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   CJ Bellwether (siege@octodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 06-Jan-2024 02:41:38 JST CJ Bellwether

   Pedro Almodóvar's 'The Skin I Live In' (2011) is what i always think about when i consider why trans people need trans therapists.

   If you remove a replace a trans person in a story of transition with a cis person, the tale becomes one of intense body horror. The force that pushes on trans people creating the natural need to bring ourselves into alignment with our gender identity, pushes equally on cis people to strengthen and defend their gender identity. The idea of having that stripped from them is abhorrent, as Almodóvar demonstrates.

   So i, personally, will never be able to believe that chasm of understanding is fully bridgeable in understanding in a way that a cis therapist can actually find connection with a trans client. You can translate, you can find metaphors but the fundamental core need that paints all aspects of a trans persons life is completely alien and wrong to a cis person's being.

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     CJ Bellwether (siege@octodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 06-Jan-2024 02:54:53 JST CJ Bellwether

     in reply to

     on all other levels i think its totally fine, cis people and trans people can clearly understand each other just fine on deep enough levels as long as people are willing to listen.

     But therapy, idk, all the roads run through something that is such a core need that every emotional thread eventually winds back to that or passes through it that i dont know how you can ever reach a point of being able to trust their feedback or them to be a neutral meter stick that you can gauge how right side up or upside down you are.

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     Zoonie 🇪🇺 (zoonie@octodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 06-Jan-2024 03:16:43 JST Zoonie 🇪🇺

     in reply to

     @siege I'm sure you've discussed this what has occurred to me before: that in some ways it can make cis women in particular more... understanding, I suppose, if you consider the parallel 'horror' of abortion. Can a cis male ever be an effective post-abortion counsellor, or indeed a pre-abortion one? Can even a person with a womb who has never actually had an abortion, effectively give a 100% empathetic presence to someone who is facing having to do that in order that they can maintain bodily autonomy and not potentially destroy their own potential? I certainly don't really give a fuck about anyone's opinions who haven't got skin in the game.
     Just pondering now... the parallels that are useful to use for people who cannot reach a point of understanding are obvious, Eg it is at least understandable to have an 'anti' opinion regarding abortions from a personal perspective. Well whatever, but it's an opinion, and no one s going to force you to have one. An opinion is not a fact, and it cannot be used to deny someone else's right to their own bodily autonomy.

     blah blah.

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     Sleepy time tea bear (sleepytimeteabear@octodon.social)'s status on Friday, 12-Jan-2024 03:43:43 JST Sleepy time tea bear

     in reply to

     @siege this is exactly right, and why watching it in the theater in Brooklyn with friends is still very very vivid- it’s dysphoria and misgendering and horror done to you by an immovable force, and all the things you try before you can escape (the art, the meditating, the suicide attempts) excerpt instead of puberty-for-a-trans-person the force is mad scientist antonio banderas; it’s so so striking