You May Be Transgender (and not even know it)
Transgenderism is far more prevalent than anyone realizes.
*
Let me explain:
*
As the mother of three daughters and seven sons, I have come to see very clearly that there are certain biologically-determined distinctions in the countenance and motivations between boys and girls. (Of course, all children are totally unique, but biological sex does indeed imbue each person with certain natural qualities and predispositions that the individual may, for whatever reason, nurture, resist, or attempt to subvert).
*
One of the many many lovely, wonderful, adorable, and highly biologically adaptive characteristics of little boys (in general), is that they are constantly seeking validation from their mothers—and their fathers, of course—but the kind of validation they’re seeking from their mothers vs. their fathers is very different. (Yes, yes, girls are also seeking validation, but the energy is different, and, no, this is isn’t jut about personality—more on this later).
*
From their mothers, little boys are looking for an all-encompassingly nurturing kind of validation—a wholesale endorsement.
When a 3 or 4 year old boy comes running to say, “Mum mum, When I’m big I’m going to capture a dragon and fix fire trucks and vanquish the beast, and hunt the bad guy and protect you, mum,” our response is invariably Oh my goodness, how wonderful, you’re brilliant and adorable—as it should be.
*
Mothers are designed to instinctively confirm—unreservedly—our little boys’ potential, and in so doing we build their confidence and support the expansion of their urge to conceptualize.
*
It’s entirely natural for mothers to assert to our little boy in response to his proclamations, that we, too, can see the as-yet unrealized future he is ideating, and the response we have is YES. Wow. I can envision that too, and YES, you have my interest and my attention and my admiration and my respect and my unconditional adoration.
*
All the fantasies you have, my son, about your future-self as a man are possible and honourable, the rightfully doting mother insists.
*
It’s all about the future, and the latent possibility that we, as mothers, above all, can behold in this little boy.
*
*
But once the boy passes a certain point, the hope, according to the divinely-ordained blueprint— is that what beings as the realm of little-boy fantasy, dovetails with real, live, achievement.
*
My 16-year old—and even our 12 and 10-year olds—are no longer telling me about what they plan to do… they are doing. They come in from the jungle at dinner time, to actually show me what they have already hunted, fished, created, built, or (in the case of the 16-year old) written.
*
This is the transition from boy to man.
(If you’re curious about this topic in the context of birth, my husband Lee and I created an introductory course called “Freebirth Foundations for Awakened Fathers” for $47—it includes several video lessons and an extensive book about how fathers can support natural birth.)
*
Little boys are all about seeing themselves as the protagonist in the future play of their lives, and imagining their potential.
*
To be a man, however, is to operate from the position of the decision-maker, the leader, the provider, and, in the parlance of our RPG-informed times, the main character.
*
One of the biggest distinctions between boys and men, is that men know their power and are willing to wield it. They recognize their agency, and they take action. Men take initiative. They explore, pursue, propel, thrust, probe, and penetrate. They take possession, and they build.
*
In other words, men know what they want, and they go after it. They see what needs to be done, and they do it.
*
And while the validation of a mother is part of what is required for a boy to first believe in his ability to do, in order to become the fully actualized do-ers in the world that they are designed to be, just as instrumental—if not more so—is that little boys are raised in the presence a father who a) is willing to support and lovingly (yet exactingly) interrogate his son’s visions and dreams (which is distinct from a mother’s indiscriminate approval), and most importantly, b) that the primary male figure in a boy’s life—ideally his father—is himself a fully functioning, fully operational man.
*
Not an overgrown boy trapped in the body of a 37-year old, or a 44-year old, or a 68-year old—but a man.
*
What is a man?
*
A man is a man who consistently behaves like a man.
*
A man does what he says he is going to do.
A man is the standard-bearer for his family.
A man is the rightful authority within the constellation of his family (as evidenced by the genuine respect he automatically commands).
A man consistently displays self-discipline—and is certainly the leader in self-discipline within his family.
A man consistently displays consistency.
A man lives out, expresses, and maintains—daily—the highest standards in everything he does, and he executes every task to completion.
*
Of course, it is not the task itself that makes a man, it is the decisive quality of the energy with which the man executes the task, and his willingness to complete a task to the highest standard, that makes him a man.
*
Execution requires a multitude of different steps, beginning with vision, forethought, planning, and so on (which constitutes the virtues of a leader) and ends with completion and accountability.
*
Of course, women can—and do—harness masculine energy in a multitude of areas of life. But it’s not in any way “natural” for us to do so, and it’s certainly not optimal or biologically aligned for us to be continuously functioning according to a masculine template all the time—most definitely not within the context of our marriage.
*
This is not to say I am condoning or excusing slovenliness in women—on the contrary, rigour and self-discipline are important facets of excellence in both men and women (and yes, I’m interested in discussing what feminine rigour and self-discipline look like, later).