DID Parts and Gender

[Reflections]

I've been in therapy since March and have been concerned about DID. In the last month I have realized I do have alters even if my experience is more OSDD.

Spoiler: I ramble a bit here... so read if you want to know my current situation

I don't lose chucks of time from alters coming out (but my memory is crap in general) and it's more of a co-conscious thing. Though certain parts will take over, I'm just aware. They don't have names other than "emotions" or labels I give while trying to sort this out. They have different opinions, different ways of handling things, different roles, different demeanors, and they do argue or dislike each other. Strangely enough recognizing I have alters, acknowledging them (something I never did), and realizing they are good, reliable, and helpful has done a lot to lessen my derealization. Though I am still very fragmented. I'm still sorting out myself, as I seem to have this utter blindness to myself. Like I recognized another part this week after my T asked if I had a naive part. That part comes out all the time, it's the part that typically interacts with my friends and has fun. It likes people and sees the best in others, it's far more trusting than my other parts who hardly trust anyone. It's the part of me I have always liked the most, the part who feels the most "me", and yet I didn't recognize it? Anyways, I can't talk about this stuff with anyone except my T, so I know I'm rambling a bit.

I have something on my mind that I've been wrestling with. I'm not really sure what my gender is and it has been a topic of discussion with my T. The whole alters thing has thrown a huge wrench into questioning since I recognize how I feel about gender changes. I can go from being a girl is fun, I don't care about pronouns, I don't want to change; to being female isn't that bad, I'm scared to make changes; to please use gender neutral pronouns, I don't feel like anything, I'm not female, body dysphoria; to I am male and I would transition. I'm not sure how each part feels about their gender though.... probably partly my own blindness or unwillingness to acknowledge it. I think most of them are either male or neutral. I don't know if any are female. I'm probably transgender to some degree, but I also know with integration this could just go away and the part that feels male could very well be a coping resource (which is highly possible). I don't feel like I can talk about gender anymore with the LGBT communities I'm with because this could honestly be a mental health issue, not a gender issue. I fear I would de-legitimatize the transgender experience. Moreover, I don't want to talk about my alters with people in general, especially friends. Which is hard because in general I would prefer gender neutral pronouns.

I wanted to start a topic about gender and parts with others who understand. What are your experiences and struggles with this?

 

[Muttly]

hmm...I am super tired so hopefully this will make sense. Please feel free to ask questions.

i was born in a female body. I have very early memories of insisting i was a boy. I would get in the boys line at school (back then they always had boys and girls lines). Eventually i stopped arguing I was a boy. So, that is part of my experience. I have joked since junior high (13 or 14 yrs old) that I briefly tried to be a girl and it didn't work out well. It's weird how when you look back at some of those things you (or someone inside) said, they take on new meaning. Then life got worse and I was really just focused on surviving. I tried to be social acceptable, while not taking on too much of trappings that I saw as female. I mean, sometimes I probably tried harder to be female than others.

It's complicated because my dad was sexually abusing me and very much "teaching" me what a female was and what men wanted and all kinds of twisted messed up stuff. And we have an insider that because evolved to be that for him (ugh, ugh ugh). The weird thing is, if you left out that abusive stuff, he was the one who was more accepting of me being gender non-conforming and taught me all the same stuff as my brother and seemed to take pride in the "boy" things i did. My mom, did not like that part of me so much... then again, she didn't like most of me :p

So... I got out of that house, but was still very emeshed in the family all their messed up dynamics. I was still trying to be socially acceptable and successful and then it all crashed down on me. Started therapy but it wasn't a trauma therapist and kept me somewhat stable but didn't help much. Somewhere in there though, separate for therapy, my parts began making themselves known. i thought I had truly gone completely crazy. That T was not equipped to deal with it, but also didn't seem to have the ability to refer me on. So.. I started researching online. I ruled out DID for a long time, because .... well... I didn't think it fit because i didn't think i had any loss of memory. Which makes no sense to me now, because i also knew I had missing years from childhood. I also just didn't want it to be true. I finally came to terms with the fact it might well be true and my current T was by then, not only not helping, but definitely making things worse.

