The Gender Quest Workbook: A Guide for Teens and Young Adults Exploring Gender Identity
Rylan Jay Testa PhD, Deborah Coolhart PhD LMFT, Jayme Peta MA MS
Language: English
Pages: 168
ISBN: 1626252971
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This one-of-a-kind, comprehensive workbook will help you navigate your gender identity and expression at home, in school, and with peers.
If you are a transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) teen, you may experience unique challenges with identity and interpersonal relationships. In addition to experiencing common teen challenges such as body changes and peer pressure, you may be wondering how to express your unique identity to others. The Gender Quest Workbook incorporates skills, exercises, and activities from evidence-based therapies—such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)—to help you address the broad range of struggles you may encounter related to gender identity, such as anxiety, isolation, fear, and even depression.
Despite outdated beliefs, gender no longer implies being simply male or female, but rather a whole spectrum of possibilities. This fun, engaging workbook is designed specifically for teens like you who want to explore the concept of gender and gender identity and expression—whether you already identify as TGNC or are simply questioning your gender identity.
The activities in this book will help you explore your identity internally, interpersonally, and culturally. And along the way, you’ll learn how to effectively express yourself and make informed decisions on how to navigate your gender with family, friends, classmates, and coworkers. The book also includes chapters on sex and dating, balancing multiple identities, and how to deal with stressful challenges when they arise.
The Gender Quest Workbook also features a brief downloadable guide for clinicians that explains ways professionals can better serve gender-expansive youth. The guide will address ways to help youth working with gender identity build resilience against gender minority stress, among other topics.
place to start is to find out if your school has a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) or some other organization that is supportive to gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender students. If your school does have a GSA, consider joining it. There, you can get support from other students like you, and possibly connect with the teacher who facilitates the group. This person can be an important source of support and information at your school. If your school does not have a GSA, it may be helpful to find a
content. When this same author was ten, when his same brain was confronted with brussels sprouts, it would start firing Yuck! Disgusting! Terrible! He would feel sick and woeful and angry that the world ever created such sprouts. Even though thoughts and feelings aren’t facts, our brains tell us that they are and we usually believe our brains. For example, the author at ten was convinced that brussels sprouts were inarguably disgusting. He believed that this was a truth you could not argue with,
situations. For example, for a lot of people, when they’re feeling hurt or confused by something, talking to someone they trust can be most helpful. But some of those same people, when they’re really sad, won’t want to talk to anyone and may find they want to be alone. What helps them in those moments might be listening to music or writing about what is going on in their journal. If they’re angry, on the other hand, they might find that exercise works better than anything else. So, this means
Alternatively, you can call either The Trevor Project or the Trans Lifeline and problem-solve with them how you might get help without exposing yourself to more minority stress. summary We hope this chapter has given you some extra knowledge and skills to equip you on your lifelong Gender Quest. We bet that if you journal, you will end up describing some amazingly wonderful experiences as well as some hard times. This is all part of any quest. We hope you will remember that not just us but many
experiment! Try It Out!: First, write down a few things on the list that follows that someone might do to experiment with gender. Put them in order, from very easy and safe, to things that might really scare you. For example, some people have written the following things: use girls’ shampoo, wear men’s cologne, wear nail polish, wear jewelry, wear a tie, wear a skirt, wear a bra with stuffing, wear boys’ underwear, bind my breasts, stuff my pants, use mascara to paint on sideburns, cut my hair.