Gender: A Wider Lens

Following on from the first episode on desistance (77), Sasha and Stella address a common question they get from parents of gender-questioning children: Could my child be desisting, and if so, how should I respond? The episode begins with a description of how it might look if a child is desisting or developing more psychological flexibility around gender. Then, they explore the many different responses parents can have when they suspect their child is in a desistance process. Commonalities among parents of desisted kids are discussed, and Sasha and Stella offer some practical advice for parents who may be confused by conflicting information from both affirmative practitioners and gender-critical commentators alike.

Links:

• Wider Lens Renewal Retreat — Arizona 2022:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wider-lens-renewal-retreats-arizona-2022-tickets-368655377157

Extended Notes

• Desistance is a highly emotional subject.
• Signs that may indicate desistance or gender flexibility in children.
• Parents should educate themselves and relax while teenagers are exploring gender.
• Rules of thumb for bringing up a conversation about gender with kids.
• Stella discusses Ireland and the lack of emphasis on medicalizing children there.
• Selfies and an emphasis on how someone looks have impacted children in negative ways.
• Radical interventions proactive parents have done to keep kids mentally healthy and engaged in life.
• A household in which a child feels they can be themselves can have a bigger impact than therapy in some cases.
• Does desistance manifest differently in boys than in girls?
• Gender can be concentrated or diluted depending on a child’s other interests.
• Moving is a strategy to mitigate unhelpful influences.
• In desistance stories, things that make a difference are when parents get creative about broadening their child’s life.
• When a child adopts a new name it is much different than when they adopt different pronouns.
• Therapy can help parents while their child is desisting.

This podcast is sponsored by ReIME and Genspect. Visit https://rethinkime.org/ and https://genspect.org/ to learn more.

For more about our show: https://linktr.ee/WiderLensPod

Bret Alderman is a writer and life coach who works with gender-questioning teens and their parents. He received his Ph.D. in Depth Psychology from the Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2012. His book Symptom, Symbol, and the Other of Language: A Jungian Interpretation of the Linguistic Turn, is an attempt to understand postmodernism, specifically its intense preoccupation with language, from a perspective informed by the work of Carl Jung. This work, in turn, has led him to an interest in Queer Theory and its relation to earlier, first-generation postmodernist thinkers.

Bret’s insight into postmodernist and poststructuralist thinking provides a rich platform on

which to get to grips with gender ideology. In this fascinating discussion, he explains the “linguistic turn” and the Jungian concepts such as ideological possession and other important archetypes. Perhaps most importantly, Bret tells us why a statement can be literally false and yet remain metaphorically true — and how we can best respond when this is happening.

Links:

• Bret Alderman: Symptom, Symbol, and the Other of Language: A Jungian Interpretation of the Linguistic Turn

https://www.routledge.com/Symptom-Symbol-and-the-Other-of-Language-A-Jungian-Interpretation-of/Alderman/p/book/9780815359135

• Bret’s website: https://www.aldermancoaching.com/

• Judith Butler: Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex https://www.routledge.com/Bodies-That-Matter-On-the-Discursive-Limits-of-Sex/Butler/p/book/9780415610155?gclid=Cj0KCQjwzqSWBhDPARIsAK38LY8qB6h2FzpBYFMlcfzKiKmPE1zWEeh0C49TJ2humz9XDRNgpspkiBQaAqJbEALw_wcB

Extended Notes

• For his book, Symptom, Symbol, and the Other of Language, Bret researched the linguistic turn.
• Bret defines the Jungian “nothing-but” attitude.
• Queer theory and gender identity theory would be impossible without poststructuralism and the particular understanding of language it inaugurated.
• In their malleable state, young people may believe they have been misled into a different narrative.
• A death-rebirth motif runs through the discourse of what it means to be transgender.
• In the context of gender, something can be literally false yet metaphorically true.
• The body is a language itself and how physical characteristics are used to communicate who we are.
• Animals that are sexually dimorphic also exhibit differences in behavior.
• Bret details Prometheanism and its place in gender ideology.
• The issue with deifying an idea.
• Bret describes how he moves past the jargon of the internet during therapy.
• Jung’s active imagination technique for internalized transphobia.
• It is normal for teens to radically change the way they present themselves to the world.
• Bret contends that gender identity theory and queer theory are not sustainable.
• How knowing more than one language translates into a different mindset.

This podcast is sponsored by ReIME and Genspect. Visit https://rethinkime.org/ and https://genspect.org/ to learn more.

For more...