So I found my new T. And finally admitted I had parts but still insisted I didn't have DID because I'm stubborn that way. :p But apparently my parts began talking to her pretty much from the beginning. Ack! I have male parts, female parts and genderfluid and genderless parts.

I guess I kept tangling gender and sexuality in my mind, which makes sense since that was done in my family. So I figured all my gender issues were related to the sexual abuse. Except as I began to get a grip on them, I still had these stubborn gender and body issues. And then it was sort of this light bulb moment where I thought "Wait, I'm transgender".

So... how we came to agreement about transition? It was pretty easy really, which was an indication it was the right thing. for the the female parts, most of them didn't care if the body was male and we identified to the outside world as male. The only one that cared was a teen and that one really just wanted to fit in. We've always hidden in baggy clothing and are agreement to that teen is that we would sometimes dress up nice. Even thought it would be dressing up nice as a boy, that was fine with that part. And that part now identifies as genderfluid. Again, for the other parts, they either weren't bothered by the transition or were truly relieved. Well, there was a little one who was scared about the medical procedure part. That one goes by "she" but at the same time, if you ask her about gender she'd insist she's a tom-boy and doesn't really feel like a girl. I think the "she" is just because that's how we were raised to think.

So.. we transitioned years ago and no regrets. It's funny this post came up, because i was pondering gender earlier today. And that I feel male in terms of how I interact with the world. Or to say it another way, how I fit with the world is as a male. But left alone, and not relating to the outside world or having the outside world relate to me, I feel sort of genderless. Or I find gender an odd concept.

I guess the last thing I will add, is I was super worried about what my T would think. I expected her to be doubtful and say that I only felt transgender/male because of the DID and abuse experience. She was fully supportive. In fact, she was so supportive it sort of made me nervous. Heh. As far as my concerns go, she pointed out that there are plenty of DID people out there and they aren't a lot of them saying they are transgender.

Anyway, that was a long winded answer. Take what helps and ignore rest.

 

[Reflections]

I want to clarify to anyone reading, that this thread isn't solely for transgender persons. Just anyone who has dealt with alters of different genders. So feel free to share :)

Thanks for sharing your story @Muttly I appreciate it. I do have some questions.

Do you find the lgbt+ community unaccepting of people with DID?

Did you ever have trouble knowing which part felt what? Sometimes I feel anxiety when people use female pronouns but I don't know if it's me or another part who is anxious.

Also, do you mean to say people with DID even with alters with different genders don't typically think they are transgender? If that's the case I'd love to hear from others who aren't transgender, if they ever questioned it or not?

From the sounds of it, as you dealt with issues with sexual abuse the gender issues still remained. Which is a comfort that sooner or later it will get sorted out. I could jump to the conclusion that I'm not likely ftm but probably non-binary. I was assaulted as an adult which brought out not feeling safe just because I was born female and hating that I was. I have hidden behind male user names just to avoid creeps. A strong alter (or two really) did help me get through that time (I don't know their genders as one dosen't really care and the other... idk... unless that was the one who keeps getting ticked off for people using she instead of them). The times I feel male are during extreme stress or looking at erotic content though this is rare. I don't have a history of wanting to be a boy. So when I started feeling this way, it was like I was going crazy. But gender issues were there before the assault. Never felt right after puberty, took me years to accept it; to come to terms. People don't normally have to convince themselves and count reasons to be happy with their gender/biological body.

I'm not a very confident person though. I am worried that dissociation just causes me to feel alienation from my body. I worry I could just be fooling myself and that one male part is something I'm trying to deny rather than a coping tool.

 

[Ronin]

Also, do you mean to say people with DID even with alters with different genders don't typically think they are transgender?

Since very familiar with both communities and intersections: It is quite usual for DID folk have at least one alter of a different gender than they identify the body. Does not mean they identify as trans, or that person as trans. They are simply, say, guy in a female (predominant) system, and female body. No big deal there.

