International Journal of Gender & Women's Studies

Gender Dysphoric Disorder (GDD) in Adolescence: A Psycho-Social Issue for Faithbased Groups and Cultural Societies in Nigeria
Oluwatoyin Olatundun Ilesanmi (PhD)

Abstract
There exists a dearth of literature on the psychosocial consequences of the “unusual” or atypical sexual practices and gender identity disorders on affected persons and there family members as many cases are either not documented or reported in clinical settings or treated on cultural and or religious grounds. There is also a general lack of professional and research attention drawn to the nature, prevalence and management of these disorders among mental health practitioners and scholars working in faith-based and cultural societies like Nigeria. Therefore, the true incidence of these disorders in Nigeria is at present undetermined. Thus, little is known about what may be done to help people with these disorders in culture bound societies like Nigeria. Hence, the need for this paper which adopted a descriptive and interpretive double hermeneutic phenomenological survey research design to examine the faith-based and cultural definitions and responses to gender dysphoria in Nigeria. A total of 200 subjects participated in the study, one hundred from the faithbased organizations and another one hundred from different cultural groups in Nigeria. The pre-tested Faith-Based/ Cultural Definitions of Gender Dysphoric and Response Instrumentwas administered to them in their natural setting.Five (5)research questions and three (3) hypotheses were raised and tested at 0.05 level of significance using both simple descriptive statistics and Kruskal Wallis test. The results which have implications for mental health practitioners, faith-based organizations and cultural societies indicated that sexual orientation played significant role in adolescents’ religious beliefs and socio-cultural definitions and attitudes towards sexual deviations and gender dysphoria among adolescent boys and girls in Nigeria.

Full Text: PDF      DOI: 10.15640/ijgws.v3n2a17