Episode 12
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Ikenna: So
in honor of pride week or pride
month, um, I have come across several different talks and social media posts from. Transgender people who have provided information about their experiences, getting a consult from doctors and other healthcare professionals. Mm-hmm to determine whether or not they are well
enough to get the surgery. Right. I don't know, the, I need to have a look and find the exact TikTok, um, cuz I saved it a long time ago, but some of the questions were very
specific in terms of how someone relates to their gender. Mm-hmm to the point where. I doubt those are questions that CIS people think about.
Safrianna: I absolutely, this is, this is actually a big topic with several of my clients that we've explored because they've, you know, identified as cis their whole life. And I'm like, okay.
what, what makes you, you know, what makes you a woman or what makes you a man or, you know, whatever their assignment was. And sometimes they have no idea and it's a huge disservice when we go down the checkbox of what's available and we stop on the first option.
Ikenna: Right. Like I choose default.
Safrianna: Yeah. And it, it is also those people don't experience the invasiveness that many trans people do because their options are always available on forms and such.
Ikenna: Yeah. And in terms of invasiveness, whenever there is a departure from dominant culture. There's always, almost always, uh, at least with me as a nineties kid, uh, there was intense questioning as to, well, why are you deferring to a different, uh, to something different? Mm-hmm um, there must be something wrong.
You must be seeking attention. You must be. Uh, mentally ill, because no one who is in their right mind would stray from conformity.
Safrianna: Yeah, I think it's this just huge problem that society has created where we've essentially created a supposed one size fits all blueprint, a cookie cutter.
This is what your humanness is supposed to look like. And that means that you completely resonate with the body. that you were born in, um, and what society, places upon that body and cuz that's the thing, like there are absolutely trans and non-binary people that never get surgery or take hormones.
They're fine with their body. It's just that they're gender mm-hmm or expression is different than what society, places on that.
Ikenna: And you using the term resonate makes me think about the fact. , there are probably people who are out there who are CIS and don't resonate necessarily.
Safrianna: Yeah.
Ikenna: But it's something where it, it just is like, it's just not a thing you question.
So if you've questioned it, that means whatever thing that you have decided on next. , that's not the default. You must resonate with this. Mm-hmm really intensely in order for it to be correctly, your identity, and right. That causes a lot of stress in the LGBTQIA community, because there's so many times that I'll look at a non-binary group where there will be posts of being like, do I pass enough?
Am I right?
Safrianna: Do I pass as non-binary enough? Like.
Ikenna: Yeah. Am I non-binary enough? Am I too old to be? Non-binary like, you know, it's been, there have been some really beautiful stories of, of people older than 40 and 50, 60 even posting on Facebook being like it's been so long before I found a, a community that understands.
What I've been going through mm-hmm from all of my life, but since I'm so old now, and I never had the word for it, like, I feel like an imposter, so
Safrianna: right. And how many CIS people do we see running around asking, you know, am I feminine enough? Am I masculine enough? Like they don't verbally ask it. They may be wondering it.
Yeah, of course, because society has this idea, this super coded. again, like your assignment at birth, you should look like this. Mm-hmm you should act like this. And yeah, that's why I like the idea of resonance because I I've worked with a lot of AFAB people that when we talk about feminine expression, what we traditionally think of as, as feminine expression, you know, maybe it's floral print and makeup and long hair.
And. You know, delicate movement or whatever. And there, and I have lots of CIS women that are like you now.
Ikenna: I'm like the clunkiest AFAB , but
Safrianna: well, and then there's me, right? Like I identify as, as a fem to an agender on a spectrum. Uh, but my expression tends to be more fem and. I, but I don't have to question if I'm feminine enough.
Ikenna: I just don't resonate.
Safrianna: Yeah, you don't resonate with,
Ikenna: I don't perceive me just don't I'm not, not resonating with anything.
I am a void. I am, but the,
Safrianna: you are the endless sky,
Ikenna: the endless sky. I am, I am the white noise.
Safrianna: but you know, this is, um, this illusion of. there being only one right way to be human mm-hmm and. Well two right ways to be human. You're either a male human or a female human.
Ikenna: And, and those were direct images from God.
Safrianna: Yes. Anyway, um,
Ikenna: which means God was both.
Safrianna: Well, it's really interesting. And I, I could go off on a theological conversation here, but in, we'll say interpretations of Bible one, Adam was both Adam and Eve and Adam was the body and Eve was the soul inhabited the body.
