Gender dysphoria is a term that describes a sense of unease that a person may have because of a felt mismatch between his biological sex and his gender identity (nhs.uk). In 2013, with the publication of DSM–5, “gender identity disorder” was eliminated and replaced with “gender dysphoria.” Jack Drescher, M.D. (2010) provided an overview of psychiatric diagnoses related to gender identity, including the history of how such changes in the DSM focused the diagnosis on the gender identity-related distress that some transgender people experience (and for which they may seek psychiatric, medical, and surgical treatments) rather than on transgender individuals or identities themselves. Among physicians, Magnus Hirschfield is credited as the first physician to distinguish between same-sex attraction and “transsexualism.” David Cauldwell followed him in 1949 by proposing one of the earliest diagnostic conceptualizations related to gender identity with the term “psychopathia transsexulialis.” Harry Benjamin, in 1966, published his foundational text “The Transsexual Phenomenon” and is credited with popularizing the term transsexual as it is used today, educating medical professionals about transgender people, and pioneering hormonal treatments to facilitate gender transition. The first two editions of DSM contained no mention of gender identity and it was not until 1980 with the publication of DSM–III that the diagnosis “transsexualism” first appeared.
“For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven; he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and was made human.”
Those words from the Nicene Creed promulgate the fact that the second person of the triune Godhead took on the male sex in the incarnation. This paper examines the background of the context that led up to the changes in the DSM, the societal concept of biological sex, and how the Nicene Creed informs our view on the eternal importance of one’s birth sex.