posted 21 Jun 2014, 09:28 by Cake Kidd
Heya,
today is the longest day of the year! If you have enough time in-between watching football and celebrating summer solstice, I got a few new studies for you (well, at least new to me... some of the 14 of the studies are not quite new). So here goes:
- Teresa Lladós finds in a brand new study (2014) that prenatal steroids influence brain dvelopment and suggest cognitive differences between men and women.
- In another brand new study of about 400 people with gender dysphoria, a Japanese group (Takaharu Hori et al.) studied the psychological status of transsexuals (Bulletin of the Osaka Medical College, 2014) and found they were more psychologically abnormal than cisgender people, but that the psychological abnormalities reduced with treatment, approaching normal psychological scores. This is a very relevant result, as it provides further evidence that gender dysphoria causes psychological problems, not the other way round. When gender dysphoria is cured by hormone therapy, changing gender role and sex reassignment surgery, the psychological issues of transsexuals diminish and become similar to those of non-transgender people.
- Samuel Davis and Stacey Meier report in the International Journal of Sexual Health in 2014 that testosterone treatment reduces anger significantly in female-to-male to transsexuals. It also reduces depression and anxiety. Chest reconstruction surgery helps with body satisfaction. Another proof that hormone treatment is beneficial.
Most added studies I put on the other references page, as they are interesting, but do not relate directly to the main points I’m gathering facts about. Here is a short overview: - I included the executive summary of the US national transgender discrimniation study (University of California, 2014). It makes for dire reading... use your own discretion in deciding whether to have a look at it... it’s enourmously detailed, and depressing... to quote just one fact, transsexuals have a lifetime suicide attempt rate of 42 % to 46 %, compared with 4.6 % of the overall population.
- Rylan Testa et al. (2014, Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health) finds that knowing other transsexuals benefits the psychological status of transsexuals.
- Saralyn Russell gives a good overview on the current state of diagnosing and treating gender dysphoria in the Western Undergraduate Psychology Journal (2014).
- The research team around the famous Louis Gooren finds in 2013 that hormone treatment does not increase breast cancer risk for transsexuals (The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 2013).
- Weigert et al. write in Plastic and reconstructive surgery (2013) that breast augmentation surgery for male-to-female transsexuals provides significant increases in psychosocial and sexual well-being.
- In an article by R. Green (Archives of sexual behavior, 2000), which I have managed to overlook until now, ten case reports for the multiple occurence of gender dysphoria within familes are given.
- Ditte Slabbekoorn (I love Dutch names!) et al. writes in a study published in Psychoneuroendocrinology (1999) that hormone treatment changes spatial ability.
I hope the above somewhat represents the key facts of the studies I added. So, if you are not too tired from celebrating or if you are sad that your team was kicked out of the world cup already, then the international World Humanist Day tomorrow gives you another reason to party!
PS: I’m not a football fan – I just love the atmosphere, the excitement and the community feeling of great tournaments. ☺
|
|