Witnessing and Mirroring: A Fourteen Stage Model of Transsexual Identity Formation

By A. Devor. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy, 2004

310 citations recorded by the source corpus.

SUMMARY Coming to recognize oneself as transsexual involves a number of stages of exploration and analysis on both an interpersonal and intrapersonal level over the course of many years. A model encompassing fourteen possible stages is proposed: (1) Abiding Anxiety, (2) Identity Confusion About Originally Assigned Gender and Sex, (3) Identity Comparisons About Originally Assigned Gender and Sex, (4) Discovery of Transsexualism, (5) Identity Confusion About Transsexualism, (6) Identity Comparisons About Transsexualism, (7) Tolerance of Transsexual Identity, (8) Delay Before Acceptance of Transsexual Identity, (9) Acceptance of Transsexualism Identity, (10) Delay Before Transition, (11) Transition, (12) Acceptance of Post-Transition Gender and Sex Identities, (13) Integration, and (14) Pride.

Subfields: Gender Studies, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/967396a9c4d50245dd6beba3f84af31f7675a68e

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Citations in the corpus

Transgender College Students: An Exploratory Study of Perceptions, Engagement, and Educational Outcomes (2012, background): “Scholars suggest that females are afforded greater degrees of freedom and experience increased social tolerance when adopting masculine behaviors and appearances in comparison with men appropriating more feminine styles (Devor, 1997; Lev, 2006).”
Transgender Emotional and Coping Processes (2013, background): “For example, Devor (2004) suggested a fourteen-stage model of transsexual identity development. The proposed stages were based on anecdotal experiences of working with transsexual individuals and ranged from anxiety and confusion to discovery, acceptance, and pride in one’s gender identity. Gagne, T”
The Needs of Gender-Variant Children and Their Parents: A Parent Survey (2011, background): “(Devor, 2004; Robinson, 2010).”
Trans-Parency in the Workplace: How the Experiences of Transsexual Employees Can Be Improved. (2011, background): “For instance, transsexual employees who keep their identities hidden always run the risk of being found out (see Goffman, 1963) and will likely devote considerable cognitive effort to monitoring whether others have discovered their secret, and keeping track of to whom they have and have not…”
Being Transgender (2014, background): “A strength of our research is its inclusion of transgender participants who transitioned between gender identities (Devor, 2004) with those who do not seek to alter their gender and instead desired to live between binary gender categories (Diamond, Pardo, & Butterworth, 2011; Levitt & Hiestand,…”
Shifting Sands or Solid Foundation? Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Identity Formation (2007, background): “Devor (2004) Transgender identity; no Abiding anxiety empirical validation Confusion”
Aspects of Psychological Resilience among Transgender Youth (2011, background): “As Devor (2004) indicated, there are no socially acceptable intermediate sexes or socially acceptable intermediate genders in most social and cultural contexts.”
Trauma in Transgender Populations: Risk, Resilience, and Clinical Care (2008, background): “Transwomen may have particular problems ensuring safety in passing due to difficulty reversing the physical effects of testosterone ( Devor, 2004 ).”
Transgender Experience and Identity (2011, background): “Rather, the majority of research on transgender populations focuses on their experiences of discrimination, limited access to health care, physical health challenges, conflicting surgical outcomes, and mental health concerns ( Devor, 2004 ; L ev,2004; Zucker & Bradley, 1995).”
Guidelines for psychological practice with transgender and gender nonconforming people. (2015, unknown): “…potential link in the development of gender identity and sexual orientation, the mechanisms of such a relationship are unknown (Adelson & American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry [AACAP] Committee on Quality Issues [CQI], 2012; APA TFGIGV, 2009; A. H.Devor, 2004; Drescher & Byne, 2013).”
Voices From Beyond: A Thematic Content Analysis of Transgender Employees’ Workplace Experiences (2014, background): “Often, transition is used to refer specifically to medical and physical transformations, such as sex hormone treatments, gender affirmation surgery, double mastectomy, and facial feminization/masculinization surgeries (e.g., Bolin, 1998; Devor, 2004).”
Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender-Nonconforming People, Version 7 (2012, background): “Psychotherapy can be invaluable in assisting transsexual, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individuals with all of the following: (i) clarifying and exploring gender identity and role, (ii) addressing the impact of stigma and minority stress on one’s mental health and human development, and (ii”