Learn About the Changes in How Mental Health Experts Diagnose Gender Identity Disorders

People confused about sexual identity were treated by mental health providers for decades as having a mental disorder, but times changed

One can scarcely turn on TV or log on to social media without seeing shows, advertisements or posts about transgenderism or gender identity. Confusion about one’s gender (in Western cultures at least) is undoubtedly increasing. With the rise in violence, assassinations and killings by transgender people, and their supporters (for instance, the Annunciation school shooter in MN, the Covenant school shooter in TN, the transgender woman who attempted to assassinate SCOTUS Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the man who assassinated Charlie Kirk - who was dating a man who was transitioning to female - to name a few recent examples), one important question is: Does the mental health community treat gender identity issues, transgenderism and related conditions as psychiatric disorders? The answer may surprise you.

Historical Treatment of Gender Identity Issues in Psychiatry

Historically, people suffering from serious, long-term confusion about their gender were understood by modern psychiatry as suffering from one of several mental disorders for which treatment was available. A review of some of the editions of the diagnostic handbooks used by mental health professionals to diagnose mental disorders proves the point.¹

The manual or handbook used by modern psychiatrists and other mental health professionals to diagnose mental disorders is known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM. Since the time the First Edition of the DSM was published in 1952, periodically updated editions were published. The current version of the DSM in use is the DSM, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (2022).

In this article, I will focus on the DSM-III-R, published in 1987, the DSM-IV (1994) and DSM-IV-TR (2000) to establish the way Gender Identity Disorders were previously diagnosed by mental health professionals. (Don’t worry, I won’t bog you down with unreadable, mental health mumbo jumbo. I break the topics down to the high points.)