38 Chapter 2 The role of the social context in the way gender dysphoria is perceived The study shows that the way gender-variant behaviour of minors is perceived is very different in the various countries. Some informants think that the way gender-variant behaviour is approached influences to a large extent whether it is pathologized or not. “I believe that hypothalamic blockers treatment satisfies clinicians’ anxiety, pathologizing individuals with gender dysphoria, inducing them to follow the sex-gender binarism.” - Interview with a psychiatrist “You might think that the experience of gender dysphoria is kind of a solution [for all their problems] that is culturally available for adolescents nowadays. […] I think that the culture is kind of offering or allowing this idea that all problems are stemming from the gender problem. And then they stick to this fixated idea and [they] seek for assessment and we readily see that they have numerous and relatively serious psychological and developmental problems and mental health disorders.” - Interview with a psychiatrist Some informants wondered in what way the increasing media attention affects the way gender-variant behaviour is perceived by the child or adolescent with GD and by the society he or she lives in. They speculated that television shows and information on the internet may have a negative effect and, for example, lead to medicalization of gendervariant behaviour. “They [adolescents] are living in their rooms, on the internet during night-time, and thinking about this [gender dysphoria]. Then they come to the clinic and they are convinced that this [gender dysphoria] explains all their problems and now they have to be made a boy. I think these kinds of adolescents also take the idea from the media. But of course you cannot prevent this in the current area of free information spreading.” - Interview with a psychiatrist Furthermore, interviews and questionnaires show that treatment teams feel pressure from parents and adolescents to start with treatment at earlier ages.
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