Why The Medical Definition Of ‘Gender Dysphoria’ Is A Get-Rich Scam, Not A Real Diagnosis
By: Jennifer Bauwens, Ph.D., and Walt Heyer
A gender dysphoria diagnosis must be viewed in conjunction with contributing factors, such as adverse childhood experiences.
Last week, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, vetoed a measure that would have barred minors from receiving harmful transgender interventions such as puberty blockers and wrong-sex hormones. Amid intense backlash, he’s since tried to run damage control, signing an executive order on Friday that bans only trans surgeries for minors. We hope Ohio Republicans still override DeWine’s veto.
There’s more going on behind the scenes of the medical establishment, however, especially as it relates to the “gender dysphoria” diagnosis. Gender dysphoria must be addressed in conjunction with contributing factors, such as adverse childhood experiences, but instead licensed clinicians rush children toward life-altering medical interventions.
If you pay any attention to the conversation surrounding so-called gender identity, you might be led to believe sex is not real and that its binary nature is a created concept that can be altered to align with a person’s psychological beliefs about his or her sex. Such is the thinking that undergirds gender dysphoria, a condition listed in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM). The diagnostic criteria hold that gender dysphoria is “a marked incongruence with one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender.”
The key to the gender dysphoria diagnosis hinges on the presence of distress. If a person experiences marked distress about being identified as transgender, that distress can be labeled a disorder. If a person does not experience marked distress, advocates hold that person’s transgender identity ought to be considered normal.
In 2013, the gender dysphoria diagnosis was changed to include this understanding to normalize what was previously considered a disorder. Since then, the conceptualization of gender dysphoria has become muddled. It is no longer clear that there can be a therapeutic goal of helping people shed the delusion that they can truly live as a sex other than what is written in their genetic code.
When responding to all the changes made to the DSM in 2013, it is fair to ask: If the medical working groups and other professional organizations’ goal in changing the diagnosis was to destigmatize the condition, then why not completely remove the diagnosis from the DSM?