Atypical Gender Development

• Gender identity disorder (GID)


  Psychiatric condition of strong, persistent feeling of identifying with opposite gender and uncomfortable with one's sex - mismatch of sex and gender
• Gender identity disorder (GID)


  • Desire to live as opposite sex
  • Use mannerisms of opposite sex
  • Can do gender reassignment surgery to change external genitalia
• GID is not when intersex - must be desired to be opposite sex and cause significant distress or impairment in areas of functioning
• Gender dysphoria/transgenderism


  Living as gender identity
• GID affects males more (Female to Male) 5x more than females (Male to Female)
• Biological explanations: Brain Sex Theory

  • Zhou 1995 - significantly larger BST in males than females, developed at 5 y/o
  • Kruijver 2000 - post-mortem studies show BST to be female-sized in 6 transgender females
  • therefore GID patients have their BST as the size of the gender they identify with, not their biological sex; suggests GID caused by brain structures incompatible with biological sex - bed nucleus of stria terminalis (BST)
• Genetic factors - GID has a genetic basis

  
  

  • Coolidge 2002 - 96 MZ and 61 DZ where 62% of the GID variance was accounted for by genes therefore, strong heritable component
  • Heylens 2012 - in the cases of 23 MZ and 21 DZ, they found 9 MZ were concordant for GID, none for DZ - therefore, role for genetics.
• Social-Psychological explanations: Psychoanalytic theory

  • Male GID caused by extreme separation anxiety before establish gender identity, kid fantasises of symbiotic fusion with mom to alleviate the anxiety, result - child becomes the mom and adopts female gender identity
  • Stoller 1973 - supports Ovesey & Person, interview GID males, displayed close mom-son relationship that would lead to greater female identification and confused gender identity
• Cognitive explanation: Dual pathway theory by Liben & Bigler 2002


  acknowledges gender schema then directs to gender-appropriate attitude, they suggests GID occurs when personal interests (e.g. types of toys) more dominant than gender identity then influences their schema. This may lead to non sex-typed schema development, leading to androgynous behaviour and flexible attitude to gender, small minority get GID
• Difficult to separate nature-nurture effects: Twin studies from Coolidge et al, Heylens et al - DZ have higher concordance than regular siblings despite both sharing 50% of the same genes. Dis are treated more similarly because they share environment therefore exposed to same social-psychological factors affecting development of GID - findings are inconclusive and can't strongly support biological explanation, more likely a 'diathesis-stress' model
• Issues with psychoanalytic theory: Ovesey & Person 1973 = GID caused by separation anxiety - very difficult to test, fantasises to reduce anxiety occur unconsciously therefore lacks falsifiability, therefore, not considered scientific nor credible
• Support for psychoanalytic theory: Zucker 1996 = 64% GID boys also with separation anxiety and high levels of emotional over-involvement in mothers - most boys had GID because of disordered attachment to mom and family psychopathology therefore social strength

  CA: study only explains GID in males, low generalisability

  CA: is non-experimental, therefore, cannot establish cause & effect and doesn’t manipulate IV
• Biological explanation oversimplifies complex condition: Brain Sex Theory - down to brain structures and hormonal level - other contributory factors occur at higher psychological or social level and may be obscured or ignored, GID is complex, unlikely to be explained by single influence therefore reductionist