and it is happening not from trauma to transgender persons. It is how it is
I would actually refine that a little bit: I think that a lot of these examples are responses to traumatic experiences, but specifically those traumas arise from existing as a trans person in a cis society with strong gendered expectations of your body. I think many of us feel distress from a spiritual/physical disconnect with ourselves not merely because of the characteristics of our bodies, but also how those are treated as subjects by a sexist cis society: that is to say, we are displaced from our selves because we are treated with a constant, unchallenged assumption that we "are" other than we are. We dissociate not just (or, I would argue, even primarily) because we are mentally different from our bodies, but because those bodies are taken from us and placed elsewhere, far from our true location in gender, by cissexism, and we are forced to adapt mentally and occupy that other place in order to function in a society with no room for us.
That is why, during transition, we aren't merely coming to a reckoning with ourselves and returning mentally/spiritually to the place we belong, but must also learn how to undo the incorrect and dehumanizing impositions of gender onto our bodies, and return to a healthy understanding of them. It is not enough for me to realize I am a trans woman and work through all of that: I must also recognize that my body is a woman's body, and work through the imposed belief that it does not fit or is wrong for me.
Anyway, back to the manga, it seems Saeko has to do some reckoning as well, and it's not looking like it'll be the gentle kind.
last edited at Aug 19, 2020 1:47AM