Gender dysphoria is a mental health condition previously referred to as gender identity disorder. It refers to a marked incongruence between the expressed or experienced gender of an individual and their assigned gender.
Those who struggle with this dichotomy can have several subsequent mental health issues and difficulties with daily function, social relationships, and career progression.
There are several risk factors associated with gender dysphoria, including genetics and physiological factors, temperamental factors, and environmental factors. To that end, childhood trauma is one of the things that can have a long-lasting impact on mental health, but can gender dysphoria be caused by trauma?
Trauma and Gender Dysphoria
Can gender dysphoria cause trauma? There are several potential relationships that can develop between these two.
What Is Gender Dysphoria?
Gender dysphoria is represented as an individual, either child or adult, with a marketing congruence between their assigned gender and their expressed or experienced gender, lasting at least six months.
For children, this must include six of the following:
- A strong desire to be the other gender
- In boys, a strong desire for cross-dressing or wearing female attire, and in girls, a strong desire for wearing masculine attire or resisting typical female attire
- A strong preference for cross-gender roles in terms of fantasy or make-believe
- A strong preference for activities, games, or toys that are stereotypically assigned to the other gender
- A strong preference for playmates of the other gender
- In boys, a strong rejection of masculine activities or toys, particularly rough and tumbled games, and in girls, a strong rejection of typically female activities or games
- A strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy
- A strong desire for sex characteristics of the experienced gender
For teens and adults, this must include at least two of the following:
- A marked incongruence between expressed or experienced gender and sex characteristics
- A strong desire to get rid of primary sex characteristics because of that incongruity
- A strong desire for the sex characteristics of the other gender
- A strong desire to be of the other gender
- A strong desire to be treated as the other gender
- A strong conviction that the feelings and reactions one has are associated with the other gender
Understanding Childhood Trauma
Childhood trauma refers to traumatic experiences that a child either directly experiences or witnesses. They can also extend to circumstances that might affect other people to whom a child is close, like witnessing domestic violence and knowing that a parent was the victim of it.
Childhood trauma can have a long-lasting detriment depending on the age when a child is exposed to traumatic experiences and the number of experiences. Some examples include:
- Abuse
- Violence in the household
- War
- Neglect
- Poverty
- Chronic illness
- Bullying
Exploring the Connection Between Trauma and Gender Dysphoria
Does trauma cause gender dysphoria?
Research indicates that gender identity, much the same as all identity, can be influenced by several factors. Trauma, for example, can change the brain fundamentally, but the brain is responsible for identity, which means these changes can also change identity.
When the brain is exposed to trauma, it can create defense mechanisms to protect itself, one of which is dissociation. Dissociation is when an individual feels detachment from their body, which can lead to gender dysphoria.
Can childhood trauma cause gender dysphoria?
Childhood trauma can take many forms, but research indicates that gender dysphoria caused by trauma is linked to:
- Early feelings of self-rejection
- Early self-disgust
- Early body discomfort
Can trauma cause gender dysphoria in specific groups?
Some groups who identify with gender dysphoria are represented to a higher degree, and these include:
- Children who are adopted
- Children who were in the foster care system
- Children on the autism spectrum
The reason for this higher identification among these particular populations has to do with the increased risk of exposure to trauma in early childhood.
Such subgroups often complain about self-rejection, body discomfort, and an unstable sense of self, which relates strongly to mental health problems but also dissociation, which can lead to gender dysphoria.
For example, children who fall on the autism spectrum, were in the foster care system, or adopted are more likely to experience feelings of:
- Being chronically misunderstood
- Not having key needs met
- Experiencing shock, grief, loss
- Being bullied, rejected, or shamed
- Suffering from chronic fear
- Feeling alone physically and emotionally
This is particularly prevalent in younger children who are exposed to these feelings before the age of three. Research indicates that the brain reaches 90% of adult size by the time someone turns three, so early childhood trauma before that age can have a profound impact on an individual’s ability to understand concepts like self-regulation, embodiment, and identity.
When those same traumatic events are strong enough to interfere with neuropsychological development, they can lead to a lack of developmental skills that help someone identify who they truly are. For example, a child might develop the concept that they are:
- Broken
- Stupid
- Worthless
- “Not right”
- Weird
There are several overlaps between gender dysphoria and trauma, which go both ways.
Can gender dysphoria cause trauma?
Consider this:
Mary does not like being designated a girl. She always tries to wear boys’ clothes and avoids things like barrettes, pretty shoes with sparkles, or dresses. She likes to play with the boys in her neighborhood, engaging in wrestling and baseball.
When she does make-believe games with her family, she always plays the part of a boy. She doesn’t like activities that are suited to girls nor does she get along with other girls her age.
Because of this, Mary gets made fun of a lot, and as she gets older, she gets bullied for this behavior. She experiences extreme emotional abuse in the household from a mother who doesn’t think that she is behaving the way a little girl should, from a father who doesn’t think that he can treat her like one of her brothers, and from friends who continually tell her at a young age that she shouldn’t be doing boy stuff but she should be doing girl stuff.
Eventually, this leads to the development of childhood trauma from the bullying and the neglect in her household, as well as the emotional abuse.
In the other direction, a relationship exists as well:
Tim has early feelings of self-rejection because of exposure to childhood trauma. He learned to develop the qualifiers that he was worthless because of what his abusive father always yelled at him. Tim liked playing with his sisters, enjoyed baking, playing with Barbie dolls, and letting his sisters put makeup on him. He spent a lot of time with his sisters and his mother.
When his father would get drunk and hurt him, he would tell Tim that Tim wasn’t manly enough, that Tim shouldn’t like to play with his sisters so much or take comfort from his mother.
Tim would take comfort in his mother when his father abused him, but in doing so, he worsened the abuse, being told that a real man wouldn’t run to his mommy.
This led to a lack of emotional access, poor self-control, and limited social skills. The more he had trouble identifying with other boys, the worse it got. He would turn to girls for comfort when he was distressed at school, but the girls thought he was weird, and the boys made fun of him for this, leading him to believe that he would never fit in, that he was repulsive, and that he didn’t deserve real love.
Over time, these feelings of self-rejection and self-hatred from his trauma as a child led him to think that not only was he awful, but his body was awful and worthless.
Summing up
There are strong correlations between childhood trauma and other mental health disorders, including gender dysphoria. There is a potential connection between childhood trauma and gender dysphoria and vice versa. While trauma can affect mental health, it is not the sole cause of gender dysphoria. It can be a contributing factor, however, and something that should be addressed with proper therapy.