Democratizing diagnoses: (trans*)forming the DSM 5

The groundwork done in the Workgroups set up to reconfigure the ‘trans*’ diagnoses in the DSM 5 has on the surface taken a surprising democratized turn. On the one hand this could be seen as the carers reimagining the healthcare needs, of in the cases here, transpeople, and on the other hand reaffirming the hierarchal position between the vulnerable and the valued caregiver citizen. This democratized turn was amid much controversy surrounding the use of everyday experiences being pathologized (Gornall, 2013). This paper will examine the incorporation of feedback from advisors and the wider scientific community at large and other stakeholders, who I am presuming are both medical and patient groups and the revision to the text that accompanies the diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria within the conceptual framework of social diagnosis. In doing so I will question the potential problems and benefits from this shift in democratizing diagnoses.