Treatment can help people who have gender dysphoria to explore their gender identity and find the gender role that feels comfortable for them, easing distress. But treatment needs to be individualized. What might help one person might not help another. The process might or might not involve a change in gender expression or body modifications.
Full Answer
Can you treat gender dysphoria without transitioning?
Combating gender dysphoria without transitioning is a war on three fronts: Frequency strategies are based on the idea that your overall mental health has a powerful effect on gender dysphoria, making it either better or worse. Therefore, you need to identify aspects of your life which obviously aggravate gender dysphoria.
What is gender dysphoria and how does it affect me?
Gender dysphoria can happen when there's a mismatch between the gender you were assigned at birth and your own experiences of gender. Your body parts may indicate that you're male or female, but you feel strongly that you're the opposite.
Why is autonomy important in the treatment of gender dysphoria?
The individual must have autonomy of thought and intention when making decisions about medical treatment. This is an especially sensitive field in treatment of gender dysphoria, because sometimes the individual's desires, hopes, and expectations might not correlate with reality.
Can you create a narrative for gender dysphoria?
You can’t create a blanket narrative for all sufferers of gender dysphoria because different personalities require different narratives. Despite this difficulty, however, you can’t shy away from the task because your narrative/explanation of why you suffer from gender dysphoria has a profound effect on the trajectory of the disease.
What happens if you don't treat gender dysphoria?
Undiagnosed or Untreated Gender Dysphoria But the distress from it may be linked to mental health problems, such as anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, depression, substance abuse disorder, eating disorders, and suicide attempts.
Does therapy help gender dysphoria?
Many work through feelings of dysphoria with the help of a trained therapist or counselor. Individuals who wish to take hormones and/or pursue surgery to better align physical characteristics with their gender may find feelings of dysphoria begin to ease as they take these steps.
Does dysphoria affect sex?
Gunn said that dysphoria can impact sex in a number of ways, including your own image of yourself as a sexual being, your understanding of what your wants and needs are, and the ways in which others treat you.
Does surgery fix gender dysphoria?
Most transwomen had undergone genital surgery, and most transmen chest surgery. Overall, the levels of gender dysphoria and body dissatisfaction were significantly lower at follow-up compared with clinical entry. Satisfaction with therapy responsive and unresponsive body characteristics both improved.
What type of therapy is best for gender dysphoria?
It's important to remember that hormone therapy is only one of the treatments for gender dysphoria. Others include voice therapy and psychological support. The decision to have hormone therapy will be taken after a discussion between you and your clinic team.
How do you treat dysphoria?
Dysphoria is a symptom, not a stand-alone diagnosis, and people often seek mental health care for feelings of dysphoria. Psychotherapy is a common tool to treat dysphoria and works by first identifying the underlying cause or conditions of dysphoria, and then by addressing the feelings or conditions that cause it.
What is the difference between sex and gender?
The World Health Organisation regional office for Europe describes sex as characteristics that are biologically defined, whereas gender is based on socially constructed features. They recognise that there are variations in how people experience gender based upon self-perception and expression, and how they behave.
Can hormones cause gender dysphoria?
Abstract. There is a likely genetic component to gender dysphoria, but association study data have been equivocal. We explored the specific hypothesis that gender dysphoria in transgender women is associated with variants in sex hormone–signaling genes responsible for undermasculinization and/or feminization.
Do you need to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria to transition?
The “diagnosis” of gender dysphoria has become a requirement for receiving medically necessary gender-affirming care for patients, even though the diagnosis doesn't apply to all trans people. As with all forms of health care, a diagnosis is required for an insurer to pay for medically necessary care.
What are the treatment options for gender dysphoria?
Treatment options might include changes in gender expression and role, hormone therapy, surgery, and behavioral therapy. If you have gender dysphoria, seek help from a doctor who has expertise in the care of transgender people.
What is gender dysphoria?
Gender dysphoria involves feelings of distress due to a strong desire to be of another gender than the one assigned and by the extent and pervasiveness of gender-variant activities and interests.
What is the procedure to change breasts?
Surgery, such as feminizing surgery or masculinizing surgery to change the breasts or chest, external genitalia, internal genitalia, facial features, and body contouring. Some people use hormone therapy to seek maximum feminization or masculinization.
Is surgery necessary for gender dysphoria?
Treatments are based on your goals, as well as an evaluation of the risks and benefits of medication use, the presence of any other conditions, and consideration of your social and economic issues. Many people also find that surgery is necessary to relieve their gender dysphoria.
Does behavioral therapy help with gender dysphoria?
Behavioral therapy isn't intended to alter your gender identity. Instead, therapy can help you explore gender concerns and find ways to lessen gender dysphoria.
What is gender dysphoria?
Gender dysphoria is a condition that can cause significant distress. The first step to relieving your fears or discomfort is to find out if you have the symptoms of gender dysphoria. If you do, you can move on to seeking mental health help for diagnosis and treatment.
What happens if you don't identify with your gender?
And, gender identity disorder gives the impression that you need to think, feel, and behave as society expects you to because of your assigned gender. That's why the DSM 5 changed the name and criteria for diagnosis.
What does it mean when you feel like you are the opposite of your gender?
