Thank you for clarifying about the shadow self, that makes more sense put that way.

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.

That's a very, very interesting consideration. Do you think if one embraces or "owns" their shadow self, that he or she would then not have a shadow self? Or do other aspects that are rejected become new parts of the shadow self? In this conceptualization, it makes sense that TRAs who perhaps have no self-restraint and are more destructively uninhibited would have less of a shadow self, but it does make me wonder why if females and males who develop GD in childhood are embracing their shadow selves that they wouldn't necessarily become uninhibited like the people who didn't have enough of one to begin with.

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.

Those concepts intrigue me, I will have to read about those in depth! I've heard the words before, but I did not know what they meant exactly.

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.

Castaneda's work was what piqued my interest in hallucinogens and their potential to change the mind. My dad read me "The Teachings of Don Juan" when I was little, so in my late teens I started using hallucinogens under the guidance of Castaneda's books to try to cure myself (I've read them all at least twice). It almost certainly would have been more beneficial to have worked with a therapist while doing this rather than on my own, but I did come to understand more about myself I feel and make a little more peace, though I wasn't able to cure my GD or transsexualism. It would be interesting to try that again now with a therapist not necessarily to try to cure myself of that, but just to better myself overall. But maybe it could provide some sort of relief or cure for some people. That's an interesting thought you bring up!