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drjagrier's review against another edition
5.0
This is not a book you read, this is a book you experience. The text invites you into a conversation with yourself about how your remember, consider, and perceive gender, and what that means for you. There is no judgement, rules, or gatekeeping. It is open and vast with possibilities. No matter your place in your own journey of gender understanding, you are likely to get something valuable out of this book. If you are just starting your investigations, then definitely get this. Well written, positive, and supportive.
mxsallybend's review against another edition
5.0
While I have read a lot of gender guides, self-help, and reference books over the years, what sets You and Your Gender Identity: A Guide to Discovery apart is its interactive nature. This is less a book to be read, and more something to be experienced. Dara Hoffman-Fox guides us on the journey, setting up the questions and sign posts along the way, but leave it up to the reader to determine their own destination.
Dara opens the preface with a reference to Joseph Campbell and the idea of the heroic journey, which make sense because storytelling is integral to the book. We are invited to define ourselves as characters, explore our motivations, examine our back stories, and set out the story of our gender journey - our logline. It is almost like a transgender role playing game session, only with a licensed therapist instead of a game master.
Every reader will take something different from the book, but given the emphasis on mentors throughout, I thought I would explore a very personal take on what resonated with me - aside from the storytelling aspect itself, of course.
Building a Support Team is pretty basic stuff, but it means a little more to me of late. Growing up, I had no mentors, no bodyguards, and no support team. Looking back, I wonder, if I could have counted on just one person to listen, to understand, and to care, how differently my life might have turned out? We cannot change the past, but the future is always open, and having had the chance to act as something of a virtual mentor to a few people over the last year, I have an even greater appreciation for what a difference that support team can make.
The Role of Shame and Guilt struck me deeply, a chapter that asks us to look back at where those feelings come from, how they impact us, and how much they control our lives. I know the exact moment that shame and guilt entered my journey. I was in high school, relatively comfortable with my blossoming gender identity/expression, and thinking about university as a fresh start. I was confused, but I was also excited. And then I came home from school to find my mother had been snooping, had found everything (clothes, makeup, wig, falsies, books, etc.), and was absolutely disgusted. She taught me shame, she taught me guilt, and she forced me to begin the familiar cycle of guilty indulgence and shame-filled purges.
Keeping in Mind the Big Picture bothered me a bit, because it opens with so much discussion about internalized transphobia, but it goes on to share some fantastic thoughts on our identities and our sense of self. The main reason I bring it up, though, is the lengthy questionnaire at the end of the chapter (31 questions). It took me days to complete it, and the way it made me organize my thoughts and reflect on my sense of self was invaluable.
Deconstructing Gender is, perhaps, the most interesting section of the book. It is here that Dara gets into discussions of transgender, gender diverse, non-binary, and gender dysphoria. There is a bit of everything in this chapter - definitions, short questionnaires, checklists - with some really encouraging explorations of being non-binary. What spoke loudest to me, though, was the section at the end about removing gender from the equation, looking at interests, behaviors, and appearances on their own, free of stereotypes and expectations.
Wrestling with Uncertainty hit me hard too, especially, the section that asks, "Is it actually this . . . or is it just that?" So many of the questions I asked myself after that introduction to shame and guilt are captured here. There is a lengthy checklist, and I am sorry to say I have a lot of tick marks on that page - Am I really just gay/lesbian? Is it just a fetish? Am I really a cross-dresser? Is this just a kink? - the list goes on. Some of those questions predate that introduction, but the bulk of them only came about after I was forced to feel so disgusted with myself. I love how Dara breaks the questions down into clusters, and found the fetish/kink cluster to be particularly interesting, especially how harshly she dismisses the "dangerous and deceptive" model of autogynephilia.
Putting It All Together is where, well, everything comes together, helping us to determine all the possible destinations of our gender journey. Dara reminds us that it's okay to be wrong, and okay to change our mind later. The lengthy questionnaire from Keeping in Mind the Big Picture is repeated here, allowing us to explore how much our ideas and thoughts have changed over the course of the exercise, and I loved the gender identity options - there are approximately 90 listed, including a few that are culturally specific.
