GID Reform Now Protest At Annual APA Meeting - Speaker Madeline Deutsch, M.D.

by: Autumn Sandeen

Wed May 20, 2009 at 10:00:00 AM EDT

Here is the approximately 7-minute speech of Madeline Deutsch, M.D., that she made to the approximately 150 protesters at the event. A transcription of a large portion of the speech begins below the video.

My name is Madeline Deutsch, M.D., and I am a queer, transgender woman. And I'm here to tell Dr. Zucker and the rest of the world that my identity is not pathological. My identity does not belong miscategorized in your book. We live in a society based on individual liberties and informed consent. Each individual should be allowed to make decisions about how to live their own life.

It is true that transgender people do, in many cases, suffer from other conditions, such as anxiety, depression, panic disorder, etc. But, the question is how much of that is due a stresses of being a transgender person in a transphobic world? My answer: Most, if not all of it.

I look at the world around me, and I see a world full of personality disorders, behavioral disorders, and psychotic disorders, which are undiagnosed, untreated, or unattended to. But no one forces these people into a psychotherapeutic environment. It is time to stop forcing the same on transgender people. It is time to change society, and change the system, rather placing the social, financial, and psychological burden on transgender people.

This reminds me of a Martin Luther King Jr. quotation:

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.

Resuming the transcript:

Transgender persons who transition have been shown to have [satisfaction and success rates] in up to 99% in some outcome studies. I challenge you Dr. Zucker, Dr. Blanchard, Dr. Lawrence, or anyone else to find other conditions with such his satisfaction and success rates after treatment.

We live in a world where you can walk down any city street, and buy a McDonalds' Big Mac, A pack of cigarettes, a case of beer, and a box of Twinkies. You can do this regardless of your health status, if you have diabetes, or if you have recently have had open heart surgery at the expense of Medicare tax dollars.

In fact, a McDonalds was recently opened in the food court at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country -- the Cleveland Clinic. Imagine that: In Ohio, transgender people are so pathologied, in part of as the result of the DSM-V categorization, that they are not allowed to change their birth certificate -- ever! Yet, if you have open heart surgery in Ohio, at the expense of taxpayers, you may stop by the hospital cafeteria on your way out for a big make and fries.

We need to change these double standards; we need to change the system.

This reminds me of another Martin Luther King Jr. quotation:

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

[More transcription of the speech below the fold.]

Always Amazed At The Reach Of Pam's House Blend

by: Autumn Sandeen

Wed May 20, 2009 at 04:00:00 AM EDT

But, the Alliance Defense Fund's Alliance Alert website linked to Pam's House Blend with their alert .

If the end of the world occurs soon after the Alliance Defense Fund (a legal organization that was created by James D. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries and James Dobson of Focus On The Family/CitizenLink) has linked to us, the end of the world is coming soon, eh?

Psychiatric Times: "Gender Identity Disorder: Has Accepted Practice Caused Harm?"

by: Autumn Sandeen

Tue May 19, 2009 at 16:30:00 PM EDT

Some familiar disorders may be dropped and diagnostic criteria for others are in line for substantial revision in the forthcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V).

Schizoaffective disorder and gender identity disorder are among those that may be on the chopping block, according to members of the working groups leading the revision who spoke here at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting.

...The elimination of homosexuality as a mental illness in the third DSM edition issued in the 1970s, for example, is now widely viewed as a watershed development in changing society's view from outright hostility to varying degrees of acceptance.

...A four-member group has been charged with developing recommendations and two of its members appeared at a separate forum here.

As described by its chairwoman, Peggy Cohen-Kettinis, Ph.D., of VU University in Amsterdam, the group is facing three main options: keep gender identity disorder approximately as it is, jettison it entirely, or change the name and diagnostic criteria.

From Psychiatric Times's Lois Wingerson at Gender Identity Disorder: Has Accepted Practice Caused Harm?:

As transgender activists protested outside the American Psychiatric Association (APA) meeting, speakers at the meeting were presenting on the same topic: gender identity disorder (GID). Some of their words would add clinical weight to the political slogans.

Some of the speakers are activists themselves, including Rebecca Allison, MD, cardiologist who is transgender, widely published author Sarah Hoffman, whose son is gender variant, and Hewlett-Packard engineer Kelley Winters, PhD, founder of GID Reform Advocates. Winters1 has called on the APA to use the DSM-V revision to affirm that "in the absence of dysphoria, gender identity and expression that vary from assigned birth sex are not, in themselves, grounds for diagnosing a mental disorder."

