Topic ten: Gender identity disorder

What is gender identity disorder?

the feeling of a mismatch of anatomy and identity, wanting to be the opposite sex and psychological discomfort related to gender.

What are the two biological explanations of gender identity disorder?

Brain-sex theory and genetic factors

What is the brain-sex theory based upon?

the idea that the brain structure of those with Gender Identity Disorder doesn’t match their genetic sex

What is the link between the BSTc and gender?

on average, nearly twice as large in heterosexual men than in herterosexual women

What is the relationship between the BSTc and gender identity disorder?

The theory suggests that the size of the BSTc correlated with the preferred sex rather than the genetic sex, thought to be developed by age 5

What were the findings of Zhou (1995)?

Size of the BSTc in transgender women was similar to that of genetic females

What did Coolidge et al. (2002) find?

Found 2.3% concordance rate when investigating twin pairs

Of the 2.3%, 62% had relatives who also have gender identity disorder

Outline the research of Heylens et al. (2012)

Studied 23 monozygotic twins and 21 dizygotic twins where at least one twin had been diagnosed with gender identity disorder

39% of monozygotic twins also had gender identity disorder, 0% of the dizygotic twins did

What are the two psychological theories of gender identity disorder?

The psychoanalytic theory and the cognitive theory

What is the psychoanalytic theory of gender identity disorder?

Ovesey and Pearson (1973) proposed male to female gender identity disorder is the result of maternal separation anxiety

What does Ovesey and Person (1973) suggest?

due to high separation from mother at a young age, to soothe the separation anxiety, the child plans to fuse with the mother

Thus, the young boy begins to identify with their mother

What is the cognitive theory?

Liben and Bigler (2002) suggested that gender identity disorder is due to the dual-pathway theory

What is the dual-pathway theory?

Suggests some children don’t follow gender schema theory, ignoring the behaviour of their ingroup and following their own interests and activities

If this is dominant. some children may develop non sex-typed schema which could lead to androgyny or gender identity disorder

Evaluate the biological explanation of gender identity disorder

Contradictory evidence - Hulshoff Pol et al. (2006)

Contradictory evidence - Chung et al. (2002)

Reductionist and determinist

Outline the research of Hulshoff Pol et al. (2006)

found evidence that hormone therapy for gender identity disorder affected the size of the BSTc - brain size may not actually cause gender identity disorder

Outline the research of Chung et al. (2002)

Noted the differences in BSTc volume between men and women doesn’t develop until adulthood, whereas most transgender individuals report that their feelings of gender dysphoria began in early childhood

Evaluate the social explanations of gender identity disorder

Have to be accepted when no physiological brain differences to be found

Lack of empirical evidence

Reductionist and determinist