Boy or Girl?

[Shana A]

Boy or Girl?
By: Shirah Vollmer, MD
December 9, 2009

http://everydaypsychology.co.cc/?p=18087

From 1990 to 1992, I worked at the Los Angeles Gender Center. The Los Angeles Gender Center is a group of clinicians who evaluate adults who are searching for a medical intervention to change their appearance so that the world will respond to them in the way that matches how they feel. To the extent that self concept may be informed by how a person understands how others perceive them, then when there is a disconnect between how one feels and how one is perceived, mental distress ensues. When faced with this dilemma, there are options. One could seek psychotherapy to help them deal with this discrepancy. One could seek hormones and surgery to change their appearance so that others respond differently to them. One could try to change society such that there is a continuum between male and female. Perhaps the combination of these three options is the answer.