Gender Dysphoria In America

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Gender is something that is often misunderstood. In a feature article from the magazine Teaching Tolerance, it states ¨Gender may seem simple, but the myths surrounding this concept mask its true complexity…Summed up, the myth goes like this: Every person is either male or female, and the distinction is based on that person’s anatomy¨ (Kilman). Many people don’t realize that gender includes more than just male or female and is separate from a person’s biological sex. In reality, it is a complex idea. Red, a person who identifies as genderqueer, stated in an interview that “[they] want people to know that there are those of us out there — we exist — whose gender is more complicated and less familiar, but that we are no less deserving of respect. …show more content…

Sophia Gubb describes her experience of gender dysphoria on her blog: “[Prior to shaving] I have the strong, gut-level sensation that whoever is behind the mirror is not me… My reflection in the morning feels like a mirage, feels alien, unreal, and very very distant”. Gender dysphoria involves distress or discomfort with oneself in regards to how they appear. People who are transgender experience differing levels of gender dysphoria, with some not experiencing it at all; this may come as a surprise to people who do not understand. The belief that dysphoria is necessary for a person to be transgender can be harmful and invalidating: “The problem with the dysphoria narrative is not with dysphoria itself, or those who experience dysphoria, but the necessity of having dysphoria. We become boiled down to something that is separate from our identities. We become identified by pain, by hurt, by suffering. We are not able to love parts of ourselves in fear of it revoking and making us less than...The problem resides in the fact that we are policed and dictated into existence through this pain, which is simply not true. We are not trans because of our dysphoria” (Clark). The belief that dysphoria is necessary takes away from what it really means to be transgender, and that is simply not identifying with the gender one is unwillingly assigned at

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