Testing a new hypothesis for neurobiology of gender dysphoria across various gender identities

The concept of gender identity is target for great attention, as there is a trend among young adults to define themselves as nonbinary (NB), and the requests for sex-assigning treatment are steadily raising among persons defining themselves as transgender.

Both groups express incongruence with at birth assigned sex,  gender dysphoria (GD), with an alarmingly high risk for suicide.

The project further investigates our new hypothesis about incongruence  in self- body perception, in GD, the neurobiological correlates, and their dynamic. The hypothesis, is based  on multimodal MRI studies and behavioral tests.

GD is more complex than initially believed and the medical society can not be passive.The proposal opts to: (a) quantify  own body self incongruence with new  tools we developed, and advanced MRI. Further-more, we aims to: (b).

Characterize different GD phenotypes, by including persons identifying as having non-binary GD - a rapidly increasing condition in socie-ty, the origins of which are unknown. To (c).

Investigate why homo-and bi-sexuality is common in persons with GD, and  disentangle between cerebral underpinnings of gen-der identity and sexual orientation .Significance:  increase awareness about GD complexity. Develop  tools and guidelins to  individually tune assistence, with pro-fessional evaluation.

Mission: to storongly work against bullying and minority stress, to provode professional knowledge, and hopefully unreveal the neurobiolgy of GD across various gender