Kate, thank you for all your amazing work! You have done a great job. I can see how much time and work you put into this as a volunteer!
The WV bill raises a really interesting question: should cueing gender dysphoria ever be the goal? Obviously, trans-activists would say no, it's impossible to cure, and even if you could, it's genocide o…
Kate, thank you for all your amazing work! You have done a great job. I can see how much time and work you put into this as a volunteer!
The WV bill raises a really interesting question: should cueing gender dysphoria ever be the goal? Obviously, trans-activists would say no, it's impossible to cure, and even if you could, it's genocide or trying to get rid of trans people. Reading this just now it occurred to me for the first time to ask if the "exploratory therapy" approach promoted as the reasonable alternative ever has curing gender dysphoria as a goal, and if it doesn't (ie, it's only about exploring distress and hoping dealing with distress indirectly addresses gender dysphoria), how do we feel about that? Are we allowed to think curing GD is the ultimate goal? Are therapists ever allowed to directly address it or must it always be an indirect, sideways approach to be considered ethical even among therapists who don't agree with the affirmation only approach? It reminds me a lot of the autism activism that sees a goal of curing autism (sometimes even treating the symptoms of autism) as a form of eugenics or certain Deaf activists who see cochlear implants as an attack on their culture. I haven't really thought about this. Has Lisa or other writers explored this angle?
Just to clarify: I understand that directly addressing and talking about gender with an individual client might not be the right approach for that client. I'm referring to the goal being to cure or at least greatly reduce gender dysphoria (like your goal would be for OCD or depression) as the goal, no matter how you go about it
My thought on this (if it matters at all!), as a parent of a trans-identified teen who has been researching and thinking about this for over 4 years, is that "dysphoria" is severe distress, whether it is related to "gender" or anything else. Is the goal of therapy to help alleviate distress? I would think so. Realistically, we cannot "cure" distress completely, because life isn't quite that tidy. There will always be some distress over, well, most things. Being a woman is hard, and being a man is hard. It will bring distress. The point of a "cure" is to relieve the distress enough so that one can function in life and have more joy than pain - without having to lie about one's biology and medically alter one's body parts. Anyone who thinks that is a bad thing is, in my humble opinion, not thinking straight.
Lastly, to be clear, nobody has to be stereotypically feminine or masculine to be relatively at peace with their biological sex. The goal of therapy should never be to get a person to abandon their naturally-occurring tendencies toward the "masculine" or the "feminine." Gender conformity is never the goal. Rather, the goal is simply to allow a person to move through life without hating and wanting to destroy biological characteristics of their body.
This is such a good response! Your thoughts definitely matter on this! It really drills down into you and communicates my jumbled thoughts so much better than I did. And you said something I didn't say but should have: that the goal isn't to change anything about how you express gender or what gender expressions you most relate to, but to reduce the distress that's getting in the way of functioning and feeling reasonably good about yourself.
Kate, thank you for all your amazing work! You have done a great job. I can see how much time and work you put into this as a volunteer!
The WV bill raises a really interesting question: should cueing gender dysphoria ever be the goal? Obviously, trans-activists would say no, it's impossible to cure, and even if you could, it's genocide or trying to get rid of trans people. Reading this just now it occurred to me for the first time to ask if the "exploratory therapy" approach promoted as the reasonable alternative ever has curing gender dysphoria as a goal, and if it doesn't (ie, it's only about exploring distress and hoping dealing with distress indirectly addresses gender dysphoria), how do we feel about that? Are we allowed to think curing GD is the ultimate goal? Are therapists ever allowed to directly address it or must it always be an indirect, sideways approach to be considered ethical even among therapists who don't agree with the affirmation only approach? It reminds me a lot of the autism activism that sees a goal of curing autism (sometimes even treating the symptoms of autism) as a form of eugenics or certain Deaf activists who see cochlear implants as an attack on their culture. I haven't really thought about this. Has Lisa or other writers explored this angle?
Just to clarify: I understand that directly addressing and talking about gender with an individual client might not be the right approach for that client. I'm referring to the goal being to cure or at least greatly reduce gender dysphoria (like your goal would be for OCD or depression) as the goal, no matter how you go about it
My thought on this (if it matters at all!), as a parent of a trans-identified teen who has been researching and thinking about this for over 4 years, is that "dysphoria" is severe distress, whether it is related to "gender" or anything else. Is the goal of therapy to help alleviate distress? I would think so. Realistically, we cannot "cure" distress completely, because life isn't quite that tidy. There will always be some distress over, well, most things. Being a woman is hard, and being a man is hard. It will bring distress. The point of a "cure" is to relieve the distress enough so that one can function in life and have more joy than pain - without having to lie about one's biology and medically alter one's body parts. Anyone who thinks that is a bad thing is, in my humble opinion, not thinking straight.
Lastly, to be clear, nobody has to be stereotypically feminine or masculine to be relatively at peace with their biological sex. The goal of therapy should never be to get a person to abandon their naturally-occurring tendencies toward the "masculine" or the "feminine." Gender conformity is never the goal. Rather, the goal is simply to allow a person to move through life without hating and wanting to destroy biological characteristics of their body.
This is such a good response! Your thoughts definitely matter on this! It really drills down into you and communicates my jumbled thoughts so much better than I did. And you said something I didn't say but should have: that the goal isn't to change anything about how you express gender or what gender expressions you most relate to, but to reduce the distress that's getting in the way of functioning and feeling reasonably good about yourself.