Transforming diagnosis: A post-structural critique of the pathologization of transgender identity
Abstract
In the following project, I approach the diagnostic classification of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) as designated in the American Psychological Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders 4, text revisions (DSM-IV-TR). As it currently stands, the diagnosis, its supporting text and the rationale that structures it are designed around conceptions of transgender identity that are highly discriminatory. I argue that the diagnosis operates on heteronormative assumptions about gender, sex and sexuality, psychological assessments of transgender identity as a form of narcissism and mental illness, and that it misrepresents the condition of gender dysphoria (the medical term for the distress and impairment caused by the incongruence relationship between one's assigned sexed and gender identity and one's personal experience of gender and sexed identity) as a consequence of gender nonconformity. I utilize a post-structural framework to discuss how the language of the diagnosis and the treatment of GID play formative roles in producing the field of intelligibility through which transgender identity is understood within the bio-medical domain, and in the life experience of transgender individuals. Due to the power that discourse has in framing transgender phenomena and effecting transgender individuals, I turn to the diagnostic language of the DSM-IV-TR. After a thorough critique of its heteronormative tendencies and its pathologizing of gender nonconformity, I suggest necessary changes to the diagnosis of GID that can adequately address the problems I locate.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Dutta, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Philosophy|Communication|GLBT Studies|Clinical psychology
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