136 - Gender as a Communication, It's Not What You Think with Maggie Goldsmith
Gender: A Wider Lens
Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley
4.6 • 961 Ratings
🗓️ 13 October 2023
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Maggie Goldsmith joins Sasha and Stella for a conversation about the psychodynamic approach in understanding gender identity issues, particularly in children and adolescents. Maggie shares her personal journey, shedding light on how rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) can signal a need for change within the family dynamic. She puts an emphasis on the importance of delving into unconscious processes that shape identity and behavior. The discussion covers theories about how key developmental stages, such as symbiosis and paranoid schizoid positions, can impact self-perception and relationships. Psychodynamic therapy is highlighted as a tool for deeper exploration, benefiting both the child and their family. Maggie also highlights how parental anxiety can affect the parent-child relationship, so self-care is crucial for both the parent and child's well-being. Sasha, Stella and Maggie share anecdotes about how different children may respond to discussions about gender identity and how parents need to adapt to their child's unique needs and circumstances. The conversation underscores the importance of open communication and maintaining a healthy relationship with the child throughout their journey of self-discovery.
Dr. Maggie Goldsmith is the author of the PITT essay “To My Daughter’s Therapist: You Were Wrong”, which was the first essay from the PITT Substack to go viral and put PITT on the map. It can be found in a recently published book that includes 75 essays by parents who have gender questioning children.
Since her first Wider Lens episode (#85), she has been very busy with a full caseload of kids and families impacted by gender dysphoria. Dr. Maggie’s approach to this work is grounded in object relations theory and supported by an understanding of human development throughout the life course. This places the family and the parent-child relationship in a position of primary importance as they manage and repair the inevitable ruptures of adolescence.
This is a captivating conversation, offering a unique perspective on the intersection of psychoanalytic theory, gender identity, and the practical implications for clinicians and parents alike.
Links:
Mother-Daughter Story: "I Didn’t Want to be Yours Anymore" w/ Dr. Maggie Goldsmith
https://youtu.be/E5crJzqnIeU?feature=shared
PITT Book
Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans: Tales from the Home Front in the Fight to Save Our Kids
PITT Substack Articles
Trans and the Myth of Sloppy Parenting
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.widerlenspod.com/subscribe
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi Stella, how's it going Sasha? It's going well. We had a return guest on today. |
| 0:06.1 | We actually promised our listeners that she'd be back in a few weeks, but it was only 11 months, |
| 0:11.1 | but that's okay. It was only 11 months, but actually it turns out it was really good to get that |
| 0:16.2 | time because Maggie Goldsmith's daughter has resisted and Maggie gives us a |
| 0:22.0 | good analysis of a kind of a longer perspective, the wider lens if you will, |
| 0:28.0 | on desistance and watching it and what the... She kind of had some really profound things to say about |
| 0:34.3 | the parents journey of the child when they're desisting and also about how the |
| 0:40.4 | the kid themselves experienced assistance. |
| 0:44.4 | Yeah, I mean we talked about basically Maggie thinks that all of this gender stuff is a communication |
| 0:51.0 | to the parents asking them to do something differently. |
| 0:55.0 | It's sometimes individuation and differentiation. |
| 0:58.0 | Well, she says all the time. |
| 0:59.7 | But it's really a call to parents to kind of look at their own dynamics and make a change and it reminded me a lot of when we talked to Stoic mom for example that her daughter was kind of calling her to behave in a new way. |
| 1:14.0 | And Maggie also brought in kind of the psycho analytic perspective and object relations theory. |
| 1:20.0 | So for any therapist listening this might be really interesting and how that helps us understand like what is the child really asking from the parent? |
| 1:28.0 | Yeah because Maggie is a psychologist so she brings a lot and she's very well read so she brings a lot to the table because it's not only the parents perspective |
| 1:36.8 | But it's also the psychologist's perspective haven't worked with kids who've des existed and having a kid who has |
| 1:44.3 | desisted. So there's an awful lot in Maggie as well as that as just a parent, not |
| 1:49.6 | a parent of a gender kid, but as a parent, I did feel seen in the middle a parent. I did feel I was biting my lip a few times during |
| 1:56.1 | this interview going God we really do want our kids not to have any troubles and we feel so disturbed when they do when actually it's |
| 2:05.8 | the human condition our kids are going to have troubles and so it was very good |
| 2:11.5 | for me as a parent listening to Maggie was it was good for me as a parent listening to Maggie. It was good for me. Yeah, and one of the things that we wanted to do is encourage listeners if you're here whether you're on YouTube or you're listening |
... |
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