Process Toward Consensus on Recommendations for Revision of theDSMDiagnoses of Gender Identity Disorders by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) is recognized as the leading authority in the field of transgender health, through a membership that encompasses experts in this field and transgender community representatives. WPATH therefore is in an excellent position to give input on the DSM 5 section on gender identity disorders. To streamline the ideas of the membership, the authors, all elected officers of the association, organized a consensus-building process beginning January 2009 to arrive at recommendations for removal or reform of the DSM 5 diagnoses. This article describes this process, how the various work groups were formed, and the topics covered in the work group discussions. In addition, this article reports on a face-to-face meeting held with all of the consensus participants and work groups in conjunction with the 2009 biennial conference of WPATH in Oslo, Norway, where a consensus was reached on several issues. The outcome of this face-to-face meeting was subsequently discussed during a plenary session at the conference, which many WPATH members attended. After a description of this process, we introduce the nine articles written by each of the working groups and an executive summary with a set of recommendations for the DSM 5 Work Group on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders.