Transamerica Diagnosis

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The diagnosis found in the movie transamerica is the disorder of gender dysphoria. The criteria for this disorder is found in the DSM-5 book of psychological disorders, and will be explained in this paragraph. Within the charachteristics of a gender dyaphoric person are: When an individual has a noticeable conflict between his or her experience or expressed gender and essential or trivial sex qualities, or both. For instance, an example of this criterion is seen in minute #3 of the movie “Transamerica”; when “Bri”, the transexual-principal character of the movie expresses her doctor that her penis disgusts her. Also, if a person has a tenacoius longing to be free from his or her primary or secondary sex characteristics, due to a marked incongruence …show more content…

An example of this criterion is seen in minute 1:09:01, in which Bri demonstrates to be upset when her sister calls her Stanley, which is her former legal name. She quickly corrects her sister, and indicates her new name is “Bri” , with a hand on the heart. In addition, having a tenacious wish to be treated the same way the other gender or some other alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender is treated is also part of the DSM-5 criteria for gender dysphoria. For instance, an example of this is found when Bri felt very confortable while being with the man from the bar, who treated her like a true lady. She was not willing to let him or her son know that she was really a man. Nevertheless, a discrepancy was found within the movie, which was hiding her true identity because she did not want her son to ridicule her in front of people. This discrepancy was found at the end of minute 51. Lastly, another criteria from the DSM-5 is having a determined confidence that one has the common feelings and reactions of the other gender. An example for this criterion is found in the movie at minute 37, when Bri expresses her frustration about sleeping near bugs, and being confused by a girl of being a woman (American Psychiatric Association,

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