Unlocking The Closet Door Through Psychedelics
To paraphrase Gene Hackman in Crimson Tide, you don’t always get to do things during calm and optimal conditions. Naturally, the thought of delaying the reveal that I’m transgender in the midst of a worldwide pandemic and financial market crash had crossed my mind, but was quickly dismissed. For one, choosing the safe, easy and comfortable path is not my style, and there would seem to be few things more punk than coming out during these chaotic times.
It was not dismissed flippantly, however. Canada took a step forward with enshrining gender identity protections in law, but there is little doubt that there is still stigma felt by the trans community that isn’t going to go away with the flick of a legislative pen. As much support as I have received from those I have shared this truth with, there will undoubtedly be negative implications. Given many have said that the words that come to mind when they think of me are transparent and honest, it was really less about making the choice and more about readying myself for the consequences.
Psychedelics have played a large part in this journey, so large that I will have much more to write on the subject of psychedelics and gender identity. It’s challenging to properly summarize their impact without turning this blog post into a novel, but one thing I do want to emphasize is that I believe psychedelics do tend to follow a similar law to those of thermodynamics, in that they don’t create thoughts or ideas, but bring them into focus. Rather than being a limitation, I think that is a very good thing, as otherwise it would be too easy to dismiss truths discovered during assisted spiritual journeys as just some fanciful creation of a flood of serotonin.
One such assisted spiritual journey went beyond bringing the truth that my gender identity is female into focus, and also illustrated the damage that living in opposition to that truth was doing. I’ve spoken before about how psychedelics can be a bit of a ‘cheat code’ to show you what the end state of a particular journey might be. At the time I was speaking with regards to generalized mental health conditions, but for me this has been doubly true for gender dysphoria.
Had I known how much of my anxiety was actually wrapped up in gender dysphoria, I may have taken on the risks of attempting to transition in Alberta during the 90’s when these feelings first surfaced. While on some level I would have preferred to do this much sooner, I’m not sure ‘regret’ is the right word to use. We all have to apply some kind of risk calculus to our life choices, and I wouldn’t have arrived at this point had a different decision been made back then.
I have known ever since early teenage years that I don’t properly fit into the male box, and my peer social groups have very rarely male dominated (usually the opposite). In this case psychedelics can be looked at as a lens that focused those vague feelings into a certain truth. Psychedelics are not the beginning and end of the story however, as people are often told outside of assisted spiritual journeys we still have to ‘do the work’. After some measure of doing the work, the reduction in anxiety was easily double, if not more than any combination of antidepressants I have ever taken.
I would most certainly not have been able to do the work without an amazing group of women who have given me space to both explore what this change in gender identity means for me and the world around me. If I was tempted to apply labels to these new relationship dynamics some might be mentor, sister, or friend. These words, however, are inadequate to capture the richness of these new relationships so I’ll instead say that each one is very special in their own regard and I feel very privileged to have such a supportive community.
There is another element that pushed me to start doing the work, which is almost the polar opposite of a supportive community. ‘Toxic masculinity’ is a phrase which has gradually lost its meaning in the tides of the culture wars, and a phrase that I had always bristled at. Now however, toxic masculinity has become a very real thing to me, with roots in the ‘women as reward’ trope.
Even after the fairytale-esque experience of being plucked from a tech job into the rollercoaster ride that is the cannabis industry and some amount of fame associated with it, I found myself in the depths of depression when I had very little to complain about. I haven’t been seriously suicidal in quite some time, but on some nights I felt very close to the beginning of that road.
The reason only became clear to me much later, that it wasn’t so much the lack of an intimate relationship that was causing these feelings, but the expectation that you aren’t truly successful without one, which is a large part of why I never felt comfortable in most (not all) male peer groups. For a long time I had operated under the assumption that I needed to change something about myself to comfortably fit in that box, but recent experience identifying as a female with other females has cemented the fact that I was trying to fit into the wrong box all along.
With my personal journey now laid bare, there are some broader topics I also want to start talking about. Psychedelics are taking some small first steps even amidst the pandemic to legitimacy and legalization, but also repeating some of the mis-steps that characterized cannabis legalization. One of the obvious perils is the ‘big pharma’ trope, but I also increasingly see the same kind of gatekeeping and personal enrichment coming from the grassroots level.
Capitalism is an undeniable aspect of our lives, and is not a universal negative. The reality of ‘big pharma’ is that clinical trials are expensive, lengthy, and often do not guarantee a product will reach shelves or offer investors a return. Psychedelics may better fit into the pharmaceutical box than cannabis did, but it should absolutely not be the only method of access.
The perils of the grassroots approach are actually not that different than any other subject with cultural momentum. Grifters will set up shop, hang out their own particular shingle and create some fancy pitch decks with their value propositions. The biggest danger is that rather than acting as a counterpoint to the barriers of the big pharma model, communities will instead introduce their own form of gatekeeping, rather than creating truly inclusive environments to explore the potential of psychedelics in a non-clinical way.
To put it more bluntly, psychedelics should not be used as a replacement for fire-walking as part of the performative self-help industry, but thoughtfully integrated into therapeutic and spiritual experiences, communities and ventures.
It’s also vitally important that LGBTQ perspectives be included as we start exploring the potential of psychedelics. Based on my own experiences, I have no doubt that there are many who would be able to seriously consider doing the work of transitioning with a glimpse at their end state of being that psychedelics can provide. I have much more to say on my individual experiences, but they deserve to have enough room to breathe in their own separate post.
Having said what I wanted to say, and what I am going to say next, I’m choosing to end with asking myself what will happen next in a broader sense. This is where I thought I would list off all my anxieties and fears of negativity, but I can truly say that what I feel most is curiosity as to what will follow. The world is in an increasingly uncertain state, which has motivated me to go against my predisposition to draw up a plan for every possibility and just let what’s going to happen, happen.