Your body parts may indicate that you're male or female, but you feel strongly that you're the opposite. The dysphoria part refers to a sense of discontent or unhappiness with your biological gender and the gender roles you're expected to conform to in society.
What does it mean when you want to be the other gender?
You have a deep desire to have the primary or secondary characteristics of another gender. You strongly want to be the other gender. You want others to treat you as the other gender. You feel confident that you behave and react the same as people of the other gender usually do.
How long do gender issues last?
Furthermore, you must have at least two of the following symptoms, and they must last for at least six months.
What is your experience of gender?
Your experienced or expressed gender is the gender you feel inside. It's aligned with the gender roles that feel right to you. And it's the gender that society associates with the types of behavior that you feel natural doing.
Is gender dysphoria a mental illness?
And in the sense that mental illness indicates an abnormal way of thinking, feeling, or behaving, gender dysphoria really can't be considered a mental illness. Again, it's important to remember that it's the distress or dysphoric experience of being transgender, making it a mental problem.
What Happened?
Thousands of people who have had feelings of hurt and confusion exploited by the transgender industry and seek restoration, as I did, write to me for help.
Adverse Childhood Experiences Happened
Researchers have coined a term for this: “Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).” Psychology Today says ACE “refers to a range of negative situations a child may face or witness while growing up.” These experiences include emotional, physical, or sexual abuse; emotional or physical neglect; parental separation or divorce; living in a household in which domestic violence occurs; or living in a household with an alcoholic, substance abuser, or mentally ill person..
Real People Suffer From Reckless Diagnosis
One of the people who have contacted me is Richard Anumene, a man in his mid-twenties called Adrian in a recent article. He reached out to me only five months after his 2021 gender “surgery,” distraught to the point of considering suicide.
Road to Healing
Imagine how much tragedy could be avoided if gender therapists treated people for adverse childhood experiences to begin with.
Why can't you create a blanket narrative for all sufferers of gender dysphoria?
You can’t create a blanket narrative for all sufferers of gender dysphoria because different personalities require different narratives. Despite this difficulty, however, you can’t shy away from the task because your narrative/explanation of why you suffer from gender dysphoria has a profound effect on the trajectory of the disease.
Why is transition more likely for trans women?
When a transwoman subscribes to the above narrative, transition becomes much more likely because it’s the logical remedy for being stuck in the wrong body. By contrast, a dysphoric who’s into the autogynephilia narrative reduces the likelihood of transition because the desire to be a woman is interpreted as a fetish.
What is the unnatural existence of a life without love and sex?
That’s where narrative steps in. The unnatural existence of a life without love and sex is made tolerable by religious narrative; a sexual and romantic void is filled by a story of doing God’s work. Suddenly, an empty life becomes noble, admirable and complete – all because of narrative.
What is the goal of transgender people?
The goal of most transgender individuals is to live as the opposite sex. If this were not true, there would be no concern about “access to healthcare” or medical necessity. If one could simply enjoy whatever gender identity felt the most appropriate at any given time, medical intervention would be merely cosmetic.
What is gender identity?
Gender identity is an “ innermost knowing ,” an issue of hormone imbalance, the result of a male brain in a female body, or a ‘transsexual’ brain, maybe an inherited characteristic, and many other possibilities, depending on whom you ask. According to some, gender is an inborn and permanent state; for others, a fluid awareness that might change by the day. How is it possible that a condition so insusceptible of consistent definition could be universally declared fatal without medical treatment?
Why was Chelsea Manning pardoned?
August 3, 2017 (Witherspoon Institute) — In a recent discussion on Twitter, Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning), pardoned by President Obama after being convicted of espionage, argued that transgender “treatment” is necessary for the health of trans individuals, “because,” Chelsea stated, “not getting medical attention for trans people is fatal.”
Do trans men get pregnant?
As many trans men prefer to keep their reproductive organs and become pregnant, this risk is even higher . The body’s aggressive and persistent attempt to return to a state, despite medical interventions to override that state, indicates that the state is “natural.”.
Can trans people be comfortable in society?
Without medical treatment (expensive surgery and lifelong hormone therapy), social acceptance, correct pronoun use, and open bathroom access, trans people will never be comfortable in their bodies or in society.
Is gender dysphoria fatal?
If gender dysphoria is indeed naturally fatal without treatment, the only ethical solution is to find a cure that exposes the body to the least amount of risk. Obviously, this would be to correct the biological problem and/or address the psychological distress behind the dysphoria itself.
Diagnosis
Treatment
- Treatment can help people who have gender dysphoria explore their gender identity and find the gender role that feels comfortable for them, easing distress. However, treatment should be individualized. What might help one person might not help another. Treatment options might include changes in gender expression and role, hormone therapy, surgery, ...
Clinical Trials
- Explore Mayo Clinic studiestesting new treatments, interventions and tests as a means to prevent, detect, treat or manage this condition.
Coping and Support
- Gender dysphoria can be lessened by supportive environments and knowledge about treatment to reduce the difference between your inner gender identity and sex assigned at birth. Social support from family, friends and peers can be a protective factor against developing depression, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, anxiety or high-risk behaviors. Other options for support include: 1. …
Preparing For Your Appointment
- You may start by seeing your primary care provider. Or you may be referred to a behavioral health professional. Here's some information to help you get ready for your appointment.