The unnamable. Identity development of non-binary people.

Interview with Mel Constain, published (in Spanish) in the blog of Instituto Universitario de Sexología UCJC (IUNIVES), 18 March 2021

Just a few weeks ago, Mel Constain, psychologist, psychodramatist and sexologist, appeared on our virtual platform to give a class to our students of the university master's degree in sexology, sex education and sexological counseling. Mel was recently a student in this same master, and now, as a sexologist, they have many things to tell us about the brilliant research they did as their master's thesis, which obtained one of the best grades of their promotion.

“The unnamable. Identity development of non-binary people” was the theme chosen by Mel. Works like this are more than necessary to make visible the reality of non-binary people and to make known the difficulties they constantly face throughout their lives. Much remains to be done, but without a doubt Mel's activism and the scientific knowledge generated by their research are a good start to make the reality of non-binary people more and more visible in this society where everything (or almost everything) revolves around gender binarism, around men or women. Either one or the other. And if you don't fit in, you don't exist.

We talked to Mel about their research and about the reality of non-binary people and we wanted to share with you this interesting interview that has no waste. Enjoy it.

Mel, a research work like this one, on this topic, is necessary so that non-binarism starts to become visible also within the professional and scientific fields. Did you come across articles and knowledge on this topic when you gathered information for your own work or is there also invisibility?

 Mel: There is an even greater invisibility in the professional and scientific fields, we must not forget that the academic, professional and scientific fields attend even more strongly as an institution to social parameters. Moreover, they are areas where power and social asymmetry are sustained. We see this clearly when we talk about who is in charge of the direction of the centers, who holds the positions of power, men, even in issues that concern mostly women. Well, with this issue, as with all non-normative or peripheral issues, the power is not in them. Therefore, what you are going to find in the professional and scientific field are issues to maintain or from a completely endocisalloheteromonopatriarchal, capitalist, capacitist and colonialist point of view. (Additionally, I focused for historical-cultural reasons mainly on the Spanish-speaking world, in Anglo-Saxon writings there were more terms, diversity and more bibliography).

Binarism has been an imposition for years, a complete being and a complementary one, man and woman. Humanity was earned as you fulfilled this, as well as being civilized, educated, etc. Racialized people began to have rights and be considered when they fulfilled those “non-animal” parameters of being binary, male, female, heterosexual and directed to the normative, reproductive and productive family.

So, without straying any further, I came across few renowned or recognized articles, or with “impact” (even less without a pathologizing and normativizing vision). In order to find material I had to go to the peripheries to fields not so recognized, to the social sciences, anthropology, to the nooks and crannies of literature related to transsexual, transgender, transvestite where, even there, we were “the other” or what “can also happen”.

I relied heavily on studies of Abya Yala, where there has been a place from a vision not so pathologizing, and I was lucky to run into (and re-search) with professionals who had started their way from university publications, or had begun to give visibility such as Lucas Platero and Isabel López.

And in sexology itself, and as a sexologist yourself, how do you assess the treatment given to non-binary people?

Mel: Phew, that's a tough question. I don't think that I value the way non-normative identities or people are treated. There are, as everywhere, people or groups in sexology where the “unknown” from their point of view, from their place, is treated with respect, care and curiosity. From a real diversity, not just a facade. There, there I value tremendously that from not having a clue, from humility, care, learning, the realities of NBs are taken into account.

However, sexology does not distance itself from society, knowledge does not always make you detach from LGTBIAQphobia and act from the rights and welfare. It even sometimes puts you in a position of power in which we do not review the privilege with which we treat realities that we do not live. I think that as in everything, there is a great spectrum, where there are people who do not understand but continue to do their own thing; where there are people who do not understand but come closer and try to continue growing and learning what diversity really means; there are others who understand it, welcome it and are aware of their limitations; and who, welcoming it, understanding it, make room for reality by giving space and reviewing the privileges from which we treat reality. For in the end, our social position places us in a different place in the identities. And to get rid of this idea that the scientific and the professional has The Truth and is who knows All Plausible Realities, it is difficult, we have forgotten that science goes by trial and error, observing, one step behind describing, testing, intervening in what already happens and that it is what already happens what teaches us, what we investigate, not reverse. We also forget the objective or the whys of science, it is not only to know, but to look for ways to improve the quality of life and welfare of people, for this you have to know the lives of people, people, what their needs are and listen, not take for granted and leave without checking your place. We have a lot to learn from situated knowledge and reflexivity to make a truly scientific science.

