The Edmonton Sun (2008) printed an interview with Canadian psychiatrist and transgender specialist Lorne Warneke yesterday. Warneke expresses doubt about the "official" rates of transsexualism in the population. The "generally accepted numbers", according to the article, are 1 in 67,000 for male-to-female transsexuals and 1 in 100,000 for female- ( Read more... )

Cognitive testing on people undergoing transgender therapy is rare, but has happened on a few occasions. The Netherlands seem to be the source of much of this research. Van Goozen et al (1995) found differences in spatial and verbal ability in both female-to-male and male-to-female transsexuals after just three months on hormone therapy. Hulshoff ( Read more... )

The Local (3/1/07) reports that Carina Bladh (Linköping, Sweden) was outraged to discover that her car insurance premium jumped up when her official sex changed from female to male. After her complaint, the insurer decided to lower her premium back to its prior level. According to Esurance's website (2007), in the U.S., gender only figures into ( Read more... )

Humans make judgements about the perceived gender of other humans so quickly that we are usually not aware of having done it. What factors influence these snap decisions? Ganel et al (2002) suggest that identity and gender are inseparably linked in cognitive facial recognition. This is in contrast to other models that suggest identity and sex ( Read more... )