https://lsspjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40504-018-0085-y

Abstract

Many transgender individuals experience shame or have experienced shame at some point in their life for reasons related to their gender identity. This paper attempts to to shed light on the complexities of the experience of shame in transgender individuals.

Introduction

Questions about our gender are in essence questions about who we are as persons, and thus being ashamed about our gender is also an attack on our status as persons. Gender is an intimate and private matter, and at the same time it has an obvious public dimension.

This, as will be explained, renders people who have atypical gender identities particularly exposed to shaming experiences and to the associated risks. This paper will conclude with some recommendations on how to tackle shame in transgender individuals.

Focusing on shame brings to light the fact that many of the predicaments usually associated with gender variance have primary social determinants, and are not primarily intra-psychic; in other words, shame is a social issue, not just a psychological issue.

Shame and its psychological impact

Shame: “feeling ridiculous, embarrassed, humiliated, chagrined, mortified, shy, reticent, painfully self-conscious, inferior, and inadequate”. “The shame-bound person accuses himself of the ‘crime’ of being surplus, unwanted, and worthless”

Although both shame and guilt correlate with psychological suffering, shame is usually considered more perilous than guilt. One piece of research found that “shame (but not guilt) remained significantly associated with higher levels of anxiety proneness and anxiety symptoms”

Transphobia and shame

Hate crime is associated with a number of psychological problems. Studies on shame found that the determinants of shame are likely to be discrimination, threats and similar forms of social rejection.

Shame and self-destructive behaviour

Shame is an emotion directed to the whole self, as an emotion that usually prompts withdrawal and hiding, and which is painfully experienced as beyond reparation. For these reasons shame is regarded as more dangerous than guilt.

Studies show that self-destructive behaviours, suicide attempts and suicide rates are much higher among transgender people than in the general population and may be the result not of gender dysphoria, but of the discrimination, abuse and hatred of gender minorities

Shame in transgender individuals: a social issue

Because gender is an ‘essential’ segment of one’s identity, the process of shaming someone because of their gender identity can go as far and as deep as to put into question their very status as persons

In the process of shaming transgender individuals are not only divested of their protective dignity, de-humanised, and further exposed to violence; they are not only placed quite literally at the borders of human-kind but they, like a mirror, reflect the dis-humanity of others.

Shame is not thus just an obvious response to humiliation; and it is not only a personal reaction, but, as Benjamin also pointed out, is also a socially determined reaction, and a socially “demanding reaction”

How do people cope?

People cope through: minimisation, responsibility and creation of proud identities. ‘Minimisation’ refers to the ‘normalisation’ of cruelty. ‘Taking responsibility’, implies that not-coping is childish. 'Proud identities' deflect shame through ownership.

These modalities are shame-avoidance strategies. Without eradicating transphobia, people can learn to reduce their shaming effect on them. However, any and all these strategies are individual; they depend on the individual’s abilities and resilience.

All of these strategies may thus dissuade sufferers from seeking help, because seeking help may again turn the “shaming-spotlight” towards the individual. The danger is that individual resilience may exacerbate the risk of self-destructive behaviour.

Individual empowerment functions on the idea that there are ‘those who can cope’ (the proud, the resilient, those who can ‘hold their head high’) and ‘those who cannot’ (those sensitive to shame, who are distressed by the social responses, who shy and hide away).

But being resilient is easier in some contexts and harder in others, easier at some times in our lives and harder at others, not just easier for some individuals and harder for others (as in a dichotomy of ‘strong’ and ‘weak’).

Thoughts and recommendations

Understanding shame should be central to understanding the experience of gender variance. Shame is not only, or even primarily, an intra-pscychic issue. The experience of shame is insidious, and can go unnoticed until its consequences are irreparable

The importance of shame cannot be underestimated, considering the serious perils associated with it. Shame is important because it exists in a context. Shame is not the obvious response to humiliation, and it is not only a personal reaction: it is a socially determined reaction.

Shame tells us something about the social environment. Shame has a social nature, particularly in the case of gender variance: shame is a function of how gender and transgender identities are construed, recognised, accepted, validated or vexed in certain socio-cultural contexts.