Hm, this seems to reflect an important area of discussion that I know we've talked about in this forum before:
Quote from: The articleJack Drescher, M.D., a member of a subgroup that helped formulate criteria for gender dysphoria, explained that a central tension in discussions about the diagnosis was between the possibly stigmatizing effect of retaining a category for gender conflicts among a list of mental disorders and the need to maintain access to care for individuals who do experience distress or impairment in function with regard to gender conflicts.
"We decided the access-to-care issue was very important," Drescher told Psychiatric News. "If you take out the diagnosis, you don't have a code for treatment."
But Drescher said the removal of the diagnosis from the chapter including sexual dysfunctions—and the separation of paraphillic disorders into its own chapter in DSM-5—should serve to lessen stigma associated with the diagnosis. Also, he said the name change to "gender dysphoria" is an effort to reflect the individual's felt sense of incongruence with natal gender, as opposed to pathologizing gender-atypical behavior.
Previously, I've said that I support the GID diagnosis since it's primarily there to provide access to treatment for dysphoria (through therapy, HRT, SRS, etc.). I know that many people disagree with me due to the stigma associated with mental illness (which contributes to ignorant people thinking we can be "cured" and made cis through therapy), to which I've responded that we need to change
that too. Our society still has a lot of problems with how we view mental illness. But this seems like a much better alternative that addresses both sides of the issue.
I'm not in the area of clinical psychology, so I'm not totally up-to-date on the new DSM. I'm glad that they're making this kind of change!
