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What does it suggest?
Disorder is cause by socialisation or learned behaviour
Psychoanalytic (mother and son relationship)
Oversey and person- theorised that social relationship within family are the cause of gender dysphoria. Biological males can develop serious separation anxiety. To deal with this they fuse with their mother and adopt female identification
Cultural
social psychologists argue that gender is a social construct. Society traditionally views gender as binary (male or female), which makes someone pick either one which can cause confusion/dysphoria. Some countries have more than two genders (eg. Samoa had Faafafine),
Social learning
gender dysphoria may be explained by a lack of of same sex role models to learn gender-appropriate behaviours. (Eg. In 70 gender dysphoria boys, the common factor was a lack of male role models.)
Strengths of social explanation of gender dysphoria
Supporting evidence- in the biological explanation they found a concordance rate of 39% between MZ twins where one had GD, there wasn’t 100% rate so it proves other factors contribute to development of gender dysphoria
Weaknesses of social explanation for gender dysphoria
Socially sensitive research- it has potentially negative consequences for the sufferer. If a social cause is found for GD, the sufferer will feel as though they chose to have GD which will cause them to feel even more stigmatised, potentially leading to more harm
