In this episode, Ruby is exploring how their own gender feels to them, speaking to her sibling and partner as well as other gender non-confirming and non-binary people about their experiences. She also hears from Meg-John Barker about what gender even is, the ways that we all go on a journey with gender throughout our lives, and the impacts these conversations are having.

Further resources

• Gender: A Graphic Guide.
• How to Understand Your Gender.
• Free Gender Zine.

The post In Touch with Ruby Rare: Gender Non-conformity appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

You can listen to the episode here. This is what Lena said about it…

We love a good ‘both and’: both cake and ice cream, both dogs and cats. In this episode, as well as in their multiple graphic guides, MJ explains how rigid binaries harm our bodies, limit our minds and how many benefits life beyond the binary has to offer, not just for genderqueer people but for everyone.

Queer Lit

If you want more on this topic, you can check out my book, with Alex Iantaffi, Life Isn’t Binary here.

And my article about queer writing here.

The post Queer Lit Podcast: Non-Binary Life appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

You can listen to the podcast here, or check out the video version below.

The post Beyond Boxes appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Gender reveal parties have been called problematic because they’ve started wildfires, but why are they problematic when it comes to how we think about gender

Wildfires aside, the main problem is that gender reveal parties reinforce several ideas about gender which are pretty bad for kids, and for society in general. Three main ones are: 

• That gender is the most important thing we can know about a person, 
• That we can know what gender somebody is going to be by knowing what their genitals are like, and 
• That gender is binary (they’re either a boy or they’re a girl).

These ideas are bad for all kids.

These ideas bad for any kids who don’t end up conforming to sex and gender norms, like intersex, trans, and non-binary kids, because they mean that those kids will have a far greater battle to be recognised in their sex/genders than they would have done if we didn’t make such a big thing of sex/gender at the start of their life.

These ideas are also bad for all kids because they set them up to believe that the division between girls and boys, women and men, is a really important one, and that they need to conform to rigid ideas of what it means to be a girly girl or a ‘big brave boy’, a feminine woman or a masculine man.

They take place before the child is born, so do they actually affect the child?  

We know that from birth onwards, and perhaps even before birth, the gender attitudes of the people around a child have a huge impact on the kid. The famous ‘Baby X’ studies found that adults who were given the same baby to look after behaved very differently towards them depending on whether they were dressed in pink or blue. Babies dressed in pink were treated more gently, given dolls to play with, and assumed to be ‘upset’ if they cried. Babies dressed in blue were treated more roughly, given trucks, and assumed to be ‘angry’ if they cried.

Scientists like Cordelia Fine and Sari Van Anders have found that such different treatment has a big impact on our physiology, including the ways our brains wire up, and our levels of circulating hormones. We’re literally shaping kids’ bodies and brains when we treat them differently according to their gender. 

The BBC documentary No More Boys and Girls showed that, by primary school, kids raised like this all believed that boys were better than girls and that girls should aspire to be ‘pretty’ rather than having career goals. Boys found it difficult to ask for support when they were struggling, and couldn’t come up for words for emotions other than anger. We can see the toll that all of this takes in later life when we consider gender pay inequalities, toxic low self esteem and body dissatisfaction in women, and the high rates of suicide and aggression in men, for example. 

It all starts with the idea that the gender of a kid is the most important thing about them.

Why do you believe that gender reveal parties no longer have a place in 2020? Did they ever have a place?

 
I don’t believe they ever had a place. Looking back in time, and around the world today, we find that this idea that people can be divided into two ‘opposite’ genders is actually a pretty new, western thing. Many places and times have celebrated gender diversity as something sacred, have had more than two gender categories, and have regarded gender as only one feature of a person among many, not something to determine their whole lifecourses.

Another reason to leave gender reveal parties in 2020 is the increasing awareness, in our culture, of intersex, trans and non-binary people. Between one and two percent of babies are born with some variation of sex characteristics. In the past, such babies often received surgical interventions to make their genitals conform to norms of what we think male or female genitals should look like. Such surgeries can be risky, can deaden sexual sensation in later life, and can lead to later struggles if the decision is made in a different direction from the way that person ends up experiencing their gender. The need to ‘reveal’ the gender of a baby is part of a cultural pressure which makes parents more likely to believe that they should ask for such surgical interventions, rather than waiting until the child themselves is able to make that choice consensually – unless there’s actually a good medical reason for surgery.

Also, now that we know that over a third of adults experience their gender as to some extent the other gender, neither gender, or both gender, and that many people identify as trans and non-binary, we should be wary of anything that puts people in a box regarding gender that it’s hard to move out of later. 

What would a better approach be?

Some parents are now raising all kids gender-free until they’re old enough to make a decision about what gender they experience themselves as being – if any. Even if we don’t go that far, we can clue ourselves up about the strong impact of rigid gender stereotypes on all kids, and work to challenge these in our own childrearing. 

For example, on the No More Boys and Girls documentary they tried providing all kids with gender diverse toys and clothes and allowing them to make their own choices, they deliberately exposed kids to people who worked in non-stereotypical occupations like a male ballet dancer and a female mechanic, and they did activities that showed the kids how equal boys and girls were on physical strength and all kinds of activities at that age. 

It’s important that schools and families move in this direction, towards raising human beings who have all the choices available to them, rather than restricting their future possibilities, and later mental health, with rigid gender stereotypes.

Trans author and educator S. Bear Bergman also suggests that, while things remain so tough for gender diverse people, we could consider having gender reveal parties for people when they come out as trans or non-binary. What might it be like – for everyone – if we saw gender creativity as something to celebrate, rather than something to commiserate? What if we regarded trans, intersex, and non-binary people as a gift – as artist Travis Alabanza puts it – who have something vital to teach everybody about the beautiful, unique, complexity of all of our genders.

Find out more

There’s more on these topics in my books Gender: A Graphic Guide, How to Understand Your Gender, and Life Isn’t Binary. There’s also a free zine for exploring gender here.

If you enjoyed this, please consider supporting my Patreon here.

The post Letting go of gender reveal parties appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Initially I had some reticence around my involvement because, while I know plenty about gender, I’m no expert on attachment theory, which is the therapeutic approach that The Bowlby Centre focuses on. I learnt about it back in my psychology degree and taught the basics of it as a psych lecturer, but never went much further than that. My own psychotherapy training was existential, so I drew on other theories for understanding how people tick. 

While I’m always happy to do gender 101, having written Gender: A Graphic Guide with that aim, I felt like I wanted to do more than that here: to find some ways to weave gender and attachment together. While all therapists need to be mindful of gender diversity, aware of their own gender, and practice affirmatively, I wanted to explore what attachment therapists, in particular, might gain from exploring gender in depth.

Attachment

Fortunately, in the weeks leading up to the event I realised that I have actually been engaging deeply with attachment understandings over the past couple of years, just without always naming it as such. During my deep dive into trauma many of the authors I’ve been reading have been informed by attachment theory, in addition to more recent understandings of trauma. In fact it could be argued that John Bowlby was one of the first theorists and practitioners to highlight what we now call developmental trauma which is when – for whatever reason – parents are unable to regulate their children’s emotions and to help them get to the point of being able to self-regulate.

My most recent trauma read – Nurturing Resilence by Kathy Kain and Stephen Terrell – sets out the somatic experiencing approach to working with trauma. This, along with sensorimotor psychotherapy, is one of the main embodied trauma approaches, and it is grounded in the attachment theory of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. So I now have a greater appreciation for how what I’ve been working with is, in fact, all about attachment. 

One way of understanding the plural work that I’ve been doing throughout lockdown is as a journey towards what’s called ‘earned secure attachment’. This is the sense that if we did not have secure attachment – and the eventual capacity to emotionally regulate – as kids, we can develop this as adults. It relates to Pete Walker – and others’ – idea that we can reparent ourselves, and be reparented by committee (therapists, groups, and/or friends with whom we practice securely attached relationships and coregulation of emotions).

