Gender dysphoria

Giovanni Castellini

pp. 79-95

in: Giovanni Stanghellini, Massimiliano Aragona (eds), An experiential approach to psychopathology, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

Gender membership is a fundamental component of our general identity, and it provides a sense of biographical continuity of that identity. There are individuals who have uncertain or confused gender identity or who are transitioning from one gender to the other. The extreme of this continuum is represented by gender dysphoria, defined as the distress that may accompany the incongruence between one's experienced or expressed gender and one's assigned gender. For gender dysphoria persons, the primary source of suffering is the sense of dissonance with the gender assigned to one's anatomical sexual characteristics. From a phenomenological perspective, we might view gender dysphoria is a manifestation of a disturbance of lived corporeality. Indeed, the external reality of the body and the inner subjective perception do not match, preventing a harmonious relationship between the internal representation of the body and the body itself, which results in a consequent feeling of estrangement within oneself. For this condition, the process of self-identity construction is interfered with by a profound uneasiness toward one's own body.