Gender Dysphoria By Tomas Nuñez, ThD

Gender Dysphoria

By Tomas Nuñez, ThD

Gender dysphoria is the term for a profound sense of discomfort and distress that can occur when your biological sex doesn’t match your gender identity. In the past, this was called gender identity disorder. For example, you may be assigned the female gender at birth, but you have a deep internal sense of being a man. For some people, this discordance can lead to severe discomfort, anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions.

 

Causes

Gender identity refers to how you feel and identify, and can be as a woman, a man, or both. Gender is typically assigned at birth based on the baby’s external appearance (genital organs) of either a man or a woman according to the social construction of a two-gender binary system (male or female).

If your gender identity matches the gender you were assigned at birth, this is called cisgender. For example, if you were born biologically male and identify as a man, you are a cisgender man.

Transgender refers to identifying with a gender that is different from the biological gender you were assigned at birth. For example, if you were born biologically female and assigned female, but have a deep internal sense of being a man, you are a transgender man.

Some people express their gender in ways that don’t fit traditional binary social norms of male or female. This is called nonbinary, gender nonconforming, genderqueer, or gender expansive. In general, most transgender people do not identify as nonbinary.

It’s important to note that the anxiety transgender people may feel due to having the wrong gender body is very distressing. As a result, the transgender community has a higher rate of mental health issues and attempted suicide.

No one knows precisely what causes gender dysphoria. Some experts believe that hormones in the uterus, genes, and cultural and environmental factors may play a role.