Medicolegal recognition of trans* in a political context

In the US, the Workgroup on Sexual and Gender Disorders, chaired by Kenneth Zucker, was employed to assess the available evidence surrounding gender and sexual disorders. According to pre-publication reports and commentaries leading up to the new diagnosis, members of the Workgroup promoted their aims as attending to the de-stigmatization of transpeople, whilst proposing a diagnosis that third party funders will accept for issuing payments for transitioning treatments. I argue that the review process has been overly narrow, neglecting the complex combination of sexological and psychosocial work which illustrates the phenomenological diversity of ‘gender incongruence’ evidenced in other disciplines. I suggest that the latest DSM 5 manual is thus the outcome of so called expert- sexological consensus, rather than of a systematic synthesis of biogenetic, psychosocial, or wider scientific evidence despite the new diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria having been pitched as a product of a democratized process, reflecting wider voices and knowledges.