Some mental health professionals made the same point in their own presentations. Sidney W. Ecker, MD, a former clinical professor of urology at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC, and chief of urology at the Washington DC VA Medical Center, was scheduled to review studies documenting that factors that influence gender identity are present before birth. While social and hormonal influences act later during childhood, he wrote, "gender identity is determined before and persists despite these effects."2

Diane Ehrensaft, PhD, a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, Calif, had a message more difficult for psychiatrists to hear. "The mental health profession has been consistently doing harm to children who are not 'gender normal,' and they need to retrain," she told Psychiatric Times. Ehrensaft has specialized in therapy for foster children as well as for children with gender issues...

Trans-Ponder's Jayna L-Pavlin and Mila Pavlin have promised us some video from the protest after they've processed it.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a message that the approximately 150 GID Reform Now were sending to the American Psychiatric Association:

"We got homosexuality out of the DSM because of protests at the APA," [Diane Ehrensaft, PhD, a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California] pointed out. "Now it's time to do the same with GID."

~~~~~
Further reading:
* The Advocate: Trans Activists Protest APA Conference

~~~~~
Related:
* Framing Gender Identity Disorder In DSM-V
* Unwanted Endorsement?
* Protesters To Call For Reform Of Gender Disorders At American Psychiatric Association Convention

Framing Gender Identity Disorder In DSM-V

by: Autumn Sandeen

Tue May 19, 2009 at 04:00:00 AM EDT

This is an eleven minute video from a couple of months ago that helps frame what Gender Identity Disorder (GID) reform is about. The description of the In The Life video LOOKING BACK, PUSHING FORWARD:

The American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) - the bible of mental illness is currently being reviewed in preparation for its fifth release. Among its nearly 300 entries is Gender Identity Disorder (GID), a diagnosis applied to every transgender person who enters the healthcare system. Because GID pathologizes the identity of those diagnosed, many gender nonconforming children are subject to so-called reparative therapies by parents and mental health professionals that regard adult transexuality or homosexuality as a bad outcome. But transgender adults are as reliant on GID as they are stigmatized by it, because the American healthcare system requires the diagnosis before a doctor will prescribe hormones, or perform sex-reassignment-surgery. Adding insult to injury, no private insurer will cover trans-specific healthcare needs, even with a diagnosis. The intersection of institutional and parental authority, healthcare policy, and the adult desire to live in a body that matches ones identity has sparked a wide-ranging controversy. IN THE LIFE looks at the battles being waged within the psychiatric and transgender communities over whether to reform or eliminate GID as a diagnosis, and the implications for transgender healthcare.

Protesters To Call For Reform Of Gender Disorders At American Psychiatric Association Convention

by: Autumn Sandeen

Sun May 17, 2009 at 18:45:00 PM EDT

The reasons why there is a protest by those who identify as transgender, transsexual, or both is regarding the DSM-V-TR diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder (GID), how GID is being dealt with in DSM-V.

This fight over GID is much like the lesbian, gay, and bisexual fight over the DSM-I and DSM-II inclusion of Homosexuality. When one's sexuality was listed as a mental health disorder, then there is stigma attached -- Homosexuality was not included in DSM-III and beyond.

But, GID may be included in DSM-V. Many trans activists believe this is wrong.

This is what GIDReformNOW, a group of GID Reform Activists, want:

We call for:

1. A more representative Work Group

The APA Work Group on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders is currently compromised by some members who have clear conflicts of interest in retaining and expanding specific diagnoses they have been involved in creating or promoting.

We urge the APA to expand the Work Group to represent more diverse views from behavioral science, bioethics, and philosophy of science.

2. A published position statement from APA

APA has often shifted public policy and perception through the publication of approved position statements. We urge the APA to state that diagnosing normal variants of human gender identity and expression as psychiatric disorders encourages an adversarial relationship between psychiatry and sex and gender minorities. We also urge the APA to state that these diagnoses are misused by some people outside of psychiatry who wish to deny civil rights to trans and gender-variant people.

What we advocate

Transgender health services should be viewed as a medical necessity. Published outcomes from the past 50 years show that access to trans health services and harm reduction initiatives improve trans people's lives and mental health.

Trans health services can be provided without diagnosing gender identity and expression as disordered. We believe any clinical distress may arise from attempts to suppress, shame, or "cure" social or somatic gender expression.

Evidence-based medicine and long-term outcome data related to sexual and gender minorities should be the focus of any diagnostic revisions. Discussions should include published work in related fields, including behavioral science, bioethics, and philosophy of science.

To learn more about these important issues, please visit GIDreformNOW.com.

The American Psychiatric Association can view sexual and gender minorities as having psychosexual pathology (i.e. Erotomania, Paraphilia, Fetishism, etc.), psychopathology (i.e. Gender Identity Disorder, etc.), pathology (i.e. birth defect, etc.), or natural human diversity (gender variance, neurological variance, etc.).

Personally, I believe in embracing the concept that sexual and gender minorities are part of natural human diversity, and the treatment model should look similar to what Kelley Winters has proposed on gidreform.org.

I'll be posting a diary or two related to the protest event over the next few days.