Gender: A Wider Lens

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: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria

• About WPATH: https://www.wpath.org/ 
• About Harry Benjamin: https://zagria.blogspot.com/2012/10/harry-benjamin-part-2-rejuvenation_5.html#.X9OrKdj7RPY 

• About the anti-gender movement: https://www.boell.de/en/2015/04/21/anti-gender-movements-rise and Graff, Agnieszka (2016). "'Gender Ideology': Weak Concepts, Powerful Politics". Religion and Gender. 6 (2): 268–272. doi:10.18352/rg.10177.

• Snapchat Dysmorphia: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322706

• Ehrensaft Pre-Verbal Gender Communications https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7KBZeRC1RI&t=96s

Activists claim that ROGD is not a real thing yet some parents insist that ROGD perfectly describes something that they’re seeing in their teenagers. We explore this new phenomenon of adolescent-onset gender questioning, how it arises and how it impacts families. We also discuss our experience working with these adolescents and some of the common patterns of behaviour and other challenges they face. Socially mediated mental health phenomena from different generations and other parts of the world shed light on this controversial issue.

Links: 

• Lisa Marchiano: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00332925.2017.1350804 
• Lisa Littman: Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330  

• The impact of social contagion – “Fijian girls succumb to Western dysmorphia”

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/03/fijian-girls-succumb-to-western-dysmorphia/

• Symptom pool Edward shorter: https://medium.com/invisible-illness/psychiatry-and-its-discontents-7ee5f263eb4c

• Japanese study PCOS: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17166864/

• Erikson's Psychosocial Development https://courses.lumenlearning.com/teachereducationx92x1/chapter/eriksons-stages-of-psychosocial-development/

Two therapists discuss the concepts of gender, identity, and transition from a psychological depth perspective.