Room 517-D | French Speaking Podium Session Monday, July 11, 2005 Time: 8:30 AM-10:30 AM |
Early Sexual Identity Disorders / Troubles précoces de l'identié sexuelle.
Porto, Robert*,1, 1 Marseille & Montpellier University School of Medicine, France
ABSTRACT- OBJECTIVES : Through several publications, we will attempt to answer to some of the questions raised by Early Gender Identity Disorders (GID): - How parental attitudes differ according to the sex of the child who adopt a transgender behavior , - Which connection exists between child and adult’s GID ? - Which are the possible developments with these early GID ? - Which are the specific diagnosis criteria of transsexualism ? - What do we know about psychological or biological etiology of these disorders ? - Do the cognitive performances of these subjects are pertinent to their biological sex or to the psychological one ? - Which are the principles of assessment and approach of these children and adolescents ? DISCUSSION The interest of the GID is growing since fifteen years and today the main part of transgenders are member of powerful and active associations. The adolescents presenting a GID are better and better informed through web sites offering the advantage to awesome these questions, (with however the potential risk of proselytism). The more powerful support associations are in the USA. In Europe, UK (with a web site* reserved for the young people between 13 and 18), the Netherlands and Belgium are at the avant-garde of this field. * http://www.mermaids.freeuk.com/ CONCLUSIONS Psychological, social and hormonal guidelines from the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association will be commented. If in France, the hormono-surgical reassessment implies therapeutic approach and so be the concern of medicine, it seems that in the western countries and north of Europe, the choice of identity leans more on private law, what calls for an ethical debate and the harmonization of practices. Some authors recommend puberty pharmacological suppression for all adolescents presenting a GID. Safety is necessary for assessment of early GID beeing the plasticity of pre-teen psychic-life and their vulnerability during the identity process. Experts consider that only a few number of early GID will present, at the adult stage, a complete transsexualism syndrome.
Key words: gender dysphoria, identity, hormono-surgical reassessment, child, transsexualism