Search

Women's lower economic power is one of the symptoms of a hierarchical organization of societies. Creating economic gender equality needs to be a core interest of policies and research as it is a key to better well-being for other social groups and has advantages for society at large. This chapter first presents current trends in the understanding of unequal distribution of economic resources and specifically the gender pay gap based on several structural and psychological factors. It then takes a different angle on these individual differences approaches and analyzes the contributions and moderating forces in the social context which reinforce or inhibit both structural and psychological reasons for economic inequalities. Social psychological findings help to understand how stereotypes and social norms affect bias in pay allocators, the differential valuation of job content when stereotyped as feminine or masculine, and the gender variance in pay receivers' preferences and behaviors. In the concluding remarks three contextual keys for efficient interventions are advanced aiming at changing the social reality and thereby attenuating gender bias of individuals: The increase of female representation in positions of power, combined with diversity friendly societal and organizational climates, and transparency of the distribution of economic power.

Over the past fifty years, children’s picture books have made great strides toward literary equity by including more perspectives from and stories about marginalized groups, such as those whose gender identities do not conform to heteronormative standards. While texts featuring gender-variant male characters engage in topics that are far too often shoved into the proverbial closet, what is yet to be determined is the degree to which they adequately reflect the complexity of (gender) identity and to what extent such picture books can counter narratives related to traditional “masculinity.” The purpose of this paper is to critically examine picture book representations of gender variance, as exhibited by male characters, in order to determine the books’ potential for exploring issues of social justice with elementary-age students. This study utilizes a critical multiculturalist lens to challenge the ways in which gender variance is represented in children’s literature and the reasons that young gender-variant male protagonists achieve—or do not achieve—communal acceptance.

Previous studies suggest elevated rates of gender variance (GV), the wish to be of the other gender, in those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study aimed to understand the rate of GV in children and adolescents with ASD and explore differences in sex, age, and emotional-behavioral problems relative to those referred to clinical services for mental health concerns (“referred”) and to the general population (“non-referred”). A secondary analysis of data from the National Database for Autism Research was used to explore GV using a child behavior checklist, parent report, in 176 children aged 6 to 18 year with ASD compared to referred and non-referred cohorts. GV was present in 4.0% of the ASD group, higher than for the non-referred group (0.7%) but similar to the referred group (4.0%). There were no significant sex differences in GV prevalence (males 3.7%, females 6.0%) in the ASD group. That the GV rate was elevated in ASD relative to non-referred samples but similar to clinically referred...

This article advances a theory of affective rupture and explores its potential as grounds for coalition across substantial lines of difference. Using the unanticipated “outing” of gender-normative breast cancer patients at airport security checkpoints as a case study, I argue that it is in moments of unanticipated scrutiny and vulnerability that existing affective economies are disrupted and new affiliations are facilitated among groups with asymmetrical privilege and contesting agendas. In the case of breast cancer patients, I argue that this affective rupture at the security checkpoint can be grounds for coalition with transwomen who have been similarly mistreated by the Transportation Security Administration for their gender variance. I conclude with a brief sketch of the possibilities and limitations of such a coalition.

Based on ethnographic data collected among the Bahnar ethnicgroup in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, I discuss the livedexperiences of masculine performing people (assigned female atbirth) whose gender characteristics blur the boundaries betweenlesbian and transgender. In reviewing non-normative genderpractices in supernatural rituals in Southeast Asia and in Vietnam Iexplore the links between these practices and present-dayterminology and discourses relating to the complexities of genderand sexual diversity in the secular realm. I also discuss thedisclosure experiences of these people, their vulnerability to socialdiscrimination and draw attention to the nuances of contingentmasculinities against the backdrop of the complex inter-ethnicrelations in the Central Highlands. (Less)

This research was done for the determination of how their anxiety levels' and anger expressions' get shaped according to some variances. For this reason there were 76 female 125 male totally 201 sportsmen, who participated to the table tennis championship between universities in 2016 and ages differ from 18 to 28, were included the research group. According to research findings it was found that there was not a statistically meaningful difference between permanent anxiety levels and anger expressing types of the sample group according to gender variance (p>0.05), but there were statistically meaningful differences found according to table tennis sports past, being consulted himself for decisions that is going to be made in the family, friendship relations variances (p

The area of gender variance appears to be more visible in both the media and everyday life. Within educational psychology literature gender variance remains underrepresented. The positioning of educational psychologists working across the three levels of child and family, school or establishment and education authority/council, means that they are well placed to support knowledge, understanding and practice in this area. The literature highlights the importance of the terminology around gender variance, the differing representations of gender variance and the potential impact upon young people. Three practice examples demonstrate potential roles for educational psychologists and together with the literature highlight possible implications for educational psychology practice.

