Giving Voice:
Gender Identity and Sexual Trauma

By michael munson <michael@tgwarrior.com>

When I started openly discussing the possibility of medically and legally transitioning, I heard from other trans+ folks that no one wanted to hear about the details of their transness. It was taboo. The intricacies of transitioning or genderbending were supposed to be private matters. What could be discussed were the broad (and often superficial) aspects: name change, paperwork, how to get hormones, which surgeons were the best, etc. People weren’t talking – and were often silenced by peers and professionals – about how gender affects partners, learning to love and accept our bodies (even if we were changing parts of our bodies surgically or hormonally), misogyny, male feminism, creating support networks for our parents and siblings, breaking free from patriarchal “macho” roles of masculinity, transitioning and ending up identifying as femme, or many other issues.

These hard issues aren’t the problem though. The silence is.

I know; I’d gone through the silencing before. Prior to transitioning, I had spend hundreds of hours in therapy working on issues that emerged from a trauma that occurred when i was 17 years old. Just as many trans+ folks have to fight to talk about all of themselves in therapy, I had to start confronting therapists who discouraged me from telling the details of my sexual trauma. I started to quickly realize that the silencing was not enforced for my self-interest or healing, but rather was because of their discomfort in hearing about blood, permanent cervical damage, screaming, force, fear of future violence....

As I started refusing to live in fear and silence, I discovered that giving voice to the pain transcended it and transformed me into a stronger, more vibrant person who was not imprisoned by the dictates of others – both in gender and in healing from sexual trauma.

I had to speak the unspeakable, forge forward into uncharted territory, face the fears and images and constructs that haunted me, and be willing to accept the challenges and complexities.

Some of those complex challenges emerged within the contact of (or along with) my gender identity. One such challenge was confronting how I could want to become a “man” when some men wield power with their penises. What would others ascribe to me based on what they saw as my gender? How could I live differently than many men in our society and not use “male power” in ways that were destructive or harmful? What kind of “hatred” was I holding against all men vs. acknowledging that some men (and women) rape? How could I both love men (wanting to be male, as well as being attracted to men) AND despise the culturally constructed macho masculinity that all “men” were supposed to aspire to?

Questions of masculinity, privilege and power are exceedingly intricate and likely won’t be answered to my satisfaction and resolution in my lifetime. However, they were exceedingly important questions in my process of healing from a sexual assault on my female body and my masculine soul, by a male perpetrator.

People living with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) house memories in their bodies, just as trans people do. And like trans people, many individuals who have lived through inappropriate or unwanted sexual contact frequently disengage from their bodies. Even though I didn’t/don’t hate my body or have “off limits” zones, parts of my body contain what feels like very gendered memories and trauma. In some ways, the violence that penetrated my vagina also fucked my gender. I had been able to assimilate a masculine identity within a body that had an additional hole and a chest with excess tissue – but somehow the physical and psychic pain created dissonance between my identity/soul and the body it was housed in.

In order to accept and integrate the violence that had been perpetrated on my body, I needed the freedom to be able to talk openly about how my body was damaged, as well as how it had scarred me emotionally and spiritually. One therapeutic option that wasn’t available to me – either before, during or after transition – was survivors’ support groups. All of them were single-gendered. Men only. Women only. I not only didn’t feel comfortable in “only” spaces, but I could not authentically talk about my experience. I did attend one all women’s group very near the beginning of starting on hormones. I felt very uncomfortable, because I couldn’t relate to the issues brought up by the others, and I also couldn’t discuss things like how being raped affected my self-image as a gay man. I was asked to not return because I DID discuss being anally raped and discussed permanent damage, which made others feel uncomfortable.

Many years later, I had the opportunity to join a men’s survivors group, run by a gay male therapist who has worked with many trans people as well as survivors. In the pre-screening for this group, he specifically asked me not to be out as a trans person in the group – or at least to not discuss any parts of my body (or history/experience) that were different from the non-trans men in the group. I had learned long ago that being silenced made me sick, so the choice not to participate was obvious.

One of the greatest gifts in my healing process, though, came as a complete, unexpected surprise. Something that could not be anticipated – and even if someone told me it would happen, I would not have believed them. Prior to starting on hormones, seven out of 28 days were frequently filled with flashbacks. The trigger of bleeding every month, multiple days in a row, from that area of my body – threw me into irrational thoughts and vivid imagery, creating a walking state of panic. I had one, minimal menstrual cycle after my first shot, and the flow of my PTSD has forever changed. The trigger that had long been tied for first in potency, was totally removed.

Clearly, for me, the process of striving towards greater authenticity – of reaching to achieve a higher Self – braided together the many cords of Truths within. Freeing myself from caged secrets was filled with roars and resistance – but freedom rarely comes from quiet passivity.

The visible emergence of my gender identity and the healing from sexual trauma were tightly intertwined. Finding voice for both – and not accepting or conforming to the dismissal, dislike, and enforced silence of either, by others – has created a life full of integrity and dignity.