Burning Words

via The Bilerico Project:

The American Psychiatric Association has named the members of it’s working group to reassess the inclusion of Gender Identity Disorder in the forthcoming new edition of the DSM, the DSM-V. It could almost not possibly be worse. The list reads like a who’s-who of obsessed creeps who’ve made a career out of attacking trans healthcare.

Let’s start with the chair of the working group. It’s Kenneth Zucker, of Toronto’s notorious Clarke Institute. As Mercedes Allen notes over there, he’s notorious for his use of “ex-gay” style “reparative therapy” to try and beat the transness out of trans kids. This is a man who shouldn’t even be allowed to practice medicine, let alone be put in this sort of position of responsibility.

It doesn’t improve from there. The next one on the list is none other than Ray Blanchard, the creator of the theory of “autogynephilia”. This is a theory that has zero credibility outside of right-wing circles, is patently unscientific, and relies on ignoring the entire existence of transmen to even pretend for it to make sense. How in the hell was this man let anywhere near this working group?

There’s one clinician on the list who’s actually well-known for dealing with trans issues in a realistic context: Peggy Cohen-Kettenis. It isn’t a bad choice; she’s prominent and supports proper healthcare, but I’ve read some kinda odd work of hers that did take on board a bit of Blanchard’s work - perhaps the only respected psychiatrist to do so. It could certainly be worse, but I ain’t thrilled about it either.

There’s only one other person on the list who seems to have any knowledge about transpeople at all, and that’s an endocrinological specialist, Heino F. L. Meyer-Bahlburg. Unfortunately, he looks pretty terrible too: according to Robbie: “Meyer-Bahlburg seems pretty ambivalent about whether trans people should be treated at all, especially trans youth, and thinks that Money’s notorious ideas about intersex treatment need “only minor modifications”".

Of the rest (according to Zoe Brain in comments), we have a guy who specialises in violent male sex offenders, a guy who specialises in female orgasmic disorders, a guy who specialises in sexual dysfunction, a sex therapist, and another specialist in sex offenders. None of these last five have any relevant experience in dealing with actual gender issues.

This is nothing short of a nightmare. Think of it this way: what if you were queer, and the decision over your future legal status just got handed to Peter LaBerbera?

I just don’t even know what to say. It’s obvious that WPATH weren’t even consulted in choosing the makeup of this working group. I’m hoping to god that Cohen-Kettenis and some of the randoms can inject some sense into the process, or otherwise that the results of the working group get tossed out at a later stage, but this is just inconceivable. These people have the power to abolish trans healthcare as we know it.

Update: Mercedes Allen suggests in comments over there that the resistance to this has already started, with people pointing out that having Zucker anywhere near this group makes a mockery of the APA’s past clear opposition to reparative therapy being used against the LGBT community, and starting to link up with some of the veterans of the fight to take homosexuality out of the DSM. It’s a start, but god I hope it works.

Tags: assholes, health, trans