Purpose This paper aims to examine the interplay among forms of entrepreneurship and the gendered entrepreneurial divide. Using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and the World Values Survey (WVS), the authors investigate the likelihood that females will venture in the commercial entrepreneurial ventures versus social entrepreneurial ventures. The authors draw on the theoretical concept of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity to explain gender variance in the organizational forms of commercial and social entrepreneurship. Specifically, the authors investigate whether pursuing an opportunity in a society that highly values ideologies of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity impacts the probability of venturing in either of these kinds of organizations. Design/methodology/approach To test the hypotheses, the authors use GEM data from 2009 (n = 14,399) for nascent entrepreneurs and baby businesses owners in 55 counties. They also use the WVS to measure the ideologies of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity at the country level. The authors estimate a logistic multilevel model to identify the drivers of social venturing over commercial venturing. Data are nested by countries, and the authors allow random intercepts by countries with a variance components covariance structure. Findings The findings demonstrate that there is a divide in entrepreneurial activity, as women entrepreneurs are more likely to start social ventures than commercial ventures. They also find that hegemonic masculinity decreases the incidence of social entrepreneurship, whereas emphasized femininity increases the incidence of social entrepreneurship. Moreover, the authors find evidence that women in societies with a strong view on hegemonic masculinity are less likely to pursue social organizational forms than male entrepreneurs are. Furthermore, in societies with strong views of emphasized femininity, the probability increases that female founders will pursue social organizational forms. The findings highlight the considerable impact of the gender ideologies on entrepreneurship. Research limitations/implications Although the authors use the terms “gender” and “sex” in this paper interchangeably, they recognize that these two terms are not equivalent. For the purposes of this manuscript, the authors use a gender analysis approach activity based on biological sex to investigate empirical differences in entrepreneurial. The findings suggest that women ultimately, and unintentionally, are consenting to the practices and norms that reiterate the masculinity of entrepreneurship. In this way, the patriarchal ideologies of hegemonic masculinity and masculinization of entrepreneurship ultimately leave women unable to fully take up the identity of “woman” alongside that of “entrepreneur”. Future research can build upon our findings by applying a more nuanced view of gender via constructivist approaches. Originality/value The findings empirically demonstrate the gendered nature of entrepreneurial activity, leading to specific stereotypical female social organizational forms and male commercial organizational forms. Furthermore, the authors are able to provide theoretical explanations based on hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity to understand why social entrepreneurship appeals to women.

Transgender people worldwide are subject to discrimination and violence. They are either being denied legal rights and thus face marginalization and increased vulnerability or their recognition is subject to cumbersome legal and medical preconditions that often infringe on the rights to self-determination, privacy, family life, and physical integrity. This article will situate legal gender recognition in the human rights domain as key to the enjoyment of the right to self-determination and explore its role in fulfilling the rights to health and health care. Using examples from European Union members' legal frameworks, the author will argue that any mechanism for legal recognition of transgender identities should not draw on a pathological view of gender variance. Instead, lawmakers should acknowledge the existence of gender diversity within societies and respect the right to self-determination of transgender people, as enshrined in the Yogyakarta Principles (2007), by way of allowing them to self-...

The concepts of psychiatric diagnosis and gender are both contested, and they are at their most controversial where they intersect around the diagnosis of trans and gender variant people as mentally disordered. The World Health Organization is in the process of revising the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD), with the eleventh edition expected in May 2018. This provides an opportunity to debate whether gender variance should continue to be classified as a mental disorder, be reclassified as a physical health or “other” disorder, or be removed from ICD-11 altogether. This article evaluates some of the assumptions on which the labelling of trans people as mentally disordered is grounded. It concludes that this process is based on the erroneous sex binary, outmoded views of gender, and the misattribution of the causes of distress trans people sometimes experience. It reflects Western society’s medicalization of social issues and is an example of th...

