The metaphors for transitioning?
As I look forward to continued writing and performing, I’m brainstorming about interesting metaphors for transitioning. I previously worked with the constructed myth of Ares and Aphrodite, about a child who was assigned the wrong gender by the gods. Likewise, in my most recent piece, Trans Form, I used a physical box full of costumes and props as a metaphor for the emotional weight of pre-transition life, and of the complicated and confusing natrue of transitioning. I’d like to play with both of those metaphors more, but I’d love to find some other avenues to explore, too.
Things that spring to mind, or that I’ve used in the past:
- Caterpillar/butterfly (a bit obvious)
- The Little Mermaid (from Trans Form)
- Cooking – a recipe for transitioning, with instructions on ingredients/baking time/etc
- Being trapped or constrained
- Puppetry or being a puppet
Anyone else have some interesting transition metaphors? I’d love to hear ‘em!
Themocracy
I’ve heard the snail being used as a symbol by various intersex people (the snail is a true hermaphrodite).
Puberty and minority identities get used in metaphoric as well as literal ways in many descriptions of transitioning people.
Personally I tend to hold my transgenderedness up against my other medical conditions- I see it as belonging among the list of things about me that are very different from what people expect, just like my autism, diabetes, etc.
I also see transitioning in a gender way as bearing a lot of relation to transitioning in a cultural way- moving to another country, or joining a religion (particularly one hostile to converts, and particularly on one’s own).
P.S. And with autism as a metaphor, Jim Sinclair’s “Don’t Mourn For Us” makes especially good reading.
Thanks for the thoughts, Jonah! In talking with a number of different people, here are some other metaphors that have been suggested to me:
-Frogs…..tadpole to adult frog.
-trained seals for all the hoops ya gotta jump through.
-Pinocchio wanting to be a “real” boy – looks mostly like a boy, acts like a boy still not considered real until a -fairy bestows it upon him.
-Finding yourself
-Coming to terms with yourself.
-Finding salvation
-Finding Jesus
-Becoming the incredible changing wo/man
-Changing speeds
-Jumping into the great unknown.
-Taking the leap of faith
-This myth because ” the completion [of transitioning] is the destruction of something [your old self]”
-Origin and world-creation myths
-any game that involves any sort of transformation, from the rather obvious pretty pretty princess to the more abstract rubix cube
The lovely band, Antony & the Johnsons, have some interesting metaphors in their song lyrics that speak to transitioning and gender in-betweenness. One trope they use fairly frequently is the idea of “growing up” from a young boy into an adult female bird–think, being free to fly, to exist, in the form that one wants. Their songs “Bird Gerhl” and “For Today I am a Boy” are examples of songs that speak to these issues.
Welcome, Eugenia. Thanks a ton for the suggestion – I’ll definitely have to check ‘em out.