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Cited by 154LGBTQ Health, Identity, and PolicySexual Differentiation and DisordersGender Roles and Identity Studies

What Is Gender Dysphoria? A Critical Systematic Narrative Review

Open access
Davy, Zowie, Toze, Michael·2018·Transgender Health
DOI 10.1089/trgh.2018.0014PMC PMC6225591
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Abstract

In the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the American Psychiatric Association has changed the diagnosis of gender identity disorder to gender dysphoria (GD). In this critical narrative review we ask: What is gender dysphoria? We report on some of the inconsistencies in the articles that foreground distress while obfuscating the fact that not all trans and intersex people suffer stress or impaired functioning, and the inappropriate referencing to intersex people in the diagnostic criterion, claims about the GD diagnosis contributing to the depathologization of and reducing stigma surrounding trans people, the conceptualizations of “gender dysphoric” research subjects, and finally we question the etiological approaches using GD as a conceptual framework. We further suggest that there are a number of methodological issues that need to be resolved to be able to claim that the GD diagnosis can be validated. To shed light on these paradoxes and methodological issues in the DSM-5, we report on the content validity of GD by reviewing research articles postdiagnostic inception. These findings will contribute to the debate about the validity of GD as a diagnosis for the 21st century for those people who need to live a different gender to that assigned at birth.

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  • The dissonance between a person's gender and the gender assigned to them at birth can lead to negative effects, including distress, depression, and gender dysphoria, that can be alleviated through transitioning.

    “The dissonance between a person's gender and the gender assigned to them at birth can lead to negative effects, including distress, depression, and gender dysphoria [21], that can be alleviated through transitioning.”

    From Paradoxes of Openness: Trans Experiences in Open Source Software (2024) · cites this paper as [21]

    In “Foregrounding ‘distress’” (page not provided), the review says incongruence can result in gender dysphoria and distress for a subset of transgender people. It does not identify depression as an effect of that incongruence. The review also cautions in “Not all trans and intersex people suffer from GD” (page not provided) that distress should not be presumed for everyone. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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Authors
Davy, Z., & Toze, M.
Affiliations
  • De Montfort University (GB)
  • University of Lincoln (GB)
Corresponding author
Davy, Zowie
ORCID
Venue
Transgender Health
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2018-11
Volume
3
Issue
1
Pages
159-169
ISSN
2380-193X (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1089/trgh.2018.0014
PMC
PMC6225591
OpenAlex
W2900181751
Cited by
154
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 9 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 23 · 2022: 29 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 5
FWCI
1.51
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Transgender Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Lincoln Repository (University of Lincoln) (acceptedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • DMU Open Research Archive (De Montfort University) (submittedVersion)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Sexual Differentiation and Disorders
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender Roles and Identity Studies
Keywords
gender dysphoria, DSM-5, transgender people, intersex people, diagnostic validity, content validity, distress, depathologization, stigma, etiology, research subjects

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