Cohen-Kettenis PT, Dillen CM,
Gooren LJ.
Universitair Medisch Centrum, afd.
Kinder- en Jeugdpsychiatrie, Utrecht.
Abstract [Full Text] [PDF]
For more than ten years transsexual
adolescents have been diagnosed and treated psychologically at the
department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University Medical Centre in
Utrecht, the Netherlands. The medical part of the treatment takes place at
the Academic Hospital of the Free University of Amsterdam.
Diagnosis is done in two phases: the first
diagnostic phase and the 'real life test'. In this second phase the ability
to live in the opposite gender role is tested. Gender dysphoric
non-transsexual adolescents are offered psychological or psychiatric
interventions.
For transsexual adolescents with the
express wish to undergo a sex change two types of hormones are prescribed.
First, hormones which halt the own pubertal development, then cross-sex
hormones with irreversible effects. Surgery for adolescents is not different
from surgery for adults.
Although the cause of transsexuality is
probably impaired sexual differentiation at cerebral level, it appears that
the risk of unjustified treatment is higher when the treatment is
administered at an early age than in adults; justified treatment, however,
has better results when it is administered at an early age.
Citation:
Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd 2000 Apr 8;144(15):698-702 an article published on the
Internet by PubMed <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/>
