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by Amanda Fox

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The Benjamin Standards of Care (BSOC) have served as a long standing safety net for transsexual persons either male to female (MTF) or female to male (FTM) to help make sure that a person is truly suited to gender reassignment surgery or GRS. The BSOC takes into account not just psychotherapuetic concerns, but endcrinological and physical needs as well. When followed in full from start to finish they help provide for a smooth thorough transition process in which the patient dealing with GID (Gender Identity Disorder) and the care team can be confident in that the proper choice is being made.

The BSOC is a clinical guideline but it is flexible. Flexibility in regards to the BSOC refers to but national standards, the belief system of effective treatment as help by the treating medical team, and in some cases the patients as well. It is understood that the BSOC are not a hard fast set of regulations to be followed to the tee, but a growing ever changing body of work that should encompass the above mentioned variables while still maintaining solid legal and medical footing. This is important to encourage reasonably and safely meeting short and long term goals.

Gender Identity Disorder which is what the BSOC are designed to mmet is tackling the situation in which a person has reached a point in which their individual gender identity does not conform to their physical body in such an extreme manner that physical modification is the only avenue for that person to comfortably live. It is not uncommon for these issues to begin presenting as young as four or five years old and reach critical mass around the time puberty begins and male or female dominant physical charactheristics set in. This is a time in which the GID sufferer is confronted with varying degrees of body image problems, confusion, oft times depression, and suicidal ideations in many. At this point is when the official diagnosis of GID is generally made under DSMIV guidelines and treatment may begin. GRS is not allowed for children so young, however hormone suppresants may be adminstered to slow down or block pubescent development.

In order to move forward at the age of eighteen, or whatever is the national age of majority where the person resides, three criteria must be met. First the desire to be accepted as a memebr of the opposite physical sex must be present as well as the desire to pursue physical modification through hormonal and surgical treatment. The person must have identified these feelings for

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