Mel, taking into account that non-binarism is a very unknown reality and one of the most invisible and misunderstood, how does a person who knows they are different, who does not fit into the socially pre-established categories of sex and gender, cope?

Mel: Well, they survive as best they can, and I want to emphasize this, we survive.

First, it depends a lot on the age we are talking about, the type of environment or microsystem, their life events and their own personality. For example, in my research I saw many differences between a story in which the environment was not very binaristic, they were allowed to flow, to act and the causal attribution was external and their personality did not need such urgent social feedback. This person had a variety of tools, self-esteem, self-concept that allowed them to live and live with greater well-being. Therefore, we must first take into account who copes, their tools, their environment and the environment's tools.

On the other hand, I collected different survival strategies. During childhood they realize that there is something different in them, but they have no idea “what”. Like all children, they try to learn the social norms and to have social acceptance, to be loved, to be part of their space. Consequently, a hypervigilance begins, we start to be “social analysts” at a young age, in which we study identities and try to internalize what they say corresponds to us. Of course, they do not realize that this does not make sense to us, and in the end we internalize a lot of machismo and that showing how we are is risky, it leads to being disliked, rejected and assaulted.

In spite of this, there are many attempts to express themselves and moments of expression. There are those who have a greater imposition on their forms (intransigence strategy) and those who have a lesser imposition or whose environment does not receive this and does not allow it. Then, after studying your behaviors, you use the strategy of camouflaging yourself, either by hiding, invisibilizing yourself in space or through imitation. This imitation has two lines, on the one hand, (1) you try to do cispassing (passing as a cis person, in these cases as the assigned identity) and here you have an impressive diversity of actors, who are able to show a masculinity or femininity and “not to be noticed” what they do not know they should not notice. On the other hand, (2) you learn to reject aspects of yourself that are socially categorized as masculine or feminine and can give you away. And the last leg of the camouflage that I observed was complacency, to be what others expect from you and in this complacency you accept any treatment, you accept to be by and for others and this is really dangerous because it leaves us in the absolute vulnerability of violence.

Continuing with the strategies, we have seen the intransigence, the camouflage and we are going to see the other two ways to survive. On the one hand the appropriation, you take a social identity “more socially tolerated” than yours (which unknowingly does not exist) and you empower and position yourself from there. This happens especially with the tomboy identity. When your expression, your forms, your being does not fit but you find a word where you can express yourself without as much violence as non-existence, when you say “Well yes, I am a tomboy, this is what happens to me, this is how I am and that's it”, you solve part of the situation, you find a place that explains your situation better than nothing. In addition, it is something that you are placed and that, within the discredited, at least has a place and some concessions that allow you to breathe of the social analysis and express a part of you with the excuse of “ah, it is that she is a tomboy”.

Finally, the last strategy is the search for alternative spaces, where you can resist (clothes, nourishing solitude), where you can recharge your energy and self-esteem (virtual spaces, supportive teachers, mixed groups) and spaces where you can explore (artistic or digital spaces).

During childhood and adolescence they will alternate these strategies and hold on to them. At least the generations I studied did not have access to the Internet so early, therefore, they could not have words or ways of expressing in childhood what was happening to them. They usually didn't know what it was to be trans, and in fact, the two cases that did have trans* binary referents in childhood aspired to or tried to be guided by it. To the point that one of them did try to take on a trans* identity in childhood with very negative consequences because of the family response.

Therefore, I understood that it is really important to know that it is a myth that you know it since childhood, you can't always identify what is happening, you don't have the tools, vocabulary, referents, resources, sometimes it is not a priority issue at the moment (surviving bullying or the feeling of not belonging makes you feel very tired) or you don't have the resources to face it, because you have learned that you should not listen and you should hide what your emotions and your expression say. There are people who are clearer about it, whose environments are not so insecure and/or who have the resources to expose it, and every day we have a society with more diversity that makes you talk about it from childhood. But in my study almost all of them raised it in their twenties or were exploring it close to their fifties.

