A Short History of a Controversial Diagnosis

This work retraces the history of gender identity, a construct which came to light at the end of the sixties, and whose path we will follow up until the present day. In detail, the work focuses on the situations in which a person – belonging to what is commonly known as the trans* world – lives with a lack of correspondence between assigned birth gender and actual gender experience. We will revisit the different diagnoses connected to gender variance – in childhood, adolescence and adulthood – that have been put forward, and examine the different diagnostic classifications that have been used up to now, in order to reach the discussion of this theme in a psychoanalytic field. We will highlight how, alongside pathologizing theories, the psychiatric and psychoanalytic fields have become enriched via theoretical and clinical knowledge that enhance and recognize the depth of the subjective experience of trans* people, without stopping therefore, at a simply reductive diagnosis.