Theorizing Transgender Identity for Clinical Practice

Most literature for therapists about transgender mental health focuses on cultural competency. This book goes beyond “Trans 101,” exploring in much more depth the development of the gendered self and the role of gender in consciousness. With roots in both psychoanalytic and academic worlds, Langer provides clinicians with new ways of theorizing gender that both benefit from these traditions and push them forward. – Laura Erickson-Schroth, MD, MA, LGBTQ psychiatrist and writer (Trans Bodies Trans Selves / “You’re in the Wrong Bathroom!” and 20 Other Myths and MisconceptionsThis book will be essential to both new and seasoned clinicians working with transgender communities. Langer expands our understanding of transgender experience from an interdisciplinary approach. The in-depth chapters of trauma, sex and development are a unique examinations of these clinical issues and their relation to trans experience. The theory and practice in this book contributes to clinical psychology, trans studies, consciousness studies, sex therapy and trans health. – Dr. Lin Fraser, EdD WPATH Past President Co-Chair- Global Education InitiativeS.J. Langer has generated intriguing ideas that will be of immediate interest to the interdisciplinary field of trans* studies. Beyond essentialist trapping and visual policing of identities, he theorizes transgender experience as a synesthetic “surprise” that involves a complex interaction between one’s perceptions of internal biophysiology and their responses to social mirroring. – Chris Straayer, Ph.D., Associate Professor, New York University, author of Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies

S.J. Langer is a writer & psychotherapist in New York City, US where he maintains a private practice. He is on faculty at School of Visual Arts in both the MPS Art Therapy and Humanities & Sciences departments. His article “Trans Bodies and the Failure of Mirrors” was the co-winner of the Symonds Prize in 2016 from the journal Studies in Gender and Sexuality.