Gender: A Wider Lens

Until recently in many parts of Europe, and currently in the United States and Canada, the affirmative model of care is the primary practice in place for working with gender-nonconforming and gender-diverse youth and children. In this episode, Stella and Sasha put some intention into a deeper exploration of what affirmation therapy is exactly. They take time flushing out not just what it is but also facilitate consideration of what it means and what it achieves. Together they reflect on where the concept of affirming therapy came from, how it evolved into its current practice, when a clinician follows the affirmation model, how does that look in practice, and what are the implications?

Sasha and Stella also explore varying types of therapy, both similar to and in contrast to the fundamental premise of the affirmative approach, what they think about it, and does it actually offer any context for a comprehensive therapeutic process in the name of care?

Gender: A Wider Lens (YouTube Channel)

Live Stream Event from the Genspect Conference: The Bigger Picture

Friday, April 28, 2023 at 11am(PT) / 2pm(ET) / 7pm(IT)

https://www.youtube.com/@widerlenspod

*NEW* Sponsor – GETA

Gender Exploratory Therapy Association

https://www.genderexploratory.com/

GETA Workshop: Gender Trouble, Authoritarianism, and the Flight from Womanhood

Saturday, April 22, 2023 — 6 pm‒7:30 pm(ET)

https://www.genderexploratory.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/GETA-Ilene-Philipson-Flyer-April-2023-3-2.pdf

Sasha’s YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/@SashaLPC

Genspect Conference: The Bigger Picture

https://genspect1.telltix.com/events/genspect1/845845/r/genspect-banner

Stella’s Book: What Your Teen is Trying to Tell You

http://www.stellaomalley.com/whatyourteenistryingtotellyou

Stella on Benjamin Boyce w/ Eliza Mondegreen

The Dangerous Radicalization of Gender Rhetoric | with Stella O’Malley & Eliza Mondegreen

https://youtu.be/63-bfpx2yy0

Critical Therapy Antidote (CTA) book, Sasha & Stella contributing authors

Cynical Therapies: Perspectives on the Antitherapeutic Nature of Critical Social Justice

https://www.amazon.com/Cynical-Therapies-Perspectives-Antitherapeutic-Critical

https://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-rogers.html 

APA Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Transgender and Gender Nonconforming People

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.widerlenspod.com

It seems like, in Western culture at least, we went from a place where, years ago, mental health issues were never talked about and often dismissed or hushed, to a place today, where it’s so ubiquitous to talk about mental health. And while it’s important that mental health is de-stigmatized, and a good thing that it’s been relatively de-pathologized, in many ways, it has shifted into some kind of identity marker, almost like a sense of identity for people. Mental health categories are becoming a way for people to seek and find meaning about who they are as a person. But this can be dangerous in that people are so much more than just the labels affiliated with their mental health.

With the growing absence of religious and national identities, other identities have come into place in extraordinary ways. In this episode, Sasha and Stella explore society’s evolving tendency to rush to medicalize for quick and radical fixes for generally normal experiences. They discuss obsession with identity labels, the desperate pathologizing of normal distress, medication seeking, and relentless pursuit of the external solution for an internal problem.

Please note this episode was recorded before the release of Stella’s book (which she speaks about being released “soon”). The link for where you can find her book is included below. This episode was also recorded before Detrans Awareness Day 2023 took place, but was released after the events referenced in the episode. Please visit https://youtu.be/my5o0B9H4Tw to watch the replay of the entire 2023 Detrans Awareness Day webinar event.

Links:

Genspect’s School Policy Guide: Establishing expectations for how schools can best support students with gender dysphoria, who are gender-questioning, who are gender non-conforming or identify as transgender

https://genspect.org/comprehensive-gender-identity-school-policy-usa/ 

The Five Ecological Systems

https://www.simplypsychology.org/Bronfenbrenner.html

Interview with Allen Frances, MD: 

https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/05/conversations-critical-psychiatry-allen-frances-md/

Stella’s Latest Book — What Your Teen Is Trying To Tell You

https://geni.us/whatyourteen

Detrans Awareness Day Website

www.detransawareness.org

2023 Detrans Awareness Day Webinar Recording

https://youtu.be/my5o0B9H4Tw

This episode is a powerful and important conversation exposing the increasingly devastating impact of the conflation between gender identity theory and the experience of living with gender dysphoria.

In this episode, Sasha & Stella speak with Rose who wishes to remain anonymous. Rose is the mother of two young sons and lives in the United States. In August of 2022, she published the piece “True Believer” on the Parents with Inconvenient Truths around Trans (PITT) Substack. She wrote “True Believer” to share her story and help other parents and concerned adults who are struggling to understand the dynamics underneath the current phenomenon of transgender children. Rose’s first-hand perspective is unique in that she and her partner were "affirming parents" — they thought their four-year-old son could be transgender and chose to socially transition him, only to realize they were wrong.

Rose’s story is incredibly important because, at its core, it’s a simple case of the best of intentions garnering devastating impact. This is a humanized account of the pain, distress, confusion, fear, and regret that so many families are facing in the wake of doing what (“experts” told them) was best for their child.