You cling to survive, to be able to look for spaces where they give you affection and many times you do things for this “affection” or simply attention. I saw many times that they went on to please and accept situations that they did not really want. That is, they ended up in abusive relationships and sexual violence. They have learned that what is their own is something to hide, that they are not going to love you for what you are, so when they show you some affection or desire, they can manage you a lot in situations. And this, this is really dangerous, we work a lot so that childhoods are based on security and well-being, and these childhoods do not develop like this, while there is a periphery that is not “normal” and is stigmatizing, we will have minors, adolescents and adults involved in violent interactions because they have not been able to build a self-concept and a positive self-esteem that facilitates limits, identify violence as violence and not as love or desire, or that negative loneliness leads them to any scenario.

Additionally, a strategy for survival is dissociative processes. You disconnect in order to be able to live physically in a reality that you feel no connection to. And it is hard to state that dissociative, depressive and anxious symptoms are the most frequent in all the stories I analyzed. They are the last resources of the body to survive in a hostile environment, in uncertainty, and the only ways to keep the body active since the mind, the emotions are really damaged, confused, wounded and violated.

Fortunately, in this search for alternative spaces, safe spaces are built and found, trans* and/or non-binary spaces. This generates that suddenly a feeling of community appears, this brings you out. You know that you belong, that there are people like you, that it's not crazy ( dysphobically valued), that you're not broken, and motivation springs up. For the feeling of belonging mobilizes us towards the community, towards the future, orients us, roots us and gives meaning to life. We must be careful, because sometimes it makes us believe that we have to give to the community and make it improve beyond our possibilities, that we must be productive for the community, and this makes us promote activism without care or that we do not value people who cannot come out of the closet yet, who cannot do activism or who do not feel like it. For the idea of others not living our childhoods sometimes torments us or that we are not “trans* enough” because we don't come out with the flag, but precisely because it feels like there are no other people who take care of the welfare and rights of non-binary people and also because there are no other valid references.

Therefore, I gathered that in adulthood, the resources that help are having a community, a supportive space, whether cis or trans*, but that really accepts your expression, values you and gives you affection. It helps to know that your perception is the same as other people, to have access to resources to read about other realities, to meet other people, to be able to rewrite your life with meanings and to fill those gaps that have been there for years. The referents and safe spaces are very necessary, to explore and to be able to be again without fear and to look for yourself in all that dissociation, anxiety and sadness. Activism in many cases becomes a way to hold on to life, to validate, validating and creating those places for you and for future generations. Feeling that affection, that tells you that it's okay to be you and that you are loved “even” as an NB. That's what they hold on to, that's what we hold on to. And not everyone has someone to accept them as they are, so we need professionals talking about this, we need people in the media, we need educational personnel to embrace, we need a society that includes you, not leaves you on the margins, leaves you dragging the stigma and demands that you “behave” in a normative way.

In your day-to-day life, what are the difficulties that non-binary people encounter as a result of the prevailing binary gender expectations?

Mel: Precisely I have a section called “The cishetero in the process” that talks about this, first that the expectations are divided into two issues, the first is if you are male and female, and the second that there are no other options, therefore, if you do not fit into it, it does not exist, it is a lie, you are a fashion, you want to be special, it is an ideology, you are something monstrous that goes against their values and the main ideas of how the world works.

Then, in language, besides having few ways to explain it since language is binary, you also have to debate if your existence is not true since the RAE does not pick it up, and suddenly the spelling that they did not care about since it was necessary to pass an exam, becomes the maximum code that must be fulfilled. And this above your welfare, your rights, your emotions and everything, because there is a higher law that says so and your welfare, your life, becomes insignificant.

