# Trangender vs Gender Dysphoria: meaningfull legal distinction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 19, 2017, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trangender-vs-gender-dysphoria-meaningfull-legal-distinction/786996 "2017-05-19T13:37:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trangender-vs-gender-dysphoria-meaningfull-legal-distinction/786996/1 "2017-05-19T13:37:30Z")
[U.S. judge allows first transgender person to sue under disability law](http://in.reuters.com/article/usa-lgbt-idINKCN18F0AJ) > [@](#): > > A U.S. judge ruled on Thursday that a transgender woman could move forward with a sex discrimination lawsuit against her employer under the Americans with Disabilities Act, even though it explicitly excludes transgender people from protection. > [@](#): > > Being transgender is not considered a disorder by the American Psychiatric Association, but it can give rise to gender dysphoria, a type of anxiety that may require medical treatment. Gender dysphoria forms Blatt’s basis for making a claim under the ADA. > > Leeson, from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, found that simply being transgender would be insufficient to bring a case, but that gender dysphoria was a medical condition worthy of protection against discrimination. > > He also said the law should be broadly construed to give people with disabilities recourse to pursue discrimination claims. IANAL. But ISTM that this is a distinction without a difference. I would think a law excluding transgender is excluding various aspects of being transgender. And if you do want to split it up, then I would think she would need to show that her disability in question is specifically her dysphoria versus the general transgender aspect. But again, I’m not a legal scholar and perhaps I’m missing something. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trangender-vs-gender-dysphoria-meaningfull-legal-distinction/786996/2 "2017-05-19T13:57:14Z")
Being transgendered is one thing, suffering from acute anxiety because you fear how people treat you for being transgender is another thing entirely. This is under the ADA so is about her mental state (as a transwoman) in the workplace and not simply about her gender identity. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trangender-vs-gender-dysphoria-meaningfull-legal-distinction/786996/3 "2017-05-19T18:17:05Z")
Yes. Being in the military doesn’t qualify you for disability coverage. Having combat-related PTSD as a consequence of your experiences in battle, on the other hand, may indeed do so. The fact that combat-related PTSD is pretty much experienced _only_ by soldiers doesn’t mean “soldier” means the same thing as having combat-related PTSD. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trangender-vs-gender-dysphoria-meaningfull-legal-distinction/786996/4 "2017-05-19T18:25:33Z")
Are there any transgender men or women that don’t have gender dysphoria? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trangender-vs-gender-dysphoria-meaningfull-legal-distinction/786996/5 "2017-05-19T21:37:45Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Are there any transgender men or women that don’t have gender dysphoria? Depends on the precise definition you’re using for each of those two terms. I’m technically transgender as transgender activists tends to define “transgender”: other than the gender I was assigned at birth. (I do not identify as “transgender” though – nearly everyone on this planet assumes “transgender” people are people who HAVE transitioned, WANT TO transition, or are in the PROCESS OF transitioning. I’m not a transitioner, I’m just a male-bodied person whose gender is of the girlish variety; I have every intention of remaining so). “Gender dysphoria” may be defined as “having emotional and cognitive issues due to rejecting one’s own body for not matching one’s internal gender identity” —— in which case I don’t have it, I don’t find my body to be “wrong”—— or it may be defined more loosely as “the atypical combination of one’s body and one’s gender causing stress that negatively impacts the quality of life” —— in which case, yeah, it’s been a lifelong problem, dealing with other people and what they think they can assume about me based on my male body. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trangender-vs-gender-dysphoria-meaningfull-legal-distinction/786996/6 "2017-05-19T22:43:27Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Are there any transgender men or women that don’t have gender dysphoria? People who have successfully transitioned generally don’t have gender dysphoria. I am no expert, however. They could still have anxiety and worry about being accepted or challenged, especially if something traumatic ever happened to them before. But yes, gender dysphoria is an anxiety disorder caused by being transgendered. Most rape victims have some form of PTSD, but not all do. Some have worked through it, and some just don’t. Same thing for survivors of the Holocaust, or child abuse. It might be a very common consequence, but it’s still a separate diagnosis. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trangender-vs-gender-dysphoria-meaningfull-legal-distinction/786996/7 "2017-05-19T23:18:31Z")
There are several examples of a person being transgender but not having gender dysphoria per se. Basically, they can be summed up under an umbrella of “a person who has found a balance of gender presentation and gender identity where they no longer suffer from gender dysphoria, or a person who has transitioned to the point where they no longer suffer from gender dysphoria.” Everyone will have a different goalpost. Some can get by with gender presentation changes. Most will need hormone therapy at a bare minimum. Most will need full legal/social changes. Most will need some surgical treatment. Some may need extensive surgical treatment. I’m not certain I can say I suffer from gender dysphoria. After 5 years of transition, hormones, full legal and social change, two surgeries, etc. the only time I seem to have problems is when I either think about my lost youth, or the fact I’ll never have children. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2017, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trangender-vs-gender-dysphoria-meaningfull-legal-distinction/786996/8 "2017-05-20T00:15:13Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > People who have successfully transitioned generally don’t have gender dysphoria. I would think that gender dysphoria would be the motivator to undergo transition, no? Or is it that the previously felt gender dysphoria has been successfully treated by the transition? ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2017, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trangender-vs-gender-dysphoria-meaningfull-legal-distinction/786996/9 "2017-05-20T14:18:39Z")
The result of nearly 70 years of study on “what is the deal with all these transsexuals, anyhow?” was summarized in Dr. Harry Benjamin’s 1966 magnum opus, _The Transsexual Phenomenon._ Wherein said work he summarized the results of decades of physicians drugging us, subjecting us to insulin shock and electroshock, lobotomy, severe negative reinforcement, many different modes of psychotherapy, etc., and the summary was “for nearly all cases of transsexuals, the only treatment is to allow them to simply live and exist as the gender they mentally are.” By definition, almost every transsexual person has gender dysphoria to some extent because it motivates us to change. But like Benjamin found, most of us have our gender dysphoria managed by transition, and many have it cured. That was the case with me - I went from being a high-functioning type-A person who tried to work themselves to death as a fix for being transgender and who eventually attempted suicide, to a happy person who has thrived and doesn’t really have concerns over my personal gender identity. I wake up in the morning not thinking: “OMFG, I’m trapped in this fucking body I hate; how am I going to put on those MALE clothes and pretend to be something I’m not? Maybe I could just drive into a bridge pier at high speed and it would look like an accident” but instead thinking: “I need coffee.”