As mobile as our society is today, how can one identify with where they are born? Is that really where they are from? Many people now are born in one place, and grow up in another. So are they from the place they grew up? How many years before a person can call it their own and attach identity to it? I’ve lived here in Denver longer than anywhere else except where I grew up. And if not identifying with place, do we rather identify with family or bloodline?
I ask these questions because we all have asked these questions at some point or another. Ancestry has become all the rage. With the military, corporate culture, and educational diversity, we have become modern day nomads of sorts. Many a child is born while the parents are on deployment over seas or far from the place the parents were born. This goes for corporate execs and graduate students as well. Myself and my younger brother were born while my father was in Medical School in a town we only stayed in for 5ish years. We grew up on the other side of the state once he found work. So we can hardly identify with that city.
This story repeats in infinite versions and that is all good. Who and where we identify depends on the individual. I also think we are taught to identify with family whether we feel close to them or not. The questions I pose here have no clear answer. Even cultural identities in our melting pot of a world don’t mean what they once did. Have you ever wondered why neighborhoods in the bigger cities tend to attract certain races? From my observation segregation is natural. Integration is not. I have lived in both types of neighborhoods and find no preference, though integrated communities seem healthier to me. Could that be hybrid vigor?
Identity is something we all think about, some more than others. It has been a challenge for me all my life and includes gender. Identity stratifies at many different levels. We tend to try on many and keep the ones that fit. I am still searching. Certain broad categories are easy to stick with like race, sex (not the same as gender), and family. Nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, body habitus, etc. are more fluid. It amazes me just how fluid some people can be, while others are far more rigid. It is best to be like a palm tree rather than an Oak in my estimation.
When you meet someone new and you are getting to know them, two of the first questions asked are What do you do? Where are you from? These are identity questions that tell you who this person is. They are also a way you have of identifying with them. Once a connection is made then off the conversation goes. My question is why do we assume this person “does” anything or is “from” somewhere? How about starting the conversation with, tell me about yourself? or How’s things?
The take away here is identity is important in everything we do and especially in how we relate to others. Reflect on your own identity. Are you satisfied with it? Does it define you? Can you change it if you so desire? Why would you want to? How does one’s identity serve them? Food for thought….
Sequoia Elisabeth
I see my life easily centered around a greenhouse, growing exotic plants, and keeping fish, etc. This is my dream home! A pond, tropical plants, growing space for exotics and all the life which goes with it, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and beneficial insects. Sounds primal doesn’t it? Perhaps it is and perhaps this represents my connection to Mother Earth. She expresses through me. In the end perhaps I am just too connected to nature to be a human being. From the mystical POV, I would be an “ent”. (look it up if you don’t know what this is). I chose the name “Sequoia” for this very reason. This tree is the largest living thing on earth and is a plant. So inspiring and God knows… I need my inspiration.
Does transition ever end? For those who are transgender this question will likely be answered differently over time. I used to think that it would all be different once I transitioned to living as the woman I am. Wrong. Well I suppose things are very different, but the things which really matter have not changed. I am still basically the same person, inside. My personality has changed a bit, however my thoughts and beliefs have not. If any change has occurred there it has nothing to do with being transgender. Thoughts and beliefs change because we choose them too. So let me get into the power of chemical wonder, hormones. You are what you eat and if you are taking hormones or even if you are getting them through the environment, food, drink, etc. things will change drastically. The question of which comes first is hard to prove if not impossible. Are we transgender because of environmental chemical influence or because of genetic, inborn causes? I feel it is a combination of both. And most likely it is a different combination of both for each of us. During transition our outer world and appearance changes drastically, but as for the inner world, not so much. So let’s make sure we are clear here, I am speaking of gender. My gender has not changed and is clearer now, so the success here is that I now know myself better than I ever have! Perhaps this is the point of the whole experience.
Perhaps those who thought they were in a closet are in fact outside the closet and in reality it is the “mainstream” individual who lives in the closet, a strict definition of hetero/male or hetero/female which defines the closet. The closet provides structure and perceived safety, but is in reality a trap of normalcy.
Oneness Ministry 