“They call me Agrado because all my life I have been trying to make life pleasant for others…besides pleasant I am very authentic. Look at that body-all tailored.
Almond eyes 80 thousand.
Nose, 200 throw it all away because the nextyear I got it like that with another beating.
Boobs, two, because it’s not like I’m a monster, however, I’ve already super cushioned them.
Silicone-nose, forehead, cheekbones, hips and ass. A liter is about 100 thousand, so you do the math because I’ve already lost it.
Filing of the jaw 75 thousand.
Laser permanent hair removal, because women come from the monkeys as much as the man, up to 4 sessions, however if you dance flamenco it takes more it is clear.
What I was saying is that it costs a lot to be authentic my lady, and in this one should not be stingy, because
one is more authentic the more she resembles the idea she dreamed of herself.“
(Todo sobre mi madre, Pedro Almodóvar, 1999)
So goes Agrado, Almodóvar’s iconic character who, with her trademark simplicity and directness, affirms an essential principle: everyone is free to be herself and tell her story as she sees fit. But to tell and tell oneself, words are needed to define oneself. This right to tell one’s story is rooted in language, one of humankind’s most complex and distinctive evolutionary tools. Speaking allows us to share concepts, information and instructions in a simple and immediate way, but more importantly it allows us to abstract concepts, handle them with thought, move them into the past or project them into the future, and bring them back to the world in the form of words.
Language and thought are strongly linked. Psychologist Jerome Bruner, in this regard, speaks of two essential forms of thinking: paradigmatic thinking and narrative thinking. While the former is based on evidence and logical consistency and allows us to interpret the world by concepts and heuristics, narrative thinking is based on likelihood and what “makes sense”-or rather: “can make sense”-in terms of human experience. Both thinking styles are fundamental, but the latter is
crucial in identity construction and in making sense of ourselves and the social reality we experience.
Positioning oneself within a social context, involves telling oneself in a shared narrative, determining (and constructing) oneself as beings in the world. It is the narrative that gives meaning to the world, making it understandable and meaningful. To construct a story we need to identify protagonists, events, challenges and solutions. This is as true in the micro as it is in the macro: a nation has meaning the more citizens believe in the values conveyed by popular stories. An organization is as productive the more its workers believe in its ideals. A family is as united as solid and shared are the family myths that bind relatives to one another.
The word enables the sharing of rule, ideal or value, but the word is also what shapes the mind and self (or hetero-) determines. Many psychosocial theories highlight the effect of labeling (or labeling), that is, the attribution of a categorizing label to a behavior, person or social group. The social sciences have analyzed this phenomenon to show how social categorization can impact others’ perceptions toward the categorized object, but also its own self-perception. If you label a person as sick, you give society the power to impose its definition of sickness on her, while having words to define oneself helps to free oneself from labels. If a child is baptized as lazy and then treated as such, she will most likely move through the world in a lazy manner. If we ascribe to that child, once an adult, the category and description of depressed, that woman will feel and behave like a depressed person and likewise be treated, in a vicious spiral.
What we describe is true not only for diagnostic categories but also for social categories, especially those that are minoritized, that is, considered “minorities” not only because of numerical issues but also because of subordination to dominant groups. One of the most influential models for describing the impact that labeling and subsequent stigma have on minorities is Meyer’s (2003) Minority Stress Model. According to this theoretical model, minorities (in the case under study, people from the LGBTQIA+ community) experience discrimination and stigma related precisely to society’s negative and stereotypical perception of sexual and gender identities. These negative experiences then generate a specific form of stress, called precisely “minority stress” – minority stress.
Specifically, Meyer identifies two main types of stressors: external stressors (thus abuse, discrimination, rejection or violence experienced or witnessed) and internal stressors. The latter relate to the more emotional experiences: the constant fear of rejection, the internalization of judgment, the inner conflict with one’s identity due to the
external stigmatizing judgment. Internal factors can lead to an additional level of stress, which, in addition to external (or distal) stressors, can impact the higher level of internalizing disorders, such as anxiety and depression.
Violence, whether physical or verbal, leads to tangible consequences, and one form of violence can also be language poverty. Possessing a limited vocabulary to define oneself, thinking of oneself by stereotypes or with mostly negative adjectives, means limiting one’s personal development, denying an identity to unfold to its full potential. It means delimiting its perimeter, defining how far an identity can self-determine itself and from what point on, instead, it becomes part of a fixed pattern, a stereotype. To have few words to describe oneself is to have few ideas to think about oneself and therefore, in Agrado’s words, to be stingy even in dreaming about oneself.
Meyer’s model identifies identity pride and social support as important protective factors. Being free to express a multifaceted and authentic identity helps decrease the internal stress caused by the need to hide parts of oneself. In settings where people feel free to explore and assert their identity without judgment, an environment is created that fosters richer and more complete identity expression, improving psychological well-being and reducing the risks of distress. Claiming ourselves in our own words and surrounding ourselves with people who love and support us can moderate the effect of a systematically marginalizing society.
Agrado herself shows us how revolutionary it can be to define oneself and oneself freely. Claiming her identity as a transgender woman, her journey of gender affirmation and her freedom to define and tell her story, ironically playing with her impromptu audience, Agrado tells us in just a few minutes something very powerful about being true to oneself.
“One is more authentic the more she resembles the idea she has dreamed of herself”
and, we might add,