OBJECTIVE To identify the strengths and weaknesses of Spanish healthcare protocols for transsexual persons and to compare them to current international protocols. To review the current status as regards transsexuality etiology and prevalence. To suggest measures to optimize care to achieve a significant improvement, including options for saving financial resources. METHODS A comparison of the...

CONTEXT Since the discovery of its central role in reproduction, our functional neuroanatomical knowledge of the hypothalamic kisspeptin system is predominantly based on animal studies. Although sex differences in kisspeptin expression have been shown in humans in adulthood, the developmental origin of this sex difference is unknown. OBJECTIVES Our objectives were to determine the following: ...

Research on human beings has expanded greatly due to progress and the evolution of society as well as customs. Not only the unceasing development of research on human beings, but also interference in the beginning and end of life with homologous and heterogonous human reproduction, surrogate motherhood, cloning, gene therapies, eugenics, euthanasia, dysthanasia, orthothanasia, assisted suicide,...

Social interactions require fast and efficient person perception, which is best achieved through the process of categorization. However, this process can produce pernicious outcomes, particularly in the case of stigma. This study used fMRI to investigate the neural correlates involved in forming both explicit ("Do you like or dislike this person?") and implicit ("Is this a male or female?") jud...

This article examines the case files of patients diagnosed with Transvestitismus [transvestism] in the Psychiatric Clinic of the Helsinki University Central Hospital in the years 1954-68. These individuals did not only want to cross-dress, but also had a strong feeling of being of a different sex from their assigned one. The scientific concept of transsexuality had begun to take form, and this ...

Animal experiments and observations in human brains have convincingly shown that sexual differentiation not only concerns the genitalia but also the brain. This has been investigated also in the light of a possible explanation of a presumed biological aetiology of transsexuality. The volume of the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, a brain area that is essential for...

Martin Plöderl, Ph.D., born 1972, is involved in research at the Suicide Prevention Research Program, Institute of Public Health, Paracelsus Private Medical University Salzburg, Austria. Research topics are: suicide risk and sexual orientation, studies on high risk patients, choice of suicide methods, and suicide prevention in school. Activities as clinical psychologist include crisis intervent...

The groundbreaking and prophetic rhetoric of neuroscience has recently highlighted the fetal brain as the most promising organ for understanding why transsexuals feel "trapped in the wrong body", and for predicting whether children born with "ambiguous" genitalia will grow up to feel like a man or a woman.This article proposes a recent history of the cerebralization of intersexuality and of tra...