More than just hormones: A psychological approach of sexuality in transgender people

Transgender people experience an incongruence between their gender identity and sex assigned at birth. Because of this, some experience great psychological distress. In order to improve this distress, many will at some point undergo gender affirming medical treatment, such as hormone treatment or genital surgery. You can probably imagine that the so called ‘gender dysphoria’ and the related medical treatment influence how comfortable someone feels between in the bedroom. Just imagine you would have to have sex in a body that does not suit you, or what might happen if your testosterone levels increase suddenly. However, we know fairly little about sexual well-being in transgender people. This thesis uses various methods (such as a diary study and brain research) to investigate how transgender people fare sexually at various stages of a gender transition. Additionally, the thesis partly has a meta-scientific character in the sense that it includes a chapter on the ethics regarding neuroscientific research with transgender participants.