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A podcast at the intersection of psychology and culture that intimately explores the human experience and critiques the counseling profession. Your host, Stephanie Winn, distills wisdom gained from her practice as a family therapist and coach while pivoting towards questions of how to apply a practical understanding of psychology to the novel dilemmas of the 21st century, from political polarization to medical malpractice.
What does ethical mental health care look like in a normless age, as our moral compasses spin in search of true north? How can therapists treat patients under pressure to affirm everything from the notion of "gender identity" to assisted suicide?
Primarily a long-form interview podcast, Stephanie invites unorthodox, free-thinking guests from many walks of life, including counselors, social workers, medical professionals, writers, researchers, and people with unique lived experience, such as detransitioners.
Curious about many things, Stephanie’s interdisciplinary psychological lens investigates challenging social issues and inspires transformation in the self, relationships, and society. She is known for bringing calm warmth to painful subjects, and astute perceptiveness to ethically complex issues. Pick up a torch to illuminate the dark night and join us on this journey through the inner wilderness.
You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist ranks in the top 1% globally according to ListenNotes. New episodes are released every Monday. Three and a half years after the show's inception in May of 2022, Stephanie became a Christian, representing the crystallization of moral, spiritual, and existential views she had been openly grappling with along with her audience and guests. Newer episodes (#188 forward) may sometimes reflect a Christian understanding, interwoven with and applied to the same issues the podcast has always addressed. The podcast remains diverse and continues to feature guests from all viewpoints.
SKOT: [00:00:00] You must be some kind of therapist?
Stephanie: I've been busier than ever with my ROGD parent coaching work. So busy that I haven't had [00:00:15] time to schedule weekly podcast guests. To fill some of those gaps, I'm doing a series of shorter solo episodes, each focused on a particular theme that comes up when I'm coaching parents of trans-identified youth.
For each of these, [00:00:30] I've scripted a draft that I'll be reading from and modifying as I go. I hope it sounds good as I read it aloud. Bear with me as this isn't my usual podcast style, but I do think it'll be useful for a lot of people, as well as helpful for me while [00:00:45] I'm juggling so many different irons in the fire.
So with that said, today I'll share a metaphor that captures something important about how desistance actually works in practice, as opposed to the fantasy version that many parents carry in their heads. The fantasy goes [00:01:00] something like this. That one day your child will have a sudden realization.
They'll come to you in tears and say, "I was wrong. You were right. I'm not trans. I'm sorry I put you through this." And then they'll hug you, and it'll be over forever and ever. As I've [00:01:15] said in another recent episode on a similar topic, that is often not how it works in practice for most families. What actually happens is slower and messier and less satisfying, but still relieving nonetheless if you've learned how to notice the [00:01:30] signs.
And the reason that it has to be slow is something we're gonna talk about today. In another recent episode, I talked about its need to be slow in terms of preserving their sense of cohesion and saving face. That is connected to this [00:01:45] topic, but today I'll approach it from a different angle. So sometimes I use the metaphor of a creature that lives in a shell.
You can think of a turtle, a hermit crab, a mollusk. When a hermit crab outgrows its shell, it has to find a new one before it can leave the old [00:02:00] one. There's that terrifying moment of vulnerability between shells where the crab is completely exposed, and that crab instinctively knows, "I don't leave the old shell until the new one is ready."
Now, imagine if the process worked differently. [00:02:15] Imagine if the creature had to build its new home brick by brick while still living inside the old one. It could only move into the new home when the new structure was complete, or at least complete enough to feel safe. That's a metaphor for what's happening [00:02:30] with your child and the house of identity.
The sense of protection from vulnerability and exposure that it provides them to have a shell around them. The trans identity is the shell that you want to be the old [00:02:45] one they grow out of. It's restrictive, it leads to medical problems, it cuts off possibilities. It requires constant maintenance and performance.
But that is a shell that is giving your child a sense of protection right now, and [00:03:00] it's doing something for them psychologically, providing a structure that answers the question, who am I? Even if that answer is wrong. When you see all of those encouraging signs of hope and desistance that I train you to look for in ROGD [00:03:15] repair, you are watching your child build that new shell So every time your daughter goes to the gynecologist without saying anything about her gender issue, getting more and more comfortable talking about the functioning of her female body, that's a brick in the new [00:03:30] identity.
