Uncertainty is salient in many medical conditions, but particularly in gender incongruence* and differences in sex development (DSD)/intersex conditions**. Uncertainty poses serious psychological, communicative and moral challenges for everyone involved in decision-making, including healthcare professionals (HCP), parents and children. In this project it is investigated how uncertainty is displayed in interaction among HCP, among peers (adolescents/parents) and between HCP and adolescents/parents, and what these displays achieve interactionally. For this purpose, (1) multi-disciplinary meetings between HCP, (2) focus groups with peers and (3) clinical consultations are recorded, transcribed and analyzed in detail by means of interaction/conversation analysis. The findings of these analyses will in combination with a conceptual review of uncertainty be integrated and translated to clinical practice, by developing recommendations, training and/or information that support HCP, parents and children in discussing and dealing with uncertainty in transgender and DSD/intersex care.
* Gender incongruence is the experience of a mismatch between the birth-assigned sex and the experienced gender.
** DSD is an umbrella term for conditions in which the sex development differs from what is medically understood by ‘male’ and ‘female’ sex development. Outside of medicine, the term ‘intersex’ is often used to refer to the experiences of people whose bodies do not conform to the normative societal definitions of male and female.