If you take it seriously, and put the work into it that it requires, You and Your Gender Identity: A Guide to Discovery is by no means an easy read (or a comfortable one), but it is an invaluable experience. Nothing can replace the one-on-one experience of a licensed therapist, but Dara Hoffman-Fox has done a wonderful job of expanding her services to a virtual pool of clients.
As reviewed by Sally at Bending the Bookshelf
Dara opens the preface with a reference to Joseph Campbell and the idea of the heroic journey, which make sense because storytelling is integral to the book. We are invited to define ourselves as characters, explore our motivations, examine our back stories, and set out the story of our gender journey - our logline. It is almost like a transgender role playing game session, only with a licensed therapist instead of a game master.
Every reader will take something different from the book, but given the emphasis on mentors throughout, I thought I would explore a very personal take on what resonated with me - aside from the storytelling aspect itself, of course.
Building a Support Team is pretty basic stuff, but it means a little more to me of late. Growing up, I had no mentors, no bodyguards, and no support team. Looking back, I wonder, if I could have counted on just one person to listen, to understand, and to care, how differently my life might have turned out? We cannot change the past, but the future is always open, and having had the chance to act as something of a virtual mentor to a few people over the last year, I have an even greater appreciation for what a difference that support team can make.
The Role of Shame and Guilt struck me deeply, a chapter that asks us to look back at where those feelings come from, how they impact us, and how much they control our lives. I know the exact moment that shame and guilt entered my journey. I was in high school, relatively comfortable with my blossoming gender identity/expression, and thinking about university as a fresh start. I was confused, but I was also excited. And then I came home from school to find my mother had been snooping, had found everything (clothes, makeup, wig, falsies, books, etc.), and was absolutely disgusted. She taught me shame, she taught me guilt, and she forced me to begin the familiar cycle of guilty indulgence and shame-filled purges.
Keeping in Mind the Big Picture bothered me a bit, because it opens with so much discussion about internalized transphobia, but it goes on to share some fantastic thoughts on our identities and our sense of self. The main reason I bring it up, though, is the lengthy questionnaire at the end of the chapter (31 questions). It took me days to complete it, and the way it made me organize my thoughts and reflect on my sense of self was invaluable.
Deconstructing Gender is, perhaps, the most interesting section of the book. It is here that Dara gets into discussions of transgender, gender diverse, non-binary, and gender dysphoria. There is a bit of everything in this chapter - definitions, short questionnaires, checklists - with some really encouraging explorations of being non-binary. What spoke loudest to me, though, was the section at the end about removing gender from the equation, looking at interests, behaviors, and appearances on their own, free of stereotypes and expectations.
Wrestling with Uncertainty hit me hard too, especially, the section that asks, "Is it actually this . . . or is it just that?" So many of the questions I asked myself after that introduction to shame and guilt are captured here. There is a lengthy checklist, and I am sorry to say I have a lot of tick marks on that page - Am I really just gay/lesbian? Is it just a fetish? Am I really a cross-dresser? Is this just a kink? - the list goes on. Some of those questions predate that introduction, but the bulk of them only came about after I was forced to feel so disgusted with myself. I love how Dara breaks the questions down into clusters, and found the fetish/kink cluster to be particularly interesting, especially how harshly she dismisses the "dangerous and deceptive" model of autogynephilia.
Putting It All Together is where, well, everything comes together, helping us to determine all the possible destinations of our gender journey. Dara reminds us that it's okay to be wrong, and okay to change our mind later. The lengthy questionnaire from Keeping in Mind the Big Picture is repeated here, allowing us to explore how much our ideas and thoughts have changed over the course of the exercise, and I loved the gender identity options - there are approximately 90 listed, including a few that are culturally specific.
If you take it seriously, and put the work into it that it requires, You and Your Gender Identity: A Guide to Discovery is by no means an easy read (or a comfortable one), but it is an invaluable experience. Nothing can replace the one-on-one experience of a licensed therapist, but Dara Hoffman-Fox has done a wonderful job of expanding her services to a virtual pool of clients.
As reviewed by Sally at Bending the Bookshelf
mesy_mark's review against another edition
3.0
I have learned a lot. And I have come to realize a lot about myself. In this book that explores one gender identity, it even helped me as an (at the time of writing this 5 years into transition) already out trans male. This is a workbook and I have done the work to find about a deeper level of me. Something I am able to actually di not that I am in a better place in my life.
