The Trans Narrative Podcast · Trans Narrative Pod

Laura Scarrone Bonhomme : Gender-Affirming Therapy, Systemic Bias & the Wonder of Queerness

·1 hr 5 min·4 clips

Laura argues the DSM is a narrow, pathologizing model shaped by which conditions get included.

1. The Trans Narrative Podcast episode centers on Laura Scarrone Bonhomme and gender-affirming therapy under shifting UK legal conditions. 2. Caroline hosts with Dr. Avice Saketopoulou, a psychoanalyst in New York City and queer-identified academic, and Laura joins as a consultant clinical psychologist, international educator, and co-founder of Affirm. 3. The episode asks how clinicians can listen to trans and non-binary people while working inside systems shaped by diagnosis, law, and institutional bias. 4. Laura says she moved from Spain to the UK about 12 years ago and began at the Gender Identity Clinic, where she had never knowingly met a trans person before. 5. She describes recent UK rules around single-sex spaces, saying trans people are “not necessarily included” and that gyms, pubs, and other organizations are being forced to take positions. 6. Laura links that exclusion to a broader political climate in which some ongoing therapy patients are thinking about moving countries because they no longer feel welcome. 7. Her childhood story includes late-1980s Spain, a father who was a ship captain, an all-girls school, and a home environment shaped by Catholic expectations and nuns. 8. She says she was a tomboy who wanted her head shaved and was discouraged from presenting more masculinely, then later returned to shorter hair and queerer presentation as an adult. 9. Laura describes parenting dynamics, saying both parents struggled with mental health and that she sometimes acted as a parental figure for them. 10. Dr. Saketopoulou underlines that therapists should not separate personal history from clinical thinking, especially around gender, sexuality, and mental health. 11. Laura says a WPATH conference presentation in Lisbon asked hundreds of clinicians whether their gender had been policed, and about 70% said yes. 12. She explains that in her early clinical role she wondered whether work with trans feminine people would amount to giving advice about clothes or makeup. 13. Laura says her training in Spain covered almost no trans care, no relationship diversity, and no polyamory, while the UK offered more psychoanalytic and dynamic theory through places like the Tavistock. 14. She says she wanted a less clinical writing style, citing Irving Yalom as an inspiration and pushing co-author Michael to make the book more self-reflective. 15. Laura argues that sexuality is broader than the gender or genitals of a partner, and she says working with non-binary people challenged her assumptions about attraction. 16. She describes a trans girl joking about calling her penis “Penelope,” using humor to make body shame feel less absolute. 17. Laura says many supervisors are not queer-literate enough to help clinicians think through patients' uncertainty about transition, gender presentation, and disclosure. 18. She gives a Russian patient example in which clinicians could face up to 10 years in jail for supporting a trans person, showing how politics enters clinical work. 19. The conversation sounds reflective and collaborative, with Caroline and Dr. Saketopoulou asking pointed follow-ups and Laura answering in a careful, practice-based style. 20. People interested in trans health care, psychotherapy, and diagnostic politics would get the most from it, while listeners wanting light entertainment or plot-driven storytelling may skip it.

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