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

Stephanie Davies-Arai is the founder and director of Transgender Trend, the leading UK organization calling for evidence-based healthcare for gender dysphoric children and young people and fact-based teaching in schools. She was shortlisted for the John Maddox Prize 2018 for the school’s guide, “Supporting gender diverse and trans-identified students in schools.” She is a communication skills expert, teacher trainer, parent coach, and author of Communicating with Kids. Stephanie was an intervener in the High Court in support of Keira Bell and Mrs. A, who brought a landmark case against the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service. They claim that under-18s are not old enough to consent to treatment with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. Stephanie was awarded the British Empire Medal as founder of Transgender Trend for services to children in the Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours list.

In this discussion, we talk about how adults have always attempted to strike a balance between encouraging creativity and affirming reality for children. Stephanie started noticing a reversal in the parent-child relationship through her research into parenting books and then saw this trend come to life in media stories of trans children and the parents whose job was to facilitate their child’s self-development.

Stephanie is also asked, given her background as an expert in communication with children, how would she want to introduce ideas of sex, gender, orientation, feminism, and media literacy to kids. We also explore how other vulnerable groups and protected categories are shadowed when we fixate disproportionately on gender and sexuality. How does this impact children’s development and sense of self? What happens when we lie to children? Stephanie offers some advice to parents who hope their child’s fixation on one particular thing will resolve (whether it be gender or otherwise). And lastly, we ask Stephanie to make some predictions of what will transpire regarding gender, transition, and education in the near future.

Links:

• http://www.transgendertrend.com
• https://stephaniedaviesarai.com/communicating-with-kids/
• http://www.4thwavenow.com

Extended Notes

• Stephanie designed her own courses and wrote Communicating with Kids: What Works and What Doesn’t.
• Parents affirm a child’s reality in life.
• Based on 1970s TV, Stephanie internalized messages about women and their place in the world.
• Stephanie feels compelled to act when she sees an injustice.
• You don’t tell lies to children.
• A Huffington Post article about trans children and their parents triggered Stephanie to write her first book.
• In 2014, the BBC released a TV program for kids, named I Am Leo, about a transitioning girl.
• Stephanie thinks the U.S. was approximately five years ahead of the UK in detransition information.
• The impact of the pressure of objectification and stereotypes on teens.
• Feminism is not taught in schools, Identity Politics are.
• The need to critique organizations that make money from women.
• Acknowledging gender differences empowers young people to better understand themselves.
• We can make better decisions if we are aware of the messages we get from our culture.
• LGBTQ+ groups in schools may pigeonhole kids who just want to be non-conforming or non-conventional.
• Stephanie examines social contagion in teens.
• Stephanie receiving the British Empire Medal represents a sea of change.
• In 5‒10 years, Stephanie believes huge changes will...
  
  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

This is Part 1 of a 2-part series on desistance. The difference between desistance and detransition is quite stark and in this episode, Sasha and Stella focus on the complex experience of desistance. How might a child come to desist? What facilitates or hinders this process, and what complicated feelings go along with this experience? Sasha and Stella also discuss the changes that have arisen in recent years and how compared to previous generations, society today responds very differently to children with gender dysphoria. In the next episode on desistance, EP 80, Sasha and Stella will help answer the question: How can I tell if my ROGD child may be desisting?

Links:

• Cantor’s analysis of the desistance literature: 

http://www.sexologytoday.org/2016/01/do-trans-kids-stay-trans-when-they-grow_99.html 

• Follow-up study of boys with Gender Identity Disorder: 

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.632784/full

Extended Notes

• The word desistance means a person no longer wants to transition.
• Stella shares her journey of feeling as if she was a girl and also a boy.
• It can be horrifying when people don’t understand how one feels about their gender.
• Attempting to will yourself into a new reality.
• With puberty comes consciousness of reality.
• For thousands of years, people repressed their sexuality and gender and lived a lie.
• Growing up in today’s technology-driven world is vastly different from being a teen in the past.
• There is a correlation between gender non-conforming children and being gay, lesbian, or bi-sexual.
• A 2021 study showed that 80% of dysphoric boys desisted and 64% were gay.
• Stella shares her thoughts on This Is How It Always Is: A Novel by Laurie Frankel.
• Desistance does happen and often teens are grateful they didn’t make permanent changes.
• Desistance requires a reckoning.
• Gender issues have been polarized in political realms.
• Stella wanted to be powerful and feminine when she was 17.
• A person’s peer group can make it easier or harder for them to desist.
• People flip-flop their identities all the time.
• Taking a deeper look into fluidity between identities.
• Navigating the shame that can accompany questioning gender identity.
• Desistance can be a coming-of-age process.

This podcast is sponsored by ReIME and Genspect. Visit https://rethinkime.org/ and https://genspect.org/ to learn more.

