Could you imagine living every day in a body you do not feel like you belong in? It is very rare but it is estimated that 1 in 12,900 males and 1 in 33,800 females are dealing with this issue called gender dysphoria (Hoeksema, 2014). Gender dysphoria is when a person’s physical sexual identity they were born with does not match the one that they identify with. This diagnosis replaces gender identity disorder in previous DSM. Gender dysphoria is no longer treated as a disorder and tried to be cured but, is recognized to help people obtain treatments to help them physically identify with themselves and get help with other mental and emotional distress that come with gender dysphoria.
History
Gender dysphoria used to be identified as gender …show more content…
For many years it was psychiatric condition. There has been much research to show the genetic factors in biological makeup of humans causing gender dysphoria. Gender is determined in utero by which chromosome is inherited by the father. The father’s contribution is an X chromosome for a baby girl and a Y for a boy. Just like all fetus development, gender development can be altered by things like hormonal changes and genetic mutations, as well as social and environmental factors. The social and environmental factors are believed to be the role the parents have on forming the gender identity in their children. A child spends every day learning from their parents or those in the home, learning how to do everything. Just like all other behavior, gender-appropriate behaviors are rewarded and punished. Society has deemed clothing, toys, colors, behaviors and more to be either girl or boy appropriate. Due to this, girls get dresses and homemaker toys while boys get their hair cut short and play with tools. When children decide to play with the gender opposite toys or want to wear the other clothing, parents discourage it or punish it. It is common in those with gender dysphoria to have been able to take on whichever role they wanted as a child, with no direction from the parents. Some parents even push the child to take on the other role and some may have wanted the other sex when they had a child. The social learning …show more content…
In fetal development, the baby receives the Y chromosome to make the baby a male. This will develop the testes that will continue to release male hormones. These hormones have to be a certain amount during a specific time period to masculinize the baby. If this doe not happen when and how it is supposed to, the baby could be left completely emasculated. Another explanation could be that one’s sense of sex is in the brain. There have been recent studies done post mortem of an area of the hypothalamus in male-to-female, female-to-male, control group of female and male and men castrated due to cancer. This study showed a part of the brain believed to be in charge of sexual behavior. The finding were that this area of the hypothalamus was similar for female and male-to-female transgender, male and female-to-male transgender and men castrated due to cancer were somewhere in between. These new studies show that for whatever reason our sense of sex in the brain may not always develop of that of out physical sex thus causing gender dysphoria. There are other rare causes of gender dysphoria. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia is a condition most often found in girls. It is where their bodies are producing too much or too little sex hormones. This could cause ambiguous genitalia in girls and could play a factor in gender dysphoria. Another cause is an intersex condition or hermaphroditism.
History
Gender dysphoria used to be identified as gender …show more content…
For many years it was psychiatric condition. There has been much research to show the genetic factors in biological makeup of humans causing gender dysphoria. Gender is determined in utero by which chromosome is inherited by the father. The father’s contribution is an X chromosome for a baby girl and a Y for a boy. Just like all fetus development, gender development can be altered by things like hormonal changes and genetic mutations, as well as social and environmental factors. The social and environmental factors are believed to be the role the parents have on forming the gender identity in their children. A child spends every day learning from their parents or those in the home, learning how to do everything. Just like all other behavior, gender-appropriate behaviors are rewarded and punished. Society has deemed clothing, toys, colors, behaviors and more to be either girl or boy appropriate. Due to this, girls get dresses and homemaker toys while boys get their hair cut short and play with tools. When children decide to play with the gender opposite toys or want to wear the other clothing, parents discourage it or punish it. It is common in those with gender dysphoria to have been able to take on whichever role they wanted as a child, with no direction from the parents. Some parents even push the child to take on the other role and some may have wanted the other sex when they had a child. The social learning …show more content…
In fetal development, the baby receives the Y chromosome to make the baby a male. This will develop the testes that will continue to release male hormones. These hormones have to be a certain amount during a specific time period to masculinize the baby. If this doe not happen when and how it is supposed to, the baby could be left completely emasculated. Another explanation could be that one’s sense of sex is in the brain. There have been recent studies done post mortem of an area of the hypothalamus in male-to-female, female-to-male, control group of female and male and men castrated due to cancer. This study showed a part of the brain believed to be in charge of sexual behavior. The finding were that this area of the hypothalamus was similar for female and male-to-female transgender, male and female-to-male transgender and men castrated due to cancer were somewhere in between. These new studies show that for whatever reason our sense of sex in the brain may not always develop of that of out physical sex thus causing gender dysphoria. There are other rare causes of gender dysphoria. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia is a condition most often found in girls. It is where their bodies are producing too much or too little sex hormones. This could cause ambiguous genitalia in girls and could play a factor in gender dysphoria. Another cause is an intersex condition or hermaphroditism.