Skills for the Job: Gender dysphoria

What is gender dysphoria?
Gender dysphoria is a mismatch between a person’s birth body and their inner gender identity. Many of those with gender dysphoria say they have been aware of the mismatch from an early age, sometimes as young as three years old. Others may be aware that they do not fit in, but do not realise why until some years later. Some are open about their feelings early on, while others hide them until they can stay silent no longer.

Exact numbers of children and young people with gender dysphoria are unclear but the specialist Gender Identity Development Service at London’s Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust has had more referrals in recent years. In 2012 there were 206 referrals of under-18s to the service, compared to 64 in 2008. Research by the European Human Rights Commission estimates that as many as one in 100 people in the UK expresses their gender in a way that differs from the sex they were born.

What issues can a child or young person with gender dysphoria face?
Until the age of four or five atypical gender behaviour is usually tolerated socially. However, children’s birth genders are constantly confirmed socially by well-meaning people who consider that playing with dolls and dressing up is unacceptable for boys, and that girls are expected to wear pretty dresses at parties, not play football and not get into fights. Children who do not fit in with these conformist views are often marginalised, lonely and teased or bullied, simply for wanting to express themselves in a way that is natural to them. Figures on transphobic bullying in the UK are not available, but a US study found that 78 per cent of under-18s who are transgend