Trans Bodies and the Failure of Mirrors

ABSTRACT

This project applies and expands Gallagher’s (2005) theories concerning body image and body schema to the concept of gender in general and in particular how understanding gender through this lens can be used to aid transgender people in understanding their own gender. In addition, the paper discusses the effects of gender-incongruent mirroring for transgender and gender nonconforming persons’ ability to know their own feelings and its role in the development of shame. In furthering the understanding of gender and self-knowledge, the concepts of tacit knowledge and phantom limbs reveal how one comes to know gender as a fundamental aspect of the self.

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Notes on contributors

S. J. Langer

S. J. Langer, LCSW-R, is a writer and psychotherapist in private practice in New York City. He is faculty in the MPS Art Therapy Department at School of Visual Arts and on the Executive Committee for the Psychotherapy Center for Gender and Sexuality at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, where he supervises and created their Surgery Assessment Project. His published articles and presentations cover a range of interdisciplinary interests such as trauma, gender studies, transgender health, and clinical practice.