What makes this book important for those who are exploring their gender identity/ past gender experience, is that you put in the work needed for it. That the only way to get out what you want from the question of what is my gender identity.
The wording of the book is all inclusive and kind. There is no harshness or is there pressure to figure out all the big questions all at once. It is good to take breaks and work it as your pace to be. That's what I did and it turned me for the better. But it is not a cure-all. There can (and maybe will) be doubts about your gender as you work through and then post book reading. It is just important to follow up with, for example talking to your bodyguard, the exercises.
To point this is mainly for those who are just beginning their questioning experience but it can be for post-transition. I just took into account how I was in the past versus how I feel now. This allowed me to see the changes of past to present. If I was to stay female or transition to male.
What makes this book important for those who are exploring their gender identity/ past gender experience, is that you put in the work needed for it. That the only way to get out what you want from the question of what is my gender identity.
The wording of the book is all inclusive and kind. There is no harshness or is there pressure to figure out all the big questions all at once. It is good to take breaks and work it as your pace to be. That's what I did and it turned me for the better. But it is not a cure-all. There can (and maybe will) be doubts about your gender as you work through and then post book reading. It is just important to follow up with, for example talking to your bodyguard, the exercises.
To point this is mainly for those who are just beginning their questioning experience but it can be for post-transition. I just took into account how I was in the past versus how I feel now. This allowed me to see the changes of past to present. If I was to stay female or transition to male.
enbyglitch's review against another edition
5.0
Incredible; I'll be spending a lot of time revisiting and working through this guidebook. There are so many places where the author hits my experiences right on the nose, and it is so heartwarming to learn how long people have been experiencing these concerns.
pigs4beginners's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.25
bizlet's review against another edition
5.0
However you identify this workbook is absolutely incredible! It's so difficult to find good resources for gender exploration and this workbook is such a gift.
It definitely takes work to get through, the prep work seems tedious but is incredibly necessary. There's nothing worse than being caught up in swarm of gendered confusion or antagonism without a toolset of coping skills.
This journey is literally deadly for many people so while I personally found the emphasis on self-care, check ins and being prepared a bit time consuming I'd rather me be frustrated than someone without adequate resources going too quickly and ending up in a bad space.
I would recommend buying a physical copy and writing in the book itself. I first got it on Kindle but the sheer amount of writing I did got tiring and when I moved to writing in the book itself I was more engaged with the work at hand.
Thank goodness we have this workbook now. I know it's a safe resource to recommend to people who are questioning their gender or in the midst of a transition and that is a major relief.
Cheers and good luck to you all digging into this book, it's difficult but so so worth the work.
It definitely takes work to get through, the prep work seems tedious but is incredibly necessary. There's nothing worse than being caught up in swarm of gendered confusion or antagonism without a toolset of coping skills.
This journey is literally deadly for many people so while I personally found the emphasis on self-care, check ins and being prepared a bit time consuming I'd rather me be frustrated than someone without adequate resources going too quickly and ending up in a bad space.
I would recommend buying a physical copy and writing in the book itself. I first got it on Kindle but the sheer amount of writing I did got tiring and when I moved to writing in the book itself I was more engaged with the work at hand.
Thank goodness we have this workbook now. I know it's a safe resource to recommend to people who are questioning their gender or in the midst of a transition and that is a major relief.
Cheers and good luck to you all digging into this book, it's difficult but so so worth the work.
finesilkflower's review against another edition
5.0
This is the best guide to questioning your gender that I've read yet! It's clear that Dara Hoffman-Fox comes to this subject with a wealth of thought and experience, both as a nonbinary person who went through it themselves, and as a clinician who has worked with lots of people questioning their gender. The book is chock-full of exercises designed to help you unpack your repressed and buried emotions; reflect on your past; envision your future; and truly notice your present feelings around gender.
While I didn't find it until after I had already fully come out to myself and others as trans, I feel that this book would have helped me clarify my thoughts if I'd read it while I was in the midst of questioning. Some of the thought experiments were ones I'd eventually stumbled into or intuited myself, but having them written in a book would have helped me find them sooner. (Example: writing out my "Is it this, or is it that?" questions, and my answer to each one.) Others were things I never thought of that might have helped a lot, too. (Example: Staging dialogues between my inner "bodyguard", "bully", "nurturer", and/or "thinking self.") Heck, some of the strategies helped me now with unrelated questions; they're just good decision-making and life strategies in general, such as making a self-care list, giving your "thinking self" a break by doing something that engages your body/senses, and reframing negative self-talk.
