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The DSM-5 and the Politics of Diagnosing Transpeople

  • Special Section: DSM-5: Classifying Sex
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Abstract

In the DSM-5, there has been a change in the diagnosis for transpeople of all ages from Gender Identity Disorder (GID) to Gender Dysphoria (GD), in part to better indicate the distress that transpeople may experience when their gender identity feels incongruent. The Workgroup for Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders, chaired by Kenneth J. Zucker, was employed by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to update the DSM-5’s GID diagnosis reflecting contemporary scientific knowledge. Additionally, in a pre-publication report to the APA, members of the Workgroup suggested that they would also be concerned with the destigmatization of transpeople while preserving a diagnosis that medical insurance companies would accept for issuing payments for transitioning treatments (Drescher, 2013). The aims of this article are, firstly, to question whether changing the diagnosis lessens the stigmatization of transpeople. I will suggest that the semantic change from GID to GD marks “inverted” gendered expressions as pathological and, thus, continues to stigmatize transpeople. Secondly, the article explores the development of the GD diagnosis, and illustrates how the scientific data this were founded on are contentious. The article then demonstrates how the trans anti-pathologization movement has challenged the perceived pathologizing effects of the DSM-5 classification of GD. The article examines a selection of Western transgender community advocates’ websites, forums, and blogs. From these sources, the article then explores the different narratives of transpeople and political groups who offer details of their praxis, and evidences how the trans anti-pathologization advocates use the available science and human rights discourses to contest the role of psychiatry in the treatment of transpeople.

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Notes

  1. I will use the term transpeople to refer to those people who transition to their experienced (binary or non-binary) gender socially, legally or physically, or a combination thereof. I use the terms transmen and transwomen to convey the person’s experienced gender.

  2. See http://www.dsm5.org/Pages/Default.aspx.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the reviewers and Michael Toze, who commented on earlier drafts of this article. I would also like to acknowledge the European Science Foundation workshop Transgender and Political Science in Europe: A Comparative Approach, in Brussels 2014, when attendees provided valuable comments on a shorter version of the article.

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    Zowie Davy

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Davy, Z. The DSM-5 and the Politics of Diagnosing Transpeople. Arch Sex Behav 44, 1165–1176 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-015-0573-6

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