I think it's Jung who wrote about the shadow self (correct me if I'm wrong though), and I wonder if the way "identity" is framed and treated today, as some idealized vision of oneself, is an attempt to bring that shadow self to life.

It's been many years since I read Jung, but my recollection is that the shadow self as he portrayed it is the part of our psyche were we shove and try to exile all the aspects of ourselves we have been taught to - or we naturally - deny, disown and try to stamp out. IIRC, the shadow self is pretty much the opposite of the ideal self. It's sort of the junk drawer or ghetto nabe of the self - the place we put all the aspects of ourselves we deem unpleasant and unacceptable in the hopes that once "out of sight, out of mind" they'll all just fade away in darkness. But one of Jung's points was that the more we try to hide and kill off these aspects of ourselves, the stronger and more powerful they become. So the more shadowy your shadow self, the larger it looms over your self in entirety.

As always, what constitutes the ideal self and the despised shadow self varies depending on sex. As children, many female people are taught to revile the parts of our personalities that are aggressive, loud, rude, selfish, coarse, rough, violent, cruel, sexually pleasure-seeking, gluttonous, domineering, bossy and so on - and those sorts of traits get shoved into our shadow selves. As children, many male people are taught to revile the parts of their personalities that are unaggressive, soft-spoken, shy, retiring, delicate, bashful, "soft," refined, artistic, kind, sensitive and so on.

So maybe for some males who develop genuine childhood gender dysphoria coz they were shamed into squelching and disowning personality traits of theirs that were deemed "unmanly" or "feminine," embracing an opposite-sex "gender identity" is a way of owning the shadow self. And the reverse for females who developed genuine GD in childhood.

However, it seems to me that the aggressive, entitled, misogynistic, violent male people who are jumping on the trans bandwagon and claiming to have an opposite sex or non-binary gender identity in order to lord it over, sexually subjugate, intimidate, silence and terrorize female people do not have enough of a shadow self. These guys seem wholly unashamed of, and not at all inclined to try to hide, all the aspects of their personalities that most people would find reprehensible or at least questionable. The selves they present to the world strike me as certainly nothin' to write home about or brag on social media about. And yet they go on.

Moreover, most of the girls and young women who today are claiming to be the opposite sex or neither sex did not have childhood dysphoria. Their issues with their sex and gender roles have arisen after the onset of puberty.

But back to the general convo: it seems to me that the way identity is being framed today has more in common with what in psychology used to be called the persona - which Oxford defines as

the the aspect of someone's character that is presented to or perceived by others

The persona in this sense is the opposite of anima, which in psych used to mean the self we each perceive privately and inwardly. Basically the self-concept, or the reputation you have with yourself.

However, in Jungian psych, the anima has a very different meaning: Jung used anima to describe the parts of a male's personality that are considered feminine. Whereas animus in Jung terminology means the aspects of a female's personality that are deemed masculine.

Speaking of which, I do think that Jung's concept of anima and animus are very useful in convos about gender identity. Just as most human beings have the capacity to be incredibly kind and loving as well as incredibly cruel and hateful, each one of us has personality traits that run the gamut of "masculine" and "feminine" both - depending on how our particular cultures define those terms.

Like, there are some concepts that Carlos Castaneda wrote about the idea of a "dreaming self"

I have hardly any recollections of what Castaneda said or wrote. When you brought up his name, what sprang to my mind was how in the 1960s he helped to popularize the use of peyote - and indirectly other hallucinogens of the era such as LSD, mescaline and ketamine. Drugs whose use I think can be highly beneficial for many people.

Which leads to another issue I often wonder about: what proportion of people with cross-sex gender identities, or who now identify as of no sex, have used hallucinogenics - and in doses sufficient for a full trip? My hunch is not many - or not enough.