Gender dysphoria is caused by denial of care, not identity
Dr Helen Webberley on GB News: puberty blockers, with Lucy Johnston, GBNews
Being transgender is a mental illness. The depression, anxiety, and distress that trans people experience are symptoms of their identity itself, something innate and internal to who they are.
What I was drawing out there is a distinction that changes everything: gender incongruence is the experience of your gender not matching what the world assigned you. Gender dysphoria is the distress that follows, and it follows from denial, not from identity. Trans people are not born depressed. They are not born anxious. What causes the mental health difficulties so many trans people live with is what happens to them: the barriers, the waiting, the refusals, the hostility. Take those away and you take away most of the suffering. That is not a theory. It is what people tell me, over and over again, when they finally get the care they needed.
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