Transgender Care For Professionals: An Educational Resource

Over the many years of my professional work with transgender people, I began giving a number of workshops all over the eastern United States. While working on my public presentations, I developed over the course of a number of years a power point slide show to consolidate what I have learned over my lifetime about transsexualism.

As I progress in my personal journey, I foresee a time when I will no longer practice with transgender patients or any patients for that matter. I have worked almost exclusively in the human service professions in a volunteer or paid capacity since I was 15 years old. There once was a time when I could never imagine not being a therapist, but now I look forward to other pursuits in about 9 years when I retire.

I do feel a weight of being the only gender therapist in quite a fair distance and worry about those who come along after I am gone seeking to become congruent in mind and body who will have more difficulty in their journey if they can't find a competent therapist.

To that end I offer what I consider one of my best academic works, which I share with some humility in the hope that it will help other mental health practitioners become competent and comfortable with practicing in this interesting area.

Here is a link to access my powerpoint and I hope that it is helpful to you in whatever capacity that you can benefit from it. In this body of my work, you will learn about the presence of transgendered people since ancient times, developmental psychology, co-occurring mental health and substance disorders, as well as goals of treatment and a section on the ethical care of transgender patients. I present information on the historical approach to the treatment of transgender people by health care professionals and review the current World Professional Association of Transgender Health Standards of Care. As always, my powerpoint is a living, breathing document and from time to time it will be updated as I expand my knowledge, skills and abilities to provide cutting edge treatment for transgender people.

 Please do remember when sharing that this is my own original research and please respect my copyright.

Lauren Tancyus LCSW

Diplomate in Clinical Social Work

PLEASE NOTE: In order to open the powerpoint to view, first open a new browser window. Second copy the link below and third paste it in the new browser window address bar. Click enter and you will be taken to my powerpoint which you can then view.

https://www.slideshare.net/secret/AxOqzKXRuLlIty

Further Along....... using the Myers- Briggs Inventory

Since my early thirties, I have been interested in the Myers-Briggs Type Indictor. This is a personality assessment tool that has been established to be an accurate representation of a personality in a way that is helpful and non pathologizing. It has a high level of validity and reliability (for all you psychometric aficionados). It's theoretical foundation is in Jungian psychology. The assessment tool measures personality across 4 dimensions: Introversion vs Extroversion; Intuitive vs Sensing; Thinking vs Feeling and Judging vs Feeling. This yields 16 personality types as described below:

ISTJ

Quiet, serious, earn success by thoroughness and dependability. Practical, matter-of-fact, realistic, and responsible. Decide logically what should be done and work toward it steadily, regardless of distractions. Take pleasure in making everything orderly and organized - their work, their home, their life. Value traditions and loyalty.

ISFJ

Quiet, friendly, responsible, and conscientious. Committed and steady in meeting their obligations. Thorough, painstaking, and accurate. Loyal, considerate, notice and remember specifics about people who are important to them, concerned with how others feel. Strive to create an orderly and harmonious environment at work and at home.

INFJ

Seek meaning and connection in ideas, relationships, and material possessions. Want to understand what motivates people and are insightful about others. Conscientious and committed to their firm values. Develop a clear vision about how best to serve the common good. Organized and decisive in implementing their vision.

INTJ

Have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance - for themselves and others.

ISTP

Tolerant and flexible, quiet observers until a problem appears, then act quickly to find workable solutions. Analyze what makes things work and readily get through large amounts of data to isolate the core of practical problems. Interested in cause and effect, organize facts using logical principles, value efficiency.

ISFP

Quiet, friendly, sensitive, and kind. Enjoy the present moment, what's going on around them. Like to have their own space and to work within their own time frame. Loyal and committed to their values and to people who are important to them. Dislike disagreements and conflicts, do not force their opinions or values on others.

INFP

Idealistic, loyal to their values and to people who are important to them. Want an external life that is congruent with their values. Curious, quick to see possibilities, can be catalysts for implementing ideas. Seek to understand people and to help them fulfill their potential. Adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened.

INTP

Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical.

ESTP

Flexible and tolerant, they take a pragmatic approach focused on immediate results. Theories and conceptual explanations bore them - they want to act energetically to solve the problem. Focus on the here-and-now, spontaneous, enjoy each moment that they can be active with others. Enjoy material comforts and style. Learn best through doing.

ESFP

Outgoing, friendly, and accepting. Exuberant lovers of life, people, and material comforts. Enjoy working with others to make things happen. Bring common sense and a realistic approach to their work, and make work fun. Flexible and spontaneous, adapt readily to new people and environments. Learn best by trying a new skill with other people.

ENFP

Warmly enthusiastic and imaginative. See life as full of possibilities. Make connections between events and information very quickly, and confidently proceed based on the patterns they see. Want a lot of affirmation from others, and readily give appreciation and support. Spontaneous and flexible, often rely on their ability to improvise and their verbal fluency.

ENTP

Quick, ingenious, stimulating, alert, and outspoken. Resourceful in solving new and challenging problems. Adept at generating conceptual possibilities and then analyzing them strategically. Good at reading other people. Bored by routine, will seldom do the same thing the same way, apt to turn to one new interest after another.

ESTJ

Practical, realistic, matter-of-fact. Decisive, quickly move to implement decisions. Organize projects and people to get things done, focus on getting results in the most efficient way possible. Take care of routine details. Have a clear set of logical standards, systematically follow them and want others to also. Forceful in implementing their plans.

