Discuss one or more explanations for gender dysphoria PDF

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Discuss one or more explanations for gender dysphoria (16 marks) Gender dysphoria refers to strong persistent feelings of identification with the opposite gender and discomfort with one’s own assigned sex. People with GID desire to live as members of the opposite sex and often dress and use mannerisms associated with the opposite gender. Many with GID will identify as transgender and may opt for gender reassignment surgery in order to change their external genitalia to that of the desired sex. One explanation for gender dysphoria is the biological explanation. Brain sex theory, suggests that GID is caused by specific brain structures that are incompatible with a person’s biological sex. Particular attention has been paid to those areas of the brain that take a different form in males and females. Zhou et al studied the BSTC which assumed to be fully developed at age 5 and around 40% larger in males than females. In post-mortem studies of six male-to-female transgender individuals, the BSTc was found to be a similar size to that of a typical female brain. Another explanation into gender dysphoria is the socio-psychological explanation in that GID in males is caused by the child experiencing extreme separation anxiety before gender identity has been established. The child fantasises of a symbiotic fusion (where the mother fuses her identity with the child) with his mother to relieve the anxiety, and the danger of separation is removed. The consequence of this is that the child, becomes the mother, and thus adopts a female gender identity. One weakness of the GID is that it is socially sensitive. Previously in the DM4, the term used to describe feeling trapped in the ‘wrong body’ was ‘gender identity disorder’, perhaps negatively implying that their feelings were a problem that needed to be ‘treated/fixed’. However, in the current DSM5, this has been updated to ‘gender identity dysmorphia’ – therefore showing that psychology is attempting to “move with the times”. It is claimed that the BSTc is fully formed at 5, so any hormone treatment that transgender individuals undergo as part of the gender reassignment surgery should not affect the BSTc. This assumption has been challenged, however, and alternative research has found that transgender hormone therapy did affect the size of the BSTc. Therefore, observed differences in the BSTc may be due to hormone therapy rather than being a cause. Biological explanations are often criticised for their tendency to reduce complex conditions and behaviours to a simpler, genetic, neuroanatomical and/or hormonal level. The danger here is that other contributory factors occurring at a ‘higher’ psychological or social level may be obscured or ignored. An interactionist combination of several different levels of explanation may be especially relevant in the case of GID, a complex condition that is unlikely to be explained by a single influence. Although evidence from twin studies suggest that GID may be partly explained by heredity, findings are inconclusive. Aside from the fact that twin studies in this area tend not to yield very high concordance rates (39% for MZ twins), it is very difficult to separate the influence of nature and nurture within these investigations. Twins, especially MZ, may influence each other, and the environmental conditions they are exposed to are likely to be very similar. Also, due to the fact that GID occurs so rarely, sample sizes in twin studies tend to be extremely small, limiting the extent to which effective generalisations can be made....