The New York Times: Defining Nonbinary Work Wear

[ScotL]

The term transvestite is not used any longer in psychiatry where the WHO ICD-11 is adopted.

Some good news for once. Thanks!

Unfortunately, the USA doesn't use ICD-11, they use the old DSM.

The ICD system is a coding system used for billing purposes. It is fairly irrelevant when it comes to diagnoses outside of billing. The DSM and the ICD any number are not equivalent systems.

[ScotL]

I am remarkably flummoxed by these last posts. Psychiatry uses the term transvestite for a simple description of anyone (not a gendered term, failure to understand this is telling) because psychiatrists are professionals. It is not an outdated term. It is useful in helping people. There is no anti-male agenda associated with the term clinically. There is no anti-men in skirts cabal that meets fortnightly in a super secret location but somehow maintains a Wikipedia page. It is a clinical term. Psychiatrists and learned individuals know it is mostly made up of men. It is remarkably rare to find a female transvestite but they exist. Suggesting they conveniently drop the fact that females are also transvestites to exert an agenda is incorrect. If you were asked what color lions were would you always say yellow except for those with albinism that are white? Every single time?

Honestly, the term doesn’t bother me because I am not one. I pass no judgement on those who are. It’s just life that comes in so many varieties that it’s actually wonderful. I do wonder why more men are transvestites and would postulate that it’s the combo of the taboo and the alluring feel of the fabrics. We don’t tend to think of transvestites as those who just put on mom jeans and a woman’s polo shirt. I think this is a more interesting discussion that getting worked up about a term that doesn’t apply to men interested in wearing skirts for fashion and comfort.

But the other day I had to reinstall my printer’s driver because it stopped working. So I googled it, watched a clip off YouTube, downloaded it from the printers website and reinstalled it. I feel like I am now an expert in IT. I can now start my own business and answer calls for others who any IT problems because I feel as if my ability to read the manual and watch 30 seconds of instruction qualify me to do so. I can now also code a better driver too than these outdated IT guys who made the first one that broke. Don’t you agree?

Scot,
Please read again Uncle AL's post where he explains very well that psychiatry and psychiatrists explain, create illnesses and diagnose those illness based on their own view of world, their interpretations and their values. The other posters have valuable insights too, I just want draw your attention to AL's post.

Take two people side by side and dress them in the same clothes. Lets say for arguments sake they are both wearing soft silk underwear, tights, a dress and have applied makeup. They both love the clothes and feel sexy, glamourous and turned on (this is just for arguments sake). There is a group who look at the two people. To the first person they say "you look wonderful". To the second person they say "what's the matter with you? are you sick? take all that off and wear proper clothes". The first person has a wonderful day, the second removes the clothes and wears the proper clothes. The second person is saddened by the experience and because it is ongoing they become very depressed and seek help. They are told by medical professional, a psychiatrist that they are indeed ill and label them as a transvestite.
The point of saying this is: Had the two people been left alone and allowed to enjoy their own choice in clothes and one of them had not been stigmatised by society they would have gone on to live a happy healthy life without mental illness.

Society's interpretations and values are being challenged here. If these learned psychiatrists were always right then we would still be diagnosing Hysteria and committing women to mental asylums, there would be no such thing as lesbians, only boys have autism, only girls have anorexia.

If you believe psychiatrists invent illnesses and diagnoses, then you need to educate yourself. Psychiatrists do not label the person ill because they are a transvestite. They diagnose them with depression because the person has difficulty accepting that they are a transvestite. Yes, society is partly to blame because we have a puritanical relationship with sex but the psychiatrists who recall the definition of the word are not to blame.

I find your comments to be remarkably ignorant unto the world of psychiatry and psychiatric illnesses. It appears your preconceived notions has no use for knowledge or reality. So I will just say, I wish you good luck in your future.

[ScotL]

The diagnoses of Fetishistic Transvestism and Dual Role Transvestism have been abandoned in ICD-11 and those are no longer valid diagnoses.

The term transvestite is not used any longer in psychiatry where the WHO ICD-11 is adopted.

Do you use the ICD system in your medical practice?