Gender identity Health Dictionary

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Gender Identity: From 1 Different Sources

The inner feeling of maleness or femaleness.

Gender identity is not necessarily the same as biological sex.

It is fixed within the first 2–3 years of life and is reinforced during puberty; once established, it cannot usually be changed.

Gender identity problems, such as transsexualism, occur when a person has persistent feelings of discomfort about his or her sexual identity.

Health Source: BMA Medical Dictionary
Author: The British Medical Association

Gender Identity Disorders

Gender identity is the inner sense of masculinity or femininity, and gender role is an individual’s public expression of being male, female, or a ‘mix’ (androgynous). Most people have no di?culty because their gender identity and role are congruous. A person with a gender identity disorder, however, has a con?ict between anatomical sex and gender identity.

Gender is determined by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, in which the in?uence of family upbringing is an important factor. When physical sexual characteristics are ambiguous, the child’s gender identity can usually be established if the child is reared as being clearly male or female. Should, however, the child be confused about its sexual identity, the uncertainty may continue into adult life. Transsexuals generally experience con?icts of identity in childhood, and such problems usually occur by the age of two years. In this type of identity disorder, which occurs in one in 30,000 male births and one in 100,000 female births, the person believes that he or she is the victim of a biological accident, trapped in a body different from what is felt to be his or her true sex.

Treatment is di?cult: psychotherapy and hormone treatment may help, but some affected individuals want surgery to change their body’s sexual organs to match their innately felt sexual gender. The decision to seek a physical sex change raises major social problems for individuals, and ethical problems for their doctors. Surgery, which is not always successful in the long term, requires careful assessment, discussion and planning. It is important to preclude mental illness; results in homosexual men who have undergone surgery are not usually satisfactory. Advice and information may be obtained from Gender Identity Consultancy Services.... gender identity disorders

Gender Dysphoria

a condition in which an individual belongs to one gender on the basis of physical appearance and genetics but identifies psychologically with the other gender. The name was introduced in DSM-5; in DSM-IV-TR it was called gender identity disorder. The condition is diagnosed only where there is evidence of strong and persistent cross-gender identification and discomfort about one’s sex, these cause significant distress and social impairment, and there is no concurrent endocrine disorder. Treatment may include counselling, hormone therapy, and gender reassignment surgery. See also transgender.... gender dysphoria

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