Great news for our trans friends: the American Psychiatric Association no longer considers you "disordered" or "mentally ill," according to a long-awaited change that'll take place in the fifth edition of its DSM manual.

In a move that activists have lobbied hard and long for, the APA has deleted the mental illness "gender identity disorder" from its new DSM manual. Instead, the APA will use "gender dysphoria" as its term denoting "a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender.”

“It no longer matters what your body looks like, what you want to do to it, all of that is irrelevant as far as the APA goes,” said Dana Beyer, a retired surgeon who helped the Washington Psychiatric Society propose the change. 

The declassification will have far-reaching impact, from legal cases (trans parents are often classified as "mentally ill" to have their children taken from them) to insurance benefits (the declassification means insurance may no longer pay for hormones, surgery or other treatments). 

(Source: Dot429)

Comments (1)

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written by Black with the Blues, August 09, 2012

We should take a moment and celebrate what is a big moment in LGBT history. However, with rampant depression, homelessness, addiction and overall poor health prevalent in the transgender community, we cannot celebrate but so much.

http://www.blackwiththeblues.com/2012/08/moving-forward-transgender-is-no-longer.html

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