Atypical gender development

Question 1

What is gender dysphoria?

Answer 1

A small minority of people experience a mismatch between their biological sex and the gender they identify with.

Question 2

Do individuals identify with their sex?

Answer 2

No

Question 3

What does gender dysphoria exclude?

Answer 3

Intersex conditions that have a recognised biological basis e.g. Klinefelter’s syndrome.

Question 4

What may gender dysphoria be subject to?

Answer 4

Some biological influence.

Question 5

What does the biological explanation of gender dysphoria suggest?

Answer 5

Gender dysphoria has a basis in brain structure - BST

Question 6

What is BST involved in?

Answer 6

emotional responses and sexual behaviour in rats.

Question 7

How does BST compare to males and females?

Answer 7

Larger in males and found to be female sized in transgender females - Krujiver et al.

Question 8

What is suggested about how people identify and BST?

Answer 8

People with gender dysphoria have a BST the size of the gender they identify with

Question 9

What does dimorphism of BST suggest?

Answer 9

It fits with the report made by people who are transgender that they feel they were born the wrong sex - Kruijver et al.

Question 10

What did Cooldige et al assess?

Answer 10

157 twin pairs for evidence of gender gender dysphoria.

Question 11

What did researchers find out about twins with gender dysphoria?

Answer 11

62% of the variance could be accounted for by genetic factors which suggests strong heritable component of gender dysphoria.

Question 12

What did Heylens compare?

Answer 12

23 MZ twins with 21 DZ twins where one of each pair was diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

Question 13

Findings of Heylens twin studies?

Answer 13

39% of MZ twins wree concordant for gender dysphoria compared to none of the DZs which indicates a role for genetic factors in the development of gender dysphoria.

Question 14

Biological explanations evaluation:
central claims have been challenged

Answer 14

• Hulshoff Pot et al studied changes in transgender individual’s brains using MRI taken during hormone treatment.
• Scans showed the size of BST changed significantly.
• Studies by Krujiver et al and Zhou et al the BST was examined post-mortem and after transgender individuals recieved hormone treatment.
• Suggests differences in BST have been an effect of hormone therapy rather than the cause of gender dysphoria.

Question 15

Biological explanations evaluation:
Evidence suggests there may be other brain differences associated with gender dysphoria

Answer 15

• Rametti et al studied sexually dimorphic aspect of the brain - white matter.
• There are regional differences in the proportion of white matter in male and female brains.
• Rametti et al analysed the brains of transgender males and females before they began hormone treatment.
• In most cases the amount and distribution of white matter corresponded more to the gender the individuals identified themselves as rather than their biological sex.
• Suggests there are early differences in brains of transgender individuals.

Question 16

What does the social construction perspective argue?

Answer 16

Gender identity doesn’t reflect underlying biological differences between people and instead these concepts are ‘invented’ by societies.

Question 17

For people who experience gender dysphoria why does gender confusion arise?

Answer 17

Because society forces people to be male or female.

Question 18

From the social construction perspective what is gender dysphoria not?

Answer 18

A pathological condition but a social one which arises when people choose one of two particular paths.

Question 19

What did McClintock study?

Answer 19

Cases of individuals with a genetic condition in the Sambia of New Guinea which causes some biological males to be categorised as girls at birth but at puberty develop male genitals due to a large increase in testosterone.

Question 20

Since having contact with the West what has happened to Kwolu-aatmwol?

Answer 20

They are now judged as having a pathological form of gender dysphoria.

Question 21

What do Ovesey and Person emphasise?

Answer 21

Social relationships within the family as the cause of gender dysphoria.

Question 22

What do Ovesey and Person argue about gender dysphoria in biological males?

Answer 22

It is caused by a boy experiencing extreme separation anxiety before gender identity has been established - the boy fantasies of a symbiotic fusion with his mum to relieve anxiety which causes the danger of separation to be removed.

Question 23

What is the consequence of the boy having extreme separation anxiety from his mother?

Answer 23

The boy becomes the mother and adopts a female gender identity.

Question 24

Support of psychoanalytic theory - Stoller

Answer 24

Reports that in interviews with GD biological males they were seen to display overly close relationships with their mum that would lead to greater female identification and atypical gender identity in the long term.

Question 25

Social explanation evaluation:
Not all cultures have two genders

Answer 25

• Some cultures such as fa’afafine recognise more than two genders.
• This is a challenge to traditional notions of male and female.
• The fact that increasing numbers of people describe themselves as non-binary suggests cultural understandings of gender is only now beginning to catch up.
• This suggests gender identity and dysphoria are best seen as a social construction not a biological fact.

Question 26

Social explanations evaluation:
Issues with the psychoanalytic theory of gender dysphoria

Answer 26

• Oversey’s and Person’s explanations don’t provide an adequate account of gender dysphoria in biological females as the theory only applies to transgender females.
• Research by Rekers found that gender dysphoria in those assigned male at birth is more likely t be associated with the absence of the father than fear of separation from the mother.
• Suggests psychoanalytic theory doesn’t provide a comprehensive account of gender dysphoria.