Is there a disease that causes self-hatred of one's gender?

[KainM]

Well, I hate being female. Just about everything there is to be a woman irritates me to no end ever since puberty hit. I've tried being feminine and tried wearing the clothes but it just doesn't work. My mind screams "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! THAT'S WRONG!"I know there's gender identity disorder, but could there be something else that causes this?

[HoneyBear3592]

It is gender identity disorder. it is not a disease. you are transsexual or transgendered.Can you see someone about this? It doesnt necessarily mean you have to have a sex change, as some butches feel as you do, and they can reconcile those feelings within themselves and are happy living as masculine women.However, Im not saying sex change or not is right or wrong, only that you will ulitmately be the only one to know how comfortable you can be with remaining living as a woman or going on hormones etc.Why dont you make an appointment with your doctor and see a gender therapist? I think that would be a very good start.

[MikeM9162]

We can never be happy if we are at war with our bodies. One of the big goals in life is to love oneself and that can not be done when we hate our gender. gid is a big term and there are many different expressions of gid, but is agreed that it is a serious psych disorder (in the dsm) and needs to be treated as such, and not as a physical problem. I see many parallels to anorexia, especially in terms of difficulty of treatment. No credible biological causes have been recognized. And as the evidence is coming in, the chances of finding genetic or hormonal origins are actually shrinking. No, we are dealing with the heart and the mind. GID like homosexuality begins in early childhood, and is often obvious as early as 24 months, when the child starts to assert individuality. Many things can go wrong if the family is dysfunctional in this area. As well, they are finding a lot more sexual abuse in the childhood histories of gay people. Usually we can see our own dislikes about a gender as a reflection of one of our parents attitudes. Mind you, this is all complex and recovery of early memories 'healing of memories' needs the help of a therapist. If you are interested you can visit PATH and PFOX to see what they have to say about GID. The best information, imho, is found at the NARTH website.