When she paints her nails, experiments with jewelry again, digs around in your closet as her mom, uses her natural voice around other people instead of
SKOT: deepening
Stephanie: it, when she sets goals for herself that seem [00:03:45] realistic, or cares for a pet with obvious maternal warmth, those are all bricks in the new identity growing into womanhood.
And you're watching her lay those bricks one at a time, and you want to scream, "Just move in. [00:04:00] The structure is good enough. You don't need the old shell anymore. This'll do." But she does feel that she still needs that structure, or at least she believes she needs it. She's too guarded, self-conscious, and worried [00:04:15] about what it would mean to be that exposed to make that leap before she feels ready.
Remember, as I said in another recent episode, that adolescents typically have a lot of cognitive biases, a lot of thought distortions, [00:04:30] the sorts that cognitive behavioral therapy, at least classically, used to teach people to understand, and one of these is the spotlight effect, the sense that you're under a microscope, that everyone's watching you, judging you.
So teenagers are [00:04:45] incredibly sensitive to embarrassment and scrutiny. The more fragile their ego, the more this is the case. The less real-world experience they have doing things that build identity, confidence, and competence, the more fragile the ego. So you can put this all together and understand what it [00:05:00] means.
So as an example, and any examples I give here are anonymized, de-identified, with some facts tweaked, so nobody should be able to identify themselves when I talk about these examples. One example would be a family whose [00:05:15] college-aged daughter was doing all of these things. She made an ins and outs list for the new year that was notably both more mature and more feminine than her previous year's list.
She'd started wearing feminine-cut T-shirts for the first [00:05:30] time since her early teens. She was even threading her eyebrows. She was talking about wanting to be more socially authentic and vulnerable, feel more deeply connected to her peers in ways that we don't think the trans identity would really allow [00:05:45] for, 'cause it forced her to put on a mask.
She was rescuing kittens and being openly maternal with them. She was even making jokes with her mom about gynecological issues, yet she still used male pronouns and presented [00:06:00] as masculine at school She still had not reckoned with the new identity taking the place of the old one. Her parents were understandably frustrated.
I would remind them, "This is the process. She's [00:06:15] building the new home to move into. The new shell is taking its shape. The fact that she hasn't moved in yet doesn't mean the building blocks don't matter. It means she needs more of them, or she needs more time to realize that what she's built is strong enough to hold her."
[00:06:30] What I want you to know as a parent about your role during this phase is that your job is to notice those building blocks and reflect them back without connecting them to gender specifically. That will trigger self-consciousness So this is crucial. [00:06:45] If your daughter starts wear- wearing makeup and jewelry again, and you point out, "See?
You're being feminine. You don't need to be a boy," you've just demolished the brick she laid. You've made it unsafe. You've triggered self-consciousness, [00:07:00] sending her back into the familiar shell that you want her to walk out of. So now she associates that behavior of experimenting with jewelry and makeup with pressure to give up the identity that has meant so much to her.
So [00:07:15] instead, you notice and you reflect positively without connecting these things to trans, despite the temptation to do so. You might say, "That looks great on you." With compliments such as cute, pretty, or beautiful, you always want to [00:07:30] give the compliment just at the edge of her comfort zone. So if she recoils at the word beautiful, you don't tell her she looks beautiful or even lovely.
You might say she looks nice. But if she's been handling, "You look nice," well for a while, [00:07:45] then you might risk one day, "You look pretty," and see how that lands. Other things you can do are compliment her tastes without bringing attention to her body. These girls especially, but also the boys, are self-conscious about their bodies.
This is a little bit of a [00:08:00] tangent, but I think of taste as something that tends to be associated not only with femininity, but also embodiment. You have to be present in your body, aware of your five senses, to know what [00:08:15] looks, sounds, feels, smells, and tastes good to you. A lot of these girls are repressing their tastes, and this is especially interesting when they are either girls who were particularly girly when they were younger or girls who are [00:08:30] artistically inclined.
I have several families right now with very ar- artistically inclined daughters. The artistically inclined girls have a keen sense of beauty. They have incredible taste, and they are repressing it because it's in conflict [00:08:45] with the trans identity, which again is subject to the load-bearing delusion. It's doing a lot for them.
