Gender Dysphoria: Causes, Symptoms, Treatment

In the modern world, the term "gender dysphoria" is used quite often. What is such a mysterious disorder? Is it possible to solve such a problem exclusively surgically? What is the reason for such a violation? These questions are of interest to many people.

What is usually called gender dysphoria?

It is unlikely that the average person ever experiences discomfort or dissatisfaction with his own sex. But, alas, this is not always the case. Gender dysphoria is a condition in which a person simply can not accept his gender status.

Congenital sex signs and the appearance of a person with a similar disorder do not correspond to how he feels himself inside. For example, gender dysphoria in women is expressed in the fact that, despite the set of genitals, they feel like men and, conversely, men consider themselves to be women. Such a dissonance between appearance and features of the psyche is difficult to tolerate, causing constant anxiety, suffering and disappointment.

Gender Dysphoria: Causes

A few years ago, this phenomenon was considered a mental disorder, and people with a similar diagnosis were recommended courses of psychotherapy. But recent studies have determined that gender dysphoria is not a mental illness or a violation. In most cases, this condition is associated with a violation of certain biochemical and physiological processes that are responsible for the development of gender identity, and these disorders appear even in the period of intrauterine development. On the other hand, active research on this issue has just begun, and scientists and researchers have yet to find out the exact causes of such changes.

Gender Dysphoria: Symptoms

In fact, the first signs of such a condition can be seen even in childhood, and in different children it is expressed in different ways. Here are just some of the most common symptoms that accompany gender dysphoria:

• Rejection of the model of behavior, characteristic of the sex of the child. Instead, there is a desire to participate in games or activities with children of the opposite sex.
• Refusal or dislike of clothes worn by other children of the same sex.
• Refusal of the conventional method of urination, for example, girls can write standing, and boys, on the contrary, sitting.
• Dislike of their own sexual organs and hopes to get rid of them in the future.
• Persistent attempts to prove their belonging to the opposite sex.
• For such children, the appearance of signs of puberty becomes a real tragedy (for example, boys do not like voice changes and characteristic hairiness, and for girls the appearance of the breast becomes an extremely heavy stress).

In fact, gender dysphoria can look different. In some people, signs appear almost from infancy, while others appear during sexual maturation. Each case of violation of gender identity is unique in its manifestations.

Classification of the disorder: the scale of gender identity of Harry Benjamin

The first attempt to create a classification system for violations of sexual identity is the so-called Benjamin scale, which consists of six categories:

• Pseudo-transvestism.
• Fetishistic transvestism.
• True transvestism.
• Non-op transsexualism.
• Nuclear transsexualism with an average degree of gender dysphoria.
• Nuclear transsexualism with a severe degree of gender dysphoria.

Child gender nonconformity and its consequences

Gender nekonformnostyu called the state in which there is a violation of the correspondence between the sex and the model of human behavior. By the way, they say that they are unconformity if the disorder is diagnosed in children. What is the discrepancy? For example, a child of adolescent age can identify with the opposite sex. For example, small boys adore dressing up in a dress, girls play traditional boyish games, etc. Often such a violation is one of the first signs of gender dysphoria, and sometimes leads to the development of homo- or bisexuality in the future.

Are there effective methods of treatment?

Of course, the methods of helping people suffering from problems with sexual identification are only now beginning to be developed. First of all, such patients need the help of a psychologist or psychotherapist. Classes with a specialist help people to understand the characteristics of their personality and put up with them. In addition, patients with gender dysphoria often simply can not adapt in society, as they suffer from a lack of understanding from close, familiar and even unfamiliar people. These problems can also be solved with the help of therapy sessions. Of course, this is far from being all methods of correction for people diagnosed with "gender dysphoria" - treatment can be more radical.

In some cases, using special procedures, a person is helped to change sexual characteristics. For example, with the help of hormonal drugs you can change the physiological characteristics of the organism, making a man look like a woman and vice versa. Naturally, the most effective means is a surgical procedure for sex change, which, alas, is not suitable for every person with similar problems.

Does everyone need an operation to change sex?

Quite often, the only way to establish a person's life is an operation to change sex. With such a surgical intervention, women are removed from the uterus, and the male reproductive organs reproduce from the patient's own tissues and special implants. Men, on the contrary, relieve the external genitalia, forming a female vagina from their own tissues.

Of course, before going to the surgeon's desk, the patient undergoes a lot of research, as doctors first need to make sure that there is indeed gender dysphoria and whether a person can cope with the consequences of the operation. For example, there are some standard requirements for patients. To begin with, it should be noted that they must all be of age. In addition, a person who wants to change sex must undergo a series of psychological checks that make it possible to determine the absence of mental illness.

The change of sex helps a person to create a balance between different facets of his personality. In turn, this gives the patient a sense of integrity, happiness and harmony.

Absence of treatment and its consequences

In many people with normal sexual identity, questions about sex change operations cause genuine bewilderment, and the very phenomenon of gender dysphoria is perceived as a kind of fad. In fact, transsexuality is by no means a whim, and sex change is the only possible way out. After all, as already mentioned, the discrepancy between sex and consciousness affects the mental state of a person. For example, denial of the problem, lack of understanding among others and the inability to get rid of one's own thoughts, desires cause constant emotional discomfort, suffering and pain, which often leads to clinical depression, drug or alcohol dependence, development of suicidal tendencies.