In spring of 2019, I was preparing to deliver a trans 101 lecture with the healthcare team at Santa Barbara City College. We had to reschedule our original lecture, as I had a mind-bending migraine that made it impossible for me to leave the house. Even though there was no way I could have taught, I felt terrible about a whole clinical team clearing their schedule for a lecture I had to cancel, and I wanted to make sure that my make-up date was the best trans 101 of my life.
The result was a guided reflection exercise inviting the team to investigate their experiences of their own genders and a discussion about the complexities of gender in all our lives. It was a smash hit, and over the next six months I kept tailoring that exercise for use in groups. I’ve taught it at clinics and universities since and tested with people with a wide range of prior knowledge about trans populations and trans care. What works really well about this exercise is that draws links between the complexity and ambivalence of gender experience for cis people and the complexity and ambivalence that trans people are often expected not to have in our gender experiences. By raising consciousness about the clinician’s own experiences of gender as something with positive and negative aspects, that might feel more or less important in different settings or stages of life, and as something shaped both by felt rightness and by social consequences, the exercise helps clinicians think critically about gender experiences that differ for colleagues and and clients with different positionalities.
Although it was designed for use teaching clinicians, a number of people who have attended my lectures have asked if they can use this exercise with clients. My answer is yes, but I ask that you do so within the guidelines laid out below.
How to use this tool with a group.
Pass out the gender exploration exercise worksheet at the start of the session or ahead of time with instructions to fill it out before the session. If you have the group fill it out together, allot about 15 minutes for quiet work on the worksheet and at least 45 minutes for group discussion. If you don’t have big blocks of time available, feel free to break it up into multiple sessions or consider having people fill the form out ahead of time and bring it with them prepared to discuss their experience of doing the exercise at home.
It is crucial that participants understand they will not be asked to turn this sheet in or share any specific answers they don’t feel like sharing with others. The discussion is a great piece of this exercise, but gender experiences touch deeply intimate parts of us and are too often entangled with trauma for folks of all genders. Participants should feel completely empowered to set their own boundaries in terms of sharing with others.
As a facilitator, you should take care to remain mindful that you do not know who might be trans or what anybody’s specific gendered experiences or perspectives might be.
Be extremely cautious as a facilitator to remain in an attitude of friendly curiosity regarding the experiences and perspectives of participants. Gender experiences often sit very close to the core of who we are, and are very sensitive to threat of rejection or judgment. Holding space for this activity means modeling universal positive regard and treating anything someone might share about their gender development and their experience of gender as valuable. This also means supporting participants in avoiding stigmatizing or rejecting language toward one another, and being watchful for group dynamics and power in the space.
This tool is designed to be run in a mixed-gender group, and if at all possible, I recommend using it in this way. If your group is not mixed-gender, do not encourage participants to speculate about how someone of a particular gender might respond, and do not model this kind of speculation yourself. I often see participants jumping to comparison in order to minimize their gendered experiences or express concern about over-claiming similarity to trans experiences. If you notice participants turning to comparison, minimizing, or endorsing this kind of caveat, encourage them to stay present in their own experience and the experiences peers expressed in the group. If participants are making connections to expressed perspectives in the room, that’s great.
How to use this tool by yourself.
Every time I facilitate this exercise (and sometimes even when I’m not facilitating) I go through the questions and answer what feels true on that day. Even though I have done this exercise over and over, I often learn new things about myself by doing it again.
To do this exercise on your own, set aside at least 15 or 20 minutes where you can feel comfortable and engaged. Move down the sheet one question at a time, and answer with whatever comes to mind first. Let your responses flow without editing or even reading what you’ve written until you’re totally finished. Try not to skip any questions or read ahead.
After you’ve answered all the questions, re-read what you said. Sometimes it can be even more useful to set the sheet aside completely for a few days or even longer, and re-read it later, after it has totally passed from your thoughts. Did any of your answers surprise you? Does it change anything to learn this?
How to use this tool with a single client.
I don’t necessarily recommend this and so far, I have not used this exercise with any of my own clients. I would not recommend this for a client who presents for transition support, for instance, because it might feel to the client like another message urging them to prove their certainty and the breadth of their gendered self-knowledge. However, it might be appropriate for a client who indicates a specific interest in introspection about their experience of gender. I might recommend it for someone who explicitly indicates questioning their gender, but I think I would be even more likely to recommend it to someone struggling with a loved one’s transition.
If you use this with a single client, I strongly recommend giving them the tool to explore at home using the “how to use this tool by yourself” instructions above. Make it clear that they will not be asked to show you their answers, and don’t ask any specific questions about what they answered. Instead, ask what the exercise was like for them, and what insights emerged for them.
Limitations of this instrument.
Gender is so much more complex than this tool addresses. There is a ton of other gendered language aside from pronouns and identity labels, and this tool is highly centered on English language in the language sections. For bilingual speakers, this emphasis may not capture the most important language aspects of gender for them, and runs the risk of implying that it is only English where neopronouns and inclusive language are projects, neither of which are true.
I also haven’t reflected a lot about how my own gender development is informed by my particular religious, class, and racial background, and these elements are all missing from the exercise. As I continue to develop this exercise I will likely post new versions, and you’re welcome to make your own changes as well.
Thanks for being in this with me.
You can support my work by dropping a tip, sharing these resources with friends, and staying in conversation with me about how these resources are working and what could be better about them. I love to hear how this goes for others, so please let me know if you end up using it. How did it go? What should we keep changing? Even if you just want to say “hi, I used this,” I’d love to hear from you.
Han Koehle 