Christopher Dyer
LGBT activist; founder, Youth Pride Alliance and Dyer Consulting Services
Making LGBT Great: Dana Beyer
Posted: 10/26/2012 4:04 pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-dyer/making-lgbt-great-dana-be_b_2019364.htmlDana Beyer is one of the leading transgender advocates in the country who continues to work towards making the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender residents better. Dana is a retired eye surgeon who was one of the first openly transgender candidates for state office in 2006 and 2010. She is currently executive director of Gender Rights Maryland which is working towards passing a state wide gender identity anti-discrimination law.
Dana co-authored The Dallas Principles, calling for full LGBT civil rights. She led the coalitions that helped pass gender identity anti-discrimination laws in three counties and, and one of them against national right-wing forces trying to force it to a popular vote in 2008. She was the trans representative on the Washington Psychiatric Society Working Group that wrote the gender dysphoria text for the DSM5.
[...]
What personal or professional accomplishment are you the more proud off?
Byer: I am most proud of the work I have performed over the past decade leading to the declassification of gender identity issues as mental illness. The removal of Gender Identity Disorder from the American Psychiatric Association's DSM 5 -- the formal, medical classification of mental illnesses used by both the medical and legal communities -- is an event analogous to the removal of homosexuality from the DSM in 1973. That event catalyzed the gay rights movement; the work on gender identity declassification over the past decade has powered and supported the movement for trans equality, culminating this past year in federal Title VII and 14th Amendment protections.
