Protect Gender Identity Disorder in the DSM-V
This post is a call to action.
Gender Identity Disorder is the formal diagnosis listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) for transgender persons. It’s problematic, certainly; I don’t like the implication that identifying with a gender other than the one assigned at birth is a disorder. Gender is incredibly complex, and is based on a lot more than biological sex, which is also a lot more complex than the binary way it’s structured in the popular consciousness.
However, Gender Identity Disorder is pragmatically useful for persons who want their transitioning to be aided in any way by the medical establishment, be it through therapy, hormone treatment, and/or surgery.
Dr. Kenneth Zucker was named the head of the group on “Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders” for the DSM-V. Zucker is an advocate of the wildly inaccurately named “reparative therapy,” a technique designed to convert homosexuals to heterosexuality. He believes that gender non-conformists are actually exhibiting homosexuality.
Um, yeah, this is supposedly an expert medical professional, and he doesn’t recognize the difference between gender identity and sexuality. And now he’s in charge of how medical professionals will be instructed, through the DSM-V, to work with non-normatively gendered persons. Not OK.
For more info, check out this post on the Act Now blog on The Nation’s website. Then sign this petition. If you are alerted to more ways to take action do so, and tell everyone you know. Please. My community’s in danger.