The End of Transgender as a Mental Illness

[Shana A]

Dana Beyer
Executive Director, Gender Rights Maryland

The End of Transgender as a Mental Illness
Posted: 12/05/2012 9:34 pm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-beyer/the-end-of-transgender-as-a-mental-illness_b_2238147.html

Now the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has ratified the DSM-5, the fifth edition of what is known colloquially as the "psychiatrists' bible," so as of Dec. 1, trans persons are no longer classified by the medical community as mentally ill, this decision coming 39 years after homosexuality was declassified as a mental illness by the same organization.

I have personally been involved in many civil rights campaigns, but as a physician, none has mattered more to me than this one. The fact that my medical colleagues now better understand basic human sexual biology is a source of both relief and pride. I can recall prowling the psychiatric literature in the stacks of the Uris and Olin libraries at Cornell and the medical library at Penn, finding only the most egregiously vile descriptions of who I was as a human being. I recall making surgical rounds at Pennsylvania Hospital in 1976 and listening to the disparaging remarks made by attending physicians and students alike about a trans woman who had just undergone genital reconstruction. I recall the hate speech of opponents to trans anti-discrimination bills in the halls of Congress, Annapolis and Rockville, Md., constantly harping on the supposed mental illness of the gender-nonconforming and the threat we posed by our very existence.

Don't underestimate the significance of this evolution. That we no longer have to take such talk seriously in the legislatures and courts and can roll our eyes as we do when fundamentalists chatter on about gay men showering with straight ones is a hugely positive change. That we now have the gender identity consultation staff at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine speaking out forcefully for comprehensive civil rights protections when not long ago we lived with the reality that Hopkins, with the infamous Emeritus Professor Paul McHugh as its spokesperson, was in the vanguard of denying trans women their humanity is remarkable progress. This is part of the cultural change that influences courts and legislatures, which, in turn, dialectically influence the culture.

[suzifrommd]

Don't underestimate the significance of this evolution. That we no longer have to take such talk seriously in the legislatures and courts and can roll our eyes as we do when fundamentalists chatter on about gay men showering with straight ones is a hugely positive change. That we now have the gender identity consultation staff at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine speaking out forcefully for comprehensive civil rights protections when not long ago we lived with the reality that Hopkins, with the infamous Emeritus Professor Paul McHugh as its spokesperson, was in the vanguard of denying trans women their humanity is remarkable progress.

For a reality check, the folks at Johns Hopkins that are now supposedly so great are the same ones that, a couple months ago when I was there for a gender eval, called me Mr. G____ (despite the fact that I was clearly dressed as a woman), told me I hadn't thought through my "decision" to transition, raised voice to me, and generally treated me like a child.

I don't think they've come as far as Dr. Beyer claims.

[Stephe]

This seems like a step in the right direction to me. I don't believe viewing someone being trans as a disorder/birth defect, or whatever people use, is in anyway positive.