The rest of this post will begin with a brief overview of attachment theory, in case you aren’t familiar with it, explaining why it’s useful to explore it alongside gender (and sexuality, and relationship style). I’ll then include my answers to the questions which Jane and I explored in our conversation at the conference.

What does attachment theory say?

I was fascinated to read in Kathy and Stephen’s book that Bowlby was spurred into his work by his own experiences as a kid. He was mostly cared for by a nanny when he was a child, and she left when he was four years old, which devastated him. He was then sent to boarding school when he was seven, which he grew to believe were detrimental for children’s well-being: something born out by much subsequent research and therapeutic work on boarding school syndrome. 

It was useful to read that, right from the start, links were made between attachment style and the wider cultural norms around how kids were treated. Bowlby also worked closely with boys who’d been arrested for criminal behaviour. I’d previously assumed attachment theory to be quite an individualistic approach: locating our struggles purely in early childhood experience.

This linked, for me, to Gabor Maté’s more recent work on trauma. Maté argues that current cultural norms of child-rearing result in the high levels of developmental trauma and troubled attachment that we see, and that we should be addressing these at a structural and systemic level, not just the level of individuals or families. He suggests that the pressures on parents in the culturally normative forms of nuclear families, under neoliberal capitalism and economic crisis, mean that most are simply unable to provide secure attachment and the kind of emotional regulation that their children need.

Parents need far more practical and emotional support themselves in order to raise kids in ways that meet their emotional and relational needs. However, our culture has moved far away from models of extended families and sustainable communities of care which might provide this. One consequence of the current system is that many kids end up looking to peers (and, perhaps later, partners) to meet unmet early attachment needs, who are ill-equipped to do so, and often act in retraumatising ways.

Attachment theory argues that children need a safe haven with their caregiver/s: a caring, protective space they can return to to be soothed when they are stressed. They need a secure base: a stable attachment relationship with one consistently available caregiver which provides a template for their later relationships in life. Over time the child becomes more and more able to move away from this secure base. It is the knowledge that they can move away and come back that means that they gradually develop the capacity to be more independent and look after themselves and their own emotions in the way they were looked after in their secure base.

Bowlby’s colleague Mary Ainsworth developed attachment theory in her research with infants who were left alone with a stranger by their caregiver. She found that those who did not have this kind of ‘secure attachment’ developed different forms of ‘insecure attachment’. An ‘anxious-ambivalent’ attachment is where the child is highly distressed without their caregiver and may be either angry or helpless when they return. An ‘anxious avoidant’ attachment is where they avoid or ignore their caregiver and don’t show distress at them leaving, or much reaction to them returning. ‘Disorganised attachment’  was added by Mary Main and relates to more inconsistent attachment behaviour.

Later theories mapped these attachment styles onto adult relationship behaviours, delineating between secure attachment (flexible, good at connection and at discerning nourishing from risky relationships) and insecure forms of attachment including: ‘anxious preoccupied’ (needy and dependent), ‘dismissive-avoidant’ (independent and not wanting intimacy), and ‘fearful avoidant’ (desiring close connection and finding it very difficult).

So both attachment theory, and the more recent trauma theories which develop it, propose that a key role of caregivers is to regulate the child’s emotional state, meaning that the child can learn how to do so themselves long term. This means learning how to calm ourselves in times of heightened emotions such as fear, sadness, anger, and frustration. Coregulation is when caregivers attune to how their child is feeling, and engage in back and forth interaction to understand – and meet – their needs, soothing them when stressful events occur. 

If we are met in such a way we learn how to soothe and calm ourselves when tough things happen and our bodies go into more reactive modes (self-regulation). We’ll also find it easier to form good connections and to reach out to them when we need to. Without such an early ‘secure attachment’ we’re likely to be overwhelmed by tough events and emotions, to engage in survival strategies to avoid them, and we may well struggle to discern nourishing from risky relationships, and to reach out to others when we need support.

Why do we need to think about attachment in relation to Gender, Sex, and Relationship Diversity (GSRD)?

Attachment theory already clearly understands that our relationships are utterly interwoven with our mental health. Mental health struggles are rooted in our early relationships because this is where we learn to be okay with ourselves and our feelings, or where we get the message that we – and our feelings – are fundamentally not okay. Mental health difficulties like addiction, anxiety, and depression can be understood in terms of survival strategies which we develop to deal with otherwise overwhelming emotions. Also our current relationship experiences are utterly interwoven with our relationship with ourselves and our emotions. Problems in those relationships – due to our attachment and emotional capacity – can easily retraumatise us, replicating those early dynamics, and reinforcing our negative experience and understanding of ourselves.

Here are a few initial thoughts about why it’s useful to think about attachment alongside gender, sexuality, and relationship diversity. I’ll go into more detail on all of these in the rest of the post.

Cultural norms

First, the culturally normative way of doing relationships and families, which is linked to attachment struggles and developmental trauma, relies on a certain – interlinked – understanding of gender, sex, and relationships. The model of a heternormative romantic/sexual couple meeting all each others’ needs and forming a nuclear family is actually relatively recent and culturally specific. It relies on a binary understanding of ‘opposite’ genders where men are breadwinner-protectors and women are caring-nurturers, which developed in a capitalist context that relied on women working unpaid in the home and reproducing the workforce. Many of the strains on relationships today can be located in the cultural ideal of getting all your needs met in one person (best friend, co-parent, hot lover, etc.) as well as in an economic system where most people in such relationships are under huge financial stress and having to work long hours in addition to partnering and parenting, or face poverty.

Doing it differently

Relatedly, many people are now doing gender, sex, and relationships in different ways to this cultural norm, all of which may afford some possibilities to relate differently with ourselves and others. For example, Jessica Fern’s recent book Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma, and Consensual Non-monogamy explores the ways in which forms of consensual monogamy may open up different attachment possibilities. Different ways of relating may work better for different attachment styles, or may enable more secure ways of relating and attaching.

Likewise those who are intentionally addressing or shifting their ways of doing their gender, and/or their sexuality, may also move in the direction of greater emotional regulation and/or more secure attachments. Consider how entwined gender is with emotional expression, and how stepping outside of the culturally normative way of doing romantic/sexual relationships may offer possibilities of slowing down and/or prioritising different kinds of relating which may be more stable and secure.

Similar things apply

It also occurred to me that many of the things that I often emphasise about gender, sexuality, and relationships also apply to attachment. 

These days most attachment theorists and therapists emphasise that attachment style is not fixed from birth, but that we can experience ourselves in different attachment styles in different relationships, for example, or ‘earn’ a secure attachment through therapeutic work and self reflective practices. Similarly, although once understood as fixed and singular, gender, sexuality, and relationship style are all fluid and plural. They may shift over time and/or be different in different relationships.

The trauma/attachment literature emphasises that attachment is biopsychosocial. Our way of attaching comes from a complex mix of the wider cultural way of doing child-reading (social), how that played out in our particular family (psycho), and how early attachment experience became engraved on our bodyminds or nervous systems (bio). Similarly, gender, sexuality and relationship style are all biopsychosocial.

All are interwoven

Finally, we can question the fact that our current culture separates out gender, sexuality, relationship style, and mental health as if these are discrete things. Many cultures, and historical times, would not separate out gender, sexuality, and spirituality – for example – seeing all these things as utterly interwoven. In the same way that we might usefully question our current normative way of doing relationships and family, we might recognise that regarding gender, sexuality, relationship styles, and mental health struggles as fixed identities that we have is a relatively new phenomenon, and possibly not a very helpful one.

Moving on to gender 101, let’s define some useful basic terms first – because lots of therapists are worried about getting it wrong…

I think it’s important to recognise that reality. Laurie Penny wrote that ‘the way we think about gender is moving so fast you can feel the breeze in your hair’. This is fraught terrain for many people. I’m always reminded of what Simone de Beauvoir wrote about how threatening it can be for mothers to see their daughters doing gender in different – more liberated ways – than were available to them, and how they may try to stop that. We see a lot that kind of thing playing out intergenerationally. There are all kinds of deep fears, losses and shames in play when relating across generations and genders: all kinds of reasons why people may want others to support – and not challenge – their gender worldview. Perhaps it gives them a sense of safety, of knowing who the ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ are, and which side they are on, for example.

