In this episode, Sasha and Stella sit down with Sara Stockton, MA, LMFT. Sara is a licensed marriage and family therapist who initially worked with affirmative clinicians, fully embracing gender identity theory. Initially, Sara earnestly believed in her work and its potential to help transgender youth. Over time, she began to doubt the field's effectiveness, the emerging adoption of queer theory bias within the field, and grew concerned with the poor treatment outcomes she began encountering with patients.
Sara Stockton is a licensed marriage and family therapist, lecturer, researcher, presenter, and clinical supervisor of a psychotherapy practice in central New York. In 2012, she co-authored and published one of the first mental health assessments utilized to assess youth readiness for medical treatment and gender transition. Sara spent the first part of her career as a clinician treating and advocating on behalf of youth and families surrounding issues with gender. She spent time traveling to teach and train medical facilities, physicians, and schools on how to provide what was then called "gender-affirming care." Sara has treated well over one hundred families, and she also wrote many of the first letters that were used to approve gender transition surgeries on minors.
This conversation explores Sara's professional journey, her moments of doubt and realization, and her decision to speak up and raise awareness about the challenges and potential pitfalls in the field of gender-affirming care. She shares very candidly and courageously about her personal observations of shifts in the patient population, their evolving presentation, and the practices and perceptions around gender identity versus her training. She found herself increasingly uncomfortable with the ways in which certain practical and thoughtful considerations are being disregarded in the affirmation approach.
This is an important discussion exposing the complexities faced by clinicians in the field and the need for more professionals to share their experiences and concerns openly. It is incredibly important to understand the perspectives of clinicians like Sara in order to shed light on the broader issues surrounding gender-affirming care.
For more of our conversation with Sara Stockton, just out listener community here: https://www.patreon.com/WiderLensPod
Links:
Sara Stockton on Twitter
Aisling Therapy
Regrets of a Trans-Care Specialist | Sara Stockton | EP 342 (The Dr. Jordan B. Peterson Podcast)
What Is A Woman - Documentary
Changing the Conversation
Dr Hilary Cass OBE explores the challenging nature of developing holistic person-centred services for children and young people with gender dysphoria, and reflects on the need for respectful and constructive discussion around this topic.
https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/members/rcpsych-insight-magazine/detail/rcpsych-insight-spring-2023
If you liked this episode, more episodes you might find interesting:
Top Episodes for Therapists Working with Gender-Questioning Youth (GWL Playlist)
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLngVCeAoK6vudCwfy0R2Rvg_SH2QxBJTu
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125 - From Gender Expert to Skeptical Dissenter with Sara Stockton