Cultural and Ethical Considerations in Gender Reassignment

 Gender theory has emerged at the forefront of scholarly texts and studies due to its increased ambiguity in today’s society.Gender identity, or how an individual recognizes the self, has blurred the lines of our chromosomal makeup.In contrast to the popular western belief of gender as binary, male or female, the emergence of fluidity in gender identification has outlined the fact that our gender falls somewhere on a continuum, where our internal gender may not match our external or physical attributes (Kelly, 2018, p. 9).Anderson (2015) explains that gender identity is a “complex biological and psychological process with prenatal and postnatal influences” and that our perception of self is determined by far more than just our genetics (p. 184).The education of patients, practitioners, and the public is of most importance when considering the moral and ethical principles that guide us in culturally competent and informed care. Ethical Issues Prior to the 2013 revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), transgender patients were given the mental diagnosis of gender identity disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). The newest edition published in 2013, the DSM-V has since improved the diagnosis to “gender dysphoria,” which is defined as “aconflict between a person's physical or assigned gender and the gender with which he/she/they identify.” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Of equal importance is the moral and ethical constraints lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) individuals face in the practice of religion.A long-standing argument of Christianity has been that all people are intended for heterosexuality and any deviation in this norm is sinful.Those who identify as Christian and LGBTQ feel maintaining