African American Transsexuality - Diagnosis

Diagnosis

Transsexualism appears in the two major diagnostic manuals used by mental health professionals worldwide, the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM, currently in its fourth edition) and the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD, currently in its tenth edition). The ICD-10 incorporates transsexualism, dual role transvestism and gender identity disorder of childhood into its gender identity disorder category, and defines transsexualism as " desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex, usually accompanied by a sense of discomfort with, or inappropriateness of, one's anatomic sex, and a wish to have surgery and hormonal treatment to make one's body as congruent as possible with one's preferred sex." The DSM does not distinguish between gender identity disorder and transsexualism, and defines transvestic fetishism as a separate phenomenon which may co-occur with transsexualism. The DSM diagnosis requires four components:

• A desire or insistence that one is of the opposite biological sex (that is not due to a perceived advantage of being the other sex)
• Evidence of persistent discomfort with, and perceived inappropriateness of the individual's biological sex
• The individual is not intersex (although a diagnosis of GID Not Otherwise Specified is available, which enables intersex people who reject their sex-assignment to access transsexual treatments)
• Evidence of clinically significant distress or impairment in work or social life.