Transgender Identity: A Religion for the 21st Century? скачать в хорошем качестве

Transgender Identity: A Religion for the 21st Century?

I’ve heard it argued, by people I greatly admire, that gender-questioning youth need to be given all the information about where their distress may be coming from and what options they have to treat it. I’ve probably even said that, in one way or another, myself. And that approach sounds great, theoretically. However, it's often not very effective. Detransitioners, rightly, come to wish that someone had explained things to them more honestly. But in practice, dysphoric kids in the therapy room reject our attempts to help them gain clarity. Here’s the problem: adopting a transgender identity is rarely done based on rational deliberation or some sort of factual calculus. Identifying as trans is an emotional conversion experience: the person imbibes and integrates a radical new belief system and self-concept for deeply personal and spiritual reasons. Sometimes this conversion is more intrinsic (classic gender dysphoria, which seems to emerge organically) and sometimes the conversion is more extrinsic (ROGD phenomenology with strong elements of peer/online influence, school curricula, or other time spent ‘learning’ about trans). In this month's "What's On My Mind" video I work to unpack this emotional conversion experience and how this framing might help parents and therapists better understand, and serve, their distressed clients and kids. For more of my reflections on gender, please visit my Substack and sign up for my free monthly newsletter, at www.sashaayad.substack.com.