A critical view of transgender health care in Germany: Psychopathologizing gender identity – Symptom of ‘disordered’ psychiatric/psychological diagnostics?

Abstract

After explaining the essential trans* terminology, I offer a short historical overview of the way health care has dealt with the subject of gender, trans* and health in different times. In the third section, I compare the world's most important diagnostic manuals, namely the International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems (ICD) and the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM), i.e. their criteria for ‘gender identity disorders’ (ICD-10) and ‘gender dysphoria’ (DSM-5). The fourth section branch out the factors which influence every diagnostic conception – of no matter whom – in the health care system. The last section discusses the implications resulting from this diagnostic dilemma for the health situation of gender nonconforming people.

Keywords:

• Transsexuality
• transgenderism
• sexual identity
• gender identity
• gender dysphoria
• gender incongruence
• gender nonconforming

Declaration of interest: The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the paper.