A lot of people writing here are applying a much tighter definition of transsexualism than any medical, psychiatric, or psychological organization currently applies.
WPATH (in the SoC) refers not to the DSM, but the ICD-10:
Quote from: ICD-10
Transsexualism (F64.0) has three criteria:
1. The desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex, usually accompanied by the wish to make his or her body as congruent as possible with the preferred sex through surgery and hormone treatment
2. The transsexual identity has been present persistently for at least two years
3. The disorder is not a symptom of another mental disorder or a chromosomal abnormality
Source:
http://www.wpath.org/Documents2/socv6.pdfTo see what the what the DSM has to say, look here:
http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/genderiddis.htmNote that desire for surgury is not required for any diagnosis, and there is no mention of masturbation or sexual activity, whatsoever.
Also, note what WPATH has to say about cultural effects:
Quote from: SoCCultural Differences in Gender Identity Variance throughout the World. Even if epidemiological studies established that a similar base rate of gender identity disorders existed all over the world, it is likely that cultural differences from one country to another would alter the behavioral expressions of these conditions. Moreover, access to treatment, cost of treatment, the therapies offered and the social attitudes towards gender variant people and the professionals who deliver care differ broadly from place to place. While in most countries, crossing gender boundaries usually generates moral censure rather than compassion, there are striking examples in certain cultures of cross- gendered behaviors (e.g., in spiritual leaders) that are not stigmatized.
And here's what WPATH has to say about "true transsexualism":
Quote from: SoCDuring the 1960s and 1970s, clinicians used the term true transsexual. The true transsexual was thought to be a person with a characteristic path of atypical gender identity development that predicted an improved life from a treatment sequence that culminated in genital surgery. True transsexuals were thought to have: 1) cross-gender identifications that were consistently expressed behaviorally in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; 2) minimal or no sexual arousal to cross-dressing; and 3) no heterosexual interest, relative to their anatomic sex. True transsexuals could be of either sex. True transsexual males were distinguished from males who arrived at the desire to change sex and gender via a reasonably masculine behavioral developmental pathway. Belief in the true transsexual concept for males dissipated when it was realized that such patients were rarely encountered, and that some of the original true transsexuals had falsified their histories to make their stories match the earliest theories about the disorder. The concept of true transsexual females never created diagnostic uncertainties, largely because patient histories were relatively consistent and gender variant behaviors such as female cross-dressing remained unseen by clinicians.
That part I put in bold is precisely what Diana was talking about. I tend to think that the current establishment understanding rings true for me. Go ahead and disagree -- I have a few quibbles myself -- but understand that your point of view is neither more or less legitimate than anyone else's nor backed up by any establishment.
The whole discussion is semantic -- squabbling over where to draw the lines that define categories referred to by specific words -- and that's kind of lame. No word in any human langage has a meaning as distinct and precise as what we read in dictionaries -- except perhaps mathematical terms -- because all phenomena we encounter in this universe, even the most discrete ones that we see in physics experiments, are invariably continuous, fuzzy. Transsexualism is one of fuzzier.
