Atypical Gender Development - Evaluations

Support for cross-wiring - Ramachandran and MGeoch: support for their explination with reference to comparisons between GID patients and normal individuals who had had surgery to remove their sex organs (e.g. for cancer). Around 60% of non-GID men who have to have penile amputation experience phantom penis, but only 30% of of GID men have such experiences, suggesting that there are no wiring to a 'penis representation' in their brains in the first place. Similarly, only 10% of FtM paitents experience phasntom brests senstations after surgery to remove brests.

Support for social explinations - Zucker et al studied 115 boys with concerns about their gender identity and their mothers. Of the boys who were eventually diagnosed with GID 64%, were also diagnosed with separation anxiety disorder, compared to only 38% of the boys whose symptoms were subclinical. This points to some kind of disordered attachment to a mother as a factor in GID but this only accounts for MtF transsexuals. Zucker was also involved in another study that found high levels of emotional over-invlovment in mothers of boys with GID, supporting the view of some family psychopathology underlying the condition. However, not all research supports the…