Atypical gender development

• What is a typical gender

  • Any gender identity that deviate from a typical development of male and female genders = gender, dysphoria
• what is gender dysphoria?

  • It’s the feeling of distress experienced when a person assigned gender does not match the gender which they feel they belong
  • They feel conflicted between their psychological gender identity, as it doesn’t match their physiological gender identity as they/desire to live as the opposite sex
  • It’s an example of atypical genders development that is described as a gender identity disorder
• what are the biological explanations for gender dysphoria?

  • Genetic explanations
  • Hormonal explanations
  • Brain differences
• what are the genetic explanations for gender dysphoria?

  • Inherit gene variants are used to explain gender, dysphoria

  Coolidge et al:

  • assess 157, twin pairs (97 MZ + 61 DZ) for evidence of GD using clinical diagnosis criteria in the DSM-4
  • Prevalence of GID was estimated to be 2.3%, with 62% of these cases caused by genetic variance
  • This suggest a strong hereditable components of GID

  Heylens et al:

  • Simile, he compared 23 MZ, twins, with 21 DZ twins, where one of each pair was diagnosed with GID
• what is the brain sex theory?

  • Suggested that GID was caused by specific brain structures that are incompatible with a persons, biological sex
  • Attention been brought to areas of a brain that a dimorphic- Take a different form in males and females (size)
  • Sexually dimorphic nucleus in the hypothalamus was discovered using Post Mortem examinations- Different sized for men + women - particularly bigger in region called bed nucleus of the stria terminals = BSTc
  • Male region is 2.5x larger than females, contains 2X as many neurones + affected by testosterone levels
• Brain sex theory:

  • Zhou et al
  • Studied the bed nucleus of stria terminals BSTc
  • Supposed to be developed at five years + 40% bigger in miles
  • In post studies of six male to female, transgender individuals the BSTc was smaller than a typical female brain
• what are hormonal explanations for gender identity disorder?

  • I just saw that in the mothers hormonal system, maternal stress, medication or illness during pregnancy may interfere with hormonal levels
  • This may expose a female fetus to an excessive testosterone or a male fetus to a death of testosterone, which results in babies with some physical features of the opposite sex
• explanations for brain, differences and gender identity disorder

  • The sexually dimorphous region in hypothalamus is 2.5 times larger males than females
  • Post Mortems conducted on the brains of male or female transgender individuals have found the region to the smaller and more typical of female brain
• Social-psychological explanations for gender dysphoria

  • social psychological explanations of GI idea based on Freudian theory and insights from cognitive psychology
  • Social explanations of gender dysphoria, explain as a result of lamb behaviour when children gaining positive and philosopher from parents for exhibiting behaviour, usually associated with the opposite sex
  • Gender dysphoria is explains result of socialisation-children socialised to their usual gender roles, so they may be socialised into opposite gender roles
• what is the psychoanalytic theory of gender identity disorder

  Oversy + Person

  • Argued that GID in miles is caused by the child experiencing extreme separation anxiety before gender identity is being established
  • Child fantasises of a symbiotic fusion with his mother to relieve the anxiety, and the danger of separation is removed
  • Consequence of this is that the child becomes the mother and not adopting a female gender identity
• what is the cognitive explanation for gender identity disorder?

  Liben + Bigler

  • Propose an extension of gender, schema theory that emphasises individual differences and gender identity
  • suggested dual pathway theory
  • First pathway, acknowledges development of Gender schemes- then direct gender, appropriate attitudes + behaviours as part of normal development
  • Second personal pathway - the child's gender attitudes are affected by their activity
  • Individuals, personal interest may become more dominant than gender identity- these influence gender schema
• strength: research report, the role of genetics in GID

  HARE:

  • Investigators, 112 miles to female transgenders + found genetic variations were androgen receptors were insensitive or unresponsive in males with GID
  • Genetic abnormality evidence in males or female, transgender than a non-transgender male
  • This suppose the role of genetics in GID as it suppose the biological issue
• weakness: contradictory evidence for BSTc

  • It’s claimed that BSTc formed fully at five years, so hormonal treatment for transgender to have gender. Reassignment surgery shouldn’t affect. BSTc

  Hulshoff pol et al:

  • Challenge the assumption and found that transgender hormones therapy did affect the size of the BSTc (Increased/ decreased due to hormones)
  • Differences in BSTc maybe due to hormone therapy rather than the cause of GID
• Wekanedd contradictory evidence for BSTc

  CHUNG:

  • Claims, parental, hormonal influences caused/effect, size, abnormalities of BSTc And on triggered until adult hood
  • How many influences occur by structural changes in the brain or result of these don’t occur until much later
  • Therefore, dimorphic brain differences may not be present in early childhood
  • suggests brain differences and not causes of atypical genders development and may be a result of having a condition
  • Therefore, can conclude cause = effect relationships
• strength, biological theories of GID have positive implications

  • Hormone treatments and surgery have helped people with GID transitions to have the physical identity that match their psychological identity
  • Treatment provides opportunities to receive help and support and live with a gender identity. They happy with.
• weakness: over, simplifies a complex concept and not a broad view

  • Biological explanations, reduced complex conditions and behaviour to simple genetic and hormonal levels
  • Issues that other contributory factors occurring at a psychological or social level may be obscured or ignored
  • An interaction is combination of several different levels of explanation may be especially relevant in the cases of GID, a complex condition that is unlikely to be explained by a single influence
  • a more holistic approach to GID would acknowledge an individuals difference
• weakness: twin studies are inconclusive

  • Evidence suggest GID may be hereditary but twin studies don’t yield high concordance rates (39% for MZ twins in Heylans study)
  • It’s very difficult to separate the influence of nature + nurture with these investigations
  • Twins may influence each other, and the environmental conditions they are exposed to are likely to be very similar
  • Due to factory care sample sizes in twins to these tend to be extremely small- limiting the extent to which effective generalisations can be made
• weakness: socially, sensitive

  • Viewing GID as a biological condition and due to biological abnormalities it is therefore socially sensitive
  • This promotes the idea that GID is a problem, which needs medical intervention- therefore this may lead to successful pressure or prejudice to those with GID
• how can a typical gender development, link to issues and debates

  • Both biological and social psychological explanations can be seen as reductionist
  • The solely reliant, biological social psychological causes for gender identity, disorder, and over, simplify the complexity of gender
  • Determinist similarly with social psychological explanations, the child could’ve been secretly behaving as they experienced gender long before doing a publicly and gaining reinforcement for that behaviour