What is it about?
This article is about the history of the use of psychological assessments for trans people to access gender-affirming care. It focuses on the creation of World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care. It also describes trans people's historical perspectives on psychological assessments, including how race, class, and sexuality shaped their experiences.
Featured Image
Photo by Luba Ertel on Unsplash
Why is it important?
In the current moment when the requirement for psychological assessments is no longer universal, it can be helpful to understand why assessments were used in the first place. Why was assessment originally central to the founding of WPATH? How did trans people respond at the time? How do those histories still affect trans people?
Perspectives
I hope this article will help folks understand the history of psychological assessment for access to care in trans communities. It particularly focuses on trans people's own historical perspectives on assessment, which have been underrepresented.
Elliot Marrow
University of Massachusetts Boston
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: “Why should other people be the judge”: The codification of assessment criteria for gender-affirming care, 1970s–1990s., History of Psychology, August 2023, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/hop0000238.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
