Susan's Place Transgender Resources

A Fourteen Stage Model of Transsexual Identity Formation
By Aaron H. Devor, Ph.D.

A snippet from the introduction:

Most transsexed people and most of the professionals who work with them believe that
ultimately a biological basis for transsexualism will be found. Nevertheless, no matter how much
of our lives may be ruled by biological considerations, all people live within social environments
which give meanings to the realities of their bodies and of their psyches. Over the course of our
lifetimes, each of us biological organisms must learn how to understand ourselves as we grow
and adapt to a shifting and changing world


updated link with thanks to Kaelin: http://web.uvic.ca/~ahdevor/Witnessing.pdf

Thank you, Kate Alice. Now I can read it at my leisure.

Nichole

Indeed!  Thank you kate Alice.

Busy reading at the moment - very interesting. Thanks for posting Kate Alice!

~Simone.

Wow, interesting.

*will blog about this*

I don't agree at all that the end point is being openly transexed.
That's something that's too obviously based on the gay model
which I would not agree with either.


Will there be outing campaign also for TS people ?

If stage 14 means openly out to a selected few. Or not being afraid to
say I'm a TS if asked point blank, that I could agree. But, what purpose
besides political would it serve to be "out and proud"?

Quote from: Keira on July 08, 2008, 10:02:42 AM
I don't agree at all that the end point is being openly transexed.
That's something that's too obviously based on the gay model
which I would not agree with either.

It's also because he is talking about two different identities. On the one hand, he is describing the process where one gives up their outward gender and adopts a new one. That's really what is going on, despite the party line about how transition does not really change one's gender: a lot of transsexuals do in fact make a serious attempt to identify with their birth sex, and in this sense transition includes a change in which gender one identifies with. On the other hand, he is describing the process where one discards the pretense to be cissexual and adopts a transsexual identity. These two processes are intertwined, but they are not the same.

Still, please also note also that he doesn't claim this to be the whole truth:

QuoteThis model is only intended to provide some insights into a commonly followed path. It is by no means the only path, nor will all who appear to be following it come to the same conclusions.

  Nfr

Wow, I recognize that a lot of those stages have occurred in my own journey. I'm not to the bottom of the list just yet, but the early stages are eerily parallel to my own life.

Thank you Kate Alice,

I will read it later.  Too much going on right now.   Sounds interesting.

Mistress Janet

I believe it was well written, and researched.

He seems to present some ideas that I do not believe are true at all.

For example, he seems to think that physical transition is only necessary because we're in a society with rigid gender roles and rigidly defined sex - > gender association, and I think that this ignores some of the realities that trans people live with, that if it were possible to just declare you want to be whatever gender without physically transitioning, that I think many trans people would still want to transition.

I'm very happy that regular docs have understood the issue thus far. I'm not greedy and asking to comprehend it all at once. This paper is pretty far in justice terms, IMHO. :) World is clearly getting a safer place for us.

This is a great article. I feel I have gone through much of those stages tho not necessarily in the same order or in any prolonged time frame. I plan to share it with a few friends as I think it will help them to better understand what I am going through.

While the stages are easily recognizable to anyone who has either taken this path or interacted with others who have, I have a question.

He calls this the pathway to "Transsexual Identity Formation" seeming to indicate that all 14 stages are necessary BEFORE identity is formed.  In his writing, however, it seems to contradict this expressing that identity acceptance occurs around stage 9.  Identity reinforcement is very important though after initial identity acceptance, so perhaps his argument is that "complete" identity formation doesn't happen until stage 14.  Seems odd.

I'm going to spend more time reading, but it sounds to me like the stages 10 through 14 are what might be commonly referred to as Identity Consolidation.  Actually, I don't know how common that term is, but I've encountered it several times before. 

I read it and I liked it. The writer focuses more on the social aspects of gender dysphoria rather than the body/biological aspects, but this doesn't make the paper wrong, and in fact it's perfectly accepted in academic circles to focus one's papers in a very narrow field... furthermore, the paper was published in a psychotherapy journal so it's expected to focus on psychological aspects.

Gender dysphoria has both body and social constituents. Changing society can help people with high social gender dysphoria feel more at ease and decide whether their body dysphoria is enough to require a transition.

This is a nice start. But it's a bit off, in my opinion. Good framework in need of further revision.

Link doesn't work... anyone have a copy of this that they could upload please?

It sounds interesting. :-)

It is a very old post. Probably archived by now.

http://web.uvic.ca/~ahdevor/Witnessing.pdf

  Thank you I just went to the web site and it works.Did not read everything But seems pretty interesting.

Thx for posting this I found it very helpful. I find the stages are a bit out of order for me , but the early ones all apply. I feel like I'm at the validation and finding others like minded phases.