Why isn’t gender dysphoria not considered a mental illness?

Hi! Actual trans person and former sex educator who taught LGBT+ topics here!

Gender Dysphoria is the medical term for a person being transgender. I took a look at some publicly available resources to make sure it’s still in the DSM-5, which is the current standard for mental health professionals to use for diagnosing patients. Gender Identity Disorder is the former name for Gender Dysphoria. It got moved from being listed under the category of “Sexual Disorders” into a category of its own!

It is, technically speaking, still a “mental illness.” However, it’s more used as a set of qualifications and identifiers to get a diagnosis. Once a diagnosis is obtained, folks can access things such as gender reaffirming surgeries (breast implants/reductions, castration (removal of the testicles), vaginoplasties (forming a vaginal canal), etc), hormone treatments/prescriptions, etc! It can also assist in acquiring name changes or even support from LGBT+ charities and foundations meant to assist struggling folks.

The main thing to keep in mind is that a “mental illness” does not mean a person is making something up or it can be cured away or anything like that. A person who is transgender has a brain that acts differently. For example, I am a transgender man! I was born female, but identify as a man. My brain, if doctors were to fill me with some dye and take a look it, has activity more closely aligned with those of my same gender (men) than those of my same biological sex (female). That said, mental illnesses act similarly. I am also a person with Major Depression Disorder, or MDD. MDD causes my brain activity to be vastly different from someone without MDD, as well as causing me to have different chemical structures in my brain (ie: a lack of Serotonin, in my case). These are both mental illnesses. Both are real things that I experience and that make up who I am!

I hope that helps! Feel free to ask me any further questions 🙂

EDIT: In reference to some other comments, I just wanted to add that yes, you can be trans without experiencing dysphoria itself! The DSM-5 qualifications include, and don’t quote my wording on this because it has been a hot minute since my past therapist let me take a look, things such as “Euphoria or enjoyment when presenting as the identified gender, normally opposite of the birth sex.” Going back to the example of myself (even though I very much so do experience dysphoria), I was born female. If I approached my doctor/therapist and told them ‘Hey, I don’t necessarily hate being a girl, but I feel so much better, happier, and more like me when people see me as a boy,” that would also lead to a possible diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria!

It was. In the DSM-5 gender dysphoria was classified as disorder. However, as you can imagine any changes made to classifications involve either the science developing further or politics invading these classifications. I’ll let you be the judge of which one it was for this particular one.

I’m a bit confused by the stance of the medical community on this as I’ve heard both pretty often. I personally consider gender dysphoria itself to be a disorder, but not being trans. Transtion is the remedy to gender dysphoria. Now the reason many trans peeps don’t like it being reffered to as mental illness is because of the general stigma against mental illness from my understanding.

Its closer to a neurological thing,theres differences in mens and womens brain structure and studies have show trans people tend to have brains resembling the gender they identify as

Gender Dysphoria is a disorder. The treatment of which is to let people live as the gender they identify as.