This is the second paper I wrote featuring Mr. Jingles. I think I made a C on this paper because the professor felt I wasn't taking the topic of transgenderism very seriously.
Suppose that you wish to change an identity (for yourself or someone else). What are some of the obstacles toward changing an identity? Explain, theoretically and empirically.
Mr. Jingles Likes Women's Clothing
Having successfully solved his problem of interrupting people, Mr. Jingles came to me with a new problem. It seemed that Mr. Jingles had recently begun to have feelings that he was really a woman trapped in a man's body. Mr. Jingles had rented The Silence of the Lambs and really identified with the man who felt that his “true identity” was a woman, but had balked at wearing a skin suit made from women; apparently, he was also afraid of going to jail, based on the stories he had heard about what happens to “effeminate men” in prison. I told Mr. Jingles that balking at wearing a skin suit was a very healthy reaction, and that if he was serious about feeling like a woman trapped in a man's body there were other, less psychotic ways to go about expressing himself.
I started by asking Mr. Jingles if s/he had any previous events where s/he dressed up as a woman; particularly in his childhood, since this seems to show up in many transsexual's self-narratives. Mr. Jingles related no accounts of childhood cross-dressing, as well as no accounts of feeling like his gender was being pushed on him by outside forces, but s/he did tell me a story about how s/he had dressed up as a nun on Halloween. Apparently s/he had really enjoyed shaving his legs and wearing a brassiere, particularly because s/he had made himself “a nice rack,” as s/he put it. Privately, I found several things interesting about this. His choice of costume, a nun, was a very non-sexual woman, and his previous comment about fearing violation in jail made it seem that if Mr. Jingles was being sincere about his feeling like s/he was a woman in a man's body, then s/he was feeling like s/he was a lesbian woman trapped in a man's body. The comment s/he made about his costume having “a nice rack” seemed to confirm this, as “rack” is a very sexual term to use when referring to breasts. But it was still possible that s/he wanted to change his gender identity, not his sexual identity, so I decided to help.
I suggested that Mr. Jingles dress himself up as a woman for a day to make sure this was what s/he wanted. “Call yourself Ms. Jingelina Jolie,” I suggested, “And create a story for yourself about who you are.” I was curious as to where Ms. Jingelina would go; Burke's Identity Control Theory suggests that if s/he truly felt like a woman then s/he would go somewhere where this identity was provided feedback through social interaction. This meant that Ms. Jingelina probably wouldn't go somewhere where her previous identity was known, since being given feedback opposite to her “true identity” would cause stress; at the very least, if s/he did go somewhere s/he was familiar with s/he shouldn't be there very long. The story that Ms. Jingelina came up with could also lead to interesting insights about how she truly feels about being a woman inside.
Ms. Jingelina came up with a story where s/he was a preppy, gold-digging hussy who had a habit of using men for her own amusement. I though this was odd, since it didn't seem to reflect how someone who wanted to be a woman should act. When I asked her about his, Ms. Jingelina simply replied, “Well, that describes all the women I know.” Apparently, Ms. Jingelina had tried to go shopping for women's clothes while dressed up as a woman. S/he became flustered when talking with sales representatives, since s/he didn't know much about her 'size', and eventually retreated to a bar that Mr. Jingles liked to frequent. There, s/he spent several hours drinking beer and getting hit on by drunken men, which s/he apparently did not enjoy. These events seemed contrary to what I expected of her; clothes shopping and having men flirt with her should have reaffirmed her “true identity”. I was beginning to suspect some sort of trickery from Ms. Jingelina, but giving her the shadow of a doubt, I told her about a transvestite group meeting scheduled to take place tomorrow, and suggested that s/he attend it. “You can learn to act like a woman from these people by modeling them,” I told her. Privately, I also wanted to see how speaking with them would affect her, since they should reaffirm her “true identity” very well, so I called the head adviser for the group that day and asked her to tell me how Ms. Jingelina adapted to the group.
Ms. Jingelina managed not to get thrown out of the group meeting, which I considered a victory in itself. The head adviser, though, told me that s/he had displayed closed body language the whole time, keeping her arms crossed and shoulders hunched inward, and didn't interact with the group any more than was required. Ms. Jingelina, however, told me a very different story. S/he talked about how much she had learned from watching them, and how much more confident s/he was in her 'femininity'. Although it could simply be attributed to Ms. Jingelina being shy, I knew for a fact that Mr. Jingles was very much an extrovert; this, though, could simply be a difference in the two identities. I didn't want to judge Ms. Jingelina based on her previous identity, so I told her that s/he was making good progress, but to keep going to the meetings and socializing while dressed up as a woman as much as possible. I also explained that s/he needed to make some new friends as Ms. Jingelina, since interaction with Mr. Jingles friends would probably only serve to reaffirm her old identity; they also might not adjust very well to Ms. Jingelina. I suggested she go out for drinks with some of the members of the transvestite group and get to know them better. This proved to be the breaking point for Ms. Jingelina.
While out drinking with the transvestites Ms. Jingelina was approached by what appeared to be a very attractive woman. She seemed to know the people Ms. Jingelina was with very well, but seemed more interested in getting to know the “new girl”. They seemed to hit it off famously, and later they went back to the mysterious strangers place. I learned all this from the transvestite groups head adviser, who had gone to the bar with them. The next day Mr. Jingles came to my office wearing normal mens clothing and seemed very withdrawn. He mumbled something about The Crying Game and how this had all really just been a ploy to find some bi-curious lesbians, and that he was sorry for wasting my time. I told him not to worry about it, since I had found the whole experience to be interesting and somewhat amusing. I suspected that deep down inside all Mr. Jingles really wanted to learn was what made women tick, since his previous experiences with them had seemed very negative, judging from the story he had come up with for Ms. Jingelina.
This whole encounter brought up many interesting points about the process of changing an identity. Although Mr. Jingles had not been serious about changing his identity to reflect his “true self” he almost definitely learned something in the process, both about himself and others. Perhaps if he learns to reflect on the whole subject as living the metaphorical “walking a mile in someone else's shoes” he will come to new conclusions about his “true self” and perhaps someday try to honestly change his identity. Until then, though, I will simply think of him as Mr. Jingles.
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