Gender Identity Disorder

Gender identity disorder is a mental disorder in which the person who is affected has an overwhelming feeling that he/she was born into the wrong gender. It is estimated that 1 in 20,000 people are born with this disorder. Gender identity disorder, also known as G.I.D., is a brain based disorder and studies have shown that male-to-female transsexuals have brain structures that resemble female brains rather than male brains, and vice versa. G.I.D. is organically based with a strong genetic component, and currently it is believed that a combination of hormone sensitivity and something that occurs in the womb during fetal development is responsible for this disorder. People who suffer from gender identity disorder are more likely to attempt suicide than people who suffer from any other mental disorder. The only treatment recognized by mental health professionals is gender reassignment surgery, meaning that there are no medications available to treat gender identity disorder. However, some people opt not to have gender reassignment surgery and simply take hormones instead.

Chriss Pagani is a male-to-female transgender who documented her experiences on her personal website. Chriss was not a “normal” male child. His friends were all girls, and he liked to play with dolls, he didn’t know that he was different than anyone else. When he was in the third grade the school insisted Chriss enter counseling because he acted like a girl and only played with girls. When Chriss was in high school, he read a book called “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask”. The book was written by a person who “hated” transsexuals. After reading that book Chriss thought about suicide, but tried to remove his male parts with an Xacto knife instead. He passed out from the pain before he got very far, and when he came to he was lying in a pool of blood and decided to drive himself to the hospital for treatment. At 22 Chriss married a woman, she was...