The Invention of Gender Dysphoria

The term "gender dysphoria" was coined in 1973 by psychiatrist Norman M. Fisk. If you go back a century or more, there is no record of anyone with gender dysphoria. Here is the timeline:

1973: Fisk proposed "gender dysphoria" (sometimes called "gender dysphoria syndrome") to describe the distress from incongruence between one's experienced gender and biological sex. This was in the context of early work on transsexualism by figures like Harry Benjamin (who treated patients in the 1950s–1960s).

1979: The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (later WPATH) used the term in its first Standards of Care.

1980: DSM-III introduced "gender identity disorder" (and "transsexualism") as official psychiatric diagnoses, not "gender dysphoria." Earlier DSM editions (1952, 1968) had no equivalent.

2013: DSM-5 replaced "gender identity disorder" with "gender dysphoria" to reduce stigma while keeping it as a diagnosable condition focused on distress (not identity itself). It was moved out of sexual disorders into its own category.

The whole point to the term is to get insurance and welfare agencies to pay for it.