Affirmative Psychological Testing and Neurocognitive Assessment with Transgender Adults

Neither consensus on best practice nor validated neuropsychological, intelligence, or personality testing batteries exist for assessment and psychological testing on the transgender population. Historically, assessment has been used in a gate-keeping fashion with transgender clients. There are no firm standards of care when considering the content and appropriateness of evaluations conducted presurgically. These evaluations are discussed in the setting of other presurgical evaluations, with a recommendation to move toward a competency to make a medical decisions model. Additional considerations are discussed, such as effects of transition on mood and how to interpret scores in a field where normative data are often gender stratified.