This is why I always emphasise, first and foremost, that therapists reflect deeply on their own experience of gender and how it has impacted their lives. As with all other intersecting aspects of identity and experience (e.g. disability, race, class, sexuality, age), we really need to feel how it operates within us, and through us, if we’re to work with other people around it.

What ARE some the terms therapists need to be aware of?

I would say it’s useful to recognise the multiple different aspects of gender. So gender identity is whether you identify as man, woman or non-binary, for example. Gender expression is how you present your gender in terms of appearance, clothes, voice, etc. Gender experience is your lived experience of your gender. Gender roles are the roles you take on in life and how they relate to gender: father, feminist, waitress, widower, etc. Then there is how your gender is read by other people. There may be more or less match between identity, expression, experience, role, and how others read your gender, for different people.

In terms of gender status people are generally divided into cis and trans. Cis – or cisgender – people remain in the gender that they were assumed to be by those around them at birth. Trans people shift from that in some way. Trans can be seen as a big umbrella encompassing trans women, trans men, and non-binary people. And non-binary can be seen as another big umbrella encompassing all the people who are a gender other than male or female. For example they may be both genders, or between genders, a further gender, no gender, or move between multiple gender positions. Of course the category of cis is also a big umbrella encompassing many different cis masculinities and femininities. 

People often associate trans with social transition (changing names, clothes, pronouns, etc.) and medical transition (taking hormones and having surgeries). It’s important to point out both that many cis people engage in social and medical gender transitions, and that many trans people do not. Think about name changes for choice, or at marriage, for example, or the huge gender-related shifts that can come with menopause, retirement, or treatment for prostate or breast cancer.  I personally prefer a sense that we – as therapists and medical practitioners – should be helping all people to come to a congruent and comfortable place with their gender, regardless of whether they would be categorised – or see themselves – as cis or trans.

We often think of trans people as a small minority of people, when we’re focused on social and medical transition. However, Daphna Joel’s research has found that over a third of people experience themselves as being to some extent ‘the other gender, both genders, or neither gender’.

Historically, many psychanalysts have conflated gender, biology and sexuality, and when it comes to trans, non-binary and folks with variations in sex characteristics, some still do – so can you explain the difference and the way they interact?

Intersex people, or people with diverse sex characteristics (DSD) have bodies which are difficult to categorise in the current western binary sex model. Historically medics have intervened with those bodies in order to attempt to make them conform to a binary, and heterosexual, norm (i.e. penises and vaginas of a certain length). Activists and practitioners are increasingly speaking out against this and encouraging more consensual practices.

It’s important to know that what we think of as biological sex – as well as gender – is diverse. What are we talking about when we talk about sex? Is it chromosomes? Level of circulating hormones? Bodily features like genitals, breasts, or hairiness? Or is it brain structure and capacity? On all of these levels humans are actually diverse rather than binary. 

Many biologists now prefer to talk about sex/gender rather than separating these out, because it’s really impossible to disentangle the biological, the psychological, and the social. Personally I find the concept of ‘biopsychosocial’ very useful here. Gender is biopsychosocial for all of us meaning that we can’t tease apart these three elements. All are in play and all influence each other. For example, what we now know about neuroplasticity and endocrinology suggests that the ways in which we learn gendered behaviours – from the world around us – shifts our brain and body patterns. So, as well as the way our brain and body are – from our early years – shaping how people read our gender and how we experience it, the ways in which we are read, and experience our gender, also shape our brain and body.

When we think about all the different elements of sex (chromosomes, hormones, body shape and size, brain structure and function) and all the elements of gender (identity, expression, experience, role, etc.) we can see how the concept of the snowflake might actually be a useful one, because with all of the different elements, all changing over time, we each end up with a pretty unique sex/gender. If we add in sexuality – which is about way more than just the gender we are and the gender we’re attracted to – we have even more diversity and uniqueness.

Virginia Goldener notes that historically psychoanalysts have considered working towards and/or achieving a stable gender identity as an indicator of a successful outcome – and that this is neither possible nor desirable. Consistency around gender identity is for many a cis myth or as Goldener suggests, a pathology. Do you agree? 

I’m really grateful to you for putting me onto the Goldener paper and I like a lot of what it says. I do completely agree with her argument that ‘gender coherence, consistency, conformity, and identity are culturally mandated normative ideals that (therapy) has absorbed uncritically’. Really we only have to look back through time and around the world today to see the truth of this. The current binary opposite understanding of gender is very recent, and it is utterly interwoven with heteronormativity and family structure under this particular form of capitalism. 

There have been many places and times where gender was not seen as binary or opposite, where very different characteristics were associated with different genders, where there were multiple genders, and/or where gender wasn’t considered an important feature of a person, or separable from other aspects of their personhood. It’s certainly highly ethnocentric to believe that binary gender in the way our culture currently understands it is any kind of universal truth.

Goldener takes her argument further to suggest that adhering to a consistent gender could be seen as a pathology. She comes close to my view here as well. In my BACP GSRD resource I highlight the strong links between trying to conform with rigid ideals of masculinity and femininity and significant mental health struggles. Think about rates of suicide and addiction amongst men, for example, or body images issues which are highly normative among women, or the kinds of depression and anxiety associated with women basing their identites around being-for-others, as de Beauvoir put it. This is why I always say that therapists should be talking about gender with all clients, not just gender non-normative ones. In fact gender expansive and creative folk are perhaps more likely to have already dealt with this stuff.

Goldener makes the argument that people come to a consistent gender by disowning anything about themselves that doesn’t fit with the ideological pressures of gender coherence. Think about the ways in which masculinity is defined by anything that isn’t feminine, for example, and how boys and men are encouraged to repudiate any ‘feminine’ feelings, appearances, desires, etc. This argument fits nicely with my understanding of plural selves – drawn from various therapeutic approaches. This is the idea that we are all plural, rather than singular, but have to disown, or split off, aspects of ourselves in order to survive in our families, communities, and wider culture. I think it’s useful to see gender as part of this.

I also found Goldener’s use of double binds very compelling. This is the sense that we receive confusing and contradictory messages – in families, communities, and culture – about gender which take a huge toll on mental health. Goldener gives the example of such contradictions in a woman’s family gender story: ‘Mom didn’t stand up to Dad, and she was always silently angry and depressed. But whenever I was argumentative, she would say I was ‘too masculine’ and no man would ever want me.’ So the woman faces the contradiction that if she does femininity like her Mom she will suffer as she did, but if she does it differently she faces rejection by her Mom and potentially by all men. We might also think about school messages that men need to be successful but also not show any interest in studies, or cultural messages that women must be empowered and desiring, while still seeing their worth as bound up in appearance and being in a relationship with a man.

Goldener ends by saying that a more critical therapeutic tradition ‘could promote resistance to the normative construction of gender polarities and hierarchies by documenting how the exploitation of gender distinctions in the inevitable struggle for power in society and in domestic life produces untenable relationship binds and unbridgeable psychic splits, which damage the human spirit in all of us and in the next generation.’ This understanding of cultural gender as a form of intergenerational trauma comes close to my own sense of things, and that of my co-author, Alex Iantaffi, who recently published the book Gender Trauma.

Currently people are expected to remain in the same gender throughout their lives. There is still a moral panic and ‘debate’ over people who do not, and trans people are expected to promise to remain in the same gender forever once they have transitioned. There is a huge sense that people should be consistent in their gender, despite the fact that everybody clearly experiences and expresses their gender in very different ways over time, from being a child, through a teenager, adult, and older person, and as cultural gender norms also shift radically over the course of their lives. 

