Written by a biopsychologist, this book describes and explains transsexualism and transgenderism (TSTG) from a scientific vantage point. Why does a male violate cultural gender rules and dress and act as a woman? Why does a female violate cultural rules to dress and act as a man? Why do some males and females undergo radical medical procedures in order to permanently change their bodies so that they are closer, respectively, to female and male bodies? In this book, a Princeton University-trained physiological psychologist explores dozens of theories about what may spur transsexual and transgender (TSTG) thinking, exposes the myths of fetishism, homosexuality, prenatal hormones, or child rearing as causes, and explains the two causes that are supported by current science. Covering a breadth of topics that include neuroanatomy, choice, psychodynamics, and transsexual transition, author Thomas E. Bevan, PhD, synthesizes the pertinent research regarding transsexualism and transgenderism across 22 scientific disciplines. The book covers various gender systems from antiquity to historical and contemporary cultures that support the biological basis of transsexualism and transgenderism, addresses human development from the time prior to conception through adulthood and potential transsexual transition, and corrects common myths and assumptions about TSTG individuals, such as that crossdressing is basically motivated by a desire for sexual arousal. The book also includes sections that cite definitions of key terms and identify related reading, organizations for support, and current TSTG events worldwide.

Transsexualism refers to the most extreme form of incongruity between an individual's gender identity and anatomic sex. In 1994, the diagnosis of transsexualism was replaced with ”gender identity disorder" by the DSM-IV committee. Transsexualism is associated with distress because the individual, due to his/her physical characteristics, is not treated as a representative of the gender he/she identifies with and cannot therefore live in a gender role with which he/she identifies. The sexual anatomy of the body also feels alien and inappropriate. Transsexualism that causes distress is treated with sex reassignment therapy. The aim is to alter body characteristics and anatomy closer to those of the target gender as well as to facilitate the integration into the social role of the opposite sex. Investigations and surgery are often only available in specialist centres.

Changing Sex takes a bold new approach to the study of transsexualism in the twentieth century. By addressing the significance of medical technology to the phenomenon of transsexualism, Bernice L. Hausman transforms current conceptions of transsexuality as a disorder of gender identity by showing how developments in medical knowledge and technology make possible the emergence of new subjectivities. Hausman's inquiry into the development of endocrinology and plastic surgery shows how advances in medical knowledge were central to the establishment of the material and discursive conditions necessary to produce the demand for sex change--that is, to both "make" and "think" the transsexual. She also retraces the hidden history of the concept of gender, demonstrating that the semantic distinction between "natural" sex and "social" gender has its roots in the development of medical treatment practices for intersexuality--the condition of having physical characteristics of both sexes-- in the 1950s. Her research reveals the medical institution's desire to make heterosexual subjects out of intersexuals and indicates how gender operates semiotically to maintain heterosexuality as the norm of the human body. In critically examining medical discourses, popularizations of medical theories, and transsexual autobiographies, Hausman details the elaboration of "gender narratives" that not only support the emergence of transsexualism, but also regulate the lives of all contemporary Western subjects. Changing Sex will change the ways we think about the relation between sex and gender, the body and sexual identity, and medical technology and the idea of the human.

Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment had its origins in the advisory board meetings of the Henry Benjamin Foundation. In the earliest stages, it was discussed as a volume that would embody the findings of the research group working directly under the auspices of the Foundation. it soon became evident that such a limitation would make the book unnecessarily parochial. It would, for example, have excluded those patients who were treated and operated at the newly constituted John Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic and who were not also patients in the Harry Benjamin Foundation research study, as well as the important body of work being done elsewhere, especially in Europe.

There are few topics in sex research as compelling and confounding to researchers, clinicians, and the general public as that of transsexualism. Upending normative notions of gender, eroticism, and identity, it poses significant scientific and clinical challenges. The book addresses a fascinating and largely unexplored topic within the study of transsexualism: The feelings and desires of conventionally masculine men who are attracted to women yet want to become women themselves. Through a collection and discussion of vivid first-person narratives, the book provides an in-depth examination of these men's unusual propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of themselves as women and how these men's sexual feelings influence their decisions to seek or undergo sex reassignment. These narratives about autogynephilia by autogynephilic male-to-female (MtF) transsexuals provide the first comprehensive documentation of the erotic ideation that underlies the most common form of MtF transsexualism. The narratives provide empirical evidence for Blanchard's theory of MtF transsexual motivation, and thus are of interest to researchers and theorists studying the phenomenology of MtF transsexualism. The narratives are likely to be eye-opening to psychologists, psychiatrists, physicians, and other professionals who work with MtF transsexuals: Most clinicians probably do not fully appreciate the erotic underpinnings of their clients' condition. A better understanding of their clients' autogynephilic feelings and motivations would enable these professionals to provide more empathetic and effective clinical care.

Transsexualism is a stimulating, proactive and important book. Colette Chiland does not back away from difficult issues. She forces all of us to look at our assumptions about t5ranssexualism and to re-examine what gender and sex really mean' - Christine Ware, author of Where Id Was: Challenging Normalization in Psychoanalysis 'In a nutshell, the book offers a much-needed alternative view of transsexuality from a psychiatric and European point of view... Chiland's interesting and well presented book is a valued reminder of how different the same topic can appear in an alternative perspective' - Transgender Tapestry Colette Chiland exhibits a masterful and encyclopedic knowledge of transsexualism, drawing together the insights of depth psychology, psychoanalysis, history, anthropology and sociology for rethinking transsexualism in terms of identity, subjectivity and the wider socio-historical world. This book is written with considerable precision on complex, technical issues, whilst at the same time keeping the broader question of the relationship between transsexualism and society firmly in mind.