EPISODE 1 - Trans: Identity vs Dysphoria
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- Quick Notes:
A debate is raging between two schools of thought: are trans people suffering with gender dysphoria, mental health condition? Or do transgender individuals simply have a gender identity, like a gendered soul, that needs to be recognised? In this first episode Sasha and Stella discuss these two perspectives and the difficult consequences of taking a position on this polarised issue.
Links:
Criteria for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria in the DSM V: www.psychiatry...
About WPATH: www.wpath.org/
About Harry Benjamin: zagria.blogspo...
About the anti-gender movement: www.boell.de/e... and Graff, Agnieszka (2016). "'Gender Ideology': Weak Concepts, Powerful Politics". Religion and Gender. 6 (2): 268-272. doi:10.18352/rg.10177.
Snapchat Dysmorphia: www.medicalnew...
Ehrensaft Pre-Verbal Gender Communications • How to tell if babies ...
Sane voices, in reasoned discussion. What a relief. I've given up trying to write a comment, there's just too much to say so I'll just say, well done, I look forward to more episodes.
Stella's story is almost _identical_ to mine. I also grew up in a time when "gender dysphoria" was not a concept and had to make the choice between accepting my reality and trying to live my best life in spite of it or remaining bitter and unhappy about my body and my circumstances, letting myself spiral into resentment and depression. I chose the former and have thankfully learned to love my body and my life as it is.
I think the biggest error that psychologists and therapists have made in this entire issue is looking at GD as a condition in and of itself rather than as a symptom of other conditions. When you treat the symptom, you can get temporary relief, but it never truly goes away. The actual condition itself must be addressed and treated to cure it.
I don't believe anyone is born with gender dysphoria, it is something that develops as a result of so many other factors in their lives. Homophobia, internalized homophobia, misogyny, internalized misogyny, autism, personality disorders, PTSD, childhood abuse and/or trauma, sexual assault, childhood bullying, autogynephilia, growing up in a sexist environment...all of these can lead a child or adult to the desire to be the opposite sex. Putting a person on cross-sex hormones is no different than "self-medicating" distress with drugs, alcohol, sex, other types of cosmetic surgery, etc. These things all make people feel better but are essentially no different than a bandaid slapped on a gaping wound and will ultimately cause them more problems in their lives that might end up being more serious than the one they started with in the first place.
Most western medicine treats symptoms and does not focus on causes nor on prevention. It also tends to pathologizing diverse human life.
@@Gingerblaze That is so true. I've also noticed so many "conditions" people complain of that would honestly get better if they just ate a healthy diet, spent more time outdoors, did more physical activity and in-person socializing, got adequate sleep, and spent time off electronic devices
Gender identity is personality we have complicated something simple
Precisely.
I'm a mom with 2 daughters. One thought she was a trans boy from 14 to 16. She didn't have dysphoria. She's autistic and has OCD. My second daughter is 16, and has thought she's a trans boy since 14. She didn't have childhood dysphoria. Her issues is that she loved being a kid, and didn't feel comfortable developing big curves. We all have our different experiences. I relate to my kids very much. I have adhd, and some overlapping issues as my kids (auditory processing disorder, sensory processing disorder, and others). I was sexually abused as a child and I'm bisexual. I didn't relate to things I was told were female, did to things I was told were male (because of how I was abused I didn't respond to pain, etc), and because I was bisexual I related to women and sexuality in a way that was described male, I also wanted a penis to be able to have sex with women that way. So, at 15, I had a girlfriend, we were standing in the ocean and I told her that I thought I had a gender identity issue and was part male and part female. But, I was female. I went to therapy in my 20's and said I had a gender identity issue. But, quickly learned about body dysmorphia which fit better. So, my experience is not like trans people that have gender dysphoria. My experience is like the kids with ROGD that think they're nonbinary. But, I was able to grow through it without a problem because no one told me that meant I was born with a nonbinary brain. I did study the topic in college biology, but the brain theory was binary and was only a theory. Later it was found to be associated with sexual orientation, and I learned that it's common for bisexual women to relate to both female and male sexuality.
Stella I totally love your analogy with the hippie drop out culture! It’s seems there is no way to escape society like there used to be, we are all so tied into advanced capitalist structures and our options for opting out are extremely limited, so it makes total sense to me, evidenced by what we see, that most ‘trans youth’ indicate their identity with appearances which rail against ideas of beauty, like punks did, like hippies did!
Wow, I just commented about this idea on another channel this morning! Flappers, beboppers, greasers, beatniks, and others throughout time, too. It seems to be getting progressively edgier. I think in part, this generational shift seems to be driven on the extreme ends by a need to feel unique and freak out the establishment.