For more about our show: https://linktr.ee/WiderLensPod

In this second episode on detransition (following from EP 74), Sasha and Stella dig into several pieces of research on detransition experiences. They discuss surveys and case studies and analyze the data which is forming a picture of why detransition happens and what appropriate therapeutic care might look like for this vulnerable group. Themes emerge such as misattributing distress to the body’s sex, unprocessed grief and trauma, medical complications, and dissatisfaction with medical transition.

Links:

Genspect Analysis of detrans Reddit survey: 

https://genspect.org/analysis-of-reddit-detrans-survey/

Pablo Exposito-Campos Detransition Paper: 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2020.1869126

Lisa Littman’s Research Papers: 

https://littmanresearch.com/publications/

Littman on Gender: A Wider Lens Podcast — EP 52: https://gender-a-wider-lens.captivate.fm/episode/52-gender-dysphoria-detransition-research-a-conversation-w-dr-lisa-littman

Genspect Highlights of Lisa’s Paper: 

https://genspect.org/detransition-highlights-of-dr-littmans-latest-peer-reviewed-study/

Case Study: “Maya,” Lisa Marchiano 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-5922.12711 

The Seventh Penis, Bob Withers: 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25989331/

Detransition-Related Needs & Support Survey, Vandenbussche: 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00918369.2021.1919479

Detrans reddit survey (not formal data) 

https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/comments/srpp27/the_rdetrans_demographic_survey_screened_and/

Taking the Lid off the Box: 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330911243_'Taking_the_lid_off_the_box'_The_value_of_extended_clinical_assessment_for_adolescents_presenting_with_gender_identity_difficulties

Extended Notes

• The 1% regret rate stat is misleading.
• There is no clear understanding of how many people change their minds about transitioning.
• Gender dysphoria is different than sex dysphoria.
• Some are disappointed because they say the physical reality of transitioning wasn't very satisfying.
• We are all vain. We all care about how we look.
• There are medical complications with transition surgery.
• Does a relationship to sexual orientation keep someone in a trans-identity longer?
• Autistic people might be more likely to remain transitioned.
• In one study, 70% of respondents said they...
  
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Lisa Duval is a licensed clinical psychologist who has worked with children, teens, and families for over 30 years. She is also the mother of a “fiercely gender-questioning” 18-year-old daughter, who has been male-identified for the last 5 years. She works with ROGD teens in an exploratory, empowering, feminist, and body-positive way, affirming their beautiful, complicated selves but not simply their trans identities.

We start with Lisa describing the old DSM multiaxial system, which was actually discarded in the current version, version 5. In Axis 2, we had cognitive and personality disorders, including borderline personality disorder. Listeners often ask me and Stella about potential links between borderline personality constellations and gender issues, so we were really excited to speak with Lisa about this. For starters, Lisa shares why borderline personality disorder should rarely ever be diagnosed in teens, though sometimes you might hear psychiatrists say a child has some “borderline traits.” We delve into how common, and almost quintessential, these traits are as a part of normal adolescent development.

Lisa then explains a fascinating theory: not only are kids with these traits perhaps more vulnerable to ROGD but also that aspects of gender identity ideology iatrogenically create borderline dynamics in dysphoric kids. In other words, gender ideology and a dogmatic affirmation approach could be causing and exacerbating these borderline traits. We also have a chance to explore the overlap between expressions of Autism and Borderline, and Lisa comments on a previous discussion we had about this with Dr. Susan Bradley in Ep. 65. At the end of the episode, Lisa shares a really interesting way she and her clients have been able to circumvent the issue of picking a new cross-sex name while exploring gender identity.

Extended Notes

• Lisa explains the personality disorders in Axis 2.
• Lisa grew up with parents who were diagnosed with personality disorders.
• If you work with people at a young age you can make a difference.
• Personality disorders can be trauma-based or genetically sourced.
• Diagnosing a disorder or behavior during the teenage years is not advised.
• Teenagers may naturally have a persecution fantasy.
• Falsely diagnosing gender dysphoria creates a personality structure that is in opposition to integration.
• A borderline personality disorder is in between neurosis and psychosis.
• Most gender therapists believe they are helping children.
• Lisa shares ways ROGD parents can connect with their kids and how clinicians can work with Cluster B people.
• Examining incredibly liberal parents and the response from teens who want their own thing.
• Lisa stresses the importance of giving children the agency to figure things out on their own.
• Kids are hearing from multiple sources that if their parents don’t support them the parents are wrong.
• Lisa pioneered the concept of an iatrogenic personality disorder.
• For children, it is important for them to integrate the different parts of themselves.
• Strategies for integration and gender roles that encourage children to maintain all sides of themselves.

This podcast is sponsored by ReIME and Genspect. Visit https://rethinkime.org/ and https://genspect.org/ to learn more.

For more about our show: https://linktr.ee/WiderLensPod