Social Introversion Personality Trait as Predictor of Internalizing Symptoms in Female Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria.

The personality trait of social introversion refers to the individual inclination toward the inner/outer world. Moreover, adolescents who experience Gender Dysphoria (GD) can be involved in relationship conflicts with family, peers, and friends and experience stigmatization and rejection from society. This leads higher distress in females which are more sensitive to this kind of feelings. This leads in them frequently developing a negative sense of well-being and low self-esteem which increases their risk of internalizing symptoms. So, the aims of this study were: (1) to investigate the presence of significant differences in Social Introversion (SI) dimensions between an assigned-female at birth (AFAB) GD group and a cisgender female group both diagnosed with a depressive disorder, (2) to verify whether the two clinical groups may be characterized by different profiles of internalizing symptoms, (3) to investigate if the SI dimensions could promote the internalizing symptomatology. Our results confirmed the presence of significantly higher score in GD sample for MMPI-SI scale and subscales and showed no significant difference in depressive profiles. Lastly, SI could promote internalizing symptomatology in AFAB underlying a link between SI and depression in this condition which should be further investigated.

Body Emotional Investment and Emotion Dysregulation in a Sample of Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria Seeking Sex Reassignment.

Adolescents with gender dysphoria (GD) often have internalizing symptoms, but the relationship with affective bodily investment and emotion dysregulation is actually under-investigated. The aims of this study are: (1) the comparison of Self-Administrated Psychiatric Scales for Children and Adolescents' (SAFA), Body Investment Scale's (BIS), and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale's (DERS) scores between GD adolescents (n = 30) and cisgenders (n = 30), (2) finding correlations between body investment and emotion regulation in the GD sample, (3) evaluating the link between these dimensions and internalizing symptomatology of GD adolescents. In addition to the significant impairment in emotion regulation and a negative body investment in the GD sample, Spearman's correlation analyses showed a relationship between worse body protection and impaired emotion regulation, and binary logistic regressions of these dimensions on each SAFA domain evidenced that they may have a role in the increased probability of pathological scores for depression. Our results focused on the role played by emotion regulation and emotional investment in the body in the exacerbating and maintenance of internalizing symptoms, in particular depression, and self-harming behaviors in GD adolescents.