Gender Dysphoria: Overview and Psychological Interventions

Abstract

AbstractIn the DSM V, the condition known as “Gender Identity Disorder” becomes “Gender Dysphoria” in order to avoid the stigma of being labeled as carriers of psychopathology. Gender Dysphoria (GD) refers to mental discomfort deriving by incongruence between the expressed gender and the assigned one. The term Transgender refers to identities or gender expressions that differ from social expectations typically based on the birth assigned sex. Not all people living “Gender Variance” express psychological or physic discomfort. The personal gender identity develops influenced by emotionally significant relationships and by socialeducational environment, based on predisposing biological characteristics. Most of clinical and psycho-social studies agree on multifactorial nature of this process, focusing on the combined action of biological, psychological, social and cultural factors. The first symptoms of gender dysphoria may appear from first years of life and then they may persist in puberty and adulthood. The causes of Gender Dysphoria are still unclear.Both psychosocial and biological factors have been called into question to explain the onset. The Gender Dysphoria Treatment aims to reduce, or to remove, suffering of person with GD and it is based on teamwork of psychologists, psychiatrists, endocrinologists and surgeons. The cure is, firstly, psychological and is provided by mental health experts. Hormone therapy can be prescribed to all people with persistent and well documented Gender Dysphoria if there are no medical contraindications; lastly, sex reassignment surgery. The formation and definition of transgender and transsexual identity obviously represents a specific complexity, to which is added an environmental, cultural and consequently individual and conditioning stigmatization.