Ask the Therapist

Diagnosing children for Gender Identity Disorder

Hi, I am an undergraduate in Early Childhood education. I'm
currently working on an assignment on methodologies for assessing Gender
identity disorder in children 0-8 years of age. I have great difficulty
sourcing for materials through the uni library. I wonder if you could give
me a better understanding on which are the most widely used methods of
assessing GID in young children and which journals are the best for this
field of study.

The reason you are having difficulty finding source material is because no
professional in their right mind would diagnose a child of 0-8 with GID.
There is too much confusion around hyper-sexualized behavior in response to
abuse, and social role identification through subjectification of experience
for this to be a legitimate diagnosis, or, quite frankly, even a serious
discussion.

Can I suggest you look at the material on social construction and write a
paper on why this is not an appropriate use of the diagnostic criteria?
Hope this was helpful. Feel free to write back anytime with questions or
concerns. 

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