People living in the role of the "other" sex in Native American cultures, often entering into same-sex relationships, have been subject to various anthropological, historical, and psychological analyses and interpretations. Most recently, there has been a shift to an indigenist/decolonial interdisciplinary focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Native people. This article gives a discussion of approaches to the subject, with a focus on female gender variability. An overview is given of the latter, complemented by a discussion of the identities and concerns of contemporary Native lesbians, many of whom identify as "two-spirit," a term that alludes to the dual, spiritually powerful nature traditionally attributed in a number of Native American cultures to individuals who combine the feminine and masculine.

The present study examines the relationship between gender and scientific competence in fictional representations of scientists in the British science fiction television program Doctor Who. Previous studies of fictional scientists have argued that women are often depicted as less scientifically capable than men, but these have largely taken a simple demographic approach or focused exclusively on female scientist characters. By examining both male and female scientists (n = 222) depicted over the first 50 years of Doctor Who, our study shows that, although male scientists significantly outnumbered female scientists in all but the most recent decade, both genders have consistently been depicted as equally competent in scientific matters. However, an in-depth analysis of several characters depicted as extremely scientifically non-credible found that their behavior, appearance, and relations were universally marked by more subtle violations of gender expectations. Incompetent male scientists were largely depicted as effeminate and lacking in masculinity. In addition, many incompetent male and all incompetent female scientists served regimes that were problematically effeminate, collectivist and pacifist, or male-rejecting and ruled by women. Although Doctor Who avoids overtly treating women and men unequally, strong codes of masculine capability and prowess nevertheless continue to influence representations of scientific competence, pointing to the continued pervasiveness of such associations within wider Western culture. Professionals working to encourage gender-inclusive practices in science should look to subtle discourses about the masculine culture of science in addition to institutional and structural impediments to participation for women and gender minorities.

What it is to be gendered remains a disputed topic in feminist philosophy, not to mention in the quotidian struggle over gender categories as they are lived and questioned outside the academy. In this paper I want to explore what contemporary work in analytic feminist philosophy can tell us about how the “categories we live by,” or the categories that organize our social lives and constitute our identities, can sometimes render life unlivable because of their restrictive or oppressive effects (Kapusta; Ásta Sveinsdóttir, “Metaphysics”; Butler, Undoing 4 and Notes). The phrase “categories we die for” captures this ambiguity. On the one hand, many of us have died, and continue to, for gender categories that we couldn't, or refused to, live up to. Think of the violence done in the name of normative and regulatory gender ideals to gender nonconformists—those who do not find a place in gender binarism (“man/woman”) or sexual dimorphism (“male/female”). Queer populations continue to be vulnerable to marginalization, pathologization, and aggression for not doing their gender, sex, or sexuality “correctly” (i.e., heteronormatively or cisnormatively). In this sense, social categories and norms can ruin lives, and we ought to argue against their restrictive regulation. On the other hand, we are also willing to stand behind, defend, and even sacrifice ourselves for gender categories that promise to make life more livable, flexible, and sustainable for those we cherish (Kapusta; Butler, Undoing). When we fight for the recognition of categories like “genderqueer,” “trans∗,” and “agender” we seem to be saying that these are categories worth dying for (a further issue, we will see, is whether binary gender categories like “man” and “woman” per se are worth dying for, or whether the effort to make these existing categories more inclusive is). The contemporary struggle to expand the compass of gender terms and concepts, to expand the sense of the livable, seeks to make categories more inclusive. When we mobilize for trans∗ inclusiveness, gender variance, intersex visibility, and more, we are fighting for categories to be protected, in law and in life. So, to speak of “categories we are dying for,” as I will, implies both a punitive sense (“categories due to which many of us die”) and a positive sense (“categories worth dying for”). Depending on their uses and effects, gender categories can make or break one's life.

Purpose: Increasing clinical evidence suggests an overrepresentation of gender variance (GV) among patients with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). This retrospective chart review aims to contribute to the existing literature on co-occurring ASD and gender dysphoria (GD). We compare the rate of parent-reported GV in patients with an ASD diagnosis to that of parent-reported GV in a normative nonreferred data set. Methods: Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) charts were collected from 492 children and adolescents (409 natal males and 83 natal females) aged 6–18 years who have received a diagnosis of ASD at the New York University Child Study Center. Parent-reported GV was determined through endorsement of CBCL sex item 110, which assesses the presence of gender-related issues. We calculated the odds ratio of endorsement of item 110 between our ASD sample and the CBCL sample data. Results: The subjects diagnosed with ASD were 7.76 times more likely to report GV than the CBCL sample. This finding was statistically significant. About 5.1% of the patients in the ASD group and 0.7% of the CBCL nonreferred group endorsed sex item 110. 5.1% of natal males and 4.8% of natal females endorsed sex item 110. Neither gender nor age influenced the rate of endorsement. Conclusion: This finding supports the growing research suggesting a heightened co-occurrence rate of ASD and GD. Focus should be placed upon improving our understanding of the nature of this co-occurrence and on gender identity development within the atypical development of ASD.

