Abstract

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.