ok quick twitter thread: what is sex dysphoria/gender identity disorder/other term to be made up later and as distinct from the general malaise, depression or discomfort experienced by many trans people

1) a dissociative disorder. DID, BIID and PTSD are all good points of comparison: due to whatever cause, the brain develops in such a way that dissociating from reality is the best and safest option, or appears to be the best way to shield itself from harm

in the case of sex dysphoria the cause is the body itself & its sexed characteristics. so it primarily affects your proprioception (sense of where everything is on your body & your body’s position in space)

for example a study a while back showed that a majority of trans men who have not had srs feel sensations of a phantom penis/testicles, similar to the majority of cis men whose genitals have been amputated or lost, but different from the majority of trans women who have had srs

2) not the same thing as being trans. not all trans people have sex dysphoria & not all sex dysphoric people transition; and some who do transition later detransition bc transition is not bioidentical and therefore cannot necessarily resolve sex dysphoria on its own

(one of the major reasons people detransition is bc their transition did not change their sex sufficiently to reduce their dysphoria, so they eventually abandon it to seek other means of treatment—however usually without reversing the *physical* changes transition causes)

transition is the front line treatment for sex dysphoria as it seems to be effective more often than not, but it is not perfect. and also is equally if not even more effective in improving the lives and general well being of people without dysphoria

3) I’m not a professional or anything but I still tried to make a list of symptoms that may be indicative of sex dysphoria & also explain how it is different from... not having dysphoria I guess.

you “””may””” have sex dysphoria if you have at least 4 of the following:

- proprioceptive body map incongruent with actual physical body
- experiences of phantom genitals (of the type you were not born with)
- difficulty sensing or perceiving (non-visually) ones genitals or other sexed body parts (breasts, etc)

- frequent or constant depersonalisation/derealisation
- sexual anhedonia/anorgasmia
- self harm directed at sexed body characteristics
- otherwise unexplained/idiopathic outbreaks of nausea, vomiting, migraine, tachycardia, tunnel vision etc (stress symptoms)

proprioceptive body map is hardest to explain but basically everyone has an internal sense of where everything in your body is & with sex dysphoria it’s just wrong. you’re taller or shorter than you should be, your body parts are in the wrong place, etc.

also seen it described as “detailed 3D map of how my body should have developed at puberty but didn’t”. this is probably the single most common symptom from people I’ve talked to, which is like 40 people

if any of this resonates and you think you might have sex dysphoria, good luck lmao. sorry