The Trans Möbius Strip Gender Dysphoria Meets Gender Euphoria

This book explores the histories and presents of gender dysphoria and euphoria as clinical and theoretical concepts as well as lived experience. It outlines how euphoria emerged as a concept, what its relationship to dysphoria is, and how it shows up in the body, in relationships, and as a framework for liberation. Using the concept of the Möbius Strip as an explanatory model of the interconnectedness of gender, the authors explore how gender as a concept encompasses multiplicity, duality, and non-linearity despite its supposed singularity. Rather than viewing euphoria and dysphoria as two poles of a continuum, this volume introduces the notion that they are in fact a blended experience which oscillates between distinctiveness and relationality. Critically engaging with clinical theory, gender studies, crip theory, spirituality, and political movements, this book is ideal for academics from a variety of fields, including psychology, sociology, gender studies, trans studies, cultural studies, as well as practitioners and clinicians, especially those who work with trans people.

Section 1: Key Concepts.- 1.The figure of the trans Möbius strip.- 2.Histories and presents of gender dysphoria and euphoria.- 3.Affirming care is generalist care.- Section 2: The Body.- 4.Trauma in the body and affirming care.- 5.Struggle in the ‘wrong body’: Crip and trans perspectives on collective euphoria.- 6.Fucking euphorically, fucking dysphorically.- Section 3: Euphoria-Forward Approaches.- 7.Relational euphoria: Fractures and healing.- 8.The Imagined Transpolitic and the Transsexual Intifada: Euphoria, Dysphoria, and Political Action.- 9.Clinical interventions and euphoria-forward approaches.- Section 4: Liberatory Euphorias.- 10.Euphoria beyond the binary.- 11.Euphoria and spirit: G-d, body mod, the transsexual divine.- 12.Trans rage for everyone.

Shoshana Rosenberg is an independent researcher based in Melbourne, Australia, who has published broadly on gender, sexuality, embodiment, and their cultural interplays. Her most recent publication is Trans Reproductive and Sexual Health: Justice, Embodiment and Agency (Routledge, 2022).

Damien W. Riggs is Professor in Psychology at Flinders University, Australia, and a psychotherapist in private practice specialising in working with trans young people. He is the author of over 200 publications, including Working with Transgender Young People and their Families: A Critical Developmental Approach (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

Salem Skelton is a trans PhD candidate in the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work at Flinders University, Australia, conducting research on trans people’s experiences with families of origin, shame, and resilience. Salem works as a mental health support worker and has had experience co-facilitating queer and trans community groups both online and in person.