Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture

Mark A. Yarhouse

May 2015 · InterVarsity Press

About this eBook

Foreword Reviews' INDIEFAB Honorable Mention

Few topics are more contested today than gender identity.

In the fog of the culture war, complex issues like gender dysphoria are reduced to slogans and sound bites. And while the war rages over language, institutions and political allegiances, transgender individuals are the ones who end up being the casualties.

Mark Yarhouse, an expert in sexual identity and therapy, challenges the church to rise above the political hostilities and listen to people's stories. In Understanding Gender Dysphoria, Yarhouse offers a Christian perspective on transgender issues that eschews simplistic answers and appreciates the psychological and theological complexity. The result is a book that engages the latest research while remaining pastorally sensitive to the experiences of each person.

In the midst of a tense political climate, Yarhouse calls Christians to come alongside those on the margins and stand with them as they resolve their questions and concerns about gender identity. Understanding Gender Dysphoria is the book we need to navigate these stormy cultural waters.

Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS) Books explore how Christianity relates to mental health and behavioral sciences including psychology, counseling, social work, and marriage and family therapy in order to equip Christian clinicians to support the well-being of their clients.

Ratings and reviews

An excellent book. The author reviews all of the information across medical science, psychology, culture, and history. He gives excellent recommendations. This book seems geared to medical and psychological professionals. I am impressed. Note that it's slightly wordy due to the sheer complexity of gender dysphoria. One may also want to read this book, as it covers transgenderism.

this is a book with good scholarly overview. it's does not offer a how to-how for christians but gives a scope for its level of complexity. its does offer a path to pursue - one i think will bear good fruit for the church.

A very nuanced, thoughtful, and gracious perspective on gender dysphoria and how to best respond to that. It helps both the person dealing with dysphoria and a person hoping to support and love someone with dysphoria.

About the author

Mark Yarhouse (PsyD, Wheaton College) is the Hughes Endowed Chair and professor of psychology at Regent University where he directs the Institute for the Study of Sexual Identity and is a core faculty member in the doctoral program in clinical psychology. A licensed clinical psychologist, he practices privately in the Virginia Beach area, providing individual, couples, famil,y and group counseling.Yarhouse has published over eighty peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and is author or coauthor of several books, including Understanding Gender Dysphoria, Modern Psychopathologies, Understanding Sexual Identity , Sexuality and Sex Therapy, and Homosexuality and the Christian. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Psychology and Theology and Christian Counseling Today, and has served as an ad hoc reviewer with Journal of Homosexuality.