Stray Observations
* This book is specifically aimed at people questioning their assigned-at-birth sex or gender for the first time. I say "for the first time" because I initially picked up this book while identifying as a binary trans person and wondering if I might be nonbinary, and this book was not particularly helpful, at least at first, because it focused more on things that are specific to a person questioning being cis. Some of the exercises could be adapted into helping with refinements, but for the most part, this is a guide for someone who has not yet been through the process. Which is fine! - its audience is the people who most need a book!
* My initial review of this book described it as "too touchy-feely, Jungian, collective unconscious, Joseph Campbell, myth-driven for me." Maybe I've just changed in the last year to become more like that myself, because I now didn't mind that, and in fact enjoyed it. Hoffman-Fox embodies your internal conflict in fictional stories and archetypes, including pop culture, encouraging you to use the pop culture characters you most enjoy and relate to. It made my "internal bodyguard" much more vivid to imagine them as Xena: Warrior Princess.
* Whether you were assigned male, female, or intersex, and whether you think you might be binary trans or some flavor of nonbinary, this book is for you. Hoffman-Fox words things in a way that applies to all these scenarios, and is careful to note that any of the exercises might not speak to you, and that's okay. I especially appreciate the notes that dysphoria isn't necessary; that dysphoria or other gender feelings at any specific time of life (e.g. childhood) aren't necessary; and that being "not trans enough" isn't a thing.
* With that said, the section on getting in touch with your child self, and how you experienced gender and/or dysphoria before the ravages of societal norms and puberty, might be very helpful to some, but ended up making me feel a little alienated because I did not experience noticeable gender dysphoria/issues/wishes as a small child. Puberty was the *reason* that I started feeling dysphoria. Certainly many of the questions were easy enough to adapt to my teen self (did you have dreams where you were a different gender?), but some of them were very child-specific (did you wish for Santa to make you a different gender?)
* A unique aspect of this book is that saves the high-concept definitions of different aspects of gender (what is gender? what is sex? what is gender identity?) until halfway through! Most books open with this, and I feel like it loses people right away. Hoffman-Fox starts gently with exercises designed to make you think about your self-concept and the way you think about your own gender, using your own intuitive definition of it and what it means to you, before waiting until you've already somewhat teased apart the different threads yourself to hit you with definitions.
* Self-help books that contain self-care reminders sometimes feel condescending to me, but this one is done pretty well. The self-care reminders at the end of each chapter are pretty unobtrusive, and the initial section about generating your own list of self-care activities (including a lengthy list of examples) was genuinely helpful to me in constructing my own.
* On the topic of lists, I find the lists in this book really useful. A lot of the chapters contain lists of example thoughts/experiences, so you can check off the ones you relate to and add your own. There are also direct quotes from trans folks in Dara's Facebook group. The length and specificity of these lists is really helpful, I think, because it generates frequent "whoa - how did you read my mind??" moments while getting across the idea that the trans experience is vast and diverse and you will never experience EVERY aspect of it.
* The chapter on "Is It This... Or Is It Just That?" is fantastic. I ruminated so much on these questions ("Am I trans, or is it internalized misogyny?" "Am I a man, or a gay woman who wants to attract more women?" "Am I trans, or do I just want to be special?" "Is it chest dysphoria, or do I just need to find a bra that fits?" "Am I just doing this for attention?") I did this consciously and unconsciously, and Dara's tips for how to approach these thoughts - and even just knowing that other people frequently struggled with these type of thoughts and sometimes the EXACT thought - would have helped a lot! (In fact, I did eventually learn that these thoughts were common, from Reddit and support groups, and it did help a lot.)
