Project one: Ngrams analysis

In an effort to get a better understanding of my research topic of people with gender dysphoria I conducted a Ngrams analysis. The Ngrams viewer is a creation by Google that deals with the use and appearance of words in texts that date from today to the year 1500. You can click this link to watch a video that will tell you all about it (http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Ngrams-Applesauce-and-Billions;search%3Agoogle%20ngram)

The phrases I typed into the search were: transsexual, sex reassignment surgery, gender identity disorder, and cross dressers.

You can view the interactive version of graph my search generated by using this link(https://books.google.com/ngrams/interactive_chart?content=Transexual%2Csex+reassignment+surgery%2Cgender+identity+disorder%2Ccross+dressers&year_start=1000&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CTransexual%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Csex%20reassignment%20surgery%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cgender%20identity%20disorder%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ccross%20dressers%3B%2Cc0 )

The data I gathered from the graph inspired a lot of questions. I wondered why the word transsexual had never been used in a book in the English language before 1956? What happened in 1956 that caused this word to be used?

I found that the words "sex reassignment surgery" had been first used in 1927. Why did this word appear in literature before all the others in my search? Had sex reassignment surgery been practiced before gender dysphoria had been studied?

This search has made me realize that this topic is fairly new in this society. This could mean that society has advanced in a short period of time and also become more active towards the topic. This data could also mean that maybe in the last 70 years those with gender dysphoria have become more bold and accepting of who they are, so they began to seek treatment.