“At some point during my development I gained a strong repulsion from the particular cultural bundle labeled with the gender which matches the dominant one for my sex.”
There was once an old Saturday Night Live skit about nationality-change operations. But given your explanation, wouldn’t that imply that some people might actually think of themselves as a different nationality than the one they were born into? It’s certainly a cultural bundle, after all. Why don’t we see that?
First of all: We don’t? It’s less visible, certainly, but I know people who have felt they had a lot more in common with another country (or just another part of the country, within the US) than where they were born, and usually move there. Of course, moving is comparatively easy and isn’t stigmatized.
Second: In my (purely American) experience, nationality is less remarked upon. If you assume it takes (for a random number) 300 mental notes of discord to notice that being treated as part of a bundle feels inappropriate, it might take 50 days for a transgender person, and three years for a “transnationality” person. (Okay, 300 was significantly low.) So having them not notice to the extent that they feel the need to change is plausible.
Third: Nationality isn’t as low-level a drive as gender. Tribe-membership is, but co-opting it to nationalist sentiment not so much. And I certainly know people who felt intensely out of place in the tribes they were born into; political alignment, sports, family ties, etc. I’d be quite surprised if you don’t know several such people.
So some combination of those reasons? And possibly others. I don’t know which of these if any is accurate (and my trans definition is obviously imperfect). But I don’t think any of them is particularly complex, and they seem to explain the trends.
Of course, moving is comparatively easy and isn’t stigmatized.
That doesn’t work so well when the nationality is also associated with physical differences. If a white person were to say “I feel I’m really Chinese”, and it was clear that he meant it and it wasn’t just a metaphor meaning “I studied China a lot”, people would think he’s an idiot. And nobody ever wants to get an operation to make their facial features look more Chinese because they feel they are Chinese. Furthermore, he need not express an interest in moving to do this—what if he says “I feel I’m Chinese-American” (in the same sense that a person with Chinese heritage is, again not just meaning “I studied China”)?
There was once an old Saturday Night Live skit about nationality-change operations. But given your explanation, wouldn’t that imply that some people might actually think of themselves as a different nationality than the one they were born into? It’s certainly a cultural bundle, after all. Why don’t we see that?
First of all: We don’t? It’s less visible, certainly, but I know people who have felt they had a lot more in common with another country (or just another part of the country, within the US) than where they were born, and usually move there. Of course, moving is comparatively easy and isn’t stigmatized.
Second: In my (purely American) experience, nationality is less remarked upon. If you assume it takes (for a random number) 300 mental notes of discord to notice that being treated as part of a bundle feels inappropriate, it might take 50 days for a transgender person, and three years for a “transnationality” person. (Okay, 300 was significantly low.) So having them not notice to the extent that they feel the need to change is plausible.
Third: Nationality isn’t as low-level a drive as gender. Tribe-membership is, but co-opting it to nationalist sentiment not so much. And I certainly know people who felt intensely out of place in the tribes they were born into; political alignment, sports, family ties, etc. I’d be quite surprised if you don’t know several such people.
So some combination of those reasons? And possibly others. I don’t know which of these if any is accurate (and my trans definition is obviously imperfect). But I don’t think any of them is particularly complex, and they seem to explain the trends.
That doesn’t work so well when the nationality is also associated with physical differences. If a white person were to say “I feel I’m really Chinese”, and it was clear that he meant it and it wasn’t just a metaphor meaning “I studied China a lot”, people would think he’s an idiot. And nobody ever wants to get an operation to make their facial features look more Chinese because they feel they are Chinese. Furthermore, he need not express an interest in moving to do this—what if he says “I feel I’m Chinese-American” (in the same sense that a person with Chinese heritage is, again not just meaning “I studied China”)?