Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Help for the Cisgender Confused

Growing up transgender and living with gender dysphoria is a constant emotional pain that is compounded by the guilt, shame and fear of discovery that society places on someone who is transgender.

You are cisgendered if you see and feel your body and mind as one, single gender. It is difficult to understand what it is like to have your mind one gender and your body another. Gender dysphoria is the result of that gender incongruence and is a symptom of suppressing being transgender.

To understand the extreme discomfort that gender dysphoria creates, let’s use something you may be more familiar with, being left handed.

Like those who are transgender, only small percent of the population is reportedly left-handed.

Due to cultural and social pressures, for centuries, many left-handed children were forced to write and perform other activities with their right hands. This is extremely unnatural for the child and can cause multiple problems in the developing left-handed child, including learning disorders, dyslexia, stuttering and other speech disorders.

So using the experiences of those left-handed as an example, conceptualize the following: