What makes a Community.
In the early part of the 1960’s, a group of people comprised of different individuals came together and made their own way of life free from what they saw as a pressured society. This rejection was apparent and many on the outside saw these groups of people as something to be shunned. Rumours spread of what sexual activity went on and what drugs were consumed. The groups were called Communes.
Many a parent was shocked to learn that their children of all ages were involved. In actual fact, they lived away from the technology enjoyed at that time only to live in peace and harmony, gathering the produce of their hard work to keep them sustained. Nature was a part of their very being and an acceptance of all was their underlying nature. If Eden was ever found, it would have been in these people.
The Baby Boomers of that time are now our parents and our leaders, integrating themselves into what we call our society. There still may be a residual hostility but many of the philosophies of that era have been integrated into what we see today, including acceptance.
Now that’s a big word, Acceptance. It means that whatever ideas or people that were strange before are now a part of a being and perhaps a reason to be. Certainly some research had been done, more information gathered and much thinking and change had been done in order to be accepted or to be accepting. Everyone goes through that, there are no exceptions. Some resist, some take it to be part of them and still others stay neutral. Neutrality is a resistance in itself.
Outer acceptance means that you can deal and work with situations that are out of your control. Inner acceptance has everything to do with you and little to do with what is on the outside but its integration into you helps to deal with the outer acceptance.
Being part of a community means that not only have you dealt with yourself but that you are dealing with others around you. There is a saying : Before you can like another, you must like yourself first. Acceptance is the last step to liking yourself and in turn, another.
Recognising that there is a conflict within you is the first step. Many have had this discussion with themselves: I am not quite male or female although I look it; I don’t look female or male but I feel it. I am me; there is no other kind of gender; there is just me.
There are many “ Just me’s ” and we call ourselves Intersex or Intergendered. There just isn’t another word for it. It is a label to give to one who is a community practically by them self. Once you get past the label, there isn’t any change to yourself. After all the hard work in getting to this point in your life, what will you do when you come across another that is struggling for self and outer acceptance ?
Help would be encouraged and by doing so, the question is answered : What makes a Community ? You.
Ce qui fait une Communauté.
Dans la partie précédente des années 60, un groupe de personnes consistés en différents individus est venu ensemble et a rendu leur propre façon de vivre exempte de ce qu'elles ont vu en tant que société pressurisée. Ce rejet était évident et beaucoup on vu l'extérieur les groupes de personnes car quelque chose être évité, diffusion de rumeurs de quelle activité sexuelle a continué et quelle drogues ont été consommées. Les groupes se sont appelés Communes.
Beaucoup d'un parent a été choqué pour apprendre que leurs enfants de tous les âges étaient impliqués. En effet, ils ont vécu loin de la technologie appréciée à ce moment-là de vivre seulement dans la paix et l'harmonie, recueillant le produit de leur travail dur pour les maintenir soutenues. La nature était une pièce de leur être très et une acceptation de toute était leur nature fondamentale. Si Éden était jamais trouvé, il aurait été dans ces personnes.
Les bébé Boomers de ce temps sont maintenant nos parents et nos chefs, s'intégrant dans ce que nous appelons notre société. Il peut encore y a une hostilité résiduelle mais plusieurs des philosophies de cette ère ont été intégrées dans ce que nous voyons aujourd'hui comprenant l'acceptation.
Acceptation, c’est une grand mot. Il signifie que quelque 'idée ou personnes qui étaient étranges avant que soient maintenant une partie d'un être et peut-être une raison d'être. Certainement de la recherche avait été faite, plus d'information recueillie et beaucoup de pensée et de changement avaient été faits afin de pour être acceptés. Chacun passe par celui, là ne sont aucune exception. Certains résistent, les autres le prennent pour faire partie d'eux et encore d'autres restent neutres. La neutralité est une résistance en soi.
L'acceptation externe signifie que vous pouvez traiter et travailler les situations qui sont hors de votre commande. L'acceptation intérieure a tout à faire avec vous et peu à faire avec ce qui est sur l'extérieur mais c'est intégration dans vous aide à traiter l'acceptation externe.
Faire partie d'une communauté signifie qui vous ont non seulement eu affaire avec vous-même mais qui vous avez affaire avec d'autres autour de vous. Il y a une énonciation : Avant que vous puissiez aimer des autres, vous devez vous aimer. L'acceptation est la dernière étape à s'aimer et alternativement, des autres. L'identification qu'il y a d'un conflit chez vous est la première étape. Beaucoup ont eu cette discussion avec eux-mêmes : Je ne suis pas tout à fait masculin ou femelle bien que je la regarde, je ne regarde pas la femelle ou le mâle mais je la sens. Je suis moi, là n'est aucun autre genre de genre, là est juste moi.
Il y a beaucoup "juste moi" et nous nous appelons Intersexe ou Intergenre. Il n'y a pas un autre mot pour lui. C'est une étiquette à donner à une qui est une communauté pratiquement par eux art de l'autoportrait. Une fois que vous obtenez après l'étiquette, il n'y a pas aucun changement à vous-même. Après tout le travail dur en obtenant à ce point dans votre vie, que ferez-vous quand vous trouvez un autre par hasard qui lutte pour l'art de l'autoportrait et l'acceptation externe ?
L'aide serait encouragée et en faisant ainsi la question est répondue :
Que fait une Communauté ? Vous.
Silence
By Andre Lorek, OII-Canada: Outreach and support for the Intergender Community
I have been thinking about this for quite some time. It came to me when I was sitting watching the young dancers strut their stuff up upon the stage where my daughter was in the wings waiting to take her turn with the rest of her team at a dance competition. I loved the interpretations people came up with especially those who felt the music flow through them. They wore the songs as they twisted and manipulated them to give the song life, almost like you could reach out and touch it, perhaps hold it. Like water, their flow ended when the music was over.
A song came up and I don’t remember if it was the name of the song, a refrain or something that I felt at that very moment. The word “Silence” came up and immediately I felt at peace, almost an exuberant peace. I thought about it a bit more as the song was playing and made a mention to myself that I have to write about this.
Silence…the one thing I strived for. The reason I took up fishing, mechanics and purposely being genuinely interested in people, all for that one fleeting moment where silence is comforting. It represents flow, a hum that equalizes the noise in a body, a restful place if only for the moment.
Silence can only come from oneself for when it is imposed, it can be a menace, a restriction to what should be spoken and shouted. It can hang on like a manacle, binding your every move, every thought and every action. It can be the result of fear, of anxiety and of values imposed upon us. It can be a dramatic end, an explosive beginning or a pause of reflection of something that has come to pass. It is used and manipulated in speech and in action, a binding of a cause and effect and a realisation of impending doom or an onslaught.
Not to be confused with “Quiet”, silence is powerfully vibrant, it has qualities many a person strive for and many others fear. It is something that we all need as a diet and expel as a poison. A Society’s silence is daunting, it holds it’s own values in an unspoken box that cannot be broken but only chipped away at and the missing pieces replaced. Silence is what kept people from speaking out, from being heard and from passing on their heart felt being to another for the fear of being repulsed and put into silence once more.
I use silence for all the purposes mentioned and I look forward to seeing it as I have time to reflect, to think and to come to conclusions. I can spend time in silence for long periods and get easily frustrated when it is broken as a passing thought has fluttered away only to be glimpsed upon at a later time but never fully felt as I initially did.
I vowed to break certain silences where man and beast have suffered immeasurable loss and it makes me angry to think that others can impose themselves thinking that they are the powerful ones, the decision makers and the rulers of all internal and external life. Those are the negative thoughts that inhabit me and it takes all I can muster to come to a positive place where silence is again my friend.
I have help, heaps of it. I get it from others that lend their katra to me for a time so that I can once again begin to heal unknowingly to others and without noise. The essences of me that had been once screaming are now looking forward to when we can swim with each other once more for the benefit of all, carefully equalizing each other in sweet water that holds love and compassion.
All this…
…in silence.
The Man, the Woman and the Child
By Andre Lorek, OII-Canada: Outreach and support for the Intergender Community
I wrote this just a short time ago. I hesitantly gave this in to GendersInX and I was awaiting like a lamb to slaughter It was well recieved and discussions started to emmerge on thier own experiences and frustrations, as it was meant to be.
So, I submit this here as another leap of faith.
The Man, the Woman and the Child
Complicated this world is. Even more so being complicated people as we all are.
Each one of us being of a condition or a norm have an inner child and an opposite sexed characteristic. Some come to recognise these as parts of their own being, others don’t even think about it as being separate entities and still others do. As a person who was in constant turmoil with himself, I needed help and not from the medical community who would rather see me as a medicated nut rather than helping me deal with the different aspects of myself. The combination of all these aspects make the one whole and self reliant.
In the quest of knowing myself better, I had gone through a number of phases that would send most norms reeling. I had to break myself inner self down and see those characteristics for whom they really are. Not only was I brought up as a man, I was a woman as well and the inner child was left to it’s own devices, something of which the Child had no idea on how to handle. Had I gone into the quest of getting to know myself as only a man’s point of view, I certainly would not have gotten very far as men have blind spots, things they do not want to discuss never mind face nor deal with. The same holds true for women and certainly children fit in that category as well.
I liken getting to know myself as getting to know an engine, a mechanical device to make a machine move and create strength to fulfill a purpose like a tractor or a car. This engine is made up of a combination of very different parts nothing of which looks like the other and yet hey all work together creating energy for a purpose. Imagine taking out the fuel injection and asking this machine to work, it won’t happen. Maybe not so significant, a bolt holding the alternator or the fuel pump, take that out and we have a heap of scrap just sitting there. Say one or two parts of this engine is out of sync with another, well you get a very lopsided firing sequence and the
energy would be ill spent. Say some of the parts needed refining to make this engine work better. Well, you would have to take the piece out , work on it and put it back.
I find that is the same with a character that is firing out of sequence or isn’t working well, functional but not to it’s peak efficiency. I had to define the parts of me that make me a person and break them down to individual pieces, the Man, the Woman and the Child. They are capitalized because they are of a significance.
To start, as humans we need to label things so that we can effectively communicate our thoughts to another, such as a fluid receptacle could be a cup and then specifically a tea or coffee cup describing the fluid it normally retains. So too must we label the parts of us that contain the specific characteristic that make up the whole. Here our imagination takes over for the purpose of this essay, I will call the Man, Andre, the Woman, Konalia and the child, Achie (pronounced Akee).
Achie was insecure, not knowing whether Andre or Konelia would take care of him, meeting his needs of closeness and of love. That was solved with the introduction of a teddy bear, something of which was missing, more than the actual stuffed toy. When I was a child. I was sickly and like the story of the Velveteen Rabbit, all my stuffies were taken away in fear that they hid the dust molecules that inhibited my breathing due to Asthma. So security and a “friend” to talk to and hug hadn’t been present. It was greatly missed and I finally figured that out when I had my own child. When we introduced “Dolly” to her, my daughter hugged it all the time, it was in her everyday events. It was so important to her that if left by accident elsewhere, my wife and I would have to turn back to get it. With the introduction of a bear, Achie again felt loved and secure, a friend to have to talk to and made no judgements on him but kept on loving him the way he was/is.
Konelia was another matter. I had a distinct pining, a crying or wailing going on inside me for the longest time. I tried to stifle it by numbing myself to which it made matters worse. The woman inside me wasn’t being let out, addressed and given significance to. I had to get to know her and ease her pain, as a Man, this is daunting and definitely the values of this world would not give me the tools to deal with this situation. It was until I had given her a name, that the pain started to subside. I had to get to know her and let her be part of my life, my everyday life. I actually had to recognise that I am she and she is me. That took a lot of doing, thinking positively help a great deal as I took every stumbling block and saw something positive in it and presented to my other so that we could work on it together.
Andre is the Man, the strength, the logical one, the one that delegates and makes things happen through consultation with others outside and inside of himself. He is the one that takes all the negative and is the manager of people and situations to the best of his ability. He has been the constant, the one dealing with his own family situations and screaming to be let out of his involvement with his birth family as they drove him to drink. He took on more of the hostilities inflicted upon him but he knew it would have been easier if he had gotten to know his co-habitants.
Konelia is the backbone and the one with the compassion and empathy and Achie is the playful one, very devious in his vocabulary always playing the game, never letting up. All were given their chance to be known through some people that helped them out such as my wife, who encouraged us all separately and together. I must say Tom/Ms.G helped as well by showing me how to identify and talk to myself/selves and helping to show me how to give myself a God honest chance but never taking myself too seriously.
With that, the Man, the Woman and the Child are one. A whole. It doesn’t end there, it continues as situations come and more challenges emerge. I think this time, I am more prepared to meet them than I ever have been.
Do you have an inner Child, Man or Woman that needs recognition ?
Andre
