Faking D.I.D.

[FreyasSpirit]

We have been thinking about this post for several days now and we keep seeing parallels between this and trans care. In the 70s, the best practices for trans healthcare involved a therapist putting people through a hazing ritual of a 1 year "real life experience" for the purpose of determining whether the person was actually trans. This is a traumatizing experience for many, but of course if you showed any signs of anxiety from the ongoing trauma at therapy, the therapist could say that was a sign you were not ready yet or not actually trans. The first therapist we saw for gender in 2011 wanted to put us through this hazing ritual despite decades of the standards of care slowly moving beyond that. She explicitly told us she thought it was her job to determine whether we were lying to her. Our self discovery and coming out process went wonderfully, but for someone who does a lot of questioning whether they are trans, comes out to others who respond with "maybe you aren't really trans", has parents trying to deny they are trans, having a therapist who does things like this just makes the process even more traumatizing.

We can't help but wonder whether your therapist is doing this same thing to some people. People who are struggling to determine their identity and having it questioned from all sides, going to a therapist to try to get some validation, and having the therapist implicitly or explicitly saying that part of their identity is not real.

There were periods of our life where we felt we did not have much space and wanted to create space and as a result, were very vocal about being trans. Had this been in the 70s, we could easily imagine a therapist saying that anyone who is really trans would want to transition as quietly as possible and hide their trans status from the world as best as possible and that anyone who wanted to be openly trans was faking being trans and just wanted attention.

We are sure there are some people trying to fake DID, but knowing the history of trans healthcare, it is difficult not to imagine your therapist causing harm by placing people with DID into the "trying to fake DID" bin.