Hello Anne and everyone. I've followed this thread with much interest and am
moved by the rich experiences reported. While accepting that everyone's
experience is different, from my own experience I have long felt that sexual
identity issues can have systemic roots, as well recognising that gender is
much more fluid than has traditionally been taught.
I too am in my 70s,female As a child I had a very strong conviction that I
should have been a boy but growing up in the '40s and '50s I had no idea
that sexual transitioning was possible, let alone an option. The first
constellation I did gave me insight into this conviction, although It was
not the issue I was setting up. My paternal grandfather was Jewish, born in
Belarus and migrated to the UK in 1900. My father, the first of his 4
children, married 'out', to an Anglican English woman, and my grandparents
cut off all communication with my parents until I was born 3 years later. I
was their first grandchild. In the constellation, my grandfather's
representative, who had been showing rejection of my father's rep. said
disgustedly: "And he cant even produce a boy". I understood from this that
my desire to be a boy came out of an entanglement with my grandfather,
trying to satisfy his disappointment (this wasn't his only one!) - and
perhaps to protect my father too. (When I spoke about this experience in a
supervision group, another woman said she had a strong image of her father's
shop with the family's name followed by 'and Son' - when she was an only
child - and felt this had influenced her experience of her sexuality).
When I was 11, my mother gave birth to a boy and an aunt and uncle both had
boys (with Jewish spouses). Although I struggled with puberty, I became more
accepting of being a woman - perhaps because now there were boys in the
family, the pressure for me to fulfil that role diminished. Even so, I
pursued a career in scientific research until I was in my 50s - a very male
dominated domain - and decided not to have children. I find the contemporary
term 'gender fluid' very helpful and wonder how my life would have been if I
had been born a few decades later. But I am concerned that many children are
now being supported to transition without exploration of the entanglements
that may lie behind their gender dysphoria.
I wish you well in your work with your client.
Jen Altman