Then you have expression, if you're a man you're supposed to be masculine, if you're a woman, feminine. So... What are we non-binary people left with, androgyny? This is a myth we have to face, first of all that expression categorized in these two parts is a completely social issue not inherent to your genitalia since you are born, neither to your orientation nor identity. On the other hand, androgyny as hegemonic masculinity and femininity is not always achievable, in fact no one is built so that we can achieve it, so we are in a constant discomfort to demonstrate it and not to be taken away from us. To conclude, sexed characters or physiology is not identity, orientation is not identity, expression is not identity. One thing is what your body looks like, another is whether you are attracted to people and who you are attracted to, another is how you express yourself and another is how and who you are. That they are related, yes, but we do not expect that because you have a flat nose you are homosexual, you express yourself “x” and your character is “y”. To a person's expression we give binary meanings, we classify, we take for granted. We have learned to base our system on identifying characteristics and attributing a grammatical gender and a certain identity. But identity is not a visible issue, you can make it visible, but you do not know at first sight if I am from one city or another, from one religion or another, if I am asex or bi, or if I am a man, a woman, a non-binary or a different identity. And that basic reading, with an assignment we have to deal with every day. And they are stereotypes in the end, it is like taking for granted that because I am a woman I know how to cook or because I am black I know how to fight or because I am gay I know about flowers. We see, we label, we presuppose and we act. This does not respect identities, it attends to our imaginary and to what I want you to be. This is a necessary point to eliminate discrimination, stop taking for granted and ask and know.

Another great section are the spaces or rather the lack of them and the violence that you can live for not having them (when they do not even offer them to you), and they are the bathrooms, the changing rooms and the forms. There are two options, male-female, male or female, what do you do? Apart from reminding you that you don't exist, forcing you to frame yourself, you may suffer violence for accessing or not accessing one of them.

From here on, you have a great daily amalgam of LGTBIAQphobia and external and internalized transphobia. To which I want to emphasize, having to be always available, happy, with good manners and with the knowledge and pedagogical strategies to explain at any time all the information you need about your identity, even using disqualifying words, insulting myths and inappropriate questions. But there is the obligation for those who are not normative to know, have and must all the time to attend to the curiosity and lack of information, regardless of our emotions, time, ways in which we are treated and even accusing us if we do not have the answers they want, this obligation to have a bank of resources greater than the search for a browser is violence.

Let us list them: name, grammatical gender/pronoun, misinformation about our identities, denial of these, violent emotional responses to the above, uncomfortable questions, access to bathrooms, changing rooms or other segregated spaces such as sports, segregated leisure spaces, non-existence in our documents and administrative forms, insults, jokes, NBphobia and transphobia in general. Not to mention the problems of family rejection, school bullying, labor exclusion, medical violence, violence in institutions (residences, psychiatric wards, care centers for functional diversity or disability ...), direct violence and above all, constant fear and insecurity of when and how this violence will come.

I am a mother of a child, and I am concerned about this issue. I would like it to grow up with good attitudes towards diversity and to be able to live with satisfaction also in diversity. How can I-we can contribute with our little ones to this?

Mel: I love this question, it makes me really happy. How do we make our children have good attitudes towards life? We encourage moments of joy, of interaction based on respect, listening, affection and limits. We encourage them to have access to different stimuli, to be able to decide between them, we show them different types of food and toys, and not only show them, we let them choose the ones they want and play with them when they choose them. We try to validate their choices, autonomy, to teach them to deal with what they don't understand and not to judge negatively who they are but the acts or situations.

Well, we already have the basis, let's encourage diversity to be what it is, the reality, the everyday, the fun, what is respected, listened to, given affection and limits to aggression. Let them have diverse access and choice, let them choose clothes, toys with a non-stereotypical variety, and let them value when other children use toys they don't like, let them try and change when they decide to incorporate new clothes. Let them experiment with costumes and music, their body, their expression and play with them in this process. Let them discover themselves and see how others explore themselves, change their choice and it is positive or make a mistake and it is also positive, let them express themselves and how this is fun, this is valid, this is changeable, this is welcomed, respected and not filled with judgment, looks or aggressions like silence, but laughter and sharing.

Just as we are concerned that their stories, their books, their series have “diverse” families or not only hegemonic moms and dads. Or that they have more validated body models so that they do not feel self-conscious for complying with certain fat-phobic canons. We are also going to pay attention to these contents in terms of racialization, in terms of identity diversity, we are simply going to let them see reality. They do not judge, they learn to judge by the grimace of disgust, fear or fear of adults. If we accept their diversity, validate their choice, show them different types and ways of bodies, identities, orientations and expressions, they will be happier, whether they are cis/trans or not, and moreover, they will know how to live with diversity, with the variation, with uncertainty, with not judging, they will be comfortable with trying, making mistakes, asking for forgiveness, caring, respecting and asking to be respected.

Love their diversity, allow them their diversity and all the way will be accomplished. Show them a thousand options, as in food, and they will learn what they like, what they don't like, to choose, to combine, to explore and to care.