Ikenna: That's awesome. I mean, the people have also interpreted God as the masculine and the holy spirit as the feminine.
Right. And then Jesus says, I don't know.
Safrianna: so owning, owning things, ownership, um, Ownership we think means control and like being in control of something, if we own it, we must be in control of it. Instead of it being, you know, something that's lovingly embraced. And we can tell that we're out of balance with our relationship and, and ownership of our identities, which includes our gender.
If we're experiencing. Anxiety and stress and illness and chronic pain and like things like that, uh, can be related to our yeah. Self view. Yeah. And how we're relating to the world and trying to fit in with other people's, um, versions of that. And society has these ideas of, you know, one size fits all bodies.
um, achievement being the thing that you have to strive for, uh, life scripting. So literally that idea, like you must, uh, grow up as you're assigned gender, find somebody to date of the opposite gender. Date them, get engaged, get married, get a house white picket fence 2.5 kids.
Dog or cat.
Ikenna: I always love the 2.5 kids. Like you're just, once you hit the two kids, you're just gonna be halfway pregnant for the rest of your life.
Safrianna: but like, it's a, it's a, it's a rat race. Mm-hmm uh, and when we try to buy into that game, um, and we don't ask ourselves the questions of like, what makes me me mm-hmm right.
We automatically go. Societals societal scripting and that causes all of these, you know, issues.
Ikenna: I was like, what analogy could I make in terms of like, like how life is a game, like is life like this one video game where. Everyone is claims that you're a cheater. If you have mods um, cuz Lord knows you've had a ton of games that you immediately put on a polyamorous mod.
Safrianna: Aw, heck yep. Um, oh man. Now I wanna go play my time at Portia and marry all of the husbandos and waifus again,
Ikenna: the husbandos .
Safrianna: Me husbandos amazing.
Ikenna: but yeah, so it's like society handed you a video game and it is, uh, ableist. So like only one type of controller, like let's say like, you are better built for PC controls and they hand you an Xbox controller or switch controller or something.
Safrianna: And then I automatically fail the game.
Ikenna: Right. Exactly. And they're like, oh, but you're just not like you, you just need to try harder or you, you know, and that's the sort of thing that society does on so many other and even, even the aspects of society. Are like, Hey, okay. Non-binary people can exist, but what non-binary looks like is androgynous.
Safrianna: It's an AFAB person with top surgery and short hair and an undercut yep. And masc fashion. Yep. That is a non-binary person by societal standards. Yep. And that is the only acceptable they them.
Ikenna: Yep. And if people enjoy. Like, um, I , I feel, I feel bad for trans men because there are some trans men out there that are like, I'm so good at passing now.
Mm-hmm, like, I'm so good at passing, but like, how do I, I don't wanna scare people either. Like, I don't wanna scare the LGBTQ community. I wanna show them that I am a trans man. Like I belong in the community sort of thing. Um, and that's always like really shitty that like people who have embraced who they are, like have gone into this journey of embracing their, their gender as being a man.
And they've done all of the work to become exactly who they're proud to be, but now there are an identity. That people will flag as a threat. Yeah. And, and it sucks because it's like that that flag is a threat in the community that they are safe in. Right. Versus like trans women are flagged is a threat all the time in dominant culture.
Right. Um, to the point where many of them are unfortunately murdered, many of them every year.
Safrianna: And assaulted and all kinds of terrible things. And this whole concept of passing like passing is based off the societal script of what gender is supposed to look like. Yep. You know,
Ikenna: and if you don't pass or if you aren't following the script, then you must be some level of queer.
Like there are people out there that I know who are. not queer like they're allies, but they also express themselves more fluidly mm-hmm and because that's just who they are, which is great. And, but then they're flagged, just being queer
Safrianna: and then treated poorly. Yeah, because of the whole, like other, you know what I'm gonna say?
What are you gonna say? The illusion of separation othering. That's that's the whole problem here. Like. We don't question how we quote unquote deviate from the typical life script. If we all would agree with some of the aspects of the life SCR life script, because it's just easier, it's just easier to quote unquote pass.
