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I'm wondering if anyone else's loved one with BPD suffers from gender dysphoria. I know a fragile sense of self is one of the BPD symptoms, and for my sibling this seems to manifest itself partially as gender dysphoria. My born-male sibling goes back and forth between presenting as male and as female.

This has been on my mind because I read something online recently that gender affirmation surgery (formerly known as gender reassignment surgery) can cost loads of money, but respecting a person who has not physically transitioned is free. This was a good  :light: reminder for me that I can be respectful of my sibling even when the gender back-and-forth drives me wild. I have done a lot of reading about transgender issues, so it's not really more literature I need - just wondering if anyone else is experiencing something similar.

My sibling is taking female hormones. However, s/he hasn't shaved his/her beard in several weeks. I guess that's the dysphoria... .

I guess the frustrating thing for me is that I feel like I can't say anything, and I WANT TO. Earlier this summer, a month or so into taking female hormones, my sibling was doing yardwork without a shirt on. I said "as an information item, females wear shirts or at least a sportsbra outside while doing yardwork." This was before my mom told me about the BPD as a possible diagnosis. My sibling had asked me 6 months before that to use female pronouns, call her A. (gender neutral name), etc. I had been treating her like I would any other female, and if my mom were outside without a shirt on... .I would say "put on a shirt!" so I treated my sibling the same.

You can probably imagine what happened: sibling completely blew up.

I guess this is linked to some other issues with our situation about abuse of medication, manipulating doctors to get drugs, etc ... .and so I think perhaps my frustration with the whole experience of having a sibling with BPD gets "hit" when I see my sibling walking around with facial hair, yet getting mad at me when I accidentally say "his".

I guess I feel that by just keeping quiet (e.g., not saying anything about the incongruence between facial hair and pronouns) I am contributing to the dysphoria - like lying by omission. Shouldn't part of the goal be to help a BPD sufferer develop a sense of self? Is that possible?

Thanks for letting me vent.

Hi Janneke   

You pose a good question but I don't know the answer. For sure a BPD definitely has a lot of trouble identifying self as well as self regulation. Perhaps the struggle with identifying as a particular gender is merely one way of trying to figure out who they are. Frequently there are many co-morbities or diagnoses that go along with BPD. Are you familiar with what some of them are?

I'll post a link here for you to read a bit more about BPD in general, although you may have already read quite a bit. It is often worth another look because as we progress in our understanding, we are able to comprehend things that we quickly passed over before.

https://bpdfamily.com/content/borderline-personality-symptoms-diagnostics  (https://bpdfamily.com/content/borderline-personality-symptoms-diagnostics)

What are your thoughts after reading this?

Happy New Year!   
Wools

gender dysphoria has been greatly broadened over the last few decades. No longer is it merely "born wrong sex", it also includes those who have no sexual identity or are  asexual, and there are some who are wrongly sexed at birth who do not feel the need to complete transition with surgery. I'm not a therapist, only a spouse of a gender dysphoric who is only out to me and one one of my close friends.
 
 I strongly suggest some Internet resources such as Laura's Playground and AB Gender.

It is hard to step back and forward at the same time, to wrap your head around changes that then get un-made. I try to be supportive but  my spouse owns the issue and things will happen in my spouse's time and not in mine. BTW s/he is not the BPD, my mother was.
Good luck hope 2017 is better for all of us.