World Professional Association for Transgender Health Consensus Statement on Considerations of the Role of Distress (Criterion D) in theDSMDiagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder

Abstract

This article explains the report from the work group of WPATH charged to consider whether a diagnosis for gender identity disorder should be included in the revised DSM; whether distress is inherent, a result of social stigma, or both; and what the implications of this are for the diagnosis in the revised DSM. Suggestions are made to remove gender identity disorder from the next revision of DSM and to find a place in the nonmental disorder section of the ICD, using the more broadly defined and less stigmatizing term gender dysphoria. Alternative suggestions are also put forward to incorporate distress within Criterion A of a diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria (formerly Gender Identity Disorder) in the revised DSM, which will make the condition correspond more closely to its description in the ICD.