Dana Jennett Bevan Ph.D. – författare

Written by a biopsychologist, this book describes and explains transsexualism and transgenderism (TSTG) from a scientific vantage point.Why does a male violate cultural gender rules and dress and act as a woman? Why does a female violate cultural rules to dress and act as a man? Why do some males and females undergo radical medical procedures in order to permanently change their bodies so that they are closer, respectively, to female and male bodies? In this book, a Princeton University-trained physiological psychologist explores dozens of theories about what may spur transsexual and transgender (TSTG) thinking, exposes the myths of fetishism, homosexuality, prenatal hormones, or child rearing as causes, and explains the two causes that are supported by current science.Covering a breadth of topics that include neuroanatomy, choice, psychodynamics, and transsexual transition, author Thomas E. Bevan, PhD, synthesizes the pertinent research regarding transsexualism and transgenderism across 22 scientific disciplines. The book covers various gender systems from antiquity to historical and contemporary cultures that support the biological basis of transsexualism and transgenderism, addresses human development from the time prior to conception through adulthood and potential transsexual transition, and corrects common myths and assumptions about TSTG individuals, such as that crossdressing is basically motivated by a desire for sexual arousal. The book also includes sections that cite definitions of key terms and identify related reading, organizations for support, and current TSTG events worldwide.

Written for general audiences, this unprecedented book comprehensively answers many questions about being transgender with current experiential and scientific information, including the evidence for a biological transgender predisposition.With transgender people visibly achieving fame in entertainment, the literary world, and other arenas, increasing numbers of transgender people are choosing to publicly announce that they are transgender. All of this has brought transgender people and the associated issues of being transgender into mainstream discourse. The demand for fact-based, scientific information on being transgender has never been higher. Written by a transgender person who is also a physiological psychologist, this book is the first for general readers that explains what is known about transgender causation, what life as a transgendered individual is like, and the science involved in living a transgender life.This book serves to improve understanding of being transgender among general audiences—including transgender readers—by describing the science and experience of being transgender. It supplies an enlightening understanding of what if feels like to be transgender, when it starts, the many paths for living a transgender life, and methods to face challenges such as bullying and rejection. It provides a worldview that transgender people are neither broken nor diseased, but rather that they exhibit transgender behavior because of a biological predisposition for which there is solid scientific evidence.