ESFJ

Warmhearted, conscientious, and cooperative. Want harmony in their environment, work with determination to establish it. Like to work with others to complete tasks accurately and on time. Loyal, follow through even in small matters. Notice what others need in their day-by-day lives and try to provide it. Want to be appreciated for who they are and for what they contribute.

ENFJ

Warm, empathetic, responsive, and responsible. Highly attuned to the emotions, needs, and motivations of others. Find potential in everyone, want to help others fulfill their potential. May act as catalysts for individual and group growth. Loyal, responsive to praise and criticism. Sociable, facilitate others in a group, and provide inspiring leadership.

ENTJ

Frank, decisive, assume leadership readily. Quickly see illogical and inefficient procedures and policies, develop and implement comprehensive systems to solve organizational problems. Enjoy long-term planning and goal setting. Usually well informed, well read, enjoy expanding their knowledge and passing it on to others. Forceful in presenting their ideas.

Excerpted from Introduction to Type® by Isabel Briggs Myers published by CPP.

Over the years, I have taken the test over and over and was impressed with the stability of the results. My profile was almost always ISTP. Once in a great while I would test out as as INTP because the sensing vs. intuitive aspects of my personality are fairly well balanced, but overall most often I would have a profile of ISTP.

Imagine how surprised I was to take this test again for the gazillionth time only to find a major shift in my personality type! I tested out as an INFJ. What could account for such a significant (in my opinion anyway) shift? I'm wondering if it may be due to being on a feminizing hormone regimen and after so many years that it contributed to a shift in my personality. The other thing I might attribute it to is being more comfortable in all aspects of my life since my transition to living as a woman in my true identity which gave my true personality the chance to shine through. I don't know but I would love to hear the thoughts of my readers about this.

19 Kids and Counting: The Duggar Family

I happened to be watching television last week and saw a two part news report about the Duggar Family.  I had vaguely heard of them from their television reality show 19 Kids and Counting. I really  didn't know much about them except they were Christians with a huge family. I've never seen the show and really had no interest in them one way or the other until now.

It seems that prior to the beginning of their television series there had been a terribly sad situation where their then 15 year old son molested several of his younger sisters and a babysitter who was also younger than him. He apparently confessed to this of his own volition and was sent away to get some form of help for this. The family managed to move on from this tragedy and have become a sort of cultural icon to those who espouse conservative Christian values. It is unclear to me if their son was sent away for residential treatment specializing in the treatment of sex offenders or whether he was sent to some residential Christian counseling program. There are huge differences in these treatment modalities.

There are two things that bother me about this situation and I want to share my views on those two things. The first thing is that sealed records regarding minors that should have never been opened were exposed by the press who identified the victims of the Duggar’s son publicly. That never should have happened and retraumatized for the victims, perhaps in a manner far worse than the original trauma of being molested by a family member. This should have never happened. That act was unconscionable.

We also know that Mr. and Mrs. Duggar are extremely bigoted people.  Mrs. Duggar has publicly referred to transgender people as pedophiles. She believes that people such as myself transition in order to prey upon children and she tried to help support a bill before the Arkansas state legislature to ban people who have transitioned from using the appropriate public bathroom facilities because she believes that people like me transition so that we can prey upon children in the women's bathroom. She expressed  this unbelievably ignorant  and damaging opinion by campaigning publicly in an automated phone call to voters of Arkansas. 

The truth of the matter is that transgender people are at an exponentially higher risk of being sexually assaulted or other wise being victimized by violent crimes committed by cisgender people than transgender people sexually assaulting or committing violent offenses against cisgender people. It's almost as if her shrill hysteria about transgender people is a smoke screen for the sexual violence that was perpetrated by a family member within her own family.

I was shocked to see on the news report how the Duggars stated that their son is not a pedophile and he has been forgiven by his victims and the rest of the family. It’s fascinating to watch their level of denial about this matter in view of what their opinions are about transgender people. Their son essentially gets a pass from the family for being a child molester while they publicly try to persecute people like me.My fascination is a lot like watching a car accident about to happen which can no longer be avoided. You experience the horror, but you just can’t look away.

 At one time, I used to hold a level II sex offender treatment provider license in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Due to the son having been 15 and not 16 at the time of his offenses, he technically is not considered a pedophile, but it is most concerning that he had multiple victims and if he had been a few months older, he would be considered by the criteria to be a pedophile. There is no denying however that his behavior was predatory in nature and he had several victims who he serially sexually abused in a planned out manner. Moreover, sex offenders have a notoriously high rate of reoffending, though this does not appear to be the case with Josh Duggar to the best of our knowledge. However, as time goes by, more women who had been victimized by him may emerge from the shadows. We shall have to wait and see.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how Mrs. Duggar can make such uninformed and stupid comments about a class of people she knows nothing of and accuses them of something so heinous as pedophilia without a shred of evidence in such a cavalier manner with this mess lying at her doorstep. But of course, in the case of the Duggars, their son is repentant and that makes everything fine. Nothing to look at there, people, please move along and pretend nothing ever happened. Just agree with them and point your fingers and condemn transgender people publicly instead of discussing the very real danger their son posed to his sisters and other females in the community.

It seems to me that people in glass houses should not be casting stones. It is my hope that the Duggars will no longer be afforded a public forum to spread false beliefs and spew their hatred born of ignorance over the public air waves.

We would never have known about how deeply the Duggar’s hypocrisy truly runs if it were not for the release of police records that should never have been revealed. The true victims are the girls who have been traumatized again and I am deeply sorry that happened to them. However, with this new information, I would like to see an organized effort to remove these people from the public forum by cancelling their television show. They do not appear to be healthy role models for America.