@@cuppabeetea7301 except its being driven by "the establishment"
The thing about in the 2030’s and us all walking around looking like the online version of ourselves reminds me of the Black Mirror episode where the 2 male friends meet up in VR as game characters (one as a male and on now as female), and they get it on. There friendship becomes weird for a while but they become addicted to their VR selves.
Imagine a future were we don’t even need medical interventions but instead migrate to a VR world where we can live as filtered IG versions of ourselves.
I bet there are people these days spending their days in VR. I think my brother does.
I’d also look into a correlation between gender ideation/obsession and being into Anime. Again, my brother (who is 34), who never showed any signs of being straight male, was big into anime is now convinced he’s gender fluid because he likes scented candles 🤔
This brother was always in his own wee world as a kid because he was deaf and had speech delays. I think people who have other, socially different ways of being seem to fall into the gender stuff more extremely than others. And now consider how much time kids spend online and not in “real life”. I bet that primes them for things that stretch reality more. Especially if social anxiety and poor interpersonal skills are on the rise.
Great podcast. Great initial discussion to review the various concerns.
Stella, regarding the Trinity, i would encourage you to research it and hopefully you'll see that it's not altogether different than the roles anyone might have as father, husband and friend, etc.
Peace
I do think as Stella that 'gender Identity' is the secularized version of the platonic and christian concept of 'soul': something impalpable and unverifiable and at the same time the truest and deepest essence of the person.
No its not. 😂 the science points at the sexually dimorphic nucleus SDN which is the third interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus in humans
I agree with Sasha Ayad that this hyperfocus on gender these days is actually regressive as it creates an enormous constraint which is self perpetrating. The autogynephiles 's dysphoria I suspect has no bearing to what's going on these days. Pronouns are an added signature on someone 's public identity, it loses its private status, flexibility. It becomes constrained in the time and space of the public sphere and its limiting rather than freeing. And yes, Stella says it, gender identity is entertwiined with so many other factors that it could be unhealthy to decontextualise it from personality and life experiences. I'm against isolating and medicalising a psychological phenomenon whether or not it's difficult to work out.
Great first episode. Really looking forward to future episodes.
We really appreciate that coming from you, Mars!
I have no problem with gender ideology if it is treated as what it is, an abstract concept and/or conceptual framework. The problems arise(and a lot are popping up) when that abstract concept is reified and treated like a concrete truth and that is referenced to changelaws, change language and categories, or as justification for profound alterations of childrens biochemistry and physiology, or teaching these developmentally inappropriate abstract concepts to children. The whole thing is madness. Again, it can be useful as a concept but the issue arises when it is reified.
Good show. Okay, Ep #1 down. 110 more eps to get caught up with. Don't bother waiting up for me. 🐿
Two professionals, debating gender, when they can't even define it? Did you every hear of anything so absurd. It's rather simple;
"Gender is the set of behaviors associated with a gender-class by a particular society."
There is no intrinsic gender "soul", gender brain or other structure that causes us to have a particular gender. That's absurd and a complete misunderstanding of what gender is. As Judith Butler has explained, time and time again for the last 30 plus years. Gender is a performance, it is what we do. As she also pointed out, if one 'becomes a woman', then that becoming never ends. It's a constant set of behaviors that are socially constructed, enforced and approved.
How does one get a 'gender' then? Interestingly, we don't know. We don't know how any of us get a gender, isn't that crazy? We assume that us hetero-normative people get our gender naturally, "It just is", but that's majority prejudice, all genders are natural, and any theory of how we develop our genders has to explain them all. Luckily, Cordelia Fine has a theory. Chimpanzees, it turns out, also demonstrate gendered behavior, and it happens because the young male and female chimps segregate into groups and learn from their male and female peers. So the question is, how do young chimps (or humans for that matter) know which behavior to copy? It could be social reinforcement, it could be an innate affinity (the same way we have a favorite color, or food), or social bonding, or some other effect. Unfortunately, we don't know. But clearly, in humans as least, some individuals end up adopting a gender-class not usually associated with their sexed body. Notice that just because Butler described gender as performative, and we adopt those behaviors, that doesn't make them fake, they become part of us in the same way as any of our other preferences and personality traits.