Summary The International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD) and The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) formulate a fundament for biomedical ethics of gender variance, governing clinical practices, systems and policies. I discuss the diagnostic details and bioethical ramifications of so-called gender diagnoses in ICD and DSM. I then subject medicalized gender variance to concept analytical and queer bioethical scrutiny. I find both diagnostic systems to make sense of gender variance through incongruence, dysphoria and desire in bioethically confusing ways. In my treatment, medicalized gender variance does not necessarily entail pathologization. I conclude that medicalized gender variance can be used for balancing access to care and stigma but persist that evaluation of this must be more informed by queer bioethics. Despite progress compared to previous versions of ICD and DSM, both are still in need of further queer bioethical scrutiny. This includes a thorough evaluation of queer vulnerabilities in gender diagnostics, currently building on convoluted definitions of incongruence, desire and dysphoria. This convolution confuses medical ethics of gender and sexual variance. Further, it can trigger moral harms, including cascading queer vulnerabilities.

The consumption of drugs has long been a mainstay of urban queer cultures and it is well-recognised that complex connections exist between sexual minoritisation and desires to chemically alter bodily experience. Yet despite evidence that rates of consumption are higher among LGBTQ populations, research exploring the gendered and sexual dynamics of these forms of consumption is limited and tends to frame such consumption as a response to stigma, marginalisation and discrimination. Against this dominant explanatory frame, this article explores the diverse experiences of LGBTQ consumers, and in so doing highlights both the pleasures and benefits of consumption, as well as potential risks and harms. Contributing to the growing body of ontopolitically oriented research that treats the materiality of drugs as emergent and contingent, we trace the ontologies of drugs, sexuality and gender that LGBTQ subjects generate through specific practices of consumption. Our analysis draws on qualitative interviews with 42 self-identified LGBTQ people from an Australian study designed to explore how sexual and gender-diverse minorities pursue particular drug effects to enhance or transform their experience of gender and/or sexuality. Our participants’ accounts illuminate how drug consumption materialises in relation to sex, desire and play where it enhances pleasure, facilitates transgression and increases endurance. In the context of gender variance, our findings suggest that drug use can transform gendered experience and enable the expression of non-normative gender identities, in the process challenging gender binarism. By considering the productive role of drugs in enacting queer identities, this article treats drugs as ‘technologies of the self’ (Foucault 1988) and explores how drug consumption, sex and gender shape each other across a range of settings. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of our findings for research and service provision, and suggest ways of engaging LGBTQ consumers in terms that address their diverse priorities and experiences.

Schools are often heteronormative environments, negatively influencing the wellbeing of LGB students. Less is known about the impact on gender-variant adolescents. Hence, this study investigates the wellbeing of gender-variant students-as evidenced by their gender (a)typicality and pressure for gender conformity- in different school cultures-as evidenced by the level of traditional gender role attitudes and homonegativity. We examine these context-dependent associations in a sample of 4987 Flemish students, who were questioned three times in 2012-2014. Multilevel regression analyses show that both gender-typical and atypical adolescents feel worse in heteronormative than inclusive schools. Furthermore, the social acceptance of boys seems to be more conditional on gender-conformity in heteronormative than inclusive schools. Overall, inclusive schools ensure higher wellbeing for all students (regardless of sex or gender variance), and student-teacher relationships seem central in explaining these school differences. Implications for school policy as well as research considering heteronormativity and gender-variance are discussed.

Gender variance is likely a cross-cultural phenomenon with deep antiquity that bioarchaeological data can document effectively. Yet, recent reports that have gone viral in mediascapes, the “transsexual” cavemen being one pointed example discussed in this chapter, should give investigators pause. That is, describing ancient socio-sexual lives as such complicates normative notions about the body, gender, and sexuality, but the designation is a fallacy since these terms are modern Western inventions. The use of trans- more generally to describe identities or experiences in the bioarchaeological record points to effacement of recent sociopolitical processes, as well as a disregard for dimensions of sex/gender systems that are contingent and dynamic.

