Er-hem. Uh... Merry Christmas? Sorry for the heavy page for the holidays. It's just kind of the way things lined up. ^^;
I think it's a good discussion page though. Do you think Aiken's research has any hope of getting through to Kellen? She says she "really hates this", but what exactly do you think this is that she hates? And how do we feel about Aiken's attitude? Last time we're seeing them for the rest of the chapter, so get your thoughts on the siblings out now.
I'm very happy that Aiken is at least trying to be sympathetic and understand. Kellen, on the other hand, isn't trying very hard to be accepting of Rain which makes me quite sad.
I don't know if it's necessarily common or not, but I can attest that roughly a third of the trans people I know happen to also have Aspergers. It may well just happen to be the ones I know, but that is still kind of a lot. I would wonder if there's any kind of significance to that or if that's just a coincidence.
Hmm, just did a quick google search and based on some articles linked it seems that possibly trans individuals have a higher chance of being on the Autism/Aspergers spectrum. I shall look further into this. I had never heard nor thought about this before.
Autism and Gender Dysphoria actually have some overlappings. It is very common to see people being double diagnosed.
I don't know how and why this is, as i'm not a gender therapist and do not claim to be one. But it is an insteresting statistic.
I'm not diagnosed as gender dysphoric yet (only recently started seeing a therapist), but i might get a triple diagnosis, because i got some ADD on top of it. And imagine trying to explain to others how that works...
Me too. Genderfluid (I think, hard to pin it down) and Asperger's. Also somewhat demisexual and somewhat skoliosexual. I think I did read somewhere that Aspies are a lot more likely to be some kind of LGBT than neurotypicals are. (Or maybe we're just not as good at denial? Ha ha.)
Aiken seems to have figured out what is important, though. That is really encouraging. Of course he's also had a lot of time to do some thinking, and Fara really got under his skin before she threw him out.
I'd be inclined to think Kellen's grieving the brother she knew. At least it almost looks like that sort of pain. Not logical, but emotions rarely are.
Of course, it doesn't excuse Kellen being a complete @*$!#%$.
It is really hard to say for sure with Kellen. From the phone calls with Fara, something else is going on with Kellen. Her reaction to her brother's engagement seemed to be a bit self destructive. It certainly isn't normal. So part of the "this" could have little to do with Rain and more with Kellen's own problems. Hard to say with a character we haven't gotten to know. I'd prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt before writing her off.
I think Kellen's biggest problem isn't the transgender issue per se, but Ryan/Rain him/herself.
Kellen has a mental image of Ryan, her little brother, as just that, her little brother.
Just as for your parents, whether you're 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55, etc your still their little boy/girl, their kid, you're never 100% adult to them.
Because of that mental image, at the moment, to her accepting Ryan as Rain, as a female, feels like killing off Ryan and getting Rain in return, who might share Ryan's memories, but to Kellen is a completely different person.
The truth of course is that Rain is Ryan's true self, and Ryan isn't gone, she was always like this, just hidden most of the time, the person she shared all those childhood memories with is still there.
Kellen has to learn about this, and then accept it, which for most people isn't an easy feat, since we humans like things to be they way they are, like they've alway been.
Kellen might even been far more accepting if this was say the little brother (whom she barely knows) of one of her friends.
But the fact being that this is her own little brother, that this is someone she grew up with and went trough a lot of childhood hardship with, which created an mental image of Ryan which we now know to be false, I think that's the reason she has some much trouble coping with this change.
It might even feel, falsely, but as someone else pointed out emotions rarely make logical sense, like betrayal, Ryan lied to her about who he really was, Kellen would consciously never think like that, but it might "feel" like that.
Kellen has to come to grips what she knew, and thought she knew about Ryan was partially false, and unify that with what she now knows, and comes to know over the next few days about Rain, and that will be a hard task for her.
While I knew an ultimatum was going to be given to Kellen, and I figured it was death related, I get the feeling Jocelyn has something more dramatic behind Kellen's reason for struggling with this situation. Besides usually being the reasons IRL it also makes for a better story in most cases.
I might be completely off base here, but I'm guessing it has something to do with Fara in some way.
I think that Kellens issue is not about being trans but that she feels alone and abandoned.
Chapter 2 - 31 phone calls sums up how she feels first her mum dies and dad runs off then her twin runs off with a girl he met online and cuts contact and whenever she tries to talk to what family she has left she gets vague answers about 'Ryan'and only finds out about Rain because Aiken found out.
Now she feels like she is losing one of the few people in her life as having Rain means losing Ryan to her.
I think she just needs to spend time with Rain to see that they are still the same person on the inside and she hasn't lost anyone.
Earlier today, I went on a long rant asking questions (that I am still unsure of how to check) and I referred to transgender as transexual. Tired mistake on my part, for which I want to apologize :P
Really digging the Aiken redemption arc, although I have a bad feeing you're not going to give us two "initially hostile sibling gradually comes around" stories in a row.
Interesting that Aiken didn't bring up the common "other side" to the suicide statistic (though granted, I don't know if it was so commonly cited in 2014): that trans kids who have supportive homes/families are *dramatically* less likely to attempt suicide.
(Well, maybe not eternally-rainbowland happy, but still :V)
I don't know if it's necessarily common or not, but I can attest that roughly a third of the trans people I know happen to also have Aspergers. It may well just happen to be the ones I know, but that is still kind of a lot. I would wonder if there's any kind of significance to that or if that's just a coincidence.
I don't know how and why this is, as i'm not a gender therapist and do not claim to be one. But it is an insteresting statistic.
I'm not diagnosed as gender dysphoric yet (only recently started seeing a therapist), but i might get a triple diagnosis, because i got some ADD on top of it. And imagine trying to explain to others how that works...
I'd be inclined to think Kellen's grieving the brother she knew. At least it almost looks like that sort of pain. Not logical, but emotions rarely are.
Of course, it doesn't excuse Kellen being a complete @*$!#%$.
It is really hard to say for sure with Kellen. From the phone calls with Fara, something else is going on with Kellen. Her reaction to her brother's engagement seemed to be a bit self destructive. It certainly isn't normal. So part of the "this" could have little to do with Rain and more with Kellen's own problems. Hard to say with a character we haven't gotten to know. I'd prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt before writing her off.
Kellen has a mental image of Ryan, her little brother, as just that, her little brother.
Just as for your parents, whether you're 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55, etc your still their little boy/girl, their kid, you're never 100% adult to them.
Because of that mental image, at the moment, to her accepting Ryan as Rain, as a female, feels like killing off Ryan and getting Rain in return, who might share Ryan's memories, but to Kellen is a completely different person.
The truth of course is that Rain is Ryan's true self, and Ryan isn't gone, she was always like this, just hidden most of the time, the person she shared all those childhood memories with is still there.
Kellen has to learn about this, and then accept it, which for most people isn't an easy feat, since we humans like things to be they way they are, like they've alway been.
Kellen might even been far more accepting if this was say the little brother (whom she barely knows) of one of her friends.
But the fact being that this is her own little brother, that this is someone she grew up with and went trough a lot of childhood hardship with, which created an mental image of Ryan which we now know to be false, I think that's the reason she has some much trouble coping with this change.
It might even feel, falsely, but as someone else pointed out emotions rarely make logical sense, like betrayal, Ryan lied to her about who he really was, Kellen would consciously never think like that, but it might "feel" like that.
Kellen has to come to grips what she knew, and thought she knew about Ryan was partially false, and unify that with what she now knows, and comes to know over the next few days about Rain, and that will be a hard task for her.
I might be completely off base here, but I'm guessing it has something to do with Fara in some way.
Chapter 2 - 31 phone calls sums up how she feels first her mum dies and dad runs off then her twin runs off with a girl he met online and cuts contact and whenever she tries to talk to what family she has left she gets vague answers about 'Ryan'and only finds out about Rain because Aiken found out.
Now she feels like she is losing one of the few people in her life as having Rain means losing Ryan to her.
I think she just needs to spend time with Rain to see that they are still the same person on the inside and she hasn't lost anyone.
"...that it had to be a our little brother."