An Inflection Point for Gender Diversity in Mental Health Policy
By Kelly Winters
18 March, 2010
http://gidreform.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/an-inflection-point-for-gender-diversity-in-mental-health-policy/ (http://gidreform.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/an-inflection-point-for-gender-diversity-in-mental-health-policy/)
Unlike cisgender gay and lesbian folks, who were emancipated from the classification of mental illness a generation ago, gender identities and gender expression that differ from expectation of assigned birth sex remain very much classified as mental disorder and sexual deviance by the American Psychiatric Association. The consequences of this undeserved stigma to our human dignity, social legitimacy in our affirmed roles are enormous and devastating. We lose our jobs, our homes, our families, our children, our civil justice and our access to medical care to defamatory stereotypes that place an unfair burden of proof upon all gender transcendent people to continually demonstrate our sanity, our competence and our human worth.