Doctrine Over Person

When I was a kid I hated being a girl. The first incident I remember was when I maybe six or seven years old and a boy came up to me and said, “Boys are stronger than girls”. I actually started crying. I remember not being allowed to buy a pair of shoes I really liked because they were made for boys and therefore, did not fit me properly. I was upset and asked my mom why don’t they make these shoes for girls. The answer was they just don’t. So, to me, boys got cool things and girls just didn’t. As a kid I wanted to play baseball but, for whatever reason, I wanted to play specifically baseball, not softball. I think the reason was something about the name “softball” and the different pitching style suggested to me at that age that it was an easier game for girls because they were weaker. I remember on school picture day in fifth grade my mom made me wear a fancy dress which I absolutely did not want to wear, and I cried all morning and hoped my eyes weren’t too red for the photo.

Now, this is all true but there’s more that I’m leaving out. In preschool I didn’t want to go to a school pajama party because I didn’t have a nightgown and I thought people were going to make fun of me for having “boy pajamas”, even though they definitely weren’t. In truth I wasn’t uncomfortable with being a girl until puberty which for me started at seven. When I identified as transgender I sure as hell remembered every single incident, but I left this one out. I blocked it from my mind and never told anyone, because it didn’t fit with my narrative about myself. The narrative that I was a boy trapped in a girl’s body and just didn’t realize it until now. That’s why I hated myself. What I also left out is every other potential explanation as to why. Was I really “born in the wrong body”, or was I just going through puberty? Was it because of my parents’ messy divorce around that same time? Was it because of being insulted by family and peers for poor social skills? Was it because of depression that I would continue to have for years? I don’t know, it’s probably a combination. But I certainly don’t think it’s all explained by me being “born in the wrong body” and hating myself because I should have been a boy.

The problem is that any questioning disrupts that narrative. If you were to suggest this to me at age 13, I would have thought you hated me and were transphobic. But I remembered differently too. And I didn’t just deny my own memories in a story I tell to others, I twisted and denied it in my head too. I think parents with trans identified teens have seen them twist or deny their memories and reality to fit a narrative. And if there are any trans identified or ex-trans teens reading this they may be aware that they have done it too. I am going to explain why.

Doctrine over people is an idea by Robert Jay Lifton which is outlined in “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China”. In the book he outlines eight criteria for thought reform in the context of cults, one of them being doctrine over people. “Members’ personal experiences are subordinate to the sacred science; members must deny or reinterpret any contrary experiences to fit the group ideology.” But why?

I’ll start by saying manipulation and grooming does not usually feel like abuse. It feels normal, it feels like the truth. Abusers make it normal. They make themselves seem like kind people. Think of how many trans related spaces are called “safe spaces”, how many adults call themselves a “safe person” or say they will be your mom or dad, big brother or sister, aunt or uncle, or family. They also use love bombing, which is immediate extreme affection to make you attached to them. They specifically target this towards vulnerable people, kids, victims of abuse, and people who are mentally ill.

It is usually not one single abuser, but either a school system, peer groups, online communities, a team of mental health workers and doctors, or any combination of these, which makes it a lot harder to recognize manipulative behavior. Once you establish these people are safe, they give you the “new reality”. The truth, that you are trans, and it feels like an explanation to everything. It’s the reason you feel all this pain that “cis” people just don’t understand. It’s the reason you don’t fit in. It’s the reason you are gender nonconforming or gay. It’s the reason you are mentally ill. And the idea that transitioning will save you from suicide or a living hell in your own body. Then there is the idea that everyone who disagrees with you hates you. After all, why would they prevent you from getting such “lifesaving” treatment and doing such “easy” things to prevent your suicide. Surely if they cared about you or even didn’t care with no malicious intent they would affirm your new identity, right? This doesn’t apply only to people but to information.

Sources that are critical of trans ideology cannot be trusted, as they are hateful. This leads to affirming people and sources being the only source of companionship and information. But you are under suspicion as well. You cannot say anything critical of the trans ideology narrative or you are hateful too. So, any misstep in your speech leads to rejection from your only social circle, rejection from your “safe space” and these “kind” people who truly love you. It teaches you to watch your mouth. But thoughts lead to speech and wrong speech is dangerous. It leads to you policing your thoughts. You internalize that trans ideology is the truth and that any other truth is hateful. You don’t want to be hateful to your own group, even in your head.

This brings us to your own memory. The unquestionable truth is that you were born in the wrong body, and gender dysphoria is making you miserable. So, what about your own memory of times where you had no problems with your gender? They don’t fit the narrative, the truth, and it would be dangerous to say. They need to be altered or ignored. Doctrine over people comes into play. The reality of your life is irrelevant, it fits the narrative or it doesn’t exist.

Anticipate punishment → censor speech → internalize rules → watch your thoughts → censor thoughts → edit memory/perception

When I identified as trans, I remembered perfectly instances where I had no problem being a girl. As a child I proudly imagined I would grow up to be a woman. I even remember an assignment in school where I had to write about what it would be like to be a boy, and instead of saying my life would be easier like most of the other girls did I actually wrote it wouldn’t be easier I would just have to follow male gender roles which I also found restrictive. But that goes against my new perception of reality, that I’m a boy who was born as a girl, and that being in a female body is making me suicidal. I simply ignored those memories. I picked the ones I wanted to remember, the times I hated being a girl, as proof, and the rest I ignored. And I thought if you brought them up you were undermining my judgement and decision making, and that you hated me. I have heard people say that their kids or their therapists twisted the narrative instead of ignoring it, which is also common. Saying things like you weren’t truly happy then you were just hiding your true identity. That is truly undermining someone’s judgement, saying their own memory is wrong. But it’s a lot harder to spot when it’s people you trust, and it’s easy to falsely read if you’ve been taught to believe the person speaking hates you.

When you read my point before about groups of abusers, knowing that kids are often treated this way by other kids, you may wonder why do kids help manipulate each other? It is because they are in a similar environment. They have been treated this way by “safe” people and assume that love bombing and affirming is kindness, and shunning when people say anything against the narrative is normal and self-protection.

This creates an unintentional abuse dynamic. I don’t believe the kids that shunned me were bad people, but their actions were abusive and manipulative. I may have engaged in this behavior myself at the time without intending to. It is also partially because there is no “leader” to decide what speech and thoughts are acceptable, just an ideology and mentally ill kids. The person in control in any group is often just the person who is the most reactive and engages in the most canceling, the most sensitive. It’s either shun or be shunned, and kids who engage in this behavior are protecting themselves from abuse by becoming abusive.