UPDATED with revised conclusion.
Feministe say wrote May 13 of efforts to assist people struggling with gender identity:
Ken Zucker of Toronto’s Clarke Institute represents the widespread, traditional approach, where the goal is to eliminate cross-gender behavior and the desire to be a different gender. He basically describes his success rate as the number of kids he’s managed to steer away from becoming an adult trans person; as he’s said elsewhere, he wants to “help these kids be more content in their biological gender.”
Which sounds all right on paper, but how far do you go in denying a child’s perfectly innocent inclinations?
Feministe notes that some view Zucker’s attitude toward gender-variant people as repackaged ex-gay therapy. And so Feministe is naturally concerned that the American Psychiatric Association has put Ken Zucker in charge of a working group that will weigh changes to the definition of gender identity disorder.
Although I don’t know if I quite understand this given that the DSM is a diagnostic tool rather than a prescriptive tool, and given that previous DSMs were written from similarly retrogressive approaches, she also feels there’s “an additional danger that gay and lesbian communities need to be cognizant of […] if Zucker and company entrench conversion therapy in the DSM-V, then it is a clear, dangerous step toward also legitimizing ex-gay therapy and re-stigmatizing homosexuality.”
That may seem to be a logical fear, but apparently it is unwarranted:
Gay City News wrote a story today that addresses some (not all) activist apprehensions. Key points:
- The working groups will not prescribe treatment
- The diagnosis of homosexuality will not be put back into DSM
Dr. Jack Drescher, a gay Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry affiliated with New York Medical College and a member of the APA’s DSM Work Group for Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders, was helpful in clearing up concern relating to the scope of working-group efforts.
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You’re missing the point here. Yes, homosexuality probably won’t be back in the DSM.
BUT– trans people will be even more stigmatized than they already are. They will be encouraged to “change”– and efforts to change trans people are just as ineffective as those to change LGB people.
Zucker believes in classifying trans people based on their sexual orientation and supports the myth that trans women who are attracted to women are really “autogynephiles”– that their gender identity is a fetish centering around having their own vaginas; basically a form of “heterosexuality” that they’ve turned inward so they’re their own sexual objects. There is no scientific basis for this view; it contradicts the experiences of most if not all lesbian-identified trans women; and it is frankly dehumanizing.
I find it odd that you describe trans people as people “struggling with their gender identity.” Sounds suspiciously like the ex-gay groups’ descriptions of LGB people as “struggling with homosexuality”. Many trans people are quite sure of their gender identity– it just doesn’t fall on the side of their biological sex. The “struggle” is for self-acceptance and societal acceptance– the same as for LGB people.
I usually like TruthWinsOut, but this time I’m very disappointed. Why are you only considering the impact of Zucker’s appointment to the group revising the DSM on LGB people, and not on trans people, who it’s much more likely to hurt???
–proud partner of a trans woman
Comment by somethingtobe — May 16, 2008 @ 11:20 am
Hi, somethingtobe,
My original conclusion was much harsher toward both Zucker and the APA. Then when I had read the GCN story and remarks by Dr. Jack Drescher, in the interest of fairness to the APA I backed off a bit.
I share your suspicion about Zucker regarding GID and I plan to say more about this as I learn more. While I think it’s conceivable that a few transgender people just don’t want to confront their same-sex orientation (and, to be fair, some homosexual people don’t want to confront their bisexuality, and some men don’t want to confront their gender variances)… my early impression is that Zucker has gotten carried away with oversimplistic responses to patients that don’t apply to most transgender people.
In encourage commenters to provide more context and links to information about Zucker.
Comment by Michael Airhart — May 16, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
Here are two “links” (sorry, I didn’t know how to do them as actual links) with information about Zucker and the DSM issue, both from Transadvocate. One of the articles also has information about a petition:
http://transadvocate.com/uncategorized/uh-oh.htm
http://transadvocate.com/intersex/update-on-zucker-blanchard-and-the-revision-of-the-dsm.htm
My partner would say that someone who transitions because they’re gay or lesbian has transitioned for the wrong reasons. Apart from a few anecdotes from J. Michael Bailey, Paul McHugh, and some other notoriously transphobic “GID specialists”, there is pretty much no evidence that anyone is actually an “autogynephiliac”. Being trans doesn’t actually have much to do with sexual orientation, which is why there are plenty of lesbian and gay-identifed trans people (trans women who like women and trans men who like men, respectively).
My concern about Zucker is that he will attempt to get the DSM to approve therapies to “fix” trans people– currently it specifies that the most effective treatment is transition and SRS.
Comment by somethingtobe — May 16, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
Actually, to say “homosexuality won’t be put back in the DSM” may be technically correct. Only a technicality. Mostly because they have changed the name and narrowed their targets. Blanchard has this theory called autogynephilia he wants put in the DSM (the mental hospital “bible”) and it substantially describes bisexual queens. Of course he tries to make it much more complicated that that, but in the end it merely describes queens.
Queens (effeminate homosexual/bisexual men) should greatly fear this development, they risk being labeled “transsexual homosexual” or some such and tarred with a mental illness if Blanchard gets his way.
Comment by Henry Hall — May 16, 2008 @ 8:54 pm
Although homosexuality will not be back in the DSM-V, some variation of it such as Sexual Disorder NOS (Not Otherwise Specified) distress about being homosexual still is in the DSM-IV.
Reparative Therapy for homosexuals who voluntarily (and unfortunately minors whose parents volunteered them) can still make its way into the DSM-V without homosexuality or SSAD (same sex attraction disorder) making it into the DSM-V.
Since the mental health profession profits enormously off of stigmatizing people and the Christian Right gives political counterweight, their is a good change that reparative therapy in everything but name will be in the DSM-V.
Comment by Melissa G — July 19, 2008 @ 4:44 am