The question about 'identity' is all out of whack. I want to be clear. Everyone has an identity. It's how you think about yourself. You might think, "I'm smart, I'm intuitive, I'm caring, I like art, I enjoy the outdoors ...." the list is endless. It's the list of things that you might say about yourself. Everyone has one of these, it's the nature of being-in-itself. You are, to yourself, who you say you are. That's your identity. Except, on top of every single one of those things, comes gender. You might think, "I am smart" except, women routinely think they are less smart at subjects like math, because of social expectation. Research shows if you reduce that expectation, women can perform as well as men! So gender becomes this lens, through which we see ourselves. A lens of social expectations, behaviors and approvals, that modify our self-image, to create our gendered sense of self.
Wait, what! You say. Gender isn't real!? Of course it is, it's a social construct, and as a social species we recreate it every single day. If one "becomes a woman" then one "becomes a man", and as Butler pointed out, those acts of becoming never cease. How does one person adopt a sense of gender that is at odds with what they're told? The answer is, we don't know, but we know it happens so given Cordelia Fine's theory of how gender develops, we might assume that children develop an affinity for behaviors other than what they are told they are. They find certain gender-associated behaviors more meaningful to them, in the same way that a person might like, well anything. We even have a word for it (in girls at least), Tomboy. The trouble with meaning, is it leads to desire, and for Husserl, at least, desire is the desire for recognition. If I like things associated with a particular gender, I want to be recognized for that desire. It means, I want other people to see my desire as valid.
"Gender, is the set of VALID behaviors associated with a gender class by a particular society."
Transsexual women could be women on some fundamental level I don't know about forever, but unless they are accepted as VALID by society, they will always be something other. That's what this podcast wanted to tell you.
Thanks for starting this series, it's great to hear from therapists trying to help people. In my own experience, I haven't seen a split along the exact same lines you describe in the intro. I've met and talked to people who believe in both innate gender identity and in gender dysphoria, the latter being the manifestion of society's transphobia in not allowing some people to live as their authentic selves. These people might blame a person's disgust with their own body on society's refusal to accept that sex is a social construct and that a penis can be female, for example. On the other hand, I've also talked to people who think that if gender is socially constructed, there can be no innate gender identity, and that dysphoria is the individual's psychological problem to overcome rather than a result of society's unreasonable expectations. Still plenty for me to figure out, so I look forward to future episodes!
What a gift your channel is but wondering how we can help get this message out there to the public in a more widespread way? ]Been following your channel for a short time but what hit me was how relatable and seemingly normal to take the approach of internal inquiry vs this onslaught of medicalization. how little voices there i are for diff prof approaches to resolve distress. We are always changing as we grow, and managing our thoughts related to change is part of our resiliency and is a life skill much needed to continue to evolve in a sometimes very harsh world.] Such a gross misinterpretation on this so important issue by the affirmative care crowd. It feels akin to lobotomy or early shock therapy for depression, only much much worse..
Theres NOBEL prize waiting for scientists that will formulate trans gender biology
Does anyone remember hippie groups or communes trying to raise kids without gender roles, and they mostly ended up following the expected behavior patterns boys and girls based on sex?
Yes. No matter how you raise your children I doubt whether any of it sinks in -in other words gender stereotypes aren't internalised.
Fascinating to hear Stella's reflections on her own gender identity, and how she recognises how going through early childhood is generally easier for trans/GNC kids, and then they "slowly tank", and I think that really reflects my own experience, even to the point of having a different view of how I saw myself vs the mirror and pictures of me. Like Stella, I had "no option but to stay with reality", but here's where we differ, while Stella grew to accept and grow into her womanhood, this never happened to me. Every aspect of my life was lived constantly through a filter of gender issues and gender dysphoria. I struggled with depression, making friends was difficult, and the only thing that really helped was working in a very female dominated profession. I coped this way, but it was still hard.
This never got better, until I physically and socially transitioned. I did have conversion therapy, and it failed quite spectacularly. In fact it made me want to transition even more, because I knew who I was and what I needed! And now, well over a decade after, this "dysphoria cloud" has gone, although I went through a really painful stage where gender became supremely important, it now has very little impact on my life at all. Gender doesn't really mean that much to me, niether negatively nor positively, the whole power of gender incongruence/imbalance dissapeared. The cloud has gone, completely gone. I can remember the pain, but it's like having toothache, when it's gone, there's just relief.
What is missing from Stella's reflections and in the discussion of "dysphoria" is that there was no discussion really of physical dysphoria: feeling that your body is wrong and causes you distress. Although she mentioned her face, actual distress about physical bodies, and including sexual function is incredibly distressing. I know people who were so intensely distressed about their bodies who also had "social dysphoria" - how other people view and interact with you, but also people who primarily just have physical dysphoria. For them the concept of gender as discussed here is completely irrelevant to them, but they access gender services and "play the game" in order to change their bodies but they are uninterested in social role.