I think we need to shift this whole sense that gender, sexuality, or self fixity and consistency is something to be aimed at, or somehow superior over flexibility and fluidity. All of these things can – and do – shift over long periods of our lives, and we also experience and express them very differently in different situations and relationships. Think about how you behave with the store clerk, a loved one, and a child, for example, or how you feel at this conference, out for a drink, or last thing at night.

One note of caution I would add here though is that we don’t flip the binary such that we privilege fluidity over fixity and regard that as, in some way, superior. Most of us experience some aspects of our selves, our gender, our sexuality, and more, as relatively stable, and other aspects as more changeable. I’d like us to get to the point where all of this could be equally respected and supported as somebody’s lived experience of themselves, rather than there being attempts to fix what is fluid, or to change what is stable.

Trainings often fairly uncritically reproduce cis and heteronormative value systems – so that the lens through which we’re taught in the psychanalytic or psychodynamic model is often devoid of exposing how systemic structural issues impact on clients. Why is it important for us to explore gender with all clients, not just with those where it might seem an obvious issue, such as trans and gender expansive clients? 

It’s very troubling to me how little most therapy trainings include considerations of social structures and cultural messages when we know these things are hugely impactful on people’s emotional well-being, and cannot be disentangled from individual life experiences. There’s a real danger in therapy that we reinforce a sense that mental health should be understood and addressed purely at the level of the individual and their interpersonal relationships, when it’s the wider societal systems and structures that are the problem in so many ways.

So yes I would say that heteronormativity and gender norms impact all clients, not just trans and gender expansive ones, and that it’s a vital part of the picture to unpack with clients who may not have considered normativity and how much it is part of their distress. Just to give a few more examples to the ones I’ve given already, the NATSAL survey finds that over half of people consider themselves to be sexually dysfunctional in some way. Clearly the issue here is with the narrow cultural view of what counts as (hetero) sex rather than half of individuals having this individual problem of sexual dysfunction. Few men manage to resist the cultural messages that they mustn’t show vulnerability or seek support, and we know the toll this takes in terms of their impact both on others and on themselves.

It’s very important that therapists are able to mirror, accurately, people’s sense of their own gender, given that many people will have experiences of only certain aspects of their gender being affirmed by those around them, if that. 

In your writing on gender you say that we can’t really understand gender without taking an intersectional perspective. What does that mean, and how might we work with clients in this way?  

Intersectionality is an idea from the Black feminist Kimberlé Crenshaw to capture how we are all impacted by multiple axes of oppression, and how these intersect. An example that I like to give was when I did a bisexuality training in a workplace context. People there were sharing their thoughts on being out as bi. A couple of white bi women said that it felt like an accepting environment to them. Some black women shared that there was no way that they would be out as bi there. They were already sexualised and harassed as black women, and to be openly bi would exacerbate that to intolerable levels. Here we see the intersection of the treatment of black women as hypersexual – and their bodies as the property of others – with the understanding of bisexuality as promiscuous and available to all. This creates a unique experience for black bi women which neither white bi women, or straight black women, had.

I think intersectionality is hugely important in therapy with all clients, because we have to understand how our clients are uniquely positioned in relation to these axes of oppression to have a full sense of their experience. To give another gender example, the experience of considering embarking on a trans journey is very different depending on age (a teenager versus a 50 year old), disability (having to downplay disabilities to access trans services and vice versa), sexuality (whether transitioning will involve you now being read as gay, for example), and race (whether transitioning will involve you now being read as a race/gender combination who is seen as dangerous and/or subject to violence, for example).

Your co-author, Alex Iantaffi, just published a book called Gender Trauma. How might we see gender as a form of historical, intergenerational, and/or developmental trauma? What are the implications of this for trauma-informed therapists?

Alex’s book is a must read for all therapists I would say. Although the focus is on gender it takes this intersectional view whereby all of those axes of oppression can be seen as having a traumatising impact. I find this understanding of trauma useful: that it is historical, cultural and intergenerational, as well as being developmental and/or resulting from specific traumatic experiences over our lives.

Alex points out that gender is a form of historical trauma in the ways that attempts have been made to eradicate certain genders through settler colonialism. We could also consider the ways in which white western understandings of gender and sexuality have been imposed on colonised countries, and the ongoing legacy of this, and the gendered sexual violence that was involved in slavery. All of these historical forms of gender trauma pass down through the generations, and linger in damaging myths, norms, and stereotypes.

Gender can be seen as a form of intergenerational trauma in the way that gendered ways of behaving are passed down through families – the kind of thing that Goldener was referring to. Gender reveal parties could be seen as a recent example whereby kids are assumed to be all kinds of things because of their genitals, even prior to birth. Consider the impact of this on intersex kids, on gender expansive kids, and on all kids who don’t entirely conform to the ideals of genders their famlies expect, or who might not if such rigid expectations were not imposed from so young.

When it comes to developmental trauma, we could wonder about the gendered ways in which babies and children are treated in relation to their emotions, from a very young age. Developmental trauma occurs when kids aren’t soothed when overwhelmed, or supported to learn how to emotionally regulate themselves. I think we could see this, for example, when boys are punished for expressing emotions other than anger, or when girls are expected to care for others’ emotional states, even as infants. I was so struck by the documentary No More Boys and Girls, where 7 year old boys could not come up with words for any emotions other than anger, and all the kids agreed that boys were ‘better’ and that girls’ main aspiration in life should be to be ‘pretty’.

Much of your writing these days is about plural selves and parts work. How does this concept relate to gender, and to attachment, and what are the implications for potentially working with all clients as plurally gendered?

For me personally, it was my journeys with sexuality and gender which eventually led me to an understanding of plurality. Initially I was aware of having several different sets of sexual desires, and enjoying sex or play the most when I could sink fully into one of these different headspaces. Then I had a sense of being non-binary, which could enable me to hold the feeling that I was masculine and man without letting go of a sense of knowing that I was also feminine and woman. These explorations eventually led to a realisation that I have a vivid experience of multiple parts, who certainly have different gender expressions and sexual – or asexual – desires, but who are about much more than that.

In terms of parts work I’m weaving together the work of people like John Rowan, Hal and Sidra Stone, Richard Schwartz, and Janina Fisher, as well as what I’m learning with people within plural communities. My sense is that everybody – to some extent – disowns parts of themselves and foregrounds other parts, in order to conform to their family, community, and culture, for example. Significant developmental trauma is not what causes people to be plural, but it does seem to result in more significant splits between the parts, such that some are inaccessible, unknown, or dissociated from.

My own experience is that I created a pretty well functioning feminine self in my teenage years, in order to survive. I experienced myself as purely that self for many years, but often with a confusing sense of incongruence that this person who was all about fitting in, helping others, and being independent, fairly regularly made it their business to tell uncomfortable truths in public, suddenly leapt into relationships and communities, or became overwhelmed by shame and fear when tough stuff happened.

So, for me, plurality is entirely interwoven with gender and with attachment, given that other parts of me hold gender-related behaviours, attachment styles, emotions, and survival strategies, which were too dangerous for me to hold or express as a child. It was confronting, for example, to realise that there’s certainly a needy ‘anxious preoccupied’ part when I would probably have checked towards the avoidant end of the attachment spectrum. It’s also been helpful, and painful, to finally be in touch with a ‘fight’ survival strategy that was almost entirely turned in against myself for much of my life.

With a plural understanding we could usefully explore how gender, attachment styles and emotional experience are highly interrelated. For example, boys are generally encouraged culturally to be at the avoidant end of the spectrum and to express feelings in the form of anger, disowning more dependent attachment styles or fearful feelings. Similarly girls are still generally encouraged to be highly relationally oriented, even dependent, and to express emotions as distress rather than anger. These things do not come together for all people, of course, given our specific family systems and life trajectories, but they are bound to be linked to some extent in terms of what we disown and foreground in ourselves in order to survive.

