Gender identity as a trauma response

[BonfireLady]

I'm aware that the Cass Report cites trauma as one of the co-morbidities that needs to be unpicked when examining the reasons why someone might feel gender dysphoria, that looked after children are over-represented proportionally in gender clinics (and many have experienced trauma) and of lots of anecdotal accounts of people who have experienced trauma (e.g. sexual assault) identifying as the opposite sex. The common theme behind all of it is the idea of a gender identity developing as a trauma response.

What I'm not aware of, but would like to collate to share with someone I'm talking to currently, is any papers or books specifically on this.

Does anyone on this board know of any?

@PermanentTemporary @XChrome Thank you, I appreciate it!

Lots of intersex problem who have experienced trauma to do with their condition identify as trans.

I'm aware of writing that argues all gendering is traumatic (as in an incursion on the sense of self, not as Trauma (catastrophic event) or trauma (ongoing difficult responses and disequilibrium in the environment)).

Does that make sense?

The writing also argues that transitioning can be a creative, unfinished response to trauma.

DM me as the writing is context specific

I am not sure I'd say the idea is that trauma gives rise to gender identity in people.

It gives rise to alienation from the body and also from the self. "Gender identity" isn't required to explain that. It's a tool to destroy a body that's seen as a betrayer.

I'm sorry to read you have experience of this.

Hopefully some of the links and information shared on this thread will be of interest.

💐

https://thirdwaytrans.com/
The trans woman (?detransitioned man) who wrote this blog talked about their gender dysphoria and identity as "traumatogenic" - it's the first place I saw that term used.
My memory is that the blog's author was filled with compassion for trans identified male people but lacked depth of understanding of female perspective on it all - but within those limitations it was a fantastic blog. It's the only place I've come across honest conversation about the traumatogenic nature of trans identity. He is (or was) also a psychologist so may have been doing research.
The blog has been private for years now but it says you can request access if you have a Wordpress login. So that might be a way of getting in touch with them.
As an aside, I remember reading and hearing several stories from people who were sexually abused as children who talked about deliberate manipulation of their understanding of whether they were male or female being something their abuser/s really enjoyed messing with their heads about.
Also, I've just remembered, I was involved with this group,
https://blueknot.org.au/
for several years. It's a charity that provides support for adult survivors of child abuse.
I remember they sent out information about their service around the time they changed their name, which I've just looked up was 2016. They had an info sheet on who their service users were. It said 45% of their service users were trans (-identified). I remember thinking, well the cat's out of the bag now, surely. But all that actually happened was that they stopped including that data in either mailouts or online after that.
Maybe you could get in touch with them? I don't anticipate they'd be wanting to rock the boat, though, by releasing uncomfortable data. Even just writing this makes me so angry so good luck to you. I really hope you can do something to shift the conversation on this. You're a wise and strong woman.

Thank you.

When I wrote the OP, I couldn't quite find the words that were lurking somewhere in my head. This is a great way to put it. It also helps to link it to other situations where a different tool is chosen as the e.g. overeating, starving, purging etc. What happens first (the trauma) could potentially then lead to a trauma response, using a tool that presents itself as an idea.

Unfortunately I didn't save the graph I saw at an LGB conference online (via YouTube) which showed that the numbers of eating disorders in teenage girls were going down and the numbers of girls identifying as something different from their bodies were going up. I'll have a dig around for this as it may help with the wider picture. Plus there's this:

However, I'm aware that there are lots of reasons why teenage girls experience eating disorders. Similar to ROGD, there are some girls who haven't experienced a specific traumatic event but are feeling trauma about their changing bodies and want to take control to stop this happening. A different kind of trauma. Also (as per many anecdotes), there will be some who have experienced sexual assault, for example, who then find a tool to destroy a body that they see as having betrayed them.

The Elliott Page link is helpful from a critical thinking perspective. It helps to surface the question of which came first: the trauma or the gender identity. Different people will come to different conclusions but it's important to keep the conversation going and share why this is. Partly thanks to the current Overtime window shift from the Democrats' loss in the US, No Debate really is over.

I don't think you need to fully separate out from other forms of dysphoria, not focus on a single major episode of trauma.

Those with eating disorders are dysphoric, detached from their bodies and it's often the drip drip of minor comments, essentially death by papercuts, form of trauma (mum talking about her own weight, granny giving slimmer sibling a biscuit, skinny models in magazines, diet advice etc ). There are surely parallels with this type of traumatic experience and being told girls can't do that, here's a pink dress while your brother can scruff about, men noticing your developing breasts, the hush around periods.

I just think a wider literature search would also have merit.

From what I know about ED (ex sufferer, daughter of a mother who had it and eventually died from it at 56) is that it’s very much about control. This may include being in control in a dysfunctional domestic setting, trying to be in control of a social setting (school/work), being in control of a body that is changing against one’s will (puberty, pregnancy/postnatally in my DMs case), or about exerting control on the adults/others in your world by manipulating them through fear and a form of coercion. Our ex Tavi therapist Dr Anastassis Spiliadis (witness called in the Bell V Tavi case), had a special interest in the overlap between EDs and ROGD and was doing post grad research on this particular area of study. He said our family history of generational EDs seeming to transmute to GD in this generation was very common and seemed to overlap in more ways than the body dysmorphia that was central to both conditions. It may be that ASD/ADHD was a variable (I am being diagnosed, and am now increasingly convinced my DM could/would have been diagnosed had she be alive now). My DD definitely has ARFIDS, but then fussy eating/issues with food textures etc is also a feature of ASD.

I’ve struggled to access his research, though, but assume this may be due to the political climate, difficulty getting research in this area published in the last few years, but he did write a critique on an article by Marcus Evans on GD sufferers with a history of trauma that might be a useful read if you can access it? As would the originating article by Evans?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368793962_Commentary_on_the_paper_by_Marcus_Evans_Assessment_and_treatment_of_a_gender-dysphoric_person_with_a_traumatic_history/citations