The medicalization on transgender bodies is put in place to not only control trans people, but to scrutinize their bodies and psyches. People who are transgender should not be medicalized or pathologized. Pathologization is when something is thought to be medically abnormal. Being trans is considered to be mentally abnormal, per putting it in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). When in reality, “Transgender people are individuals whose gender identity or expression does not conform to the social expectations for their assigned sex at birth.” (Ruff).
Trans bodies became medicalized and pathologized when medical professionals saw a “problem” (gender variance) and had a solution and used medical words to describe this “problem” and “solution” so they made it into a illness or disease. More specifically, “During the later half of the twentieth century (1948-1979), gender variance was medicalized within medical discourse as a diagnosable condition known as ‘transsexualism,’ which had one legitimate treatment path.” (Gifford) . In 1994, “gender identity disorders were turned into one term, “gender identity disorder” and the term “transsexualism” was eliminated. (Ruff) Then in 2013, the DSM-5 “gender identity disorder” was eliminated and “gender dysphoria” was added as the new diagnosis for transgender people. “However, as a diagnostic category, GD equates trans experience with mental illness, which is both scientifically and morally problematic” (Ruff). “For instance, the medical system fortifies the gender binary by psycho-pathologizing all transgender people as Gender Dysphoric” (Ruff).
Works Cited
Gifford, Erin. “Constructing the Transsexual: Medicalization, Gatekeeping, and the
Privatization of Trans Healthcare in the U.S., 1950-2019.” Bard Undergraduate
Senior Projects, Bard College, 2019,
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1268&context=senp
oj_s2019.
Ruff, Lindsey. “TRANS-CENDING THE MEDICALIZATION OF GENDER: IMPROVING
LEGAL PROTECTIONS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE TRANSGENDER AND
INCARCERATED.” Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, 2019,
https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/research/JLPP/upload/Ruff-note-final.pdf.
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