occlusion
I was contemplating (intentional/endogenous) plural identity formation, and it occurred to me how much in common the mindstates before and after have with trans identity formation.
When I think back to who I was before I’d really accepted myself as being trans, I had all the usual hangups: what if I’m faking it, what if it’s not actually better, what if it’s grass-is-greener, what will my family/friends think, etc. etc. There was something basically obscuring it, and yet — while many aspects of my material reality have surely shifted in the decade since — internally the changes are not huge. The most prominent one is simply identification; a willingness to see the self through a given lens, followed by the confirmatory euphoria of knowing truth.
There’s nothing fundamentally different about questioning-me and knowing-me, just a change in what I’m willing to accept about myself.
It was much the same with plurality. It had long made sense as a means of better understanding my self, but before you cross the gap (which really takes place in lots of little ways, rather than one leap, but some of the little ways are bigger than others), doubt fills your mind and occludes those moments of recognisance. Even though it “made sense” even stronger was the sense that it was generally thought to be a faked phenomenon (sound familiar?), one with no real value other than to seek attention.
I wonder just how many possibly useful lenses are hidden this way; in general, and for my selves specifically. What, if accepted, would let me go even further in my quest for self-knowledge?