transsexualism:
Or: transexualism / transsexuality :1. A type of gender-identity disorder, gender-dysphoria , in which an individual feels trapped in the body of the wrong sex coupled with a persistent desire for the physical characteristics and social roles that connote the opposite biological sex sometimes to the extent of undergoing hormone treatment and/or surgery to change from one's anatomical-sex to the opposite-sex . Transsexualism is defined in the 1980 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders : ' In a person who has reached puberty , a condition characterized by two major criteria: 1) Persistent discomfort and sense of inappropriateness about ones assigned sex . 2) Persistent preoccupation for at least two years with getting rid of one's primary and secondary-sex-characteristics and acquiring the sex characteristics of the other sex .'
2. The act of dressing, living, behaving and passing socially as a member of the opposite-sex with or without hormonal, surgical, or legal sex reassignment. Synonym: behaviorally transsexualism.
ETYMOLOGY: Coined by Harry Benjamin in 1966 possibly from the Latin transire , meaning to pass or cross over, or pass beyond, and vestitus , clothed.
See Also: Christine, transexualism, transsexualism, transsexuality
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