In clinical child and retrospective adult samples, childhood gender variance (GV; i.e., cross-gender behaviour) has been associated with separation anxiety (SA; i.e., distress related to separation from attachment figures) in males. This study examined GV and SA in a nonclinical sample of 892 boys and 933 girls aged 6–12 years via parent-reports. Parental factors (i.e., parenting style, parent–child relationship, willingness to serve as an attachment figure, attitudes towards gender stereotypes in children) were examined as potential moderators. GV predicted SA in boys, even when statistically controlling for general psychopathology and demographic variables. Authoritative parenting, closeness in the parent–child relationship, willingness to serve as an attachment figure, and liberal attitudes towards gender stereotypes in children moderated the association between GV and SA in both boys and girls. Thus, SA may be a unique internalizing problem related to GV in boys in nonclinical samples and influenced by a variety of parental factors.

Background Information on the psychosexual outcome of individuals with disorders of sex development (DSDs) and intersex conditions is of great importance for sex assignment at birth of newborns with DSD. Aim To assess gender change and gender dysphoria in a large sample of individuals with different DSDs. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in 14 European centers with 1,040 participants (717 female-identifying and 311 male-identifying persons and 12 persons identifying with another gender) with different forms of DSD. The cohort (mean age = 32.36 years, SD = 13.57) was divided into 6 major subgroups: women with 45,X DSD and variants (Turner syndrome; n = 325), men with 47,XXY DSD and variants (Klinefelter syndrome; n = 219), women with XY DSD without androgen effects (n = 107) and with androgen effects (n = 63), men with XY DSD (n = 87), and women with 46,XX congenital adrenal hyperplasia (n = 221). Data on psychosexual outcome were gathered by medical interviews and questionnaires. Outcomes Gender change and gender dysphoria. Results Although gender changes were reported by 5% of participants, only in 1% (3% if those with Klinefelter and Turner syndromes—conditions in which gender issues are not prominent—are excluded) did the gender change take place after puberty and was likely initiated by the patient. 39 participants (4%) reported gender variance: between male and female, a gender other than male or female, or gender queer, alternating gender roles, or a gender expression that differed from the reported gender. This group had lower self-esteem and more anxiety and depression than the other participants. Clinical Implications Clinicians should be aware of and sensitive to the possibility that their patients with DSD not only might have transgender feelings and a desire to change gender, but also identify as different from male or female. The complexity of their feelings might require counseling for some patients. Strengths and Limitations The study is unique in the large number of participants from many different clinics, with sizable numbers in most subgroups, and in the large number of aspects that were measured. However, the very broadness of the study made it impossible to focus in detail on gender issues. Also, there is a need for instruments specifically measuring gender dysphoria in individuals with DSD that take non-binary genders into account. Conclusion To make appropriate gender care possible for people with DSD, the gender-normative and gender-variant development of children with DSD should be studied in longitudinal studies.

Increasing numbers of adolescents are seeking treatment at gender identity services in Western countries. An increasingly accepted treatment model that includes puberty suppression with gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogs starting during the early stages of puberty, cross-sex hormonal treatment starting at ~16 years of age and possibly surgical treatments in legal adulthood, is often indicated for adolescents with childhood gender dysphoria (GD) that intensifies during puberty. However, virtually nothing is known regarding adolescent-onset GD, its progression and factors that influence the completion of the developmental tasks of adolescence among young people with GD and/or transgender identity. Consolidation of identity development is a central developmental goal of adolescence, but we still do not know enough about how gender identity and gender variance actually evolve. Treatment-seeking adolescents with GD present with considerable psychiatric comorbidity. There is little research on how GD and/or transgender identity are associated with completion of developmental tasks of adolescence.

