctly trans is the cultural, ideological aspect. There’s a way of thinking, of relating to one’s self and the world\u00e2\u20ac\u201da sort of shared understanding of how things work\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat is very different from those who don’t have to deal with this. And that is very much a part of who I am and who I want to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an ideal society we wouldn’t dump these gendered assumptions on people the moment they’re born, and even before. Before roughly the 20th century, kids in western culture were treated as more or less androgynous until they hit puberty, at which point they adopted gendered roles. The past sucks and shouldn’t be taken as a model for the future, obviously. But point is, this is arbitrary that we project this garbage on our frickin’ caterpillars, way before it’s relevant to their lives or their self-concepts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If our culture actually made sense, then\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, gender as we know it probably wouldn’t so much be a thing even\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut more to the point, it would be pretty meaningless to be trans, as people would make up their own minds who they were and wanted to be at the right time\u00e2\u20ac\u201dexcept in the occasional case someone realized whoops, they got it wrong before, or something in their life really changed the way they felt, which, of course, valid. But then, like, it still wouldn’t necessarily have anything to do with assigned gender, right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Assigned gender has nothing to do with me. It’s never played into my self-concept except for the fucking trauma that it’s caused me and the way it’s forced me to react and sublimate myself to keep safe all these years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make a very cautious parallel that one shouldn’t look at too deeply, just as race doesn’t really have a biological basis yet it’s still meaningful due to cultural identity and history, I absolutely am socially trans. 100%. There’s too much wrapped up in that concept. As for me, though, the way that I see myself? I’m just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People got things wrong, and I listened to them. And it hurt me. Then I worked out the truth, and I’m getting better. That’s\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 really nothing to do with me. Who I really am has no relation to what others expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m just Azure. I’m some weird kind of a girl. I always have been. People are just dumb.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In some ways it feels like transness is a thing for Other People, to explain to them why I’m not behaving the way they expect me to. For my part it’s more like I’m finally getting care for a condition that was negligently misdiagnosed and so has gone untreated all my life. It kinda feels […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1156,1074,1150,1180,1126],"class_list":["post-7430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-azure","tag-gender","tag-self-concept","tag-transness","tag-trauma","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7430"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7438,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7430\/revisions\/7438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aderack.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}