Personally, I had both, and benefitted so much from a different "social role" (an expected social role that was so much easier and more comfortable), as well as the physical and psychological changes that surgery + HRT respectively brings.
The major problem for me is that although the treatment was brilliant and changed my life in a positive direction, the social consequences bring their own set of problems - not being able to talk about having transitioned, and the way that society treats people because of it. But I'd have to say, there isn't a day that goes by that I'm not grateful for having the chance to do it.
Thanks for sharing your story, and we're glad that you had a positive experience with transition. Thanks for listening, too.
I guess Gender: A Wider Lens doesn't do any kind of feminist analysis of gender.
Why would a 2 year old think that making someout of their diaper is expressing gender, wouldn't it just be playing dress up? Maybe wanting to dress like mommy just because it's mommy and not a decleration of anything?
good point
I mean I believe in both gender identity and dysphoria...
The holding together of two opposites to create a new state of being is Hegelian gnosticism.
Friedricke Heigel called this process Aufhaben, the new was created by burning off the conflicts between the two opposites.
Hegel called the burning off "ablation.
Gnosticism is the esoteric religion that predates Christian texts.
The gnostic books which were originally included in the Christian testement were cast out during the formative years of the Church.
Many believe the Gospel according to John (better known as Revelations) is a decidedly gnostic text.
Critical Social Justice theory owes many of its fundamental principles to Hegelian Gnosticism via the Frankfurt Schools origins in new Marxist theory.
I'm grateful to find some well meaning, informed progressive people who are talking about important issues rather than shutting it down.
I've felt more conservative in recent years but I know I have some progressive values, so thank you for bridging the two. 😊
Mind blowing.....yesssss
Has anyone studied the gender roles in the great apes?
I know that apes- chimps, gorillas, orang utans, like virtually ALL animals, have many sex-exclusive behaviours, as well as many behaviours shared between both sexes. Just like humans have always done.
I'm pretty sure there's NO animals, apes or otherwise, where you get an invidual adopting the behaviours of the opposite sex (ie what we call "transgenderism" in humans).
Now and then, you get rare, unusual individuals in ANY species, who may adopt ONE opposite-sex behaviour- Say a male dog that squats, instead of cocking it's leg to per. Or a female gorilla that leaves the pack in adolescence, like males do...
But never adopting ALL behaviours of the opposite sex, in line with the (bizarre, 100% evidence-free) "born in the wrong body" meme that trans activists promote (even though it contradicts THEIR OWN supposed belief that "gender is just a social construct"- Even if their evidence-free belief in sex-independent "gender" DID somehow turn out to be true, it can't be BOTH socially-acquired, AND innate from birth)
But nope, AFAIK there's zero evidence of sex-independent "gender" in ANY animal. Only biological sex, with (just like in humans) a general pattern of both sex-exclusive, and "unisex" behaviours, with a degree of individual variation, but NO precedent of a male who universally believes he's female, or vice versa.
80s playfulness brought us Boy George and Cyndi Lauper.
Growing up as a gay boy I felt early on that this was a game with inconsistent rules of play that I would just as soon be free of. And I came to get so irritated by the never ending source of entertainment - comedy is almost always engaged in the boys against girl of the playground now all grown up. I absolutely thing gender is even today all about how you are locating yourself and employing boy and girl forms and patterns and behaviors to engage in the completion with ones own sex and for ones desired sex of mate. And for folks who are fluid or who adopt a sloppy androgyny make sense in that in the location of themselves in a noncompetitive or inactive space on the board or at least non initiative status in many cases.
This is a very lovely beautiful grounded presentation. I can relate to it lots.
Great to hear
great content, but, gosh, I don't remember so many adds in other episodes
Note from our RUclips moderator: I apologize for this! I am currently going through and adjusting the ad settings for this very reason! I haven't gotten to all of them yet. Thanks for pointing this out!
Very interesting to listen to you ladies bounce back and forth between good, old-fashioned hard common sense -- "I had the vicious, vicious trouble with my boy-self as a lass, but I didn't do anything rash-- you couldn't in those days -- and I got over it!" to starting to soften, dabble, and participate in the current, trendy spew of gender-confusion. Two genders, male and female; one gender-identity, heterosexual; all the rest is confusion and disorientation. But how do we communicate with young people who are IN that confusion? It was wonderful to have a scoutmaster who had fought in WWII, and had participated in the D-Day landings; but I certainly can't go through my life berating myself for not living up to WWII-era standards of American masculinity. My own approach is to LAY OUT the traditional (Classical) ideals of male and female and let young people play with them until they figure out what works. Perhaps some boys will want to stay home and "do their wool" as Roman women did, and some girls will want to be world-bestriding conquerors and commanders of men, like Julius Caesar. That's not my affair. My job is to lay out those old-fashioned models for kids to play with.
