Transgender

About: Transgender is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 13813 publications have been published within this topic receiving 266252 citations. The topic is also known as: transgender & transgender persons.

Normative Accountability: How the Medical Model Influences Transgender Identities and Experiences

Abstract: The medicalization of gender variance is a key force in transgender people's experiences of embodiment, identity, and community. While most directly dictating experiences of diagnosis and medical classification, it is important to acknowledge that the effects of medicalization are widespread across social contexts and institutions. I explore the medical model of transgender identity, with special attention to its current diagnostic classification, in order to highlight how transgender people's interactional experiences of gender are shaped by medical authority. I review literature that highlights the operation of the medical model as a normative accountability structure in its influence across multiple institutions of social life including health and healthcare, transgender community groups, and legal classification.

The Biological Contributions to Gender Identity and Gender Diversity: Bringing Data to the Table

Abstract: The American Psychological Association defines gender identity as, "A person's deeply-felt, inherent sense of being a boy, a man, or a male; a girl, a woman, or a female; or an alternative gender (e.g., genderqueer, gender nonconforming, gender neutral) that may or may not correspond to a person's sex assigned at birth or to a person's primary or secondary sex characteristics" (American Psychological Association, Am Psychol 70(9):832-864, 2015). Here we review the evidence that gender identity and related socially defined gender constructs are influenced in part by innate factors including genes. Based on the data reviewed, we hypothesize that gender identity is a multifactorial complex trait with a heritable polygenic component. We argue that increasing the awareness of the biological diversity underlying gender identity development is relevant to all domains of social, medical, and neuroscience research and foundational for reducing health disparities and promoting human-rights protections for gender minorities.

Transforming the paradigm of transgender health: a field in transition

Abstract: This special issue of Sexual and Relationship Therapy entitled “Gender Variance and Transgender Identity” is comprised of a collection of articles that reflect a transition in this growing field from a disease-based to an identity-based model of transgender health The disease-based model assumes that normative gender identity development has been compromised and that the associated distress can be alleviated by establishing congruence between sex, gender identity and gender role, if necessary through hormonal and surgical sex reassignment The identity-based model assumes that gender variance is merely an example of human diversity and that the distress transgender individuals might experience results from social stigma attached to gender variance The latter model views transgender people as having an experience, identity and sexuality distinct from those of both non-transgender women and men This paradigm shift forms the context for nine peer reviewed articles ranging from empirical research on transg