This investigation applies Foucault’s theory of biopower for the purpose of interrogating the psychomedical powers that shape, act upon, discipline, and regulate gender-variant bodies, centering the contemporary transsexual experience. A medicalized understanding of transsexual/transgender (trans) people is given primacy in this project, despite launching a critical debate on the stability of this term. By historicizing the processes through which gender variance became medicalized, it is observed that anatomopolitical and biopolitical matrices of hegemonic powers insist on disciplining and regulating non-normative bodies for the purpose of maintaining a naturalized sex/gender/sexuality system. Bodies that transgress this system threaten species propagation, and are therefore systematically coaxed into a dualistic system of male/female to maintain social order. Within this theoretical project the following questions are explored: (1) what were the major historical processes and medical discourses that produced trans subjects?; (2) how do mechanisms of biopower circulate trans intelligibility?; and (3) in what ways do trans people resist psychomedical discourses while simultaneously transitioning from one sex to another? To unravel these questions, biopower is discussed to outline the many complex power relations that dovetail with the production of medical knowledge about trans people.

Avgi Saketopoulou begins by noting that, historically, gender atypicality and psychopathology have been collapsed into each other, as we’ve labored under the reflexive supposition that gender variance is necessarily symptomatic of trauma or of the inability to tolerate reality. More recently, however, psychoanalytic thinkers in general and child analysts in particular have worked to question such conflations and to offer us better analytic tools toward understanding what gender wants. In this chapter, Saketopoulou draws on Loewald to show that in treating such patients, the analyst’s work requires (psychic) acts of imagination if the analyst is to hold the tensions of the mismatch between the child’s gendered somatic states and the child’s bodily materiality. Clinical material from the intensive treatment of a young transgender girl, Jenny, walks the reader through the difficult affects that can be aroused by misalignments between internal experience with the body’s contours and illustrates some of their attendant psychic/somatic fragmentations. This treatment illustrates how clinical interventions rooted in contemporary relational psychoanalysis and that keep futurity in mind can help trans children and their families.

This chapter uses textual analysis to contrast heroic androgyny in series like The Legend of Zelda and NiGHTS with the mixing of gendered signifiers to convey the otherness of particular NPCs in games like Resident Evil: Dead Aim, Fable 2, and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. This chapter aims to problematize the global game industry’s acceptance of masculine-skewed androgyny as aesthetically pleasing and acceptable while portraying gender-variance as aesthetically displeasing and unacceptable. Ultimately, this chapter asks how we can interrogate the privileging of specific types of androgyny in queer games culture and criticism in response to its depiction in mainstream games culture.

This chapter explores how the trans- body can function to disrupt, or displace normative binaries, in ways that raise parallels with the bodily experiences of migrant subjects. This comparison is located in narratives of transition and journey, in which the trans- body can nonetheless refine and redefine categories of home and belonging. The ways in which gender variance and trans-national mobility operate in these texts force us to think about how bodies are read, as well as what they themselves narrate. Working alongside cyborg theory, the chapter highlights processes of cultural translation, of multilingual, multi-voiced writing, and of the adaptations (or re-animations) of these texts into different formats to suggest new ways of reading the body as text, and the text as body.

Both clinical literature and biographical accounts suggest that many transgender individuals experience shame or have experienced shame at some point in their life for reasons related to their gender identity. In clinical psychology, at least until the 1960s, shame has not received much attention; focus was on guilt and shame was regarded mainly as a ‘by-product’ of guilt. From the 1960s shame has been identified as an emotion not necessarily related to guilt and with unique features, and has been studied in connection with a number of situations, such as domestic abuse, trauma, illness, and sexual orientation. However shame has been studied less in connection with gender variance. Shame has however intrigued philosophers, writers and artists for a very long time. Yet, the importance of the contribution of various disciplines to the understanding of the experience of shame in vulnerable individuals has been overlooked. This paper attempts to explore the meaning of shame for transgender individuals, by making reference not only to clinical studies, but also to artworks and literary novels. Franz Kafka, named “the poet of shame” is particularly salient to the analysis of shame, and some of his works will enable us to shed light on the complexities of the experience of shame in transgender individuals which may defy clinical observation.

This article investigates online entertainment news, magazine, and gossip reports that use canonical terms and ideas attached to theatrical gender-bending—“drag discourses”—to identify gender variant bodies and expressions. Drag discourse pervades the coverage of female-identified menswear models Elliott Sailors and Casey Legler, and female-identified pop stars Lady Gaga and Beyonce Knowles. I first investigate why media texts use drag as descriptor, especially when it rarely aligns with public figures’ own expressions of identity or intentionality. I then investigate what I term “drag logic,” or how publics engage with drag discourse to inform or support their interpretations of embodied “realness.” I argue that drag logic is an open-ended analytic: a method of meaning making that is unpredictable and subject to individual processes. While drag logic has led to some reductive conclusions about gender variant people, I suggest the pervasive online rumor that Gaga is male-bodied demonstrates the cr...