Actually, more common and the norm than the opposite.
If you do not identify as trans, you are not, DID or not. .)

 

[grit]

I do not have DID but I do have CPTSD with strong dissociation but I am also integrating and no longer symptomatic so far (fingers tightly crossed here).

I believe and I shared this with my therapist, one of the ways I survived for so long is I internalized my dad and developed maleness sort of coping mechanism and that sort of made others a bit afraid of me.

I am responding to you because few times you mentioned about maybe this feeling being sort of coping mechanism and I related to that.

I am a woman and I have accepted that I have a very strong maleness in my makeup that frankly works for me. I can feel or understand though if a person is struggling with integrating that maleness without becoming or having transgender tendencies.

I think unfortunately and this is my opinion, we live in such a very polarized society and the you must be a man or a woman is too harsh. I decided and felt finally I do not care about this and I do sometimes frame my words as if I am a man and expected to be believed such... and I do not care. I joked with my husband that I wish I had a penis and I would love it! and it is true but honestly I would not want it either. I am living with having both feelings strongly!

 

[Muttly]

@Reflections The only person in real life who knows I have DID is my ex-boyfriend, so I'm not a good judge of how accepting the lgbtq community is or isn't regarding DID issues. There was another person who moved in the same circles who said they had DID. And that person was fairly well accepted. I know that some of us, me and my ex included, were skeptical they had DID. That wasn't a reflection on DID, but that person and the way they presented themself. They said that their DID was completely unrelated to any mental health issues. They also tended to say they had all sorts of other issues, challenges, grievances and just generally seemed to be the center of drama and always cast in the victim role. Please note, I am not saying they don't have DID, in spite of my skepticism. I don't know as I don't live in their head.

Yes, that's what my therapist said. That many people with DID, who have alters of different genders never consider the possibility they have DID.

Yes, I don't always know who feels what. I guess, that's another part of my process. We had to be far enough along in our healing work that we could communicate inside. So, instead of trying to figure out who felt what about a specific incident, what we talked about is how everyone would feel if we transitioned.

A lot of non-DID transgender people don't have early childhood experiences of wanting to be a different gender than their body. There are plenty who come to the realization gradually in adulthood. I do think, it made it easier for me to come to the decision to transition because of those memories. I was lucky, in a way, in that sense. As far as being confident in my decision. Well, I didn't start transition until I was 40, so I certainly didn't race into it.

 

[Reflections]

Since very familiar with both communities and intersections: It is quite usual for DID folk have at least one alter of a different gender than they identify the body. Does not mean they identify as trans, or that person as trans. They are simply, say, guy in a female (predominant) system, and female body. No big deal there.

Actually, more common and the norm than the opposite.
If you do not identify as trans, you are not, DID or not. .)

Oh, I understand that DID does not equal transgender and vice vera. I'm aware opposite sex parts are common, especially in the case of sexual abuse.

I guess if anything I wonder how others feel about different gendered parts and if that ever caused confusion.

 

[Ronin]

Well, personally? As the only person(s) I can speak for, I lived in different genders and presentations most of my life, in the long term do not give a damn about gender as much as what it means in terms of opportunities, expectations, limitations, and violence.

That and that I am grateful for feminine, femme, and women people of/in/with me. Because someone took pointers on all those not thinking in black and white terms in our socialization. Less about gender, more about lessons learned.

We just know living in which gender causes us anguish, and which does not for the same reasons, where we feel more lonely in terms of company, what meshes with thinking and emoting styles and what does so not. It is not a confusion for me reasons, something inner, more about how (outside) people react, depending on who they think they read. Society is bizarre to bugf*ck nuts about this gender thing.

 

[DissociattedSoup]

I wanted to start a topic about gender and parts with others who understand. What are your experiences and struggles with this?

