Gender Identity Disorder (GID)

Gender Identity Disorder Overview, DSM-IV Criteria, Cause, Symptoms, Treatment, Medication

Strong and persistent identification of the self with another gender. Persistent dissatisfaction with own sex. Desire to participate in stereotyped games and pastimes of opposite sex. Preference for cross-dressing. May insist that they are wrong sex. May occur in children, adolescents and adults. Not concurrent with physical intersex condition. Aetiology was thought to involve aberrant psychological conditioning, but gender identity may be more defined by organic causes in the brain, than the postnatal environment.

Diagnostic Criteria for Gender Identity Disorder

The DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for gender identity disorder (transsexualism) include strong and persistent cross-gender identification that extends beyond a desire for a perceived cultural advantage.

In children, gender identity disorder is defined by 4 or more of the following characteristics:

• Desire to be the other sex
• Preference for cross-sex roles in play or preference for cross-dressing
• Persistent fantasies of being the other sex
• An intense desire to participate in stereotypical games and pastimes of the other sex
• Strong preference for playmates of the other sex

Boys have an aversion to their penis or testes, a belief the genitals will disappear, an aversion to rough-and-tumble play, and a rejection of male toys. Girls have a rejection of urinating in the sitting position, an assertion that they will grow a penis, an assertion that they do not want to grow breasts or menstruate, and an aversion toward normative feminine clothing.

Adolescents and adults may experience the following:

• Desire to be the other sex
• Frequent passing as the other sex
• Desire to live or be treated as the other sex
• Conviction that the person has the typical feelings and reactions of the opposite sex
• Persistent discomfort with his or her sex or sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex

Associated Features with Gender Identity Disorder

• Separation Anxiety Disorder
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Symptoms of Depression
• Transvestic Fetishism
• Other Paraphilias
• Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome
• Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia

Codes:

• 302.6 Gender Identity Disorder in Children
• 302.85 Gender Identity Disorder in Adolescents or Adults

302.6 Gender Identity Disorder Not Otherwise Specified

This category is included for coding disorders in gender identity that are not classifiable as a specific Gender Identity Disorder.

Also learn about TRANSSEXUALISM - A gender identity disorder in which the person believes he is the victim of a biologic accident, cruelly imprisoned in a body incompatible with his subjective gender identity.

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