In addition to bringing all parts forward, and to improving communication within the system, I find the concept of earned secure attachment extremely helpful here. For me this is the idea of creating and developing inner parents, or containing parts, who can hold and hear disowned or traumatised parts, building trusting relationships with them which can – over time – enable them to feel safe-enough in the world, and to grow from the traumatised places they have been stuck in.

For me the vital thing is what Bonnie Badenoch calls ‘radical inclusivity’, Janina Fisher ‘no part gets left behind’, or Richard Schwartz ‘no bad parts’. It’s about welcoming, befriending, and forming loving relationships with, and between, all aspects of all parts of ourselves. The aim is not a kind of integrated singularity – the cultural norm – nor is it reaching that sense of consistency that Goldener warns against, whether on gender or attachment style or anything else. Rather it’s about helping all parts to be in the world, to bring everything that they have been holding and to share it, and to continue to grow and become, as a vital part of both inner and outer systems.

Patreon link: If you enjoyed this please feel free to support my free writing on Patreon.

Plural tag: This post was by James.

The post Gender, Attachment and Trauma appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

This post is mostly aimed at trans people – and those who have sex with us – who want to think more about sex. Using both ‘trans’ and ‘sex’ in the broadest possible ways of course. For more of a basic overview about the topics of trans and sex for everyone, check out this post I wrote last year. Hopefully there’ll be something useful here for everyone – whatever your relationship to gender and sexuality – though.

This post is based around four questions which are useful for us all to reflect on. For each question I’ll give you the opportunity to make some notes of your own answers before reading other people’s responses, and my thoughts. The post ends with some further resources which can help you to tune into your erotic desires, and to communicate them to others.

Question 1: How do I feel when I’m most alive?

I borrowed this question from awesome mental-health activist Sascha Altman DuBrul. I think it’s a perfect starting point for thinking about sex, just as much as it is mental health. 

Generally when we think about sex – perhaps particularly as trans people – we make so many assumptions about what we should be doing, and how we should do it, that we lose track of what we’re doing it for. That is because of all the cultural baggage about what sex is, how it is gendered, and how bodies should work.

So let’s put all that aside for a moment and think about the feeling we might look for from sex – and from aspects of life beyond sex.

Consider the times in your life that you’ve felt most alive. These may not necessarily be sexual times. How did you feel at those times? For Sascha and myself, for example, we came up with answers like ‘I notice I feel keen to make eye contact with people’ and ‘I feel comfortable in my body’…

How do I feel when I’m most alive?

Here are some of the answers that came up in the trans sex workshop I ran, in response to this question:

• Expansive, taking up space.
• Bouncy, moving.
• Competent.
• A surge of energy.
• Creative, motivated.
• Relaxed.
• Trusting.
• Connected to everyone.
• Free.
• Spontaneous, like I want to laugh out loud.
• Like I’m uncovering the truth.

What would it be like for this feeling to be the starting point for thinking about what we want to do erotically? How might we invite this feeling into our sex lives, and everywhere else for that matter? 

The problem with much sex advice is that it’s not about inviting that kind of feeling at all. It’s much more about how to do what wider culture defines as ‘sex’ in the most ‘normal’ way, and how to achieve a specific goal such as erection, penetration or orgasm. As Juno Roche points out, this approach can leave trans people feeling deficient, because it’s based on a cisgender ideal of what sex is, and how bodies should operate. Also this approach doesn’t actually work so well for many cis people either. 

Starting with pursuing the kinds of sex – and other activities – which make us feel most alive is way more helpful. It helps us to tune into whether we even want sex at all. For many folks on the ace spectrum, other activities bring this feeling way more than sex does. You don’t have to have sex at all, unless it does bring that feeling for you or you want to do it for other reasons. 

This question also helps us to tune into what kinds of sex we enjoy, instead of feeling we have to do certain things. It puts solo sex on a level with sex with other people, rather than thinking that sex with other people is somehow better. 

It also helps sex to be more consensual, because we get familiar with checking in with what we – and anybody else – actually wants, instead of doing what we think we – or they – should do.

As Black feminist Audre Lorde – and many who have followed her – have pointed out, this question of how we feel when we’re most alive could be a useful starting point for much more in life than just sex. If we took it seriously, we’d be inviting life in general to be pleasure-giving and consensual for all, and challenging the ways in which it isn’t.

Question 2: What blocks me (in general / as a trans person) from being open with myself about my desires, and from tuning into what turns me on or gives me pleasure?

Sascha Altman DuBrul says that two things are vital when it comes to mental health: Cultivating the capacity to communicate well with ourselves, and with others. The same is very much true for sex, but this is an area where many people struggle hugely. 

In the next two questions we’ll explore what blocks us from being open with ourselves about our desires, attractions, turn-ons and turn-offs, and what blocks us from being open with other people about these same things.

Let’s start with what makes it difficult to be open with ourselves…

What blocks me (in general / as a trans person) from being open with myself about my desires, and from tuning into what turns me on or gives me pleasure?

Here are some of the answers that came up in the trans sex workshop I ran, in response to this question:

• Body dysphoria.
• Peer pressure from others outside or inside the trans community.
• Internalised transphobia.
• Shame.
• Overthinking things.
• Wanting to be politically correct.
• Pain from physical conditions.
• Disability.
• Confusion.
• The way these things can change over time.
• Being monogamous.
• Other people’s perception of gender.
• Lack of feeling.
• Worrying about a partners’ pleasure.

For trans people in particular it can be hard to grapple with cultural ideals about what bodies ‘should’ look like and respond like, given that these are cisgender ideals. We can feel pressure to be ‘normal’, and fear that we might not be. On the flip side there can be a sense of pressure to be ‘trans enough’ or ‘queer enough’ which can make us feel bad if we do want ‘normal’ sex, or if we have discomfort with our trans body. It’s fine to enjoy what you enjoy, to have the body you have, and to feel how you feel about it. Whoever you are, you are trans enough.

It can be hard for us to accept dysphoria and to allow that we might want to avoid touching certain parts of our bodies, keep certain clothes on, etc. It can also be difficult – if we don’t feel dysphoria – to allow ourselves to enjoy parts of our body which don’t fit cultural assumptions about our current gender. It’s fine to be anywhere on the spectrum from dysphoric to euphoric about any parts of your body, and for that to change over time, or not. It’s fine to use your anatomy sexually in culturally expected ways, or in culturally unexpected ways, for your gender.

In order to access medical services, many trans people have had to distance themselves from the idea that their transness is in any way erotic for them. This can make it hard to really tune into what we enjoy, especially if it does involve eroticising our gender in some way. It’s important to remember that many – if not most – cis people find it a turn-on to be desirably feminine and/or masculine, and to ‘perform’ their masculinity or femininity during sex. It’s fine to be turned on by your transness, or femininity, or masculinity, or non-binary-ness. And it’s also fine not to be.

We can feel pressure to be sexual in ways that map onto our current gender rather than our birth-assigned sex, in order to affirm our transness. It’s fine for everyone – trans or cis – to enjoy things sexually which match the stereotypes of how their gender is sexual, and which don’t. For example, whether you are a woman, a man, or a non-binary person, it is fine to be active or dominant, or passive or submissive, sexually – or both, or neither, or different things at different times. 

Question 3: What blocks me (in general / as a trans person) from communicating my desires, turn-ons, and pleasures with others?

This isn’t just an issue for trans people. Research on cis people has found that even those who have been having sex together for years know under two thirds of what each other enjoys sexually, and under a quarter of what they dislike. People are also unlikely to communicate openly about their turn-ons and turn-offs with people they are dating or hooking up with because there’s so much stigma and fear about being ‘dysfunctional’ or ‘abnormal’ when it comes to sex.

However, there are reasons why communicating honestly about our desires and attractions can be particularly risky for trans people. Let’s reflect on these here…

What blocks me (in general / as a trans person) from communicating my desires, turn-ons, and pleasures with others?