Accounts of the experiences of gender variant individuals that have recently received attention in the popular and psychoanalytic literature have led to an increased appreciation for the complex nature of identity; gender development; and the interaction of mind, body, and the social environment. Although there is still a great deal to be learned about the developmental trajectories of transgender identities that fall within what is a more familiar, male/female binary-based landscape, even less is known about developmental pathways for individuals whose gender identities remain neither comfortably male nor female. In this article, we present selected episodes reflecting our experiences as a family, drawn from over a 25-year period in which a gender variant individual, along with the rest of us, grew up. We tell this story—our family’s story—to better understand what we have been through and learned, to help other families going through similar experiences, and as a thought-piece to clinicians and students...

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.

Gender variant and transgender youth are seeking medical care at younger ages. Pediatricians and other primary care physicians are often the first professionals who encounter such youth and their families. The goals of this article are to provide information on the epidemiology and natural history of gender variant and transgender youth, current clinical practice guidelines regarding the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for transgender youth, and limitations and challenges to optimal care.

There remains a salient need to conceptualize lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) aging as an area of study. Although the limited body of theoretical literature in this field has delineated systemic silence or invisibility as a prominent feature of marginalization among LGBTQ elders, this model does not appear to account for mechanisms of surveillance and control that often regulate sexuality and gender identity in old age. This paper represents a preliminary attempt at developing a framework of LGBTQ aging that addresses social processes in which queerness and gender variance are monitored and limited in later stages of the life course. The analysis is guided by the Foucauldian notion of neoliberal governmentality, which enables consideration of bodies of discourse and technologies of power that together drive these systemic phenomena in contemporary political and economic contexts. The paper concludes with implications of this analysis on theory and empirical inquiry in the field of LGBTQ aging.

This article presents the case of a gender variant adolescent with a history of traumatic stress. Embracing a gender nonconforming identity was a source of strength and pride for this individual. However, symptoms related to relational and secondary traumatic stress significantly impinged on this client's quality of life. This case is intended to illustrate case formulation and treatment from within a traumatogenic framework that is also affirming of gender variance and exploration.

This article details the findings of a qualitative action research project with parents of gender-variant children in Montreal, Canada. Through a unique methodology, the project aimed at understanding the issues and challenges facing parents in the process of supporting their children, as well as offering them support and an empowering platform for effecting change around them. The article explores how parents understand their children's experiences, the various challenges they themselves cope with in supporting their children, and the solutions they believe would improve their lives and the lives of their offspring. Recommendations for practice conclude this article.

A sample of BSW faculty members (n=113) responded to a survey asking about perceptions of institutional accommodations and supports for transgender and gender-variant students, about transgender content in social work courses, and about attitudes toward transgender individuals. The respondents also reported whether their program was housed in a religiously affiliated institution, a factor that was subsequently described and analyzed relative to the study's other findings. The results of this exploratory research suggest, at least with respect to its sample, generally positive attitudes on the part of faculty members, a willingness to discuss gender variance in social work classes, and teaching practices that include the use of transgender course material. However, the findings also seem to indicate a lack of training about trans inclusivity in the classroom and a need for greater awareness regarding the overall educational environment for transgender and gender-variant social work students.

Gender identity disorder (GID) and homosexuality are complex entities debated over decades, whether should be categorized as a disorder or not. There are a number of problems specifically related to the criteria of the GID diagnosis like differences in the terms trans-sexualism and GID, failure of the proposed criteria in conceptualizing the whole spectrum of gender variance phenomena, the potential risk of physically invasive examinations to rule out intersex conditions and the application of diagnosis even after hormonal and surgical treatment. We hereby report complexities faced in the case of a male to female transsexual with homosexuality and depressive disorder and its management.

