Language and Terminology in Transgender Health

Abstract

Language and terminology are essential issues in the field of transgender health. The field is moving toward a gender-affirming practice away from one based on pathology. Over the last two decades, the field has moved from a binary model of gender identity to one embracing a gender spectrum. This has been mirrored in the significant classification manuals published by the World Health Organization (WHO), the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).This chapter will provide a brief overview of the classification systems (WHO, APA, and WPATH) which include diagnostic codes related to gender identity. It will then include a glossary of the terms used by people in the non-Western and Western cultures to describe what Western cultures would consider transgender. Finally, a glossary of standard surgical terms will be included.

The word transgender is often used as an umbrella term that covers the spectrum of transsexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming identities. The term gender dysphoria describes the distress that emerges from a body/mind incongruence. No one’s identity is a disorder; the DSM-5 and SOC 7 diagnoses are based on the distress of body/mind incongruence.