This paper is widely reported to be the first major published study looking at the experiences of a trans person with an eating disorder. In 1998, Surgenor & Fear published a case study reporting on a 25-year-old trans patient at an eating disorder clinic. I’m always pleased to learn.Īmong the studies highlighting eating disorders among trans individuals, the case study has been most prominent. I’m bound to offend someone when navigating the language, so please call me out if I do so. It is not my intention to spark debate around these labels in this post, but this is something to keep in mind when interpreting literature in this area. What I mean to say in this very unwieldy, brief, and simplistic discussion is that there are politics around language use. As I am obviously unable to ask these individuals which pronoun they prefer, I will adopt a more neutral “they” when referring to specific individuals below.Īlso, “ trans woman” refers to an individual who identifies as a female but was assigned male at birth, and vice versa for “ trans man.” (In contrast, “ cisgender”/” cis woman”/”cis man” refer to individuals whose experience of their gender match the sex they were assigned at birth.) The literature often also refers to “biologically female” and “biologically male” participants, which can also open up a whole new can of worms, particularly if participants are referred to by pronouns concordant with “biological sex” depending on whether or not they have undergone gender reassignment surgery. If you are interested in learning more about the debates about this label, there are some interesting articles (see here). However, there is also a legacy of discrimination and marginalization surrounding the terminology and labeling of trans people that may lead to a rejection of the label. This label can be useful in terms of obtaining coverage for gender reassignment surgery, much in the same way having a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa may allow treatment to be covered under insurance plans. I am far from an expert in this area, however, a basic debate to keep in mind relates to how trans individuals feel about being labeled as having a “disorder.”
Often, the academic literature uses clinical terms such as “GID” for gender identity disorder however, there is a fair amount of controversy surrounding the clinical label of GID. I will use the word “trans” to refer to this population. It might be helpful to explore some of the language used in such studies before beginning. To focus this discussion, I will explore an article I came across in my search by Murray, Boon, and Touyz ( 2013) presenting case studies of two trans eating disorder patients. Tetyana has also blogged about some other articles in this area, including a study by Algars et al. While this is good news for arguing for the value in conducting research in this area, it is discouraging news when it comes to understanding and attending to the experiences of trans people with eating disorders.Īll this is to say, it seems as though now is as good a time as any to dip my toes into writing in this area through blogging about it. After sending out a call to a list-serv enquiring about the state of the field in this area, I received many responses highlighting the gap that surrounds trans individuals in particular. As one does, I set about scouring the research literature in this area in the hopes of stumbling across some prior articles on which to hang my proverbial research hat.Īs I sifted through the databases, however, my searches kept coming up short. Recently I was doing some research for an upcoming (and very exciting) endeavour that involves exploring eating disorders among LGBTQ individuals.
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