Most children and adults develop a gender identity – an intrinsic sense of being male, female, or an alternative gender. Some individuals develop gender dysphoria, distress caused by a sense of disconnection between an individual’s gender identity and their sex assigned at birth. For example, an adolescent girl who feels that her true self is really male may experience gender dysphoria. Gender identity disorder is diagnosed when an individual experiences a strong and persistent cross-gender identification, a persistent discomfort with his or her own sex, or a sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex which causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Gender identity disorder is currently a formal diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association 2000, p. 96). The term transgender refers to all gender-variant persons, including cross-dressers...
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Ibutu, B., Maynard, E. (2020). Transgender and Gender Identity. In: Leeming, D.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24348-7_9260
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