Gender Dysphoria

Excerpt

The origin of the word gender came from the Old French "gendre" (now termed "genre"), which meant "kind, sort, genus." Generally, children are assigned to their gender at birth based on their anatomy and chromosomes. For most children, this gender assignment corresponds to their gender identity, an innate sense of identifying oneself as male or female. Some children might experience incongruity and grow into transgender adults.

Gender dysphoria (GD), according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5), is defined as a "marked incongruence between their experienced or expressed gender and the one they were assigned at birth." It was previously termed "gender identity disorder."

Children or adolescents who experience this turmoil cannot correlate to their gender expression when identifying themselves within traditional societal binary male or female roles, which may cause cultural stigmatization.

This can further lead to relationship conflicts with family, peers, and friends in various aspects of their daily lives and lead to rejection from society, interpersonal conflicts, symptoms of depression and anxiety, substance use disorders, a negative sense of well-being, and poor self-esteem, and increased risk of self-harm and suicidality.

More awareness must be created to perceive gender expression as a continuum from male to female rather than fixed binary norms. This might help society to understand the population and reduce the burden of mental health problems created by the associated stigma.

The term gender should not be confused with sexual orientation. A transgender man (biological female) may identify himself as heterosexual and still be sexually attracted to women and vice versa.