Medicine and psychology have tried to cure gender identity disorder or transgender behaviour or feelings ever since it came to their attention in the middle of the 19th century. Only occasionally reports about “cures” can be found, and almost all of them lack a follow-up.
Also, all of those reports can be matched with the stories of transgender people who at one point left a treatment as cured. (Some transgender people were in fact “cured” several times.) It never worked, unless the reason for transgender behaviour could clearly be identified as laying outside of the person showing this behaviour.
Medical treatment for changing a person’s sexual characteristics is not a cure for transsexual or transgender feeling or behaviour, but can help transsexual persons to live in a gender role that is more appropriate to their gender identity. But while there will most likely always be transgender people who will need this kind of medical treatment, the best help transgender people can get is social acceptance in a gender role that fits their identity, regardless of their individual perception of their appropriate gender role or their individual need for medical treatment.
Lisa Angelettie, M.S.W., is a psychotherapist, author, and life coach. She has been helping people make smarter life choices since 1998. Get more free tips like this when you subscribe to the GirlShrink newsletter .
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