On this page, I’m trying to give answers to the following questions: Aside from self-reported feelings of transsexuals, is there physical evidence/a biological basis for transsexuality? If there is such evidence, does it support or make plausible the feelings of gender dysphoria reported by transsexuals? Is transsexuality a psychopathological mental disorder or associated with such disorders? Is there psychological evidence for the self-reported feelings of transsexuals? Spoiler alert: The answers are yes, yes, no and yes. I have tried to answer the questions by making a list of observations and supporting them with evidence from current scientific research. One of the main questions about transsexualism is whether the self-reported feelings of transsexuals are mere delusions, detached from objective reality, perhaps caused by or related to mental illness, or whether there is objective physical evidence than can confirm the existence of gender dysphoria. Plenty of such evidence has been found, suggesting transsexualism is not a psychopathological disorder, but has its roots in a very real incongruence between the gender of the brain and the physical sex of the body. Neither the brain nor the body of transsexuals seem disordered. 1. Brain functions and structures 2. Heredity and Genes 3. Other physical differences 4. Psychiatric/psychological findings References To provide evidence for the observations above, a number of scientific studies is listed. Please have a browse. I very much appreciate corrections, amendments and additions. All abstracts are taken verbatim from the respective studies, only the highlighting is mine. To avoid distorting the studies, the included abstracts are usually full-length, even if some parts are not relevant to the observation detailed in the chapter. Please read the original studies for more information; often the contents are even more interesting than the carefully worded abstract. Some studies are listed twice to illustrate separate points. I tried to provide mainly recently published and peer-reviewed studies and avoided case studies with few participants. Articles are listed chronologically by chapter; key points relating to the observation made in the respective chapter are highlighted. I would like to express my gratitude to all researchers and contributors to human biology and medicine – your work is continuously making this world a much better place for all of us. Thank you so much! Navigation/Back to main pages This page is part of the four main reference pages: What is transsexualism? | What causes transsexualism? | What helps? More evidence: Disorders of sex development (DSD) A summary of the findings of the reference pages is given here: Summary More references can be found here (articles not directly relevant to the observations discussed on the main reference pages): Other references A short essay on the biological basis of transsexualism is here: Biological basis A short discussion regarding possible contradicting evidence is here: Evidence against? Back to: Gender, sex and all that | Cakeworld Homepage |
What is transsexualism?
Subpages (8):
References 1.a: Brains of transsexuals resemble their target gender
References 1.b: Brains of transsexuals are in-between male and female
References 1.c: Brains of transsexuals differ from their birth gender
References 2.a: Is transsexualism hereditary?
References 2.b: Can genes cause transsexualism?
References 3.a: Transsexuals differ physically from their birth gender
References 4.a: Mentally, transsexuals resemble their target gender
References 4.b: Transsexualism is not a mental illness