Here are some of the answers that came up in the trans sex workshop I ran, in response to this question:

• Fear of rejection.
• Worrying about losing a partner.
• A sense of scarcity which means you feel that you have to stay with a person if you’ve found someone who wants you, even if the sex/relationship isn’t good.
• The struggle of finding people who aren’t either transphobic or fetishising of trans people.
• Avoiding conflict.
• Fear of upsetting people.
• Not wanting to interrupt the flow of sex.
• Lack of confidence.
• Internalised transphobia.
• Other people not holding space for our needs, just going after what they want.
• The impact of hormones.
• Not having the vocabulary or language to communicate with.

The current cultural moral panic about trans people makes this such a troubled area. As the documentary, Disclosure, pointed out, trans people are demonised in relation to their sexuality. Trans women – in particular – are frequently depicted in the media as sexual predators, despite the fact that they are statistically far more likely to be the victim of sexual assault, and other violence, than they are the perpetrator. It’s important to be very kind with yourself about the challenges of navigating your sexuality during this moral panic. It can help a lot to develop communities of support, if possible, and trusting relationships in which to be sexual.

Most trans people carry experiences of trauma which also tend to impact our sexual experience. If we have been painfully rejected, or assaulted, in the past, we may be very fearful of being open with partners in the present about our sexual needs and boundaries. Therapy with a trans affirmative therapist, and/or queer peer support, can help us to learn how to tune into our needs and wants, limits and boundaries, and to communicate these with others if we find this hard.

There can be big power imbalances in play with cisgender partners, which can also make it hard to communicate openly about sex, and about other vulnerable topics in our relationships. It’s important to talk about these power imbalances as part of a consent conversation. Of course other aspects of our experience comes into play here too, so it’s useful to consider how our transness or cisness intersects, for example, with our race, class, disability, age, HIV status, survivorship, immigration status, etc.

Communicating about sex can also be vulnerable when we’re with trans partners given that both/all people are likely to carry trauma, and we might want to be particularly careful to affirm others, and be fearful of hurting them more. Partners – whether one-off or long term – should want the sex we’re having to feel as safe and free as possible. The resources at the end offer some suggestions for how to start having these kinds of conversations if you find it tough.

Hopefully these answers help you to see that you’re not alone in finding this tough. Juno Roche’s book, Queer Sex, is a great resource outlining various ways in which trans people have found safe-enough and free-enough relationships and situations in which to enjoy their sexuality.

Question 4: Why is sex with trans people so awesome? 

It’s sad that when we think about trans sex, the things that most readily comes to mind are these blocks that we face to having good sex. It’s certainly important to be mindful of how tough things are at the moment, and to affirm that the struggles we experience are very real and understandable, and not our fault. However, it’s also possible to flip this and to ask what might be particularly great about trans sex, which everyone could learn from. 

Most people who are not trans are actually having unsatisfactory, mediocre, or even unwanted or non-consensual sex. That’s certainly the sense you get from the annual NATSAL survey which finds that at least half of those surveyed see themselves as having one or more sexual problems. This is because most people are trying to conform to a very limited idea of what sex is, what bodies should do, and how the different genders should be sexual, and failing at that.

So perhaps trans people might have something valuable to offer everyone when it comes to sex, given that we have stepped outside – to some extent – the rules and norms about bodies, sex, and gender. That’s certainly a key theme in Juno’s book, and it relates to Travis Alabanza’s idea that trans people should be seen as a gift for the rest of the world, instead of a problem. So let’s consider it…

Why is sex with trans people so awesome? 

Here are some of the answers that came up in the trans sex workshop I ran, in response to this question:

• We think and talk a lot about gender, bodies, and sex.
• Communication skills.
• Expertise around consent.
• We are storehouses of knowledge around bodies, hormones, the impact of medical stuff, etc. (which actually impact all people, not just trans people).
• We’ve had to discover or redefine gender roles.
• We have less assumptions and expectations so can see the full, unique person in front of us.
• Opening up creativity and freedom.
• Humour and playfulness (which takes away ‘performance anxiety’).
• Acceptance of awkwardness and things not working as anticipated.
• We’re more up for the process of sex rather than aiming at a particular goal.
• Generosity.

When sex and relationships educator, Justin Hancock, and I wrote our book about sex – Enjoy Sex (How, When and IF You Want To) – we deliberately didn’t have any separate material about how to have sex with trans people, or as a trans person. This was because we figured that the way we’d want people to have trans sex is actually the way we’d want all people to have any sex. For example:

• Don’t make any assumptions about the body and desires in front of you, whether that is your own body and desires in solo sex, or somebody else’s in partnered sex. All our bodies and desires work differently, and change over time.
• Approach everyone – including yourself – with curiosity, openness, and ongoing consent check-ins.
• Don’t focus on genitals and orgasms. This body may experience different forms of pleasure, in different parts of the mind/body. Leave the genital sex/orgasm script behind and consider all the different things that could count as sex (mentally and/or physically) and explore which of these you might want to try.
• Drop the gendered script as well. There’s no reason you have to have particular sexual desires and behaviours just because you’re a woman, man, or non-binary person. Everyone has a complex, changing, relationship with their gender, body, and desires.

Resources

If you want more on all of this, check out my book with Justin. We also have a zine – Make Your Own Sex Manual – which takes you through a number of activities to figure out what you do – and don’t – want, and how to communicate that with others. It can be a great idea to create your own living document about your sexuality which you can share with others to explore what you might do together. If you want to explore your sexual fantasies more, we also have a zine on that.

Another recommendation is the Gender Stories podcast by our friend Alex Iantaffi which focuses more on trans issues. Alex and I wrote How To Understand Your Gender together, and are now working on How to Understand Your Sexuality. Also check out the So Many Wings podcast by Sascha Altman DuBrul (mentioned above), and his collaborator, genderqueer writer and artist, Jacks McNamara. 

For more on consent, check out Justin’s latest book, Love Uncommon’s resources on how to develop self-consent, and my Consent Checklist zine.

Gender GP also has an excellent series on trans sex education. And Scottish Trans and Waverley Care have recently brought out an awesome report on trans sexual health.

If you’d like to support my writing then feel free to drop me a dollar or two on my Patreon.

The post Trans sex appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

What is the definition of non-binary (gender)?

Non-binary gender means identifying as a gender other than man or woman. It includes people who experience their gender as somewhere between male and female, people who don’t feel that they have a gender, people who are both masculine and feminine, and people who have a gender beyond the binary of man or woman.

Why do we need this term?

We need a concept for non-binary gender because so many people experience their gender in ways outside the man/woman binary. One recent study found that over a third of people experience themselves as – to some extent – ‘the other gender, neither gender, or both genders’. 

Around the world there are many cultures who don’t have the binary man/woman gender system, including places where there are three or five genders, and where gender is tied to other aspects of a person such as sexuality or spirituality, so it doesn’t make sense to ask somebody’s gender separate to that. To be culturally inclusive we need to include non-binary genders, which is why many countries now include a third gender option on passports. 

Why are we getting more and more interested in the term now?

In countries that do have a binary man/woman gender system, more and more people are identifying as non-binary. The internet has helped people to form communities around non-binary gender and to begin to fight for rights and recognition.

At the same time, people have recognised that the binary gender system isn’t working well for anybody. Many men and women suffer because of rigid ideas of what it means to be a ‘real man’ or ‘real woman’. For example, high suicide rates in men have been linked to cultural norms that men shouldn’t display emotion or seek support. High rates of depression in women have been linked to norms that women’s lives should be based around pleasing others. The binary gender system isn’t working well for anybody.

What are the difficulties of lives of non-binary people in today’s society? Is the situation improving?

In cultures that still have binary gender systems there is a big problem with invisibility. Non-binary people are misgendered many times a day, by people calling them ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’, for example, or referring to them with ‘he’ or ‘she’ pronouns. They may also struggle to find a bathroom to use which isn’t gendered, and to be treated as a non-binary person in their workplace or educational institution, or by health professionals.

We know that being treated by the world in ways that conflict with your way of experiencing yourself takes a big toll on mental health. Many non-binary people also experience transphobic discrimination, bullying, and even violence. 

