Significant Other

Helping to Make Your SO Supportive

Notes on Gender Role Transition
Anne Vitale Ph.D. Editor
A Significant Other View
by Julie Freeman

This article is reprinted with permission from DEVIL WOMAN, the Diablo Valley Girls newsletter. Ms Freeman is the wife of a crossdresser. She can be reached at Julie39@comcast.net

Posted Jan 13, 2014

Helping to Make Your SO Supportive

A friend of mine whom I correspond with on a fairly regular basis asked me what could crossdressers do to make their significant others more supportive. As we all know, there are some significant others who are accepting from the very beginning and have little problem with crossdressing or even transsexualism. But then there is the other extreme -- wives and partners who cannot tolerate the idea of a husband who desires to crossdress. It is very difficult to reach this latter group as their minds are already made up to resist any action on the part of their husband, support group, helping professional, or even other wives to become supportive or at the very least try to learn ...
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When To Tell

Notes on Gender Role Transition
Anne Vitale Ph.D. Editor
A Significant Other View
by Julie Freeman

This article is reprinted with permission from DEVIL WOMAN, the Diablo Valley Girls newsletter. Ms Freeman is the wife of a crossdresser. She can be reached at Julie39@comcast.net

When To Tell

No matter how many meetings one may attend, no matter how many gender birthdays one may celebrate, no matter how many seminars one may frequent, no matter how many outreach activities one may participate in, it is still astounding how many individuals are STILL deep in the closet, unaware of support groups for the transgendered and their families and friends. You would have thought by now that everyone must be out - there have just been too many talk shows on gender and too many movies on crossdressing for anyone to be left in the dark.

But perhaps in the dark is where many prefer to remain. Certainly we know that society is still hostile and that openness and candor in the wrong place at the wrong time, unfortunately...
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The Gender Variant Phenomenon--A Developmental Review

Notes on Gender Role Transition
The Gender Variant Phenomenon--A Developmental Review
By Anne Vitale Ph.D.

January 27, 2003

NOTE: This is taken, in part, from a paper I wrote in 2001 entitled Implications of Being Gender Dysphoric: A Developmental Review. It was peer reviewed and published in Gender and Psychoanalysis, An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 6 No. 2, Spring 2001, pp 121-141. I have updated it and post it here to make it available over the internet.

ABSTRACT

Living in conflict with one of the basic tenets of existence (Am I male or am I female?) is understandably anxiety provoking. This fact leads me to suggest that Gender Identity Disorder as this conflict is described in the DSM IV, is not an appropriate descriptor. I suggest here as I have elsewhere (Vitale, 1997, 2001) that instead the condition be termed Gender Expression Deprivation Anxiety Disorder (GEDAD). After explaining my thinking on gender expression deprivation anxiety, I will describe how this anxiety, if left untreated, is manifested in each of the five developmental stages of li...
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Additional Resources and Referrals

Notes on Gender Role Transition
By Anne Vitale Ph.D.

Additional Resources and Referrals
Last Update: July 14, 2018

DISCALIMER: The sites, individuals, and organizations listed here are for the reader's convienence only. Information contained on each site is created and maintained by their respective authors. A listing here does not necessarily constitute an endorsement by Dr. Vitale.

Wives and Significant Other Information

Carol Leigh moderator on the CDSO on-line forum for wives and SO's. My purpose is to try to build self-acceptance within transgender persons, and then, even more importantly, build self-acceptance in the SPOUSE of the transgender person. These, frequently wives, are the ones who much finally reach self-acceptance of "herself" as the spouse of a transgender. Until BOTH parties reach this self-accepting phase, there is still a very long hill ahead.

My Trans Parent, A user guide for when your parent transitions. By Heather Bryant

From the back cover:...
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Gender Dysphoria Program Guidelines

Notes on Gender Role Transition
By Anne Vitale Ph.D.

Return to Notes on Gender Role Transition Home Page

Gender Dysphoria Program Guidelines
-- as used in my practice.
My Philosophy:
There is no clearly understood cause for Gender Identity Disorder. However, we have enough information about fetal and childhood development to implicate a complex interaction of events.

Nature starts out the human developmental process by using the female schema as a base. For a male embryo to develop, something must be added. That something must be a Y chromosome inherited from the father. Further, that Y chromosome must contain a gene known as the Testes Determining Factor (TDF), telling the embryo to differentiate along male lines and develop male genitalia. All embryos without the factor (even if the Y Chromosome is present) continue to develop undifferentiated as female. (More info about this)

Nature takes male d...
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