Objectives The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between gender identity and physical treatment among transgender people in Japan. Many previous studies have argued that the gender identity of transgender people was supported by physical treatment. In fact, do transgender people who have had hormone and surgical treatments exhibit a stronger gender identity than non physical treatment transgender? In this study, gender identity about groups by treatments was analyzed.
Methods The participants numbered 275 transgender people (MTF were 120, FTM were 155). According to the psychiatrist, all transgendered in this study had been diagnosed with gender identity disorder. Participants answered concerning some types of their physical treatments. And they also responded to the “gender identity scale (Sasaki, in print)”.
Results The analysis was oneway, and the independent variable was the type of physical treatment, and the dependent variable was gender identity. There were six categories for FTM (non-responsive group, psychotherapy only group, mastectomy group, hormone therapy group, hormone therapy and mastectomy group, and genital surgery group) and four categories for MTF (non-responsive group, psychotherapy only group, hormone therapy group, and genital surgery group). The results showed that the main effects on “persistent gender identity (F(5,149) = 5.70***, p<.001)”, “perceived gender identity (F(5,149) = 14.38***, p<.001)”, and “socially adapted gender identity (F(5,149) = 2.60*, p<.05)”. Multiple comparisons (Tukey) revealed that there were significantly higher scores for the “hormone therapy and mastectomy group” and “genital surgery group” than for the “non-responsive group” and “psychotherapy only group” for FTM. But for MTF, there were no significant differences by treatment groups.
Conclusion It was found that FTM with physical treatments had higher gender identity than FTM without physical treatment, but not for MTF. Perhaps, this may infer a contribution from the ease of appearance change for FTM, and a lower social acceptance for MTF.
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