Great topic and for something so common in DID not talked about all that much.
I am diagnosed as DID (and that is quite an accomplishment living in th UK!), I have identified about 7 parts so far.
The two main parts who control the body are a male and a female. At first, when this first started being an issue (or dissorder) we would literally fight for the body. I am female and like to wear appropriate clothes and sometimes a little bit of makeup (mascara etc). My male part is totally against that, just wants to wear jeans and hoodies. In March this year my male part cut all my hair off, left me with a buzz-cut - it devastated me! That was a sign it was time to end the conflict and so we are/have worked out some compromises. It is still early days, but we both seem to be getting along a lot better. We are both predominately heterosexual (which is a problem!) but with the focus on our trauma healing therapy that does not really raise an issue as relationships are the farthest from our thoughts.
I have met/talked to a number of DID people and all except one had alternate gendered parts and the one exception had an agendered adult part. I have extensive journal notes about me being transsexual and wanting to transition. I also have journal notes saying the complete opposite. For me, I guess I am not trans, just DID - If we ever do integrate into one whole than who knows what that identity will look like?

**Sorry i tried editing to add this but ran out of time, so the rest is below:

I am friends with a few trans individuals and they have no difficulty in understanding and accepting us as parts. With one part being trans like there is a lot of common ground between us. However, online in forums I have had mixed responses. DID is seen as some trans people as a threat, something to be used against them to point a finger at them suffering a mental illness and not just simply being trans. It is, in my experience, very difficult to ascertain, sometimes parts have been around and conscious for most of the individuals life. So feelings of another gender could stretch back into childhood and yet the individual could still be DID. Good therapy should distinguish between the two, but does not always, I was initially diagnosed as trans by the MH system, actually as a "transsexual in denial". Any mis-diagnosis is harmful, wether you actually be trans or DID or something else is causing your thoughts. This "uncertainty in diagnosis" when someone initially presents to a gender clinic (for example) is what a lot of trans people rail against. They are not mentally ill, so why should they be "assessed" to see if they are? If your gay you are not subjected to mental health scrutiny, no one questions your sanity (or shouldn't!). But, like in my case, it is extremely difficult to tell from your own internal perspective, so any calls on trans websites to say "hang on, I am grateful someone noticed something was amiss with my mental health" are met with a degree of negativity. I hope that as dissociative disorders are studied more the ability to identify trauma hidden by this disorder is easier to detect and mis-diagnosis drop.

 

[shimmerz]

I identify very strongly with my male part (I am female). My male part is focused, competent, fun loving, dresses in jeans and a t-shirt.

My female parts have been hidden for quite some time. They get themselves hurt; they get themselves killed because not many see the value in them as being female except to feed the males that I invariably find to abuse them.

The infant in me is neither transgender nor binary. It (they?) are non gendered.

None of this has anything to do with my sexuality btw. It has everything to do with my sense of power or lack thereof.

 

[Reflections]

@Soupsarah Thank you for sharing about yourself and the people you know!

That sounds like a very tough conflict between your male and female parts! Good on you for working together to make things smoother! I know of 5 parts, but I'm still sorting it out. My male part is really good natured, content, and happy. He hasn't really caused a fuss to the point when my T asked what he wanted I really didn't know. I was already wearing more gender neutral clothes testing things out and noticing I felt better about it (or rather parts did). So I'm wearing clothes he's happy with. I only know one part who doesn't like it so much because they are looser clothes and this one part wants me to look thin and sharp, but I have clothes that part likes so we'll change if I can. Thinking about it I haven't been feeling dsyphoric very often, but I also got scared and I think I pushed those feelings away. I feel like I'm not very accepting of my male part because I think he's the only one who's feels that strongly about gender.

And yeah, this topic is rarely brought up. I have found a few threads that span over years because of how few replies they get.

However, online in forums I have had mixed responses. DID is seen as some trans people as a threat, something to be used against them to point a finger at them suffering a mental illness and not just simply being trans.

Yeah, that's the thing I'm concerned about. Being taken seriously or not being treated as mentally ill is still a struggle for LGBT+ especially for transgender people. Anything that could undermine the legitimacy of their experience can be upsetting. When it comes to misdiagnosis I agree it needs to be considered. Not to undermine transgender people but so people with DID or anything else get the right kind of help.