ATYPICAL GENDER DEVELOPMENT (GENDER DYSPHORIA): BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS

Question 1

Gender dysphoria

Answer 1

• is where a person’s biologically assigned sex does not reflect the gender they identify as being.
• They feel strong, persistent feelings of identification with the opposite gender.

Question 2

Genetic explanations

Answer 2

• suggest there is a genetic component of the development of GD.
• For example, Heylens compared MZ + DZ twins where one of each pair was diagnosed with GD.
• 39% of the MZtwins both had GD compared to 0 of the DZ.
• highlights the influence of genetics in GD.

Question 3

Neural explanation

Answer 3

• suggests that GD is caused by specific brain structures that are incompatible with a person’s biological sex.
• For instance, the BSTc is assumed to be fully developed at 5 and is around 40% larger in M than F.
• Zhou conducted post mortems of 6 M to F TG people who had received feminising HRT, and found that the BSTc was a similar size to that of a typical female brain

Question 4

Lim of genetic explanation

Answer 4

• twin studies are inconclusive. For example, twin studies shows low concordance rate for GD so there is only a small link between genetics and GD.
• This shows that the environment must play some role in whether GD is formed. In addition MZ twins are brought up in similar environments than DZ, and this could be the cause of higher concordance rates, thus showing it’s actually not nature but rather more nurture.
• Furthermore, the small, unrepresentative sample sizes means that there is a lack of generalisability to the wider population

Question 5

One limitation of the neural explanation is that there is opposing research.

Answer 5

• For example, Pol found that transgender hormones affect the size of the BSTc (area of the brain).
• This contradicts Zhou’s explanation, which states that the BSTC should be fully developed by 5 and is naturally larger in males, yet the evidence suggests that hormone therapy did affect the size of the BSTc.
• This is a disadvantage as
  observed differences in BSTc may be due to hormone therapy, not that it causes GD, showing that the
  link between BSTC and GD is only correlational and not causal.