It's easier to, uh, you know, if, if you're bisexual, it is certainly easier to date the opposite gender. or the opposite looking gender by societal standards so that people don't threaten you. Mm-hmm right. But that's not authentic and no one should have to do that. Exactly. Um, but yeah, it's, it's also huge disservice to CIS people to hetero people who never have the opportunity to actually figure out.
that, that is who they are. Mm-hmm they just blindly accepted it. Yeah, it's really empowering. Um, I actually, there's a, I don't know if it's a huge scene, but in a novel that I wrote, um, my. Very, I would say fem main character. There's a, there's a whole portion where she questions her gender and cuz she's she's AFAB and ends up agreeing that she's CIS female, but she.
questions that, because she questions the way that she looks at femininity mm-hmm and what that means to her and has to, to navigate her own relationship with that.
Ikenna: But why does, like, why does someone. w like, was she questioning how she defined femininity in comparison to how society defend Def defined femininity?
Because that's the thing that I usually find people questioning their identities around, cuz they'll be like, oh, I feel pretty confident in this until I start question until I start comparing my definition to how. other people have defined it.
Safrianna: Yeah. And that's, that's part of the question is like she's looking at the femininity around her and hers is alike.
Some of the other, uh, females of her culture. I'm not using the word woman here because they're aliens. Um, but they're, but their society in general is a, they're poly accepting polyamory, accepting and queer accepting. It's actually more common to be bisexual than gay in their culture. Um, or straight mm-hmm and yeah, gender isn't really a thing that they bring up.
So she brings it up with herself. If she's exploring her identity, it's like, A question that I think all of us should explore. Like, how do I like to express myself? How do I perceive mm-hmm my physical body and what feels good in my skin? You know, how do I like my hair? uh, what colors make me feel powerful.
And those shouldn't be tied into gender mm-hmm and yet society does. Yes.
Ikenna: Yep. Yeah. Oh, you were saying something about. Uh, you were saying, what is it called? Uh, othering separation, the illusion of separation, the illusion of separation,
because
I'm wondering if we separate and compare for, I wonder if it's a part of. Human nature, brain holes that haven't evolved out of us. That's like lizard brain Neanderthal protective piece.
Safrianna: Sure. I'm I'm sure that it is. I think it's, I was actually talking to Justin about this other day, the whole concept that like babies don't really do the whole racism thing.
Yeah. But. By the time they're toddlers, they often do because at that point they've received cultural conditioning. It's been able to be that, that sort of biological, um, generational trauma gets switched on. Yeah. And I was talking about it because. I was acknowledging, um, you know, I, I work with several black clients and I love working with them.
And I think that part of the reason that I've been able to be successful in working with them is because I own my history of racism and how that's shown up in my life. It shows up in every single person's life. Right. Um, as a elementary school student, I befriended the only black girl in school when she.
She started up. I think we were in first grade and it was an all white school and suddenly a, a African American family moved in and I had never been exposed to racism by my family yet. Mm-hmm so I befriended her cuz she had no friends and that's what I did. Um, and then in middle school I had a crush on a black boy and then in high school I had, you know, friends of all.
Colors and national origins and like all kinds like exchange students and, um, you know, people that had moved with their families and people that just had, had been here for generations, but their family had come from, uh, somewhere else. And then people who were completely native and of all different colors, like just a ton of friends.
And then I moved to Tennessee. When I was 18 and somehow the conversation came up around the dinner table and I mentioned, you know, being on the bus in middle school with this boy named Edwin, and somehow it came up that he was black. I don't remember how, but the whole family, cuz this was my, at the time in-laws uh, my whole family looked at me, including my husband at the time.
Like I had. dropped an F bomb in front of grandma or something. Mm-hmm like I had just said something completely terrible. And that was my introduction to like full blown racism. Right. And even though I was 20 or 18 to 20 at the time that I was being exposed to that, that was enough to flip on the biological.
Yeah, generational trauma mm-hmm and have me start questioning things like, am I supposed to act a certain way? Like, am I supposed to fear this? So I had to really question it, question racial relationships, um, in a way that unfortunately, a lot of white people don't when it comes to racism and things like that.
And it's the same thing with gender, because it's not a thing we talk about. We shove it down, we shame it. We say you, you. you're you're this and, and don't think otherwise,
Ikenna: yeah, we just assume the, the conformity, like, I remember just assuming that was what I was gonna be. Like. I was going to be a girl, more of a tomboyish girl, but a girl nonetheless, who felt kind of awkward wearing dresses, but still a girl, um, who was awkwardly taller than most of the boys, which made dating really hard.
But, you know, boys. Cool. Like I liked hanging out with them. Um,
Safrianna: boys were cool.
Ikenna: I mean, yeah.
Safrianna: Heck dang. What a glowing recommendation yes.
