gender reassignment

Understanding Disordered Eating in Trans People

Tetyana 17 Comments

Gender nonconformity is the second most popular search term that leads people to Science of Eating Disorders. (After “science of eds” and beating “science of eating disorders”.) Not far behind are variants of “FtM/MtF/transsexual/transgender” combined with “eating disorder/anorexia/bulimia”. That’s telling. It means there is little information on this topic. And it is not just that there’s too little information available to the public – there are only a handful of published studies in the peer-reviewed literature.

One study (which I discussed in my previous post: Gender Nonconformity, Transsexuality and Eating Disorders) published by Vocks et al (2009), compared disordered eating patterns, body image disturbances and self-image scores among trans women and men (131 participants in both groups) and cis female and male controls as well as to females with eating disorders.

Overall, they found disordered eating patterns reported by trans women and trans men were in the middle … Continue reading →

Gender Nonconformity, Transsexuality and Eating Disorders

Tetyana 9 Comments

Too many people still mistakenly believe that eating disorders are for the Mary-Kates, Nicole Richies and Lara-Flynn Boyles, or vain adolescent and teenage girls aspiring to be just like them. Actually, as I’ve blogged earlier, even male veterans in late middle age are not immune to struggling with anorexia and bulimia nervosa. All in all, males make up ~ 5-10% of all eating disorder sufferers.

But what about those that dread having to check off “male” or “female” on a data form? What about individuals who feel their gender identity is not the same as their assigned birth sex. Perhaps they were born in a female body, with two XX chromosomes, but they feel and prefer to think of themselves as males, or the reverse? There’s some research (albeit limited, due to the rarity of both gender dysphoria and eating disorders) that suggests these individuals face an increased risk … Continue reading →