Professional Case Studies and Transsexualism

http://www.ts-si.org/thompson-&-gaughan/3221-professional-case-studies-and-transsexualism
7/2/11
Lisa Thompson & Sharon Gaughan   

Case study research represents an important opportunity for transsexual inquiry, with benefits that extend to the entire population.

For many years, there was little meaningful investigation into transsexualism, with efforts largely confined to particularly undisciplined versions of social science research. The full array of scientific tools lay unappreciated and unused, with scant attention and funding for biology, hard data collection, analysis, experiments, surveys, multiple histories, and in-depth mining of archival information.


While we have made significant progress, clinicians and patients with a transsexual history still seldom benefit from systematic research specific to their birth condition. In fact, data from counseling and related intake activities most often go unreported or screened from candidate datasets as puzzling exceptions.