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Making gender identity disorder of childhood: Historical lessons for contemporary debates

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Abstract

Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood (GIDC)—a psychiatric diagnosis given to gendervariant children—has been controversial since its creation. Critics inside and outside of the mental health professions have called for the removal or revision of GIDC, arguing that it has served to pathologize homosexuality, to enforce normative notions of masculinity and femininity, and to recast a social problem as individual pathology. Drawing on published clinical and research papers, archival materials, and interviews with clinicians, researchers, and advocates, this article analyzes early studies of gendervariant boys from the 1960s and 1970s and describes the process through which the GIDC diagnosis was created. The article examines some of the limitations of current debates over GIDC and points out new trends that hold the most promise for providing support to gender-variant children.

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  1. Department of Sociology, Ellison Hall, University of California, 93106-9430, Santa Barbara, CA

    Karl Bryant

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Bryant, K. Making gender identity disorder of childhood: Historical lessons for contemporary debates. Sex Res Soc Policy 3, 23–39 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1525/srsp.2006.3.3.23

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