So these girls are repressing a part of them that might have tastes in feminine clothing, jewelry, and things like that. One thing you can do to help [00:09:00] this aspect of her taste and femininity come out is to not make it about herself, her body, or her appearance, but let it be about something else. So if you're a mom And you think your daughter has good taste that she's repressing.
Instead of trying to help her get dressed, [00:09:15] unless she wants your help with that, ask her for help picking out an outfit for you, picking out jewelry for you. Or take her grocery shopping with you and spend an extra moment lingering near the soaps and scented products, just smelling [00:09:30] things together. Or ask her to pick the music.
Or next time you're redecorating, ask her where sh- where you should hang that painting or what color curtains you should get. This will help build up her ability to get in touch with her tastes and express those aesthetic preferences [00:09:45] without connecting it directly to her own sense of pressure to appear particularly feminine or masculine.
I also want to address the question of what building blocks look like, because parents sometimes have a narrow idea about this. It's not just about [00:10:00] masculine or feminine behaviors respectively. It's about any real grounded identity formation that isn't necessarily gender-related, whether that's being a strong student, a good cook, helpful around the house, able to change the oil in your car, [00:10:15] good at surfing.
There are so many practical skills and athletic skills, musical, and so on, that can go into healthy identity formation. So too, natural leadership skills, [00:10:30] affection, and nurturance toward animals, plants, and younger children, tutoring, teaching, babysitting, all of those things are really positive for character development.
Likewise, traveling and other worldly experiences Making real [00:10:45] friends based on shared interests rather than shared identity labels. All of these are building blocks of a self that doesn't need the trans label to be someone. The more your child's life is filled with real experiences, competencies, relationships, and sources of [00:11:00] self-esteem, the less they need the trans identity to fill the void.
That's ultimately what the trans identity is doing for many of these kids, filling a void where real identity development should be. It's answering the question, "Who am I?" with a label because the kid doesn't yet have enough lived [00:11:15] experience to answer that question with substance. And ultimately, I hope we can all feel a great deal of compassion for these kids growing up in an environment that pressures them so much to define who they are with a label.
I once recently pushed back on a parent who said, "When I was growing up, we didn't need all [00:11:30] this," blah, blah, blah. And I said, "I think you have Gen X privilege," to put it in woke language. Unfortunately, this generation is not growing up with the privilege to discover themselves naturally the way you did. So when your child gets excited about [00:11:45] robotics, or earns a soccer scholarship, or rescues kittens, or starts journaling, or learning guitar, or says, "I want to be more vulnerable and authentic with people," celebrate each of those things.
[00:12:00] Not because they necessarily mean your child is desisting in this moment, but because they are becoming someone. And the more fully they become who they are, the less they need to become someone they decided in their mind that they were and declared to other people [00:12:15] prematurely. Be patient as the shell is being built, and one day, when it's ready, hopefully the creature will move into its new home.
Your trans-identified kid won't listen to reason because reason isn't what they need right now. [00:12:30] They need a parent who knows how to communicate in an empathic yet strategic manner. ROGD Repair gives you over 120 lessons in the psychology and communication tools that actually work when normal parenting doesn't.
[00:12:45] Plus Repair Bot, your 24/7 AI coach trained on my entire body of work, ready to help you navigate tough moments in real time. Visit ROGDRepair.com and use code SOMETHERAPIST2026 [00:13:00]
SKOT: to take half off your first month.
Stephanie: Thank you for listening to You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist. If you enjoyed this episode, kindly take a moment to rate, review, share, or comment on it using your [00:13:15] platform of choice.
And of course, please remember, podcasts are not therapy and I'm not your therapist. Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for this awesome theme song, Half Awake, and to Pods by Nick for production. [00:13:30] For help navigating the impact of the gender craze on your family, be sure to check out my program for parents, ROGD Repair.
Any resource you heard mentioned on this show, plus how to get in touch with me, [00:13:45] can all be found in the notes and links below. Rain or shine, I hope you will step outside to breathe the air today. In the words of Max Ehrmann, "With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, [00:14:00] it is still a beautiful world."