What are your thoughts on transexuality being classified as a mental disorder?

Gender dysphoria is the feeling of intense discomfort or displeasure brought on by the mismatch between brain and body. Transgender is more simply the actual name mismatch between brain and body itself. Thus, gender dysphoria, if it in fact does occur for a trans person, is often a RESULT of being trans, not the same thing exact same thing or necessarily a requirement for being trans. For these reasons, being trans itself is not considered a disorder, because many trans people don't have dysphoria any more due to transitioning or simply don't have dysphoria and lead happy, functional lives. Thus, the distinction of gender dysphoria is made to describe the specific negative sensations or emotions trans folks may experience; in order to be considered a mental illness, I believe by either DSM or AMA, something must impede functionality, and being trans itself(basically having a gender identity, which every one has, it just happens to be variant) doesn't impede functionality day to day so it's not a disorder, whereas the negative feelings of dysphoria do often impede functionality, so transition is then acknowledged by the DSM as the best treatment for dysphoria so that trans people can live as the happy normal people they are! Hope some of that helped, I'm somewhat familiar with DSM and very familiar with trans but there's definitely more to this. :)

/r/asktransgender Thread Parent