Gender ‘Dysphoria’ and ‘Variability’: Notes on the Biomedical Management of Gender Nonconformity in Childhood and Adolescence

Abstract

This paper discusses modalities of understanding and management provided by the biomedical knowledge for the health care of transgender/gender- nonconforming children and adolescents. Taking as its object the norms, guidelines and resolutions that establish and regulate health practices for the group in question, such as the DSM-V, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH)’s Standards of Care (SOC) and the American Society of Endocrinology’s guidelines, it analyzes the diagnostic categories, their criteria and the orientations for the management of clinical interventions. Throughout the three sections of this article, the paper discusses the existing relationship between the biomedical and certain values and social concepts of gender present in these documents. The analysis suggests that despite the supposedly technical character they update some socio-cultural expectations as expressed both in the definitions of the diagnostic categories and in the orientations for hormonal interventions.