Thurer, Shari (Ed). Beyond the Binary: Essays on Gender. Phoenix. Pp. ix–xvi, pp. 108. £15.99.

Exploring questions of gender is to step into a potentially polarizing space, one charged with hot and powerful feeling. Such heat may cook up something new; or it may instead only burn up and destroy. Reckoning with this hot topic is important though: People whose assigned gender identity does not “fit” may grow through an exploration of this aspect of themselves, and some of this exploration may happen within a therapeutic space. This reckoning is also important for the world of depth psychology. Beyond the Binary, a collection of essays edited by Boston-based psychotherapist Shari Thurer, starts with an essay by Thurer titled “Psychoanalysis Meets They”. In it Thurer reminds us of how slowly the psychoanalytic world embraced homosexuality: “You merely have to glance at psychoanalytic journals of a few decades ago to find homosexuals described as overly narcissistic, perverted, arrested in their development, and/or incapable of mature love” (p. 16). The collection of essays that makes up Beyond the Binary offers a series of individual views and personal experiences focusing on non-binary gender expression and identity in a bid to increase visibility and knowledge. We are invited to see the world through the eyes of people who identify as non-binary, as well as the parents of non-binary offspring. There are also commentaries and reflections on these narratives from psychoanalytic clinicians, many of them affiliated with the Boston Psychoanalytic Society. As such, the book offers a place to start conversations rather than proposing a defined theoretical position. Taking in the experiences of people who identify as non-binary allows the reader to think about “how it is” rather than “why it is”. I was reminded of Ursula K Le Guin’s speaking on the “offering of experience” in her Bryn Mawr Commencement Address (published in Space Crone in 2023): “We tried to offer our experience to one another. Not claiming something: offering something” (p. 32). Thurer makes a case for not including the term “gender dysphoria” in a glossary of words used to described gender identity on the basis that it is a pathologizing term used in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). If gender questioning is defined solely in terms of pathology, it remains a problem for the individual, preventing any need for change or questioning of our collective societal norms. The term “non-binary” often constellates its opposite as being of “fixed gender identity”. Yet human experiences of gender as a fluid and shifting self-state is not a new phenomenon. From the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna who states: “Though I am a woman, I am also a noble young man, 1” to the North American Indian “two-spirits”, the South Asian Hijara, and the five genders recognized by the Bugis people of South Sulawesi, there is a long human history of relating and experimenting with gender identity. After all, there are as many ways to “be a woman” or “be a man” as there are people. Perhaps the relatively recent emergence of the non-binary label is in recognition of this reality, or perhaps it is, in part, a compensation for rigid or confining ideas of masculinity and femininity. In a 2017 paper for this Journal, “God of the Hinge: Treating LGBTQIA Patients”, Annie Boland makes a useful distinction between gender identity and gender expression, describing “identity” as intrapsychic, that is the inner relationship to “being male, female, neither or other”, and “expression” as interpersonal, that is “how I want you to see me. From a Jungian perspective it is akin to ‘persona’” (p. 690). When we consider gender, we have to address the significance of a binary system. Binaries are the black holes of knowledge. Nothing can ever get out and nothing new can get in to replace it. What to keep in mind here is the difference between being an identity and having an identity. The former serves as an artery for greater individuation. (p. 691) This is noted in a 2018 paper “Falling Outside of the ‘Nice Little Binary Box’: A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Non-Binary Gender dentity” by Losty and O’Connor. This paper offers a summary of a small, qualitative research project designed to explore the psychological realities and patterns of object relating of people loosely identifying as gender fluid and non-binary. may experience a lack of support from society, as well as groups associated with embracing gender minorities within that society. Indeed, the non-binary gender community within the Western world are believed to be at a greater risk of poor mental health outcomes in comparison to the binary transgender community as a result of the higher levels of discrimination they can experience (James et al., 2016; Budge et al., 2014). Therefore, it is possible that the limited understanding and visibility of the non-binary gender within Western society may present a unique challenge to the development of “self” amongst individuals who identify with a non-binary gender. (Losty & O’Connor, p. 42) If there is a theoretical position that unites this collection of essays, it is a Rogerian plea for acceptance. Psychoanalyst Rita Teusch writes: “If the patient feels unconditionally accepted by their therapist/analyst, and the clinician conveys that they are not anxious about or judgemental of the patient’s declared gender, patients will feel free to examine their own anxieties and conflicts, including their unconscious ones” (pp. 56–57). It sounds like a good place to start.