Review of a Peer-Reviewed Article
The article by Kaltiala-Heino, Bergman, Tyolajarvi and Frisen (2018) examines the literature available on gender dysphoria (GD) and the need to better understand the phenomenon of adolescents seeking hormonal treatment as teens while having psychiatric comorbidity. Because of a lack of understanding of the role that GD plays in the current trend of requesting hormonal therapy, the authors of this article saw a need to consolidate available information on GD, hormonal therapy, and adolescents with psychiatric comorbidity receiving hormonal therapy. The aim of the article is to provide more insight into what is actually known about this phenomenon and how doctors, psychologists, and patients should proceed. The article is well-written and focused on explaining the major issues at play and why they are important. As such, it should be viewed as an important source of information that is both non-biased and informative. As there is much that is non-scholarly in the debate or rather promotion of gender identity politics, this article fills a hole in the conversation by supplying much needed reference to legitimately scholarly data that can be used to frame the conversation in a properly scientific, academic and non-prejudicial way.
The study begins by defining gender dysphoria, which is described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) as a real psychological disorder. The definition supplied by the DSM-5 and paraphrased by Kaltiala-Heino et al. (2018) is this: gender dysphoria is a psychological condition wherein the individual experiences a lack of congruence between his or her biological sex and the gender with which the individual self-identifies (p. 31). In other words, any individual who identifies as a gender other than that which is represented by the sex the...
Yet, such people are not being diagnosed with gender dysphoria in the
mainstream media or in much of the medical world. Instead, they are celebrated as pioneers in the field of gender politics for taking steps in asserting the gender with which they self-identify and altering in some cases their biological sex to achieve congruence.
The authors then focus on what the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) says about transsexualism: the ICD is described as defining transsexualism as a
disease in which a person is uncomfortable with his or her natural sex and wants to change...…in the field are rushing too headlong and too fast into a mode of treatment that is not based upon any conclusive evidence of having a positive or beneficial impact on the patient’s bio-psycho-social health (p. 38). The authors argue that childhood transition to adulthood is fraught with many perils and that transitioning through a period of discomfort and uncertainty is normal and part of the
conflict of that developmental stage that all adolescents go through, as Erikson has pointed out.
In
conclusion, the study is a very good one in terms of asking unanswered questions about the assumptions often made and acted upon by researchers, academics, medical doctors and psychologists with respect to treating gender dysphoria and transsexualism. These are issues that should be considered sensitively but also ethically. To engage in a treatment method that could cause more harm than good without first understanding the full spectrum of the patient’s mental health status is to invite scrutiny, and the authors of this text are applying that scrutiny to an issue where it is long overdue. The document is well-researched and well-written and concludes with an appeal for caution and increased understanding of the stakes for adolescents if the present…
