boy or girl, man or woman, but, in contrast to  certain social construc tionist theories, biolog-
ical factors are seen as contributing, in intera ction with social and psychological factors, to
gender development. Gender assignment  refers to the initial assignment as male or female.
This occurs usually at birth and, thereby, yields the “natal gender.” Gender-atypical  refers to
somatic features or behaviors th at are not typical (in a statisti cal sense) of individuals with
the same assigned gender in a given so ciety and historical era; for behavior, gender-noncon-
forming  is an alternative descriptive term. Gender reassignment  denotes an official (and usu-
ally legal) change of gender. Gender identity  is a category of social identity and refers to an
individual’s identification as male, female, or, occasionally, some ca tegory other than male
or female. Gender dysphoria  as a general descriptive term refers to an individual’s affective/
cognitive discontent with the assigned gender  but is more specific ally defined when used
as a diagnostic category. Transgender  refers to the broad spectrum of individuals who tran-
siently or persistently identify with a gender different from their natal gender. Transsexual
denotes an individual who seeks,  or has undergone, a social transition from male to female
or female to male, which in many, but not all,  cases also involves a somatic transition by
cross-sex hormone treatment and genital surgery ( sex reassignment surgery). 
Gender dysphoria  refers to the distress that ma y accompany the incongruence between
one’s experienced or expressed gender and one’s assigned gender. Although not all indi-
viduals will experience distress as a result of such incongruence , many are distressed if the