Until recently, raising a young child as transgender was culturally unintelligible. Most scholarship on transgender identity refers to adults’ experiences and perspectives. Now, the increasing visibility of gender-variant children, as they are identified by the parents who raise them, presents new opportunities to examine how individuals confront the gender binary and imagine more gender-inclusive possibilities. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of “truth regime” to conceptualize the regulatory forces of the gender binary in everyday life, this work examines the strategies of 24 such parents, who represent 16 cases of childhood gender variance. Specifically, I analyze three practices—“gender hedging,” “gender literacy,” and “playing along”—through which these parents develop a critical consciousness about gender binary ideology and work to accommodate their children’s nonconformity in diverse discursive interactions. Taken together, their newfound strategies and perspectives subvert traditional conceptions of “gender-neutral” or “feminist” parenting, and reveal new modes of resistance to the normative transmission and regulation of gender practices.

Background The recent reclassification of gender identity disorder as gender dysphoria (GD) in DSM-5 identifies those seeking to pursue gender transition via specialist services as necessarily ‘distressed’ and therefore mentally disordered. Distress in gender variant clients may arise from a variety of stressors, external and intra-psychic, many of which may have their roots in childhood experience [E. Bandini et al. (2011)]. Aims (1) to review current thinking on gender variance and recognition and classification of GD (2) to detail the contribution of childhood adversity to distress in gender variant clients from an audit of 50 such clients (33 assigned/natal males and 17 assigned/natal females) of a mainstream NHS psychosexual service. Methods Current issues in classification and diagnosis of GD, and debate on the aetiology of gender variance, are reviewed briefly. Audit findings on health, treatment issues and support, and thematic analysis of childhood experiences, provide the basis for a case example of a post-transition client experiencing some common difficulties associated with GD and childhood adversity. Conclusions Pragmatism of diagnosis and treatment of GD contrasts with the variety of theories of causation of gender variance itself. ‘Distress’ as a precondition of treatment may reflect childhood experience as much as GD-specific symptoms, and may contribute more to persistent psychological vulnerability. While educational programmes in schools and a better knowledge base in counselling and related training curricula are indicated, gender dysphoric clients, pre- and post-transition, experience common life problems for which generic forms of counselling and therapy are appropriate.

Gender variance and dysphoria are present across all classes, ethnicities, and experiences, including among those with severe and chronic mental illness. In these, our most vulnerable populations, adequate assessment and treatment of gender dysphoria often is overlooked despite evidence that appropriate treatment of gender dysphoria leads to improvement in psychological functioning (Smith, van Goozen, Kuiper, & Cohen-Kettenis, 2005). The World Professional Association for Transgender Health recommend in their Standards of Care that somatic and surgical treatments for gender dysphoria should be made available to those with medical or mental illness with the caveat that "[the illness] must be reasonably well-controlled (2011)." In this article, we will utilize case-based material to elucidate the challenges of treating gender dysphoria in the context of complex mental illness such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and sexual trauma, and the pitfalls of defining "well-controlled" for the sake of treatment.

With referrals to gender identity clinics rising rapidly, GPs are more likely to meet patients who are transgender (whose gender identity, or internal sense of gender, does not match their gender assigned at birth) or diagnosed with gender dysphoria (the severe psychological distress that is experienced by an individual as a result of the conflict between their gender identity and gender assigned at birth).1 Teaching on transgender medicine is lacking in both undergraduate and postgraduate curricula, leading to a perceived lack of expertise in this area. Furthermore, General Medical Council (GMC) guidelines on the GP’s role in prescribing are vague, resulting in some controversy. As wait times for appointments at specialist clinics are often at least 18 months, primary care physicians will increasingly be involved in the initiation of the transition process: this is the process by which an individual changes their phenotypic appearance of gender to match their gender identity through medications and/or surgery. A 36-year-old patient, who was male at birth, has been living as a woman for the last 9 months. Her birth name still appears on GP records. She would like legal recognition as a woman and a referral to specialist gender services. ### What needs to be ascertained? #### Preferred pronoun and name The patient's preferred name and pronoun should be updated on the electronic patient record system; …

This qualitative study, framed conceptually by notions from Queer theory and a practice model of “virtue ethics”, attempted to explore the perceptions, attitudes, and self-reported practices of a sample of school social workers in the Northeastern United States with respect to gender socialization and gender variance in the classroom. The data, collected through individual interviews, indicate that the social workers in this study seemed willing to support and to advocate for gender-variant students. However, there also appeared to be some misunderstandings about the nature of gender identity, analyzed in this article with particular reference to the notion of “homonormativity”. It is suggested that full engagement with gender-variant students requires more training, not only for social workers, but for other school personnel, and as part of professional pre-service programs.