ABSTRACT
One’s sex refers to anatomical indicators of being male or female, also termed natal sex, meaning the sex one has at birth (Byne et al., 2012). One’s gender refers to the sense that one is male or female-in other words, the gender with which one identifies (Lips, 2006). Gender dysphoria is the distressing experience of an inconsistency between one’s natal sex and one’s gender (Edwards-Leeper & Spack, 2012). Individuals who take steps toward changing their gender or appearing as the opposite gender may be referred to as transsexuals, often specified by researchers as male-to-female transsexuals and female-to-male transsexuals (Stoller, 1985), although more recent terms that are gaining acceptance are affirmed male or trans-man and affirmed female or trans-woman (Edwards-Leeper & Spack, 2012). The term transgender is used as a broad term to include individuals (who may or may not have had sex reassignment surgery) who live as a different gender from their natal sex, and gender variance is used even more broadly to include any level of different gender identification that may or may not meet diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria (see Carroll, Gilroy, & Ryan, 2002, and also Byne et al., 2012 for a comprehensive list of terms and acronyms).