Rose’s original piece published on Parents with Inconvenient Truths around Trans (PITT) Substack:

“True Believer” — https://pitt.substack.com/p/true-believer

Rose’s appearance episode of Triggernometry podcast — 

https://pdst.fm/e/audioboom.com/posts/8242143.mp3?modified=1675602742&source=rss&stitched=1

Rose’s follow-up piece on PITT provides further reflections on the Triggernometry interview:

“A Return to Reality” — https://pitt.substack.com/p/a-return-to-reality

Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers

by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté, MD https://www.amazon.com/Hold-Your-Kids-Parents-Matter/dp/0375760288/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1680628544&sr=8-1

Eliza Mondagreen: 

https://twitter.com/elizamondegreen/status/1625925867053383700

Neufeld Institute — https://neufeldinstitute.org/resources/free/

• Dr. Gordon Neufeld — “Becoming the Answer a Child Needs”

A Map of Detransition Island — https://genspect.org/infographics/#island

“Dear Theodosia”, from Hamilton (the Musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda)

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=TKpJjdKcjeo

“The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart” — Quote/Book by Alice Walker

• “1 — Trans: Identity vs Dysphoria”

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.widerlenspod.com

In this episode, Stella & Sasha talk with Joe Burgo and Alasdair Gunn about the Genspect’s new direction and the upcoming first-ever live event. As you will hear them discuss, the Genspect Conference, themed “The Bigger Picture,” will bring together experts from many fields holding a myriad of perspectives: eminent scientists, researchers, lawyers, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, sociologists, educators, feminists, and some well-known detransitioners.

Guest Joe Burgo is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who’s been in practice for almost 40 years. He’s particularly interested in the concept of narcissism and shame. He’s also a really big part of the BeyondTrans project through Genspect, and the author of several books, including The Narcissist You Know: Defending Yourself Against Extreme Narcissists in an All-About-Me Age.

Guest Alasdair Gunn was working in academia when he became interested in gender issues. After coming into contact with a group of parents of trans-identified boys, he wrote a series of Quillette articles on the topic under the pseudonym Angus Fox. As a gay man who tackled body dysmorphia in adolescence, Alasdair brings a unique understanding of issues related to teenage male development. His work in gender has focused mostly on design, marketing, research, and communications in support of Genspect. Recently diagnosed with a terminal illness, Alasdair has stepped back from day-to-day work and is keen to highlight the ways in which gender healthcare falls short of the normal standards of excellence we’ve come to expect from the medical industry.

Stella, Sasha, Joe, and Alasdair explain how the Genspect conference is intentionally being conducted during the same week, and just down the street from the WPATH/EPATH conference. The goal is to provide attendees to both conferences exposure to human stories beyond the medical context of transition and challenge the evidence base for gender medicine.

There’s so much enthusiasm about the speakers lined up to contribute to the event’s agenda. Together, Joe, Alasdair, Sasha & Stella explore the roster of presenters and reflect that many of them are previous guests of Gender: A Wider Lens Podcast. They also announce plans for the first-ever Wider Lens live-stream event scheduled to take place from inside the conference.

With so much important and valuable information relevant to so many aspects of gender transition (not just the medical component), the Genspect Conference is setting the stage for a really pivotal moment in time in pursuit of capturing gender from a wider lens, aka “The Bigger Picture.” This conversation is a charming preview of what attendees can expect from The Bigger Picture event, scheduled for late April.

More about Joe Burgo:

http://www.josephburgo.com/

Alasdair’s Substack:

https://angusfox.substack.com/

Attend/Stream Genspect Conference: The Bigger Picture

https://genspect.org/events/

Beyond WPATH Document (add your signature)

https://beyondwpath.org/

Eliza Mondegreen on WPATH:

https://elizamondegreen.substack.com/p/so-i-went-to-wpath

Cynical Therapies: 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.widerlenspod.com

A parent writes in seeking helping with figuring out where their son’s gender confusion originated. Sasha and Stella dig into the reality that often there is not “one big reason” or a single “smoking gun.”

In this episode, the Wider Lens duo takes a slight detour from gender to explore teenage years from a developmental approach and how parents can better connect with and support their teen children through a challenging but powerful season of life — adolescence.

Sasha interviews Stella about her latest book, What Your Teen is Trying to Tell You. The book empowers parents to distinguish between opportunities in which intervention makes sense or moments that are best left for the teens to work out for themselves. Reviewed as somewhat of a deep dive into the teenage brain, the book provides practical advice for each of the key milestones teenagers need to tackle during adolescence to become happy, healthy adults.

Covering topics from anxiety to body confidence and technology obsession to the sexual self, this book is sure to give parents — always desperate to “fix” situations for their kids — the confidence to optimize on a teaching moment, or the patience to respect the power of simply letting the lessons be learned. The ultimate goal of the book is to enable parents with a better understanding of their teens and improved discernment, resulting in a rekindled joy and connection shared within parent-teen relationship dynamics.

http://www.stellaomalley.com/

Stella’s Substack

https://stellaomalley.substack.com/

What Your Teen is Trying to Tell You, 2023

https://geni.us/whatyourteen

Bully-Proof Kids, 2022

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bully-Proof-Kids-Practical-Confident-Resilient/dp/1800750617/ref=asc_df_1800750617/?hvadid=570407791907&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=20490&hvnetw=g&hvpone=&hvpos=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvrand=5576590265895704336&hvtargid=pla-1691140391727&linkCode=df0&psc=1&psc=1&tag=googshopuk-21&th=1

Fragile, 2019

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fragile-feeling-stressed-anxious-overwhelmed-ebook/dp/B07QFCB52S/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=1DECU62BRFP0U&keywords=fragile+stella+omalley&qid=1555341552&s=gateway&sprefix=fragile+stella+o%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-1-fkmrnull

Cotton Wool Kids, 2015

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Cotton-Wool-Whats-Making-Irish-Parents-Paranoid/1781173206/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498684238&sr=8-1&keywords=stella+o+malley

Please visit

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.widerlenspod.com

Sasha and Stella try to give a worried mom advice on how to speak to her teenage daughter who is displaying negative health complications that could be a result of chest binding.