* Dara really seems to have thought the film "Inception" was going to be more of a lasting classic
While I didn't find it until after I had already fully come out to myself and others as trans, I feel that this book would have helped me clarify my thoughts if I'd read it while I was in the midst of questioning. Some of the thought experiments were ones I'd eventually stumbled into or intuited myself, but having them written in a book would have helped me find them sooner. (Example: writing out my "Is it this, or is it that?" questions, and my answer to each one.) Others were things I never thought of that might have helped a lot, too. (Example: Staging dialogues between my inner "bodyguard", "bully", "nurturer", and/or "thinking self.") Heck, some of the strategies helped me now with unrelated questions; they're just good decision-making and life strategies in general, such as making a self-care list, giving your "thinking self" a break by doing something that engages your body/senses, and reframing negative self-talk.
Stray Observations
* This book is specifically aimed at people questioning their assigned-at-birth sex or gender for the first time. I say "for the first time" because I initially picked up this book while identifying as a binary trans person and wondering if I might be nonbinary, and this book was not particularly helpful, at least at first, because it focused more on things that are specific to a person questioning being cis. Some of the exercises could be adapted into helping with refinements, but for the most part, this is a guide for someone who has not yet been through the process. Which is fine! - its audience is the people who most need a book!
* My initial review of this book described it as "too touchy-feely, Jungian, collective unconscious, Joseph Campbell, myth-driven for me." Maybe I've just changed in the last year to become more like that myself, because I now didn't mind that, and in fact enjoyed it. Hoffman-Fox embodies your internal conflict in fictional stories and archetypes, including pop culture, encouraging you to use the pop culture characters you most enjoy and relate to. It made my "internal bodyguard" much more vivid to imagine them as Xena: Warrior Princess.
* Whether you were assigned male, female, or intersex, and whether you think you might be binary trans or some flavor of nonbinary, this book is for you. Hoffman-Fox words things in a way that applies to all these scenarios, and is careful to note that any of the exercises might not speak to you, and that's okay. I especially appreciate the notes that dysphoria isn't necessary; that dysphoria or other gender feelings at any specific time of life (e.g. childhood) aren't necessary; and that being "not trans enough" isn't a thing.
* With that said, the section on getting in touch with your child self, and how you experienced gender and/or dysphoria before the ravages of societal norms and puberty, might be very helpful to some, but ended up making me feel a little alienated because I did not experience noticeable gender dysphoria/issues/wishes as a small child. Puberty was the *reason* that I started feeling dysphoria. Certainly many of the questions were easy enough to adapt to my teen self (did you have dreams where you were a different gender?), but some of them were very child-specific (did you wish for Santa to make you a different gender?)
* A unique aspect of this book is that saves the high-concept definitions of different aspects of gender (what is gender? what is sex? what is gender identity?) until halfway through! Most books open with this, and I feel like it loses people right away. Hoffman-Fox starts gently with exercises designed to make you think about your self-concept and the way you think about your own gender, using your own intuitive definition of it and what it means to you, before waiting until you've already somewhat teased apart the different threads yourself to hit you with definitions.
* Self-help books that contain self-care reminders sometimes feel condescending to me, but this one is done pretty well. The self-care reminders at the end of each chapter are pretty unobtrusive, and the initial section about generating your own list of self-care activities (including a lengthy list of examples) was genuinely helpful to me in constructing my own.
* On the topic of lists, I find the lists in this book really useful. A lot of the chapters contain lists of example thoughts/experiences, so you can check off the ones you relate to and add your own. There are also direct quotes from trans folks in Dara's Facebook group. The length and specificity of these lists is really helpful, I think, because it generates frequent "whoa - how did you read my mind??" moments while getting across the idea that the trans experience is vast and diverse and you will never experience EVERY aspect of it.
* The chapter on "Is It This... Or Is It Just That?" is fantastic. I ruminated so much on these questions ("Am I trans, or is it internalized misogyny?" "Am I a man, or a gay woman who wants to attract more women?" "Am I trans, or do I just want to be special?" "Is it chest dysphoria, or do I just need to find a bra that fits?" "Am I just doing this for attention?") I did this consciously and unconsciously, and Dara's tips for how to approach these thoughts - and even just knowing that other people frequently struggled with these type of thoughts and sometimes the EXACT thought - would have helped a lot! (In fact, I did eventually learn that these thoughts were common, from Reddit and support groups, and it did help a lot.)
* Dara really seems to have thought the film "Inception" was going to be more of a lasting classic