What do we need to change? How can we achieve the change?

We need a cultural shift, in binary gender countries, to recognise non-binary genders as legitimate. That means changing policies to include non-binary gender legally, ensuring the availability of gender-neutral bathrooms and changing areas, and giving the option of ‘they’ pronouns and the title ‘Mx’ or their equivalent.

An important step in achieving this change is cultural awareness, which is slowly happening through non-binary actors playing non-binary characters on TV shows like Billions and Grey’s Anatomy, and non-binary creators like CN Lester, Jeffrey Marsh, Sam Smith, and Travis Alabanza producing awesome media content. 

What are the challenges in order that non-binary should be widely accepted?

It is challenging to get many people – in binary gender cultures – to acknowledge the existence of non-binary gender. This is despite the fact that, even in such cultures, the idea of two ‘opposite’ genders is actually a relative recent thing. Previously women were seen as an inferior version of men. Also, historically there have always been people who didn’t fit into the binary gender system. 

According to the GIDS website, “There are many ways in which people identify or present in a non-binary manner, and perhaps we all do in some respects.” Could you elaborate on this, using some examples?

Most people experience and express themselves in some ways that don’t conform to the gender they’re generally seen as being. Most men have some stereotypically feminine characteristics (such as sensitivity, nurturing behaviours, or caring about appearance), and most women have some stereotypically masculine characteristics (such as competitiveness, toughness, or being focused on their career). Many women wear ‘masculine’ clothes, and perform ‘masculine’ roles, although there is generally more stigma about men doing the ‘feminine’ equivalent.

While only a few percent of people – so far – identify as non-binary in binary cultures, far more experience and express themselves in somewhat non-binary ways. Of course it is fine for them to do so and identify as a man, as a woman, and/or as a non-binary person.

Will there be any benefits for society and all people if non-binary is widely accepted? What are they?

Huge benefits because it will open up the possibility for everyone to loosen their grip on rigid gender binaries. Boys in binary cultures grow up finding it hard to express or name emotions other than anger. This means they are far more likely to act out their distress in aggressive ways when they’re older, potentially hurting others and themselves, and being convicted of crimes. Girls in binary cultures grow up very focused on appearance and relationships, and believing boys are ‘better’ than them. This means they can find it hard to tune into their own needs and boundaries, and express these, which takes a major toll on their mental and physical health. 

There may be people who cannot easily understand or accept the concept of non-binary as they are socially conditioned to see all people either men or women. Is there any effective way to make non-binary more accessible for those people?

Luckily we have many wonderful non-binary creators who write about being non-binary, put out non-binary theatre and art, and portray non-binary people on TV and in movies. Follow some of them on social media, and check out their content.

Also it is a great idea to reflect on your own experience of gender, to recognise how it isn’t completely binary. Check out my books to help with this: How to Understand Your Gender, and Gender: A Graphic Guide.

It’s helpful to remind those who struggle with the concept of non-binary that the way we understand gender is always changing. Even the cultural roles of men and women will have changed a great deal in their lifetime, and certainly in the last century or two, and that is a great thing.

However, there will sadly be some people who are impossible to convince. If you’re non-binary yourself, you may want to get support from trans and non-binary organisations, or groups online, as it can be very hard if friends and family dismiss your identity.

The post Words Matter: Non-Binary Gender appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

You can listen to the show here.

And here’s the full blurb:

Sex is simple. Or so we’re taught; animals can be male or female. But even the briefest glance at the animal kingdom tells us that this simply isn’t true. Some creatures have only one sex; some have three; some have none at all. Some animals are two sexes at the same time; some flip flop between them when the time is right. When evolution came to solve the problem of procreation, she did it in a myriad of mind-blowing ways.

When it comes to humans, it’s even more complicated – we have this thing called Gender, too. It’s often defined as the social and cultural side of sex, distinct from the biological. But that’s not the full story. Becky Ripley and Emily Knight travel back to the dawn of human culture, and into the tangled depths of our genetic code, to try and unravel why we are the way we are, and why it matters so much that we understand it all properly.

The post Sex/gender episode of NatureBang appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

You have written three books relating to non-binary and trans issues – Gender: A Graphic Guide, Life Isn’t Binary and How to Understand Your Gender. Could you give us an idea on how you got into writing about sex, relationships and gender?

Sex, relationships and gender have always felt important to me personally and politically. I grew up really buying the cultural norm that a romantic relationship was where I would find love, happiness, and belonging, and the related ideas that – as a woman – that would be with a man, and would involve having only certain kinds of sex.

Over the course of my life I’ve come to see all these interrelated cultural norms as damaging for those who are excluded from them, and also for those who are included in them. 

The norm the romantic love is all important keeps many people in damaging relationships, makes others feel like a failure for not managing such relationships, and takes our attention from other forms of love that it is vital to cultivate (self-love, friendship love, solidarity with our fellow humans, and love of the planet, to name a few). 

The norm that we should have particularly forms of (hetero) sex in our relationships exclude most people including ace people, LGBT+ people, kinky people, and non-monogamous people. It often leads to people severing their sexual desires and fantasies from the sex they have with other people. And it means that people feel a failure when they can’t sustain erotic attraction through a long-term relationship – even though this is extremely common.

When it comes to gender, the man/woman binary hurts all of those whose experiences don’t completely fit the binary, over a third of people according to one study. Also, the cultural ideals of masculinity and femininity – and their mutual attraction – are bad for most men and women too. For example, norms of men being providers, not seeking help, and not showing emotions relate to men’s mental health problems, as do norms of women prioritising other people, and focusing on appearance and desirability.

What does it mean for a person to be trans?

Being trans means that you no longer experience yourself as the gender that people assumed you were when you were born: when the doctor said ‘it’s a boy/girl’, for example. Anybody who has such an experience is ‘trans enough’!

Being trans doesn’t have to be associated with going through particular ‘transitions’ like changing name and pronouns, having surgical interventions, or taking hormones. However, many trans people do find some or all of those things to be affirming of their gender and/or alleviating of ‘dysphoria’, or painful feelings about their body/identity. It’s important to remember though, that many cis people go through transitions with names, hormones, surgeries, etc. over their lifetimes too.

How about gender nonconforming, genderqueer, and non-binary people?

Mostly these words are used pretty interchangeably for all folks whose experience falls outside of the current cultural gender binary, in other words anybody who doesn’t experience themselves as male or female. 

It’s important to remember, however, that many cultures around the world don’t have binary models of gender, and that the binary model of ‘two opposite genders’ is pretty new in western cultures also. In places and times where there have been diverse gender options, or where gender hasn’t been such an important category of human experience, very different possibilities have been available.

How do people realise they’re trans, gender nonconforming, genderqueer, or non-binary?

Experiences vary. Many people have a sense of their assumed gender not fitting from a very young age, but for others it’s a deepening understanding over time, or even quite a sudden realisation in later life. As well as not being binary, gender is fluid: which means that most peoples’ experiences and expressions of gender change over time. Think about how you might express your gender as a kid, teen, adult, and older person, and how others might respond to you, for example.

For many people, having some kind of cultural language and media representation is vital in recognising their transness, as the recent documentary Disclosure highlighted. The increasing visibility of non-binary people has helped many people to recognise that spaces between or beyond man and woman are a better fit for them. 

Generally people’s mental health improves a lot if they are able to find a gender expression and identity which feels congruent to them, especially if that is mirrored and supported by those around them.

If I want to know someone’s gender identity, but I don’t want to be offensive. Is there a polite way to ask?

The important question is really why you want to know. If it’s just your curiosity then best not to ask! If there’s some reason why it is definitely relevant then it’s worth asking yourself whether you ask this of all people, or just this person. Remember that you can’t tell by looking at somebody what gender they identify with or what pronouns they use.

