[International]
DSM-5, Proposed changes to "Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders"

The American Psychological Association's (APA) DSM-5 Task Force has announced its proposed revisions and additions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the text used by US mental health professionals to diagnose mental disorders. The revised version of the "Bible" of American Psychology is set to be published in 2013.

The task force describes a number of proposed changes related to "Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders."

Significant proposed changes include:

-The addition of "Hypersexual Disorder," characterized by "recurrent and intense sexual fantasies, sexual urges, and sexual behavior" and distress or impairment as a result of these fantasies, urges, and behavior.

-The addition of "Paraphilic Coercive Disorder," characterized by "recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies or sexual urges focused on sexual coercion" and either distress or impairment associated with these urges or having acted upon these urges on three or more occasions with three or more people.

-Changing the name of "Gender Identity Disorder" to "Gender Incongruence," in response to a survey of transgender people. The task force states that the name change is intended to reduce the stigmatization of transgender people's "condition." Additionally, what was previously referred to as "a strong and persistent cross-gender identification" is now being referred to as "a marked incongruence between one's experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender."

-Within "Gender Incongruence (GI)," referring to "the other gender" instead of "the other sex." The stated purpose of this change is twofold: (1) to be able to diagnose intersex people (people with "disorders of sex development") with GI; (2) to allow people who have successfully transitioned to be free of this diagnosis.

-The elimination of "Sexual Aversion Disorder."

-Distinguishing between "paraphilias," which do not cause distress or impairment and thus do not require psychiatric intervention, and "paraphilic disorders," which cause distress or impairment and thus do require psychiatric intervention. The task force states: "This approach leaves intact the distinction between normative and non-normative sexual behavior, which could be important to researchers, but without automatically labeling non-normative sexual behavior as psychopathological."

To read the proposed revisions, visit http://www.dsm5.org/. Comments on the proposed revisions are being accepted through April 20, 2010.

[International] [Blog/Commentary]
DSM-V Task Force Releases Proposed Diagnostic Criteria
After months of delay, the American Psychiatric Association released proposed diagnostic criteria for the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) at www.dsm5.org. A period of public review and comment begins today and ends April 2oth. Readers may register and post comments to the dsm5 site through that date. It is especially important that mental health clinicans who work with transitioning clients are heard in this process.
Revising the book on mental illness
Revising Book on Disorders of the Mind
The DSM story
DSM-V Draft Promises Big Changes in Some Psychiatric Diagnoses
302.85: Gender Identity Disorder in Adolescents or Adults
[Blog/Commentary] The DRAFT (emphasis added) DSM-V

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[South Africa]
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Now Mitchell's Plain police officers are accused of trying to shock the genitals of the boyfriend of Vet's sister and his friends.Glenda Bird's home was raided last week and she claims her lover almost had his penis zapped because of her notorious brother.

[Australia]
Amanda Lepore Chief of Parade
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[Canada]
Quebec now funding trans surgeries at private clinic

Quebec's medical system is in the midst of some major changes when it comes to accessing sex reassignment surgeries (SRS) in the province.Up until recently, transsexual and transgendered folks seeking publicly-funded SRS procedures had to first be psychologically assessed at the Human Sexuality Unit (HSU) of the Montreal General Hospital before proceeding with surgery at public hospitals outside of Canada — often in countries as far away as the Czech Republic or Thailand.

[MA, USA]
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