Gender Diversity, Scapegoating & Erasure in Medicine & Media
Filed By Kelley Winters | April 23, 2012 4:00 PM
http://www.bilerico.com/2012/04/gender_diversity_scapegoating_erasure_in_medicine_1.phpOn the April 18th broadcast of the Rachel Maddow Show, she reported an "explosive revelation" that psychiatrist Robert Spitzer had rescinded his controversial 2001 claim that sexual conversion, or sexual reparative, psychotherapies can change sexual orientation in gay and lesbian people. Quoting an interview of Dr. Spitzer in The American Prospect, Maddow celebrated the historical significance of Spitzer's reversal for the gay rights movement, calling it,
step one in what we're now going to see as a real change, a real reckoning, in antigay politics
Sadly, Maddow only told half of the story. For four decades, Robert Spitzer has played pivotal roles in mental health policies - not only on sexual orientation, but on gender diversity as well. Rachel Maddow and other journalists turned a blind eye to Dr. Spitzer's failure to retract a lifetime of trans psychopathologization, stereotyping gender identities and expression that differ from assigned birth roles as mental disease. This omission speaks to the marginal status of trans people within the GLbt rights movement and progressive media, as much as Spitzer's omission speaks to trans marginalization by mental health policymakers.
