Interdisciplinary care in disorders/differences of sex development (DSD): The psychosocial component of the DSD—Translational research network / Does having a DSD make a person transgender?

No. “Transgender” means a person feels the gender assigned to him or her at birth was not the right one for him or her. DSD is, by definition, about atypical development of a person’s body, not about how a person feels about herself or himself. (Recall that DSD are defined by the medical community as “congenital conditions in which development of chromosomal, gonadal or anatomic sex is atypical.”)

Although it is certainly possible that a child born with DSD will eventually identify as a transgender person, it is also possible for children born without DSD to eventually identify as transgender. Most people with DSD are not transgender, and most transgender people have no identifiable DSD.

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