ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an original conceptual model and therapeutic tool that Morgan termed The Trans Compass, which facilitates exploration of trans people’s perspectives toward their identities and their ways of relating to themselves and others. The Trans Compass is premised on a key observation that trans identity is contingent on two important intersecting aspects of gender transition. The first is a trans person’s evolving feelings surrounding the legitimacy of their gender and the second is that person’s perspective on the importance of transness (or the valuing of queer gender difference) within their identity. Bringing these into relationship with each other produces a quadrant diagram that can help therapists distinguish four broadly recognisable trans relational situations. These are very different from each other, and in this chapter, Morgan brings them to life with several client case studies in each quadrant. Underpinning the Trans Compass is a new concept that Morgan terms “trans legitimacy stress”: the psychological effect of persistent social messaging that your gender is not legitimate. Legitimacy stress can be thought of as a variant of minority stress, but the two concepts are not interchangeable. Whilst minority stress refers to the psychological effect of social marginalisation (where a person is seen as unequal to a majority group), legitimacy stress refers to the effect of social illegitimacy (where a person is regarded as less entitled to their identity than a majority group).