Ikenna: Um, well I wanted to play more with the boys than the girls, cuz they actually were playing things that I enjoyed. Um, but yeah, so I just assumed that that would be what I would become.
And so, and I wasn't exposed to a lot of. homosexuality. You weren't exposed to any other options on the checklist? Nope. Nope. It was just, well, any of the other options weren't even on the checklist, they were, it was on like a blacklist, right? Like it was like, oh, Well, there could be these other options, but you're going to burn hell for choosing that.
Safrianna: Don't pick the ones in this folder over here. Yes. There are options, but they're for big they're technically options. Yeah. they don't go along with the life script.
Ikenna: Yeah, exactly. So it's like, again, it's like mods, like here are mods that are gonna cause a virus on your computer and crash it forever. Um, But instead, that's just, you know, that's just the story that, that's just the story.
Yeah. They'll tell you, um,
Safrianna: not everybody likes the vanilla game.
Ikenna: Nope, indeed. Um, they like the kinky game. um,
Safrianna: they like the modded game. There's the vanilla game. And then the mod game game
Ikenna: is vanilla. The term.
Safrianna: Yeah.
Ikenna: Oh, okay. I just was like sometimes. Okay. People use that. Yeah. Gotcha. Um, I learned new terms from Safrianna all the time.
regarding either,
Safrianna: or maybe I just say that
Ikenna: or, or regarding euphemisms or things that are not euphemisms, mostly things that are euphemisms that I don't realize are euphemisms and the time being, uh
Safrianna: oh, I will never get over the meme you sent in the wholesome memes. And I was like, that's not wholesome at all.
Not. Wholesome. Why, why did you think that was wholesome?
Ikenna: I was like, I was like, it's like, you know,
Safrianna: it's just a cute candy meme. No, no, it is in fact a reference to some dark sex stuff, but anyway, sweet, innocent baby.
Ikenna: Oh man. Like, but yeah. So when I. Open that folder and realize that there were so many more options, uh, before.
And the thing is, is it's kind of like the, the forbidden thing that you forbid fruit, the forbidden fruit. There we go. We can just link it all back to, to stories from Christianity. Um, oh, we can.
Safrianna: Yep. Then we can. Yep. We can indeed, because that's our, that's our history.
Ikenna: Well, it is. And like the forbidden fruit caused a lot of guilt.
And is what causes us to feel like we are meant for damnation forever,
Safrianna: the forbidden ch the forbidden check box,
Ikenna: the forbidden check box of, of queer,
Safrianna: of gender and sexual orientation. And yeah, but like everybody needs to this whole grooming thing, you know, you ref you reference that in the prior episode.
Yeah. Um, but you know, I see this in our current culture with. Sex ed. Oh my God. The big battle's about sex ed right now. And like, you can't let the kids know that gay is an option or they'll all be gay.
Ikenna: You can't have. books where there are queer characters in a public library that kids can go find,
Safrianna: because they'll know that that checkbox exists.
Ikenna: Yeah. Like they need to just not be aware of that. And only a heterosexual love interest.
Safrianna: And the fucked up thing of course
Ikenna: is that's technically grooming. like, like technically dominant culture is grooming is grooming. Yeah. Yeah. And. I'm sure there are people that don't wanna hear that, but that's part of what it is.
Safrianna: It is. It is. If you, if you say again, there's this only, only this option and I'm gonna steer you heavily in this direction and not let you figure it out yourself and not let you consent to your own life. But even if we don't know that the check boxes are an option. We still feel like ourselves and our core deep down.
And if that is not the first check box, it's not the available one. We are going to think there is something inherently wrong with us. Yep.
Ikenna: Yep. If, if there's only one check box and there's nothing else outside of, there's nothing to go outside of the box. you just think that you're broken because you don't fit in that box, but there's no other box to check.
Right. And so that can be really disorienting for people and be like, well, I guess I'm just this broken version of what, you know, dominant culture says I need to be
Safrianna: right. And that can, that can come in so many different forms, like compulsory sexuality, like regardless of your sexual orientation, you must be sexual mm-hmm uh,
Ikenna: I had this thing where I, um, I thought that in order to say this, this is even a thing, like, I didn't really know what the word crush meant.
Apparently, according to dominant culture, apparently according to dominant culture, or at least what people taught me when I was in middle school and high school. Was that if you have a crush on someone, you want to have sex with them, if you want to have sex with them, that means you are fantasizing about both of you being naked together in bed.
