Aytypical gender development

• Gender dysphoria

  Used to describe when a person experiences discomfort or distress because there is a mismatch between their sex assigned at birth and their gender identity
• gender dysphoria - biological explanations

  • brain sex theory
  • genetic factors
• gender dysphoria - brain sex theory

  • basis in brain structure - BST
  • structure is involved in emotional responses and in male sexual behaviour in rats
  • the area is larger in men than women
  • people with gender dysphoria have a BST which is the size of the gender they identify with
  • the dimorphism in the BST fits with report made by people who are transgender that they feel from early childhood they were born the wrong sex
• gender dysphoria - genetic factors

  • coolidge - assessed 157 twin pairs - 96 MZ and 61 DZ - for evidence of gender dysphoria
  • 62% of the variance could be accounted for by genetic factors - strong heritable component to gender dysphoria
• gender dysphoria - genetic factors

  Heylens - compared 23 MZ twins 21 DZ twins where one of each pair was diagnosed with gender dysphoria

  - nine of the MZ twins were concordant for gender dysphoria compared to none of the DZs

  - indicate a role for genetic factors in the development of gender dysphoria
• AO3 - gender dysphoria genetic - limitation

  P: its central claims have been challenged

  E: Hulshoff Pol - studied changes in transgender individuals brains using MRI scans taken during hormone treatment - scans showed that size of the BST changed signif. over that period

  E: And researchers like Kruijver and Zhou - the BST was examined post-mortem and after transgender individuals received hormone treatment

  L: differences in the BST may have been an effect of hormone therapy rather than gender dysphoria
• AO3 - gender dysphoria genetic - strength

  P: evidence - other brain differences associated with gender dysphoria

  E: Rametti - studied another sexually dimorphic aspect of the brain - white matter

  • regional differences in the proportion of white matter in male and female brain
  • analysed brains before hormone treatment
  • amount and distribution of white matter corresponded more closely to the gender the individuals identified themselves as being

  L: there are early differences in the brains of transgender individuals
• gender dysphoria- social explanations

  • social constructionism
  • psychoanalytic theory
• gender dysphoria - social constructionism

  • gender identity does not reflect underlying biological differences between people and instead these concepts are invented by society
  • gender confusion arises because society forces people to be man or woman
  • gender dysphoria is a social phenomenon which arises when people are required to choose one of two particular paths
• aytypical gender development - social constructionism

  • McClintock - Sambia of New Guinea
  • genetic condition that causes some biological males to be categorised as girls at birth because they have a labia and clitoris
  • puberty - genitals change because of testosterone and enlarges into a penis
  • common in Sambia - accepted that some people are men and some people are women and others are females-then-males
  • these people having been judged as having a pathological form of gender dysphoria
• atypical gender development - psychoanalytic theory

  • Ovesey and Person - emphasise social relationships within the family as the cause of gender dysphoria
  • gender dysphoria in biological males is caused by a boy experiencing extreme separation anxiety before gender identity has been established
  • boy fantasises of symbiotic fusion with his mother to relive the anxiety and the danger of separation is removed
  • boy becomes the mother - adopts gender identity
• atypical gender development - psychoanalytic theory

  • Stoller
  • in interviews gender dysphoric males displayed overly close relationships with their mothers suggesting stronger female identification and thus conflicted gender identity in long term
• AO3 - social constructionism - strength

  P: not all cultures have two gender

  E: some cultures recognise more than two genders - challenge to traditional binary classifications of male and female

  E: the fact that increasing numbers of people now describe themselves as non-binary suggests that cultural understanding is only now catching up

  L: gender identity is best seen as a social construction rather than a biological fact
• AO3 - psychoanalytic theory - limitation

  P: issues with the psychoanalytic theory of gender dysphoria

  E: explanation does not provide an adequate account of gender dysphoria in biological females as the theory only applies to transgender women

  E: Rekers - gender dysphoria in those assigned male at birth is more likely to be associated with the absence of the father than the fear of separation from the mother

  L: psychoanalytic theory does not provide a comprehensive account of gender dysphoria