Raines, Jamie and Holmes, Luke and Watts-Overall, Tuesday and Slettevold, Erlend and Gruia, Dragos and Orbell, Sheina and Rieger, Gerulf (2021) 'Patterns of Genital Sexual Arousal in Transgender Men.' Psychological Science, 32 (4). pp. 485-495. ISSN 0956-7976

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Abstract

Most men show genital sexual arousal to one, preferred gender. Most women show genital arousal to both genders, regardless of their sexual preferences. There is limited knowledge whether this difference is driven by biological sex or gender identity. Transgender individuals, whose birth sex and gender identity are incongruent, provide a unique opportunity to address this question. We tested whether the genital responses of 25 (female-to-male) transgender men followed their female birth sex or male gender identity. Depending on their surgical status, arousal was assessed with penile gauges or vaginal plethysmographs. Transgender men’s sexual arousal showed both male-typical and female-typical patterns. Across measures, they responded more strongly to their preferred gender than other gender, similar to (but not entirely like) 145 cisgender (non-transgender) men. However, they still responded to both genders, similar to 178 cisgender women. In birth-assigned females, both gender identity and biological sex may influence sexual arousal patterns.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sexual arousal, gender identity, transgender, sexual orientation
Divisions:	Faculty of Science and Health Faculty of Science and Health > Psychology, Department of
SWORD Depositor:	Elements
Depositing User:	Elements
Date Deposited:	18 Dec 2020 09:38
Last Modified:	06 Jan 2022 14:20
URI:	http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/29390

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