Gender identity is a sociocultural construct based (in nearly every society) on a binary norm: female and male. Transsexual individuals suffer from intense family and social discrimination because they express a dissident sexuality incongruent with this norm. They assert they feel trapped in a body that does not belong to them, so they seek help from health professionals to modify their bodies,...

Transsexuals have to face multiple medical, social and bureaucratic problems. These problems are not only encountered before the transformation, but also during and after medical procedures. In the search for improvement of transsexual individuals' quality of life during therapy, it seems desirable to supplement hormonal treatments with psychological explorations. This study was conducted with ...

OBJECTIVE To describe sexual desire in female-to-male transsexual persons post sex reassignment surgery (SRS). The associations between serum androgen levels and sexual desire are examined. DESIGN Single center cross-sectional study. METHODS Forty-five female-to-male transsexual persons post SRS completed a standardized questionnaire assessing sexual desire (Sexual Desire Inventory). In add...

INTRODUCTION Gender dysphoria (GD) is characterized by a marked incongruence between experienced gender and one's assigned at birth. Transsexual individuals present higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders when compared to non-transsexual populations, it has been proposed that minority stress, i.e., discrimination or prejudice, relevant impact on these outcomes. Transsexuals also show increas...

OBJECTIVE Sexual orientation is usually considered to be determined in early life and stable in the course of adulthood. In contrast, some transgender individuals report a change in sexual orientation. A common reason for this phenomenon is not known. METHODS We included 115 transsexual persons (70 male-to-female "MtF" and 45 female-to-male "FtM") patients from our endocrine outpatient clinic...

BACKGROUND Gender identity disorder is a rare entity in psychiatry which affects deep instincts and personal identity. A review of the recent literature has shown that research of socio-demographic characteristics of transsexual patients is sporadic. There are very few investigations which consider the socio-demographic characteristics in individuals with disharmonized sex and gender identity. ...