I want to thank everyone for their careful and deep-hearted responses to my
question. I am especially grateful to Vinay for his personal sharing, which
was so well informed. This seems like an especially important emerging topic
in constellation work. Lots of conscious-raising to be done, and elegant
tweaking of Hellinger's basic insights into the centrality of motherhood and
fatherhood.
Peace, L
The Rev. Leslie Nipps, NLP & Family Constellations Practitioner
"Trust as a Way of Life..."
www.leslienipps.com
leslie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Steve Vinay Gunther
Sent: Sunday, July 07, 2013 6:23 AM
To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ConstellationTalk] Re: New genders
As the son of a ts person (my father), I have pondered this a great deal.
None of the constellations I have done regarding my father have revealed
anything specific about the origins of his 'gender dysphoria', but then,
that wasn't what I was trying to explore in them.
Whatever mandatory 'counselling' is required for people considering a gender
transition tends to be quite shallow, with no systemic orientation at all.
And the whole transition process is conducted by the medical profession as
if its just one person going through the transition, where of course its
actually a whole family, a circle of friends, and often a workplace where
that person resides. This lack of a systemic sensitivity or interest is very
damaging for the whole system, and everyone involved, and usually results in
the fragmentation of relationships.
That aside, its true that our constellation work is very much grounded in
the biological facts. And in this case, my father is and always will be my
father. It was his maleness that I came out of.
So the first constellation I did on the subject of his transition was
culminated by a beautiful line which Pytor and Otteline gave me: 'You are my
father, and you will always be my father, and I bow before your fate'. I
still remember that line on a regular basis. Its kind of like honouring
order and weight, while giving precedence to new systems.
And the social context for transsexuals is very difficult - they basically
have to choose a binary because thats how our world operates. But in fact,
they are not really someone of the opposite gender, no matter how much they
may identify with that. They are, in my opinion, a transsexual, something
which involves a unique holding of the two polarities. Without space to do
that, and perhaps even find some kind of integration, the only option seems
to be a split: 'I was a man, now I am a woman'. Thats certainly the path my
father chose, and now considers his male self to be another person, separate
from her current identity. She literally cut that part of herself off.
As a son, of course, I want him/her to hold both truths. But its too much,
and its up to me to hold both those truths. I am in contact with many
children of ts' and they all have similar struggles.
If you are interested, you can read an article I wrote more than a decade
ago for the Australian:
http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-August-1997/gunther.
html
I get a letter every few weeks from a child of a ts who has read it, and
reaches out for support - theres not many resources out there.
Well, this is a fascinating topic, and I am interested to see where else the
discussion might lead.
Vinay
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