An excellent article and it does, truly, examine both sides with a fairer hand than our initial reactions did. I would suggest that anyone with a therapist/psychiatrist write to them and try to get them involved. They should be aware of the science, or theorizing.
Blanchard drew a lot of his ideas, and Zucker followed him, from Jon Meyer, one of the people at Johns Hopkins who helped Paul McHugh close the Gender Clinic there in 1979. Randi Ettner has a wonderful chapter in her book Gender Loving Care that helps give the etiological threads for the entire ->-bleeped-<-TS-school of thought. Meyer wasn't the beginning by any means. Krafft-Ebbing, Freud (to some extent providing a lot of the theoretical bases,) Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis, Charles Socariades, and even Harry Benjamin (to a degree) provided foundational building blocks for a lot of the work we see today from CAMH & Northwestern.
Arlene Lev's book, cited in the article, is more recent than Ettner's and much more fully involved. Harder to read as well. Ettner's a great stylist and her work is rather small in comparison and might be a better read for most who aren't working in the field.
Recently there someone posted about something like "putting away my gender books as I am finished with the process and my interest is in living my life." Fully understandable.
But, we also owe it to ourselves and others to not simply fly off the handle and grasp at whatever ideological straws we like best that are blowing in the wind. We should be concerned by the DSM process and the APA does need to know that there are interested 'consumers' out here who do watch what is done by the APA.
That said, we also should be knowledgeable consumers so we don't simply stampede toward reactions rather than some guided protests, legitimately-thoughtout argumentation and accurate ideas about the subject matter of how professionals deal with out lives and our identities.
The wholesale trashing of the DSM because of the concerns of some of the more affluent among us with being 'labelled crazy' is a social and class matter. For many transsexuals and other transgendered people and for many cissexuals the DSM diagnoses being available may be their only means of access to treatment. If there is no problem, then the clinics and the practioners have nothing to practice and they close-up or move on to other diagnoses.That will be quite harmful for those who cannot afford the more high-end costs of non-covered therapies and procedures, leaving those people totally open to being dismissed by both other, more economically-blessed, gender-divergent people and by the insurance companies and the government.
Good catch on that article, Z. Thanks
Nichole
Nichole
