Beyond Gender Identity
Date
1987
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Publisher
ORCID
Type
Degree Level
Doctoral
Abstract
This work begins with a review and critique of the construct of gender identity. The construct is challenged on the grounds of its lack of practical utility and meaningfulness, its inconsistent empirical support, and its inappropriate application to transsexualism. It is argued that gender disorders (e.g., transsexualism) can be better understood from the perspective of gender dysphoria than from that of gender identity. Furthermore, distinctions are made between the experience of gender dysphoria per se, the wish to be the opposite sex, and the pursuit of sex-reassignment surgery (SRS). These are construed as related but distinct phenomena. From this theoretical framework, study is undertaken of the wish to have been born a boy, as manifested by a nonclinical population of female university students. While clearly exploratory, such investigation was seen to have the potential to provide a broader perspective on the wish to be the opposite sex, and perhaps on gender dysphoria itself. From a sample of 110 female university students who had completed a battery of paper-and-pencil measures, the 39 whohad experienced post-pubertal wishes to have been born a boy were interviewed. Subsequent analysis of interview data allowed classification of these 39 subjects into subgroups dependent upon the reasons for the wish. Most common were wishes to be a boy in order to attain some of the perceived advantages of males, which ranged from a girl's desire to participate in activities limited to boys, to her belief that as a boy she would have been able to escape from some threat or would have been better liked by a parent. Less common was the wish to have been born a boy as manifested by subjects who felt different from other girls and that they should have been" boys. Following detailed analysis of interview data, subjects' responses on the paper-and-pencil measures permitted testing and extension of the interview-based understandings developed of the subject subgroups. The broadened perspective provided by this exploratory study of the wish to be the opposite sex contributed substantially to the reformulation of the theory of gender dysphoria in females. This reformulation speaks to a broad range of women, not only those with severe gender dysphoria (commonly called transsexualism), and emphasizes the importance of developmental processes and of the meanings that are self-attributed to behavior and gender. Rather than frame gender dysphoria as a matter of gender identity, it is understood as importantly associated with the acceptance and integration of femaleness into the self. Considerable attention is paid to the influences on this acceptance and integration of femaleness, and to their influences on subsequent functioning and adaptation. Factors involved in the development and/or exacerbation of gender dysphoria, and in sex-reassignment surgery reframed as analogous to the consideration and pursuit of (SRS) are explored. SRS itself is any other fantasy solution, except that medical technology permits its realization. Finally, the construct of gender identity is revisited, redefined, and deemed irrelevant to the-understanding of gender dysphoria
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Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Department
Psychology
Program
Psychology