The changes were approved over the weekend when the APA board of trustees finalized revisions to the manual.
“Gender identity disorder” was the term used to diagnose people who are transgender. Moving forward, the manual will diagnose people with “gender dysphoria.” According to Think Progress, this will communicate “the emotional distress that can result from a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender.”
This is the first significant change for the LGBT community since 1973, when homosexuality was declassified as a mental disorder.
Other changes include revised entries for autism, substance abuse, and PTSD. The DSM-V, which will be released in May 2013, is the first major overhaul since 1994.