My name is Karl Mears and I am doing a PhD at the University of Bath in the UK. I am currently running a study where I interview people who experience gender dysphoria to get their opinions on some existing questionnaires of GD. The purpose of the interviews are to get the voices of the groups the questionnaires are intended to help to understand what are good / bad about these questionnaires and how they could be improved.
I am mindful that not everyone that accesses your service will experience GD. We only require a handful of people to complete the study and I would like to ask if it would be possible to have some help in recruiting a small number of participants who experience GD. As a thank you for taking part, we are paying people £10.
Interviews will last for up to an hour. If you would like more information, email: ktm24@bath.ac.uk
I truly appreciate your time for reading this.
Best wishes
Karl
Euphoria — ?
//c//
Hi Charlotte, as I wrote in the Beaumont Magazine several years ago, for me it is definitely euphoria having transitioned, but unfortunately many trans people are trapped in a situation that is far from euphoric. We can only hope that the resources can be found to support everyone who needs it.
Hi Jane and Charlotte, I totally concur with what Jane says. I experienced GD even though I was not aware at the time that that was what it was, now having transitioned, first socially and now surgically I can only agree that I now have what I would describe as GE, i.e. Gender Euphoria – this went to another level after surgery but was pretty good before TBH. There are far too many trans people who are stuck as Jane says in a far from ideal situation and I am not advocating that transitioning either socially, medically or surgically is a panacea for all, but there must be a level where trans people can feel a level of satisfaction and be at peace with themselves – whether that has manifested as GD or not, it never does for some. That may be the occasional dressing at home, or brief excursions outside somewhere away from home, with or without their partners knowledge, if they have a partner. Maybe it is come to terms with in a sexual way, at “play” events perhaps, or maybe living quite happily dressing at some times and not at others. Or indeed socially, medically and/or surgically transitioning. There are people who exist at all of these states and many others I haven’t mentioned, some of them are happy and many are not and this society exists at least in part to help those in particular that are not.
I have put myself forward for the interview and one of the things I shall be asking is about why the study Karl is doing is linking autism necessarily with GD as surely the link, if there is one, is between autism and trans. I am also going to ask about whether the link is a correlation or a causation link, although that may be the purpose of the study to determine as I think that the link is merely the fact that autistic people, and I know this is a generalisation, tend to be more willing to express their feelings less self-consciously than perhaps is the case for a non-autistic person, so may be more willing to say that they are trans and that this is what biases the previous studies to there being a link.
Andrea xxx