That was what I thought it meant mm-hmm so if I was like, oh, I really like this person does this mean I have a crush on them. Let me see. So I'd like right before I'd go to bed. I'd like force myself to try to envision like what they could look like naked . And see if I didn't have a gag reflex, which is a problem in itself.
The fact that I would just be like, can I tolerate the fact that they're naked? does that mean I have a crush on them?
Safrianna: And that came from your programming, your, your cultural conditioning and, and what you were taught by family members and such. Yeah. So it's, uh, again, one that whole one size fits all. Like it does not.
Yeah, it never does.
Ikenna: Yeah. And when, like my first boyfriend, like lovingly grabbed my butt while we were attempting to kiss, I had a panic attack and then was like, oh, um, maybe I'm just asexual. Cuz for me, like asexual was not homosexual.
Safrianna: Right. And just not wanting to have sex with a man, but be with a man was still a better option than not to being with a man.
Yeah. By societal standards.
Ikenna: By societal standards. Yeah.
Safrianna: Oh, and don't even get me. So then we get into like the whole questioning about gender and, and the things that CIS people and people often don't ask. There are a lot of people that are ACE yeah. In. cis-het relationships. Yep. And feel wrong. And like something is off with their relationship because they don't wanna have sex with their partner.
They only wanna have sex with their partner once in a blue moon. Yeah. Um,
Ikenna: and I know that you go through phases sometimes, and there was like a bigger phase at one point where, like you even got a book that we like listened to together about being ACE. And you went through this whole big, um, like you were legitimately like, so worried mm-hmm about it and what that would mean for our relationship and due to the stigma of ACE people.
Yeah, yeah.
Safrianna: Yeah. And so ACE flux people exist like me where it, it, we exist on fluid spectrums and even why, you know, the whole Kinsey scale and, and whatnot, like gender and gender expression are so fluid. Yeah. And. yet society. Like if you see a, a, somebody who appears to be a, a fab woman mm-hmm um, and she's wearing a button up shirt.
Mm-hmm that's okay. Mm-hmm I'm saying that's okay from society's perspective here. Um, but if you see an AMAB person who. You know, he's wearing a floral print, uh, blouse in pants. Yeah. There's something wrong with him. Yeah.
Ikenna: And the blouse is. Uh, very like you can tell that it's not, cuz there are a lot of button-up shirts now that have floral prints on them,
Safrianna: but it's a Lacey, you know?
Yeah. Sort of soft feminine cut with a low V neck or something like that. Yeah. Like society would be like, oh no, that's not. Okay. Right. So femininity is still seen as lesser than
Ikenna: especially if the man is not white. Right. Or, or fit. Yes. So that's also a thing that society pushes and
Safrianna: bless all of our people that are breaking free from that mm-hmm , you know, all of these celebrities that are finally pushing towards more fluid expressions to show, you, do you boo, right?
Like, like what you like, um, My, my darling boyfriend wears solid colored. T-shirts like all the time and I don't know how he stands that I could not wear solid colored t-shirts all the time, but I've worn t-shirts before I've tried. 'em on, you know, and they're for me occasionally casually around the house, but that's not my expression.
Hmm. But I tried it and it's not for me. Like that's, we need to have more of an approach like that with clothing and expression and even our. Conceptualizations of gender. You really like your, your bow ties. And I tried that for a while and it wasn't for me. Like
Ikenna: there are some cute pictures of you and bow ties, but I knew that you weren't really feeling it.
Safrianna: I feel it. Once an rare, rare occasion yeah. Uh, again, cuz gender and expression are fluid. Uh, but yeah, we need to ask critical questions. Mm-hmm about gender and not just to our people that are breaking out of the script or norm.
Ikenna: Yeah. And when going to pride in, in, uh, in DC, I just loved seeing people.
Showing expression in really interesting ways. Mm-hmm and I was like, this is queer joy. Yeah. And I'm like, I wish that this sort of. this sort of joy and expression existed all of the time. Right. I wish that there was a way that we could do business casual that looks like this sort of thing. Like I know that there's obviously like, quote unquote, like, you know, let's not go completely shirtless with pasties uh, when booty shorts and pasties, booty shorts and pasties while teaching a kindergarten class, but like have a more, um, have more of your style yeah.
In your, uh, in your wardrobe. And. Be unashamed. Yep. Loving unashamed and normalizing and normalizing authenticity.
