A transgender person experiences distress because their body does not reflect their true gender. Conversely, a person with body dysmorphia experiences distress because they perceive flaws in their body or weight that do not exist.
Those with body dysmorphia have a distorted view of how they look, while those with gender dysphoria suffer no distortion. They have feelings of anxiety and depression, as they truly know who they are on the inside, despite this not fitting with their biological sex.
There are two subtypes of BDD: Muscle Dysmorphia and BDD by Proxy.
Both men and women – about 40% of people with BDD are men, and about 60% are women. People of almost any age (from age 4-5 up into old age): BDD most often begins around age 12 or 13. Two-thirds of people with BDD experience onset of the disorder before age 18.
Gender dysphoria occurs when there is a conflict between the sex you were assigned at birth and the gender with which you identify. This can create significant distress and can make you feel uncomfortable in your body. People with gender dysphoria may want to change the way that they express their gender.
If you are experiencing gender dysphoria, you may feel more comfortable wearing clothes initially designed for other genders. However, gender dysphoria does not explicitly relate to sexual arousal from wearing these clothes, unlike transvestic disorder.
The Link Between Gender Dysphoria and Body Dysmorphia
While we can conceptualize gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia as two different things, they are often not mutually exclusive. Transgender and non-binary folks may experience both simultaneously. Gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia are interconnected.
Reverse BDD: In many ways, reverse body dysmorphia is the opposite of BDD. Individuals with this condition may believe they are thin while living in a larger body. Therefore, they may routinely buy clothing several sizes too small without trying it on.
Going through traumatic experiences such as abuse or bullying can cause you to develop a negative self-image, which can lead you to have obsessions about your appearance.
The cause of body dysmorphic disorder is thought to be a combination of environmental, psychological, and biological factors. Bullying or teasing may create or foster the feelings of inadequacy, shame, and fear of ridicule.
One of the most conspicuous symptoms of BDD is the distorted perception of one's own appearance. For example, a person with BDD may believe his nose is crooked, or that he has acne scars all over his face, or that his hair is thinning.
Body dysmorphic disorder is characterized by an obsession with a perceived flaw or defect on one's body. BDD can be about any part of your body, and contrary to what some may have assumed, perceived fat or flab is only one of many types of BDD fixation.
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), or body dysmorphia, is a mental health condition where a person spends a lot of time worrying about flaws in their appearance. These flaws are often unnoticeable to others. People of any age can have BDD, but it's most common in teenagers and young adults.
Overview. Body dysmorphic disorder is a mental health condition in which you can't stop thinking about one or more perceived defects or flaws in your appearance — a flaw that appears minor or can't be seen by others. But you may feel so embarrassed, ashamed and anxious that you may avoid many social situations.
Body dysmorphia and ADHD
Emerging research has shown that body dysmorphic disorder has high comorbidity with ADHD. That means people with body dysmorphic disorder are more likely than the average person to also have ADHD. And people with ADHD are more likely than the average person to also have BDD.
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) shares many characteristics with social phobia (SP), including high levels of social anxiety and avoidance, but to our knowledge no studies have directly compared these disorders' demographic and clinical features.
Anxiety, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, substance misuse and other problems can occur. People who have gender dysphoria also often experience discrimination, resulting in stress.
Gender dysphoria is the experience of distress or discomfort with your body's sex characteristics or the gender role assigned to you. It's something that is experienced differently by everyone and can change over time. There's no one way to deal with dysphoria and different things work for different people.
Different studies have arrived at different conclusions about the prevalence of gender dysphoria. The DSM-5 estimates that about 0.005% to 0.014% of people assigned male at birth (5-14 per 100k) and 0.002% to 0.003% of people assigned female at birth (2-3 per 100k) are diagnosable with gender dysphoria.
Most people who experience transvestic disorder are heterosexual men. One of the most common reasons people seek treatment for transvestic disorder is because it interferes with their romantic relationships or marriages with women.
Having the desire to cross-dress in order to be sexually aroused. Using cross-dressing to relieve tension. Inability to elicit sexual excitement unless wearing attire, accessories, or other objects of the other sex. Playing the other sex when cross-dressing.
(Cross-Dressing; Transvestism; Transvestic Fetishism)
Transvestism involves recurrent and intense sexual arousal from cross-dressing, which may manifest as fantasies, urges, or behaviors. Transvestic disorder is transvestism that causes significant distress or significant functional impairment.
For some, gender dysphoria can develop early in childhood. One study showed that, on average, study participants reported their earliest memory of gender dysphoria between the ages of 4 and 6 years old. By the age of 7, most study participants could remember experiencing some feelings of gender dysphoria.