SAMPLE
Gender Identity/gender Dysphoria
QUESTIONS
❖ Have you felt satisfied being a woman?
❖ Have you felt uncertain about your gender,
that is, feeling somewhere in between a
woman and a man?
❖ Have you felt that you were not a real
woman?
❖ Have you felt unhappy about being a woman?
❖ Have you felt uncertain about yourself, at
times feeling more like a man and at times
feeling more like a woman?
❖ Have you felt more like a man than like a
woman?
❖ Have you felt comfortable when using
women's restrooms in public places?
❖ Have strangers treated you as a man?
These are questions taken directly from the
Female Version of the GIDYQ-AA (2007). It
inquires about how the client feels in relation to
their gender. They are prompted to respond to
each question as “Always, Often, Sometimes,
Rarely, or Never” and to report their answers
from experiences from the past 12 months.
REFERENCES GIDY Q-A A
Questionnaire for Adolescents and Adults
Leah I. Johnson, M.A
American Psychological Association. (2015).
Guidelines for psychological practice with
transgender and gender nonconforming people.
Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/practice/
guidelines/transgender.pdf.
American Psychiatric Association. (2013).
Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental
disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American
Psychiatric Publishing.
Deogracias, J., Johnson, L., Meyer-Bahlburg, H.,
Kessler, S., Schober, J., Zucker, K. (2007). The
gender identity/gender dysphoria questionnaire for
adolescents and adults. Journal of Sex Research.
44(4). pp. 370-379.
McCann, E., Brown, M. (2018). Vulnerability and
Psychosocial Risk Factors Regarding People who
Identify as Transgender. A Systematic Review of
the Research Evidence. Issues in Mental Health
Nursing. 39(1). pp. 3-15.
Laoch, A. & Holmes, C. (2018). Serving
Transgender Clients in the Digital Age. Journal of
LGBT Issues in Counseling. 12(3). pp. 193-208. The GIDYQ-AA was designed to assess
gender dysphoria, uncertainty, and/or
Staples, J., Bird, E., Masters, T., George, W.
(2018). Considerations for Culturally Sensitive transition on a continuum of varying
Research With Transgender Adults: A Qualitative degrees between biological males and
Analysis. The Journal of Sex Research. 55(8), pp. biological females in relation to an
1065-1076.
individual’s birth sex. It consists of 27
Whitman,C. (2017) Transgender Criminal Justice: items pertaining to gender identity /
Ethical and Constitutional Perspectives. Ethics & dysphoria derived from the clinical
Behavior 27(6), pp. 445-457.
experience of a North American Task
Force on Intersexuality Research
Protocol.
Recent information gathered by Laoch & Holmes
(2018) identified that individuals who struggle
with Gender Identity/Dysphoria are less likely to
have access to health services . They explore how
the implementation of technology based
counseling can help mental health professionals
expand their reach to this population and “deliver
culturally competent technology-infused
transgender affirming mental health counseling”.
For example, the GIDYQ-AA, the consent forms,
and the demographic forms can all be accessed
online using forums such as survey monkey.
In conclusion, The Preamble of the APA Ethics
Code (2010) states that “psychologists are
committed to increasing scientific and
professional knowledge of behavior and
people’s understanding of themselves and
others and to the use of such knowledge to
improve the condition of individuals,
organizations and society.” Therefore,
clinicians may use this tool to fulfill their
obligation to identify and resolve ethical
issues in ways that respect the identities and
experiences of their clients.
G I DY Q - A A
According to the American Psychiatric Association (2013), Gender Dysphoria involves a conflict between a
person’s assigned gender and the gender with which they identify. This instrument assesses how congruent an
individual’s thoughts and feelings about their gender are with their biological gender.
According to The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (2013), Gender Dysphoria in adolescents
and adults, lasts at least six months and is shown by at least
two of the following criteria:
The GIDYQ-AA is a dimensional measure. It is unique in
that not many studies on transgender individuals have
attempted to assess gender identity in this way for both
adolescents and adults. (Deogracias, et al. 2007) Legal
factors to be considered when administering it to
adolescents are guardian consent and ensuring it is
presented in terms that are clear and concise. It does change
the language for younger clients to “boy” and “girl”, but
ensuring the results are definitively communicated to a
younger client and their parents is vital.
The strengths of this assessment are that it can be
administered to varying populations such as
adolescents, adults, cis gender males/females,
transgender males/females, heterosexual, bi-sexual,
and homosexual males/females. It is versatile in that it
can be used in highly specialized populations or in
general populations and because it contains subjective,
social, somatic, and socio-legal indicators, it can be
used across professions as well. Therefore, it has
strong psychometric properties.
❖ A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/
expressed gender and primary and/or secondary sex
characteristics.
❖ A strong desire to be rid of one's primary and/or
secondary sex characteristics.
❖ A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary
characteristics of the other gender
❖ A strong desire to be of the other gender
❖ A strong desire to be treated as the other gender
❖ A strong conviction that one has the typical feeling and
reactions of the other gender
Multicultural considerations are this study was
conducted based on a recent increase in people who
identify as transgender, but don’t necessarily desire
gender reassignment surgery; therefore, do not meet
the criteria for a GID diagnosis based on the DSM-V.
Thus, considering a subset or alternative population
that may fall on a different end of the spectrum, but
still seek treatment for a similar diagnosis. (Staples,
Bird, Masters & George, 2018)
The limitations of this assessment are although
it is fairly easy and self explanatory in its
administration, however, its results are not as
easily interpreted or presented. Additionally,
this tool can be administered to cis gender,
heterosexual males and females, but has very
little clinical significance other than possibly
creating a baseline to compare potential GID
client’s results.