Holy shit this channel is creepy
I am dealing with gender dysphoria at the moment. I have done for several years now and I have done very little about it and it is awful. People medicalise their gender because it’s not just about gender, it’s about your sex. Whilst I will never be the same as a cis man in terms of biology, it is mentally distressing to live in a body that I can’t relate to and if I can make changes to feel connected to my body, I would like to do that. I wouldn’t say that it is being medicalised, I would say that the issue is inherently medical because it can so severely impact your quality of life, both physically and mentally. It can be treated medically, and if you are in unbearable distress, you will take the help that you can get.
@Kirsten Eklund I’m so happy for you Kirsten. Treatment is so important.. I think people who don’t have dysphoria couldn’t possibly understand that
You're a good example of why therapists need to track persistance vs desistance. It's clear that there are some people for whom the dysphoria is simply too overwhelming and medical transition will be necessary just to be able to live! But it's important to work with people on an individual basis and not just assume that medicalization is one size fits all. There are many kids whose dysphoria will be limited to their adolescent years and they'll come out the other side more comfortable in their bodies.
Anyway, I'm happy it was the right thing for you and you've been able to get on with your life!
I too felt deeply uncomfortable in my body. Decades of therapy never fully shifted it for long. When I discovered that I had coeliac disease and gave up gluten, the unshakeable inner experience of my body as rotten and disgusting, no matter what I looked like, disappeared within a week. It comes back whenever I get exposed to gluten (along with brain fog, upset tummy, flu like pain etc). Turns out my revolting body feelings weren't a metaphor of psychological distress that had somehow become psychologized, but a physical symptom.
@@lilith3953 the discomfort in ones body can be for so many reasons! I find your case fascinating!
Kudos to Stella for putting a finger on the soulfulness of peoples' gender-yearnings. If more people had HAD a good old-fashioned education in Catholic theology, there would be less optimism about the idea that BODY modifications were going to solve their SOUL-problems. The soul, in many cases, DOES NOT WANT to be in the body; it wants to be gallivanting around Heaven unencumbered with massy flesh; read your Wordsworth, read your Plato, read your Milton, read your Gnostics. But nothing you do to the shape of your body is going to address your soul-distress. And doesn't the universe make it clear enough that your soul will be separated from your body soon enough? Study the lives of men and women who have integrated the life of the body and the life of the soul; study Jung's essay on the Psychology of the Transference.
In ANY relationship that goes beyond the trivial, there will be four forces at a play: I, the man; you the woman; the anima that I have as a man; and the animus you have as a woman.
There's nothing easier than for me as a man to observe your ladylike animus-dabblings in gender-ideology; nothing easier than for you as women to observe me as the representative of "all those dead poetic traditions" trying to have relationships with living people and failing. It's the observation of one's own animus or own anima that's so tricky and painful.
Here's the PDF of Volume XVI of Jung's collected works; scroll down to page 196 for The Psychology of the Transference. The alchemical illustrations are wonderfully clear, and are spot on, in rebuking men who think they can eliminate the anima problem by becoming the anima in the flesh, women who think they can eliminate the animus problem by becoming the animus in the flesh. You want to think of a relationship as a four-handed game of bridge. ;)
If you want a Wider Lens on Gender, this is a handy one. Fair warning tho: agreeing with Jung is as fatal as disagreeing with him. Jung's mid-European early 20th century formulations will not do for today.
www.jungiananalysts.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/C.-G.-Jung-Collected-Works-Volume-16_-The-Practice-of-Psychotherapy.pdf
Jungs early 20th c idea's won't do for today, but the teachings of a war like bronze age tribe from the middle east circa 3000 years ago will? Sure dude. I'm glad your priests and your scout master didn't molest you though. sounds like you had a lucky escape growing up around all those pedophiles'.
Sovereign Individuals
I love the gender "Xenogender" which is a gender whose pronouns cannot be pronounced by the human mouth.
Thought you might find that useful.
ha!
Words have meaning. Gender is a new word that is more flexible than male or female even though it was never meant to define people.
A lot of playing around with definitions of words. Not surprised to hear from an ex-Catholic who no longer believes in God. I'm out.
I don't know where else to post this question ⁹ but does this movement seek to affect only white people. I have not seen black trans people but I am new to this