Episode 33 - Archetypal Dynamics of Gender Transformation

Lisa, Joseph, and Deb circumambulate the difficult issue of gender reassignment. They discuss the significance of teen girls wishing to transition and the current tendency to foreclose the meaning of this and move rapidly into medical procedures, a process of concretization instead of curiosity and exploration. Lisa discusses previous examples of symptoms and their diagnoses in history, leading to an understanding of the influence of cultural factors on mental illnesses and diagnosis. Finally, gender reassignment is considered as a Promethean venture, and although it is now possible to challenge the gods of genetics, it is also truly awe-full. We suggest that gender transitioning, like much else, can be psychologically transformative only if there is a conscious relationship to it.

Lisa's writings on the topic include three articles in Quillette:

Misunderstanding a New Kind of Gender Dysphoria

Transgenderism and the Social Construction of Diagnosis

Trans Activism's Dangerous Myth of Parental Rejection

This article in the Jungian journal Psychological Perspectives:

Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics

And a chapter in this book, which also includes a chapter from UK Jungian analyst Bob Withers:

Transgender Children and Young People: Born in Your Own Body

The dream:

I am lying in bed with a man I do not know and we are both naked. We are covered by a thin blanket. The man's right hand man comes in the room to discuss something with him. The man in bed with me gets up and does not clothe himself but nonchalantly takes off his penis and hands it to me. It is not bloody or gory and he seems to know that he can put it back on; I am just holding it for him. I'm not sure what to do so I take it under the blanket and lay it on my lower abdomen. The man tells his partner, as he points at me, that he should take a picture for his Dad because they see the outline of the penis under the blanket.