Hi All,
Another lovely thread. Thank you all. :-)
It pointed out that sexual preference and gender identity are separate spectra, as opposed to black and white dualties. All sorts of possible combinations as people show up comfortable in different places on these two. That felt sense can sometimes shift, but I agree it needs to be honored. And also that some who feel oppositely gendered really don't want to change their bodies at all, whereas others do.
It mentioned various possible origins of discrepancies between body and felt sense of gender. Birth family and ancestral loyalties or rejections, unfinished past life business. Just want to add a few thoughts.
The term "vanished twins" has been replaced in research and clinical practice by "womb twins." Two important books are:
Womb Twin Survivors: The Lost Twin in the Dream of the WombMar 1, 2011 by Althea Margaret Hayton
A Healing Path for Womb Twin SurvivorsNov 27, 2012 by Althea Margaret Hayton
The Spirit and the Fleshby Walter Williams
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
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