We can also incorporate the question of grammatical gender, and help them not to take for granted whether someone is a boy, girl or non-binary. Talk to them about the fact that each person discovers and builds their identity and that they will have to see where they feel more comfortable, they feel that it is their place and that no matter where they are, they will be loved and cared for, just as they care for those who are in other places.

Regarding the trans law (or what we know of its draft), under debate at the moment, are there any measures taken into account that would improve the lives of non-binary people?

Mel: In these previous and filtered documents, non-binary people are included thanks to the mobilization of trans, binary, non-binary and family associations, which has been going on in recent years, in fact research has been promoted by the Ministry of Equality to learn about non-binary realities.

But to continue we need to clarify two things. First, the non-binary concept is an umbrella that encompasses a multitude of identities, just as trans* includes many identities, cis includes many people, gay, lesbian, etc. They are concepts that include many experiences with certain common aspects. This concept is mediated by binarism and colonialism, that is, in other cultures there are other concepts to name those people who are not male or female as it is socially understood -in that culture or in comparison with our culture- and, this “how it is socially understood” in our culture is that it is constant, not fluid and excluding, you are either one or the other all your life and it never changes. That is, we not only have men, women and non-binary people, there are other concepts outside these categories, people who do not take these three categories or who do not yet know the term to be able to appropriate it, people who are questioning their identities and the law should include the free construction, discovery and determination of the identity nomenclature and should include various ways of being trans*.

Second, in Spain there is neither validation nor legitimization, nor EXPLICIT acceptance in the law to avoid discrimination of non-binary and related people (these non-Eurocentric identities I was talking about before). Therefore, it is not that people's lives are improved, it is that we are allowed to exist in the legal framework, applying the human rights that have been denied for years. Both in a general way by denying us our existence, our feelings, experiences and by rooting us to the rare, the sick, the pathological, the punishable, the reconvertible, the crazy. As the human rights that have been recognized for years by other organizations and which are being violated despite being adhered to these international organizations.

Based on these two questions, yes, we finally appear explicitly as something more than “other identities” or “other identity constructions” as already included in some regional laws. This generates that we begin to contemplate that our identities comply with rights such as the non-discrimination of the Constitution and that certain actions that violate our integrity, freedom and dignity are penalized. That we begin to delegitimize the violence we receive and that we begin to appear with another social imaginary, with other powers and that other issues may emerge such as research, creation of protocols, changes in institutional structures that generate continuous violence, inclusion and strategies so that we are not a population at risk of social exclusion in the basic aspects (academic, labor and socially). Because, unfortunately, until something is not named, is not put as a subject of rights and non-violence, until that moment we do not have the quality of persons, of human beings to be cared for and respected.

For now it appears that we might have the right to be who we are, it appears that we might have the right to express it or not, as every person and to be able to denounce or that it might be a crime to violate us. It appears that this is necessary since childhood, that this is necessary even if we do not have legal “papers” or if we are racialized, crip, functionally diverse or older. It allows us to be able to use our names, to change them in our documentation, and even to remove the mention of our sex (even if we are not recognized by our identity or outside of H and M), to have access to counseling, treatment, medicalized processes, to have access to protocols in education, health and work in order not to suffer violence and to have a real inclusion.

But for now I do not think it is enough, I think it is necessary to specify more how it will be put into practice, how to intervene and evaluate the agents that interact with people on a daily basis. I think it is not enough because for now, as I read, we are disappearing. In the first pages we appear, the first rights appear, but when we get to issues that touch on privileges or change the structure and mobilize more agents, we are disappearing. We are disappearing in the media, in the modern media, we are disappearing in sports, in institutionalized spaces (residences, psychiatric wards, day centers for disability, functional diversity, elderly, mental health, juvenile centers, etc.), we do not appear in the affective assistance, in the relational, in the violence in couples, etc. Progressively, we are going from existing since we are named to not knowing what to do with us since we raise the need to make a change in the violent, sexist, patriarchal, colonialist, capacitist, capitalist structure and I do not know to what extent we are prepared to make this leap. Therefore, there is much to do, it is not only “allow” that we exist and that if we are violated there are some measures but there is much to do from the bathrooms, the pronouns, the power to play in a sports team, enter a nightclub or fill out an administrative form.