Transgender advocates seek new diagnostic terms

[Victor Steinbok]

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http://goo.gl/Z7nEZ

Does a woman who strongly believes she was meant to be a man have a
mental condition or a medical problem? Is a man who cross-dresses in
need of psychological help? What about a boy who pretends to be a girl
in make-believe games and chooses only female playmates?

The nation's psychiatric establishment is wrestling with these
questions, among others, as it works to overhaul its diagnostic manual
for the first time in almost two decades. Advocates have spent years
lobbying the American Psychiatric Association to rewrite or even remove
the categories typically used to diagnose transgender people, arguing
that terms like Gender Identity Disorder and Transvestic Fetishism
promote discrimination by broad-brushing a diverse population with the
stigma of mental illness.

"The label of mental defectiveness really places a burden on trans
people to continually prove our competence in our affirmed roles,"
Kelley Winters, a Colorado scholar who has helped lead the push for
changes, said.

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