People are divided into men and women. But if with the biological sex everything is quite simple and understandable, then with gender it is more complicated. A person can feel like a member of the opposite sex, even if he is physically healthy.
The phenomenon of transsexuality
Transsexuality is a medical term used when there is a discrepancy between a person's mental sex (gender identity) and their biological sex. This is when a man feels like a woman in a man's body, and a woman is a man in a woman's. The behavior of such people corresponds to a greater extent to the typical behavior of representatives of the opposite sex, they wear appropriate clothes, men with a feminine self-awareness can also wear makeup. Whenever possible, these people often choose to undergo gender reassignment surgery or take hormonal medications.
Men and women can feel like representatives of the opposite sex, despite the fact that their physical development is correct, there are no hormonal abnormalities, and the secondary sexual characteristics are complete and correspond to the biological sex. Upbringing also does not play a role - these people feel different from childhood, although they do not always immediately realize why they feel so strange.
Some transsexuals seek to be perceived as persons of the opposite sex and even change their documents, while not wanting to undergo surgery and take hormones, because are afraid of a malfunction in the body or do not want to lose the opportunity to have children.
The state of dissatisfaction with one's gender identity is called “gender dysphoria”. Such people may be disgusted with their body, sex characteristics. Often in childhood, boys prefer to be friends with girls, and girls are in the company of boys. They dream that the day will come and they suddenly wake up in a different body. But since minors are forbidden to change sex, they have to put up with their position for the time being.
What transsexuals are doing
Sex reassignment is a complex multistep procedure: first, hormone therapy, then surgical correction of the genitals, and also a change of documents. To obtain approval for the operation, a transsexual person is observed by a psychiatrist for a year or more, so that he can confirm the diagnosis of transsexualism, exclude the presence of mental disorders. After that, the medical commission can issue a referral for sex reassignment, as well as permission to change documents. The new passport will already contain a different gender and a new name.
According to statistics, transsexuals are one in 25,000 girls / women and one in 11,000 boys / men. However, some sexologists believe that there are four times more transsexuals, some of them are afraid to show their true essence and resign themselves to their bodily shell, and some commit suicide, often at a young age. Thus, few transsexuals actually change gender.
The phenomenon of transsexualism has not yet been sufficiently studied, and specialists have not yet been able to voice the reasons for this phenomenon from a scientific and physiological point of view.