It’s great practise if everyone can start giving their pronouns when they introduce themselves, or on email signatures etc. This makes it easier for all of us to do that. Saying ‘I’m Nancy and I use she/her pronouns, how would you like me to refer to you?’ is a good opener with anybody where you might need to refer to them beyond a short encounter.

Someone I’m talking to just misgendered another person while referring to them. How do I correct them, and how should they respond?

Best practise here is to be matter of fact and kind.  We all mess up on this occasionally. ‘Oh actually Ki uses they pronouns,’ would be a great way to put it, and then a response like, ‘I’m sorry, so Ki was telling me that they have a great recipe for brownies…’ Just apologise and move on.

Many people experience shame and fear about ‘getting it wrong’ in areas of oppression they aren’t personally familiar with. If that’s the case for you then I’d suggest putting some time into this area. Engaging with media and social media by trans people can help the terminology to come more naturally, as well as helping you get a sense of key issues, and the diversity of trans experience.

Sitting kindly with your uncomfortable feelings rather than avoiding them or reacting defensively is a great approach. Practise using unfamiliar pronouns, for example by talking aloud about people who use them, or using gender neutral pronouns to refer to animals. Check out trans organisations like Trans Media Watch, All About Trans, or Gendered Intelligence to find out what kinds of support you might usefully give in this area.

Why does society give people who don’t follow gender norms such a hard time?

There are probably many reasons for this, but one of the big ones – in my view – is that people know, deep down, the injustice and violence which flow from a structurally transphobic and patriarchal society. Facing up to that truth – and all the damage that has been done – is so painful that it is easy for many to engage in a form of cultural gaslighting in this area. This involves minimisation, denial, victim blame, and defensiveness. 

In the area of gender, we see this in the ways in which the behaviours of women survivors of sexual assault and harrassment are scrutinised, as if somehow they might be responsible for what happened to them. Also the impact of such experiences on them is downplayed, while the impact of being named as a perpetrator is seen as potentially ‘ruining someone’s life/career’. We also see this cultural gaslighting in the way trans people are represented as perpetrators of violence when they are actually way overrepresented as victims of violence (particularly trans women of colour).

In this time of #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, and the trans moral panic it’s vital to draw the links between these movements, for example, how the criminal justice system is violent towards survivors, trans people, and black people. It’s important to engage in collective struggle, and to reveal the cultural gaslighting which follows whenever we draw attention to structural oppression of any kinds.

Do you have any advice for communication around sex with a trans partner?

Yes! The advice for good sex with a trans partner is actually identical to the advice for good sex with anybody. The problem here is that most sex advice is so poor that it suggests things that only work well for a very narrow group of cisgender people who have certain kinds of bodies and enjoy very specific kinds of sex.

As Justin Hancock and I say in our book and podcast, good sex involves assuming nothing about the person – and body – in front of us. We need to be present to that particular person and body, learning what they need in order to be comfortable and consenting, what lights them up, what kind of touch they do and don’t enjoy, what kinds of experiences they do and don’t want during sex, what these experiences mean to them.

In a way sex with a trans person – like sex with a disabled person – could be seen as an opportunity to get way better at sex with all people, because we should never assume how somebody’s genitals work – for example – or that their body will be comfortable in a certain position, or enjoy certain kinds of stimulation. All sex should be an ongoing conversation between people – verbally and/or non-verbally.

In addition to our work, Juno Roche’s book Queer Sex is great on highlighting the diversity of forms of sex trans people – just like cis people – can have (and not have).

How can sex educators be more inclusive with their language with regards to trans people?

Again making no assumptions and talking about what’s relevant. It’s generally good practice to avoid making sweeping statements about ‘women’ and ‘men’ anyway. If you’re advising people on how to engage with parts of the body then talking about ‘people with penises’ or ‘people with vulvas’, for example, is better language than gendering those bodies. 

However, I would go a stage further to question whether much of the advice about how to stimulate penises or vulvas is that helpful. It centres the genitals in ways that don’t work for many people (whose main eroticism is located in other parts of their minds and brains, and/or who aren’t into genital stimulation); it suggests an anatomical binary rather than the spectrum that there actually is around genital structures; and it suggests that similar things work for all penises, or all vulvas, when actually there’s massive diversity in how people with these anatomies like to be touched.

How does taking hormones affect sexuality?

There definitely can be impacts, but ‘biopsychosocial’ is a useful word here. It’s hard, for example, to determine how much of an increase in sex drive after taking testosterone is due to the direct impact of the hormone, or expectations about what that impact will be, or feeling liberated to finally be on a transmasculine journey, or feeling more comfortable in your body, or being read more accurately in the wider world and not experiencing so much everyday misgendering.

Many people take hormones – or have experiences that alter their hormones – at some point in their lives, including adolescence, birth control, menopause, HRT, some cancer treatments, engaging in some sports, etc. As sexuality – like gender – is fluid – some people experience big shifts in their sex drive, the kinds of people they find attractive, or their desires and fantasies. Others experience few changes. And all of that is okay.

With the government proposing even harsher, transphobic policies around bathrooms etc. and the coverage that JK Rowling’s transphobic comments are receiving in the media, how can we best support the trans community right now? 

I’ve been writing about the current trans moral panic since 2017 and it truly has been horrendous for trans people. It is infuriating and exhausting to get to a point, now, where it seems that the whole consultation – and the frenzy it whipped up – was pointless, because the GRA will not be changed, and in fact other trans rights may also be rolled back.

JK Rowling’s comments hit some of the most vulnerable members of our community with the highest levels of mental health struggles – young people. It is particularly painful given how many young trans and queer people grew up seeing some kind of mirror of their experiences in the Harry Potter books and films: the idea of those who are different being special rather than unacceptable, and the strong stance in the series that those who are ‘half-blood’ should not be discriminated against, speaking to the experience of those who have moved away from cultural ideals of purity – like conforming to a fixed gender binary.

What people can do is to keep putting pressure on the government directly, and their MP, to follow the recommendations of the GRA consultation, and to stand against any rolling back of trans rights. They can also put pressure on the British media which has an appalling track record of demonising trans people. They can understand that trans people are being used as a handy scapegoat to take attention away from governmental mishandling of the C-19 pandemic, and to create divisions within feminism, LGBT+ movements, and the left, which take us away from the kind of collective solidarity which is so needed around interlocking axes of structural oppression.

Could you recommend some good resources for trans people, or people thinking about their gender identity?

Yes! For young people we have Gendered Intelligence and Mermaids

Hopefully my book with Alex Iantaffi How To Understand Your Gender is a good starter for anybody and everybody. And Gender: A Graphic Guide is a comic book introduction to how gender works.

There are so many amazing trans authors in the UK currently writing on these issues. Some I particularly love right now include:

• Amrou Al-Kadhi
• Ben Vincent
• CN Lester
• Eris Young
• Juliet Jacques
• Juno Roche
• Kuchenga
• Ruth Pearce
• Sabah Choudrey
• Travis Alabanza
• Yvy deLuca

The post Trans and sex appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

Joanna Whitehead, in her piece for The Independent article said:

This beautifully curated collection of essays is a welcome tonic in a cultural climate that seems hellbent on misunderstanding and misrepresenting those who do not fall into gender binaries. With a focus on intersections, this anthology specifically aims to examine the ways in which a person’s other identities – such as being a parent, having a faith, being black or having a disability – intersect with their non-binary identity.

Some writing on gender can often be inaccessible and academic, so it was a pleasure to read a collection of essays that were highly personal, thoughtful and immensely insightful. From “gender euphoria” to “radical softness”, working through each contribution felt like having an illuminating conversation with the most informed and thoughtful person you know.

This diverse group of individuals have done the work in picking apart the norms that prevail in many societies and discovered how prescriptive and stifling these can be. The overriding message is that non-binary people exist in multiple forms – that there is no “right way” to be non-binary – but there is plenty more to learn besides. Essential reading for anyone wishing to learn more about the wonderful diversity of humans. Furthermore, profits from the sale of this book will go to organisations supporting marginalised trans and non-binary folks.

Read the full article here.

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