Evan Urquhart

I think about this a lot in terms of my own experiences in childhood--I was expelled from a girls' school in 1st grade because I was too aggressive and wound up in therapy for it for around a decade--but also in terms of what I've seen in martial arts/fighting sports communities

I absolutely grew up feeling like I was a monster, liable to cause accidental harm at any moment, and that absolutely led to a degradation both of my ability to set firm boundaries and also my ability to be assertive in pretty much any way, physically or verbally

I've been involved in a lot of martial arts in adulthood (capoeira, a few Chinese styles, BJJ, a little bit of HEMA and SCA rattan fighting), and I noticed that dual issue of eroded assertiveness/aggression and monster feelings severely impairing my progress

I have panic attacks every time I land a hit because deep inside, I still feel like there's something wrong inside me where I'm inherently harmful and violent, because to not be violent is to be ladylike, and I simply cannot be a lady. that's not what I am

there's some writing, at least in the SCA (society for creative anachronism), about how this mode of socialization affects women who get into fighting, leading to extreme anxiety and paralysis

one of the few women who's gotten very far in SCA fighting wrote a book a while back about that phenomenon--she theorizes that because girls (or people socialized as girls) are raised to expect negative reinforcement only when they do violence,

since rough-housing and play fighting are not ladylike and are forbidden to us, we develop connection between performing violence (even in play) and that negative reinforcement, so all that shame and fear from childhood just flood us instantly as soon as we hit

hence the panic attacks. and I think as a trans masculine person, that gets internalized to a more deeply rooted degree: it's not just that you must change your behaviour to align with this "lady" figure because to not be a "lady" is to be violent and dangerous,