Mason Webb

Presenter: Mason Webb

Title of Presentation: Debunking Gender Identity – A Reflective Guide to Gender Identity Counselling.

About the Presentation:

Counselling professionals are increasingly seeking training in preparation for working with gender variant/trans clients. Mason Webb (who has a gender variant history) invites you to consider a simple fact. That everyone has a gender identity, whether or not they’ve given it consideration.

This presentation will invite attendees to begin exploring their own gender identity through a series of experiential/ reflective exercises such as “How was Your Gender Identity Shaped?”, What kind of Man/ Woman are you?” and “Personal meaning” which will allow you to develop a deeper personal understanding. As counsellors and psychotherapists, we can then begin to relate to our clients in new and productive ways, thus gaining a more nuanced understanding of the issues faced by clients and their own identity.

Mason and Tina (Mason’s lifelong partner) will be sharing their experiences of being in a couple whilst going through a medical transition and will demonstrate how we as practioners can, through self-reflective exploration of our gender identity, become better placed to work with gender variant clients.

Through exploring and reflecting upon how we experience our gender identity in our daily lives, we begin to have a greater understanding of what is our core-gender identity:  “I believe that the key to understanding an individual’s core- gender identity sits with the question: what is it like to be a human in the world?” (Mason-Amy Webb)

About Mason Webb

Mason Webb has a trans history and has been a counsellor for 20 years. They have considerable experience exploring their own Gender Identity and supporting others questioning theirs. Mason is the author of the 2019 book “Reflective Guide to Gender Identity Counselling” where they invite the reader to consider a simple truth, that everyone has a gender identity, whether or not they’ve given it much thought.

Mason is a member for the Peterborough LGBT network Committee and has developed a Trans Social Activity Inclusion Group which operates in the Peterborough area. The drive of the group is to provide activities in a safe environment which brings together trans and non-trans people. Mason also runs a youth group in south Lincolnshire “The Phoenix Group” with their long-term partner Tina. They also have experience of working in statutory and non-statutory organisation as diverse as MIND, the Probation Service, HMP Peterborough, the YMCA, and the NHS Substance Misuse Service.

Mason’s Book

‘Congratulations! It’s a boy/girl!’ There it is: the moment our sex is assigned to us.
In that moment, how we will be treated and the role we will be expected to perform within society have been set. Also, in that moment – and it usually occurs without question – we are implanted in a social group (our family), and all the expectations and dynamics that go with being part of it are laid firmly and unknowingly upon our shoulders. Sometimes these are explicit, but for the most part they are not. Either way we transgress them at our peril! (Reflective Guide to Gender Identity Counselling- 2019- Jessica Kingsley Publishing)

Mason is contactable at www.transitionscounselling.co.uk