How does Gender Identity Disorder differ from Body Integrity Identity Disorder? They seem to be almost the same thing.
One of them wants to be a different sex, the other wants to cut their limbs off. Seems distinct enough to me.
As above. Plus BIID is not a DSM diagnosis.
…I don’t mean to imply anything about psychiatric status, just noting that one is a recognized designation and the other is currently considered a subcategory of paraphilia. I know about the latter phenomenon, but the label “BIID” is not one I’ve ever encountered, and I do work clinically with trans people.
Not all transsexuals get the operation. Also, despite the slant that wikipedia puts on BIID, there isn’t nearly as much documentation/scientific evidence for the people who report it to be anything but crazy. There is plenty of evidence that suggests GID is biological in nature, for example, the large number of people who identify as transsexual who are later discovered to be intersex.
I’m trying to understand what’s behind the OP’s confusion.
ilovetoberandom, are you thinking that a transsexual is someone who wants his penis (or her breasts) amputated? In fact, the amputation itself is so far beside the point that many times it’s not even done. The sad thing is that in our society, we tend to equate maleness with having a penis & testicles, and femaleness with having breasts and baby-making parts.
This is why so many women feel less than female after they’ve had mastectomies or hysterectomies. And why so many men have trouble dealing with possible prostate or testicular cancer, thinking that any removal would make them less of a man.
Hope this isn’t too much of a hijack.
Well, I would embrace a label that says I have a disorder, but I’ll go with genderqueer, which is sort of the same thing minus the intrinsic medicalization and value judgment.
And in my case, I have no problem with the body I was born in. My problems with “being a man” don’t seem to center on the architecture of the male body